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Classic Macs in the Intel Age

Mac OS X 10.2 'Jaguar' Can Unleash the Power of G3 iBooks

- 2008.06.17 - Tip Jar

Last time, I promised you a Snow Leopard article. I'm still working on that one, but in the meantime, I just had to write about another Mac in my collection: the Dual USB iBook.

The Clamshell's successor, the Dual USB was something completely different. It lost some weight, and the multiple colors were all gone. Left was only the white polycarbonate, which is still used in the MacBook and had already been used in the iMac.

The Dual USB iBook features PowerPC G3 processors from 500 MHz all the way up to 900 MHz; mine is a 600 MHz version.

dual USB iBook

Now let's talk about how I made this Classic Mac more useful in the Intel Age!

My iBook shipped with Mac OS X 10.1 "Puma", which I still have on the restore CDs. It was quite speedy, but Puma doesn't support many of the applications we use every day, so I figured I'd go modern and install Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger".

I started by checking if the Mac was compatible. It sure was, with a 600 MHz G3, 30 GB hard drive, and 512 MB of RAM. But for some reason, it refused to install: "Please try installing again." I followed the installer's advice twice but found myself with the same error message.

So I started looking into alternatives. The recent "Linux on Macs" discussion here on Low End Mac got me thinking - maybe Linux could be a good choice for the iBook.

dual USB iBook All the distributions ("distros") of Linux made me crazy, but I did remember using Ubuntu on my Celeron PC two years ago. So I went onto ubuntu.com with my Hackintosh and downloaded the Ubuntu 7.04 PowerPC image. It took a good 45 minutes to download the image (slow server?), but once it was finished, I burned it to CD with Disk Utility.

When the image had been burned, I inserted the Ubuntu installer CD and booted the iBook from it. It took quite some time to boot off the CD, but eventually I was presented with a Live CD desktop containing an Install icon.

Believe it or not, Ubuntu also refused to install! I needed this machine for a trip and was running out of time.

As it turns out, the problem was a faulty RAM stick. I removed the RAM, but now the iBook had only 128 MB ! That's not enough for Ubuntu, Tiger, or Panther.

I dug out my Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2) disks. The iBook booted very quickly from CD 1, and I chose to do a normal install on the 30 GB drive. (That drive, by the way, did not ship with the iBook. It came with a 20 GB drive, but I upgraded.) Would it work?

That question was answered, and the answer was "Yes".

After installing, the good old Jaguar intro movie popped up, and I had to fill in my personal information.

dual USB iBook Immediately after installing, I remembered I had a 512 MB stick in an old ThinkPad, so I shut down the iBook and installed the memory. Jaguar booted extremely fast and was very, very responsive.

You might think I'd have wanted to upgrade to Tiger, but no. Jaguar was so speedy on the iBook, even letting me view DivX and streaming video, that I simply decided to settle down with it.

And that very iBook still runs Jaguar. It never lets me down, and I'm always stunned at how this little G3 can be so snappy. Jaguar has since grown to be my favorite Mac OS X version for G3 computers (Leopard on newer G4s and G5s, and Tiger on very early G4s).

What do I use the iBook for? Well, since it has AirPort and the battery is in good shape, I use it on the go to surf the Web and watch movies. I also use it to edit and create movies in iMovie and for working with photos in iPhoto. Finally, it occasionally serves as a media center hooked up to my flat screen TV.

So what's my conclusion? It's that a G3 machine can be quite powerful and handle more than you think, which is the purpose of this column - making Classic Macs useful in the Intel Age.

And also that Jaguar is a great operating system for Macs with limited RAM.

Next time, we'll talk about Snow Leopard.

If you find Carl's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent Columns by Carl Nygren

Is Wirecard a Real Alternative to PayPal?, 08.07. PayPal has an established worldwide presence, but Wirecard is offered by a real bank and has lower fees. Any drawbacks?
Is Windows XP better than Mac OS X 10.4 'Tiger'?, 07.28. Vista is a bust, and Leopard won't run on G3 Macs. How do legacy G3 and G4 Macs with Tiger compare with a fairly modern 2 GHz PC running Windows XP?
Bringing a 233 MHz iMac into the Mac OS X age, 07.15. Upgraded with 128 MB additional RAM and a larger hard drive, the iMacs was ready for Mac OS X 10.2 'Jaguar' - and runs it very nicely.
Upgrading your eMac for better gaming and hi-res video performance, 07.11. This eMac started out with too little RAM and not enough hard drive space. With several upgrades, it plays games quite well and handles HD video content nicely.
More in the Classic Macs in the Intel Age index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: Power Mac 4400, Nov. 1996 - Apple does cheap to compete with clones - and nobody is impressed.
Group of the Day: Puma List is for anyone using Mac OS X 10.1.
November 7 in LEM history: 00: PowerBook Lite dreams - Our first Macs - 01: OS 9, OS X, or Linux? - 02: Xserve for the classroom - 03: Panther on slot-loading iMacs - High capacity Lombard/Pismo battery - 05: Clean keyboard residue from laptop screen with ROR - SeaMonkey - 06: Dan Bricklin, inventor of the spreadsheet - Turn any Mac into a gameshow buzzer - 07: The transforming PowerBook 1400 - PowerBook 540 on Compact Flash
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