I ran OSX on a 333 imac since the Public Beta (now that was slow!).
As mentioned, get lots of ram. I had 384MB. It is usable, but not fast by any stretch of the imagination. I ran 10.3 on my iMac for a few weeks before my PowerBook arrived and the experience was no worse than 10.2. In fact, my Mac is still going strong and now resides on my mom's desk.
I have Panther running on a Rev B iMac 233 (no, it's not my only Mac). I wouldn't exactly call it peppy, but it does work surprisingly well for basic surfing, iTunes and iPhoto, even Office X. I've used it to put together a 5 minute slide show with transitions using iMovie (now *that* was a test of patience!).
One place you really notice a deficiency is in graphics - a Rage Pro with 6MB of video RAM doesn't exactly complement Panther, but you only lose eye candy, not functionality (Exposé still works, but it isn't as smooth or pretty). And the Finder has been greatly improved in Panther for slower Macs: moving a large number of files from one location to another is much, much faster than it was in Jaguar.
With 512 MB RAM, you should be in good shape. Mine has 320MB and that's the bare minimum I'd recommend.
Your iMac may have the limitation that Panther's partition must be in the first 8GB of the hard drive (in a separate partition if the drive's bigger than that). Also, make sure your firmware is current if you're not already running an earlier version of OS X. Otherwise, you can lose your display and the fix is ugly.
Well, basically, if you have Jaguar on your iMac and you are satisfied with it, then, you qualify for Panther, since almost every basic operation is faster in Panther than Jaguar : on my former Powermac G4/350, Jaguar was pretty painful to run, but Panther was OK, and suddenly, I got satisfied with my G4 again...
Well, basically, if you have Jaguar on your iMac and you are satisfied with it, then, you qualify for Panther, since almost every basic operation is faster in Panther than Jaguar : on my former Powermac G4/350, Jaguar was pretty painful to run, but Panther was OK, and suddenly, I got satisfied with my G4 again...
...and that's when I received my dual G5/2GHz
Anyway, doesn't that belong to the "huge leap" thread?
Since your iMac is a 333, i would strongly suggest you do a firmware update if you have not done so already.
Other than that , just have enough ram , atleast 256 of ram , and atleast 3 gigs of HD after install. Anything less you will see a degrade in performace.
Comments
Originally posted by agallant
Can I install Panther on a 333 I-Mac?
Well, if speed is not a concern, yes, the 333 iMac meets Panther's requirements
-AG
Originally posted by agallant
Is there any processor upgrade for the I Mac?
Newer Tech used to build G4 upgrades for iMacs, but I think they don't do that anymore.
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G4CARDS/iMac_G4/
Maybe you'll find interesting stuff here...
How much does it currently have?
As mentioned, get lots of ram. I had 384MB. It is usable, but not fast by any stretch of the imagination. I ran 10.3 on my iMac for a few weeks before my PowerBook arrived and the experience was no worse than 10.2. In fact, my Mac is still going strong and now resides on my mom's desk.
I've got 10.3.4 *Server* running on a 350MHz B/W G3 with 256MB RAM, and it chugs along just great.
Granted, I don't do much logged into it except for admin stuff, but even iPhoto 4 is pretty snappy for occasional use.
One place you really notice a deficiency is in graphics - a Rage Pro with 6MB of video RAM doesn't exactly complement Panther, but you only lose eye candy, not functionality (Exposé still works, but it isn't as smooth or pretty). And the Finder has been greatly improved in Panther for slower Macs: moving a large number of files from one location to another is much, much faster than it was in Jaguar.
With 512 MB RAM, you should be in good shape. Mine has 320MB and that's the bare minimum I'd recommend.
Your iMac may have the limitation that Panther's partition must be in the first 8GB of the hard drive (in a separate partition if the drive's bigger than that). Also, make sure your firmware is current if you're not already running an earlier version of OS X. Otherwise, you can lose your display and the fix is ugly.
...and that's when I received my dual G5/2GHz
Originally posted by The One to Rescue
Well, basically, if you have Jaguar on your iMac and you are satisfied with it, then, you qualify for Panther, since almost every basic operation is faster in Panther than Jaguar : on my former Powermac G4/350, Jaguar was pretty painful to run, but Panther was OK, and suddenly, I got satisfied with my G4 again...
...and that's when I received my dual G5/2GHz
Anyway, doesn't that belong to the "huge leap" thread?
Originally posted by gsxrboy
I have a spare iMac 233/128/4 running panther
same here and to be honest it sucks, but i still hope tiger will work on it just because it would be cool.
Originally posted by Nano
same here and to be honest it sucks, ...
Why? I would give this hungry baby a lot more RAM.
Then there you go. 128 are a mere minimum to boot
into X (and is almost completly used
by the system itself
A view friends of mine do own an iMac 233 (512MB ram)
and by what i experienced, the machine is not a speed demon,
BUT it is quite usable for a lot of different purposes (email, safari,
word, itunes and the like)
best
Originally posted by Vox Barbara
Why? I would give this hungry baby a lot more RAM.
Then there you go. 128 are a mere minimum to boot
into X (and is almost completly used
by the system itself
A view friends of mine do own an iMac 233 (512MB ram)
and by what i experienced, the machine is not a speed demon,
BUT it is quite usable for a lot of different purposes (email, safari,
word, itunes and the like)
best
I know thanks though but im to cheap. I only use it if someone is on the main computer anyways.
Other than that , just have enough ram , atleast 256 of ram , and atleast 3 gigs of HD after install. Anything less you will see a degrade in performace.
those are my two cents,
MacDuneRaver