Can I run OSX on a 300mhz g3 tower?
I have a 300mhz g3 tower which I replaced with an iMac when my monitor died. I am wondering if I can utilize my near worthless tower as a backup drive or something. Does anyone know if I can run OSX on it? I have 512 mb of ram. Alternatively, can I network it to my iMac using OS9? The hitch is that I don't have a monitor to play around with, I just have the tower. If the general consensus is that I won't get it to work, i;ll throw it up on ebay and get five bucks for it and not spend the money on a monitor. Any thoughts?
Comments
EDIT: Hmm, maybe I should include some advice as well... networking between OS 9 and OS X is pretty simple, just make sure AppleTalk is on for both of them and so is File Sharing.
If it's a beige, I'd just sell it on eBay. You should be able to get $200. Normally they're not worth that much but since it has so much RAM, and because it's faster than average, it might get $200. If it's blue, though, it's much more useful and you should probably keep it (unless, of course, you have no use for it).
You could also put Linux on it and use it as a file server if you don't mind a little bit of technical work. Or maybe Darwin? I haven't played around with Darwin at all, but if you just want it as a file server it'll work perfectly fine headless (an OS X, Linux, or Darwin file server shouldn't require much maintenance). I'm sure you have a friend who has a monitor you could use to get it set up and once it's set up then you can give the monitor back.
Originally posted by Luca Rescigno
OS X will run on it... if it's a beige one, then 10.2 is the latest version that'll work, and if it's one of the blue ones it'll work in 10.3 as well.
Has apple come out and said that 10.3 wont run on the beige machines? I would understand if that were the case (them being old world rom macs, and you had to use the "first 8GB" hack to get OS X to install int eh first place), but I don't recall hearing anything yet.
Original iMacs still have to use the 8 GB workaround, but it's not related to old-world vs. new-world ROMs, it just has something to do with the IDE controller used on older computers.
Originally posted by Ensign Pulver
Don't even bother.
I resent that.: Jaguar works very well on a G3/300, even one with not more than 256 MB RAM. I use Fireworks, Flash, and Dreamweaver (not to mention Microsoft Office) without a hitch. Get a grip.
PS - I'm also running Jaguar on a rev. A 300MHz iBook, so don't let anyone tell you it can't be done. ;-)
Not exactly fast but at least you get a couple of apps running simulanteonsly (sp?).
Dobby.
Even a 7600 G3/350 can use OS X but then it is slow. I haven have installed 10.1 on a 7600/200. Here it is really slow, think OS 9 on a 7200.... but even that would be a good file server. Go to a second hand computer store or similar and buy a Apple 14" monitor for 10 dollars and there you have your server