Panther on the Loose
After reading Beige G3 Abandoned by
Panther? Is It Really Inevitable?, Peter da Silva writes:
Some comments, and a bit of a supporting rant...
If they don't support Rage II video, then there's always the option
of installing a Rage 128 card. They really need to define their
requirements in terms of functionality, and check on that
functionality, rather than checking on specific models. You need
OpenGL-capable video cards? Check for one, don't just assume that the
computer you're installing on doesn't have a Radeon because it didn't
ship with one....
And having to partition your drive should not be seen as a drawback.
The idea of putting personal data on the system partition (the one most
likely to need drastic measures if your computer runs into OS problems)
or the system on a partition that sees frequent file creation and
writing (which is, after all, most likely to cause file system damage)
doesn't seem entirely logical. And of course for a dual-boot system
you're going to want to peel a third partition off for OS 9.
And with OS X based on an open source platform, it should be an easy
matter to toss the older drivers (even the ones like the video drivers
that aren't technically part of Darwin) over the wall and let the
community take over their support.
One thing I'm not sure I agree with is that this doesn't increase
Apple's market share. It will . . . oh, not in terms of boxes
shipped today, but in terms of boxes shipped next year, and in terms of
copies of OS X sold. See, even if Apple doesn't directly benefit
from reuse, there are all kinds of second order effects. Mac users,
particularly the kinds who are willing to nurse a 5 year old computer
along, are enthusiastic evangelists.
The ability to keep using a Mac for years longer than a PC helps
justify the significantly higher price. So does the resale value, and
that depends on being able to keep the machine in active use.
And the long-term support for Macs is good, but it's not really that
much better than Windows if you're not looking for leading-edge
performance: I can install XP on Wintel machines as old as my
7600. And I can install
the latest IE (if I were insane enough to want to) on Windows 2000.
From the buzz I've seen on the Web in recent days, it looks like
USB is going to be the minimum requirement for Panther, just as a G3
was for Jaguar. (Thank goodness Ryan Rempel was able to get Panther to
install on models with G3 upgrades. Better yet, he's already working
toward a version of XPostFacto
for Panther. With any luck, third-party USB cards will allow G3 and
pre-G3 systems to run OS X 10.3.)
It's nice when the community can come through with drivers, just as
long as someone gets the job done. There's still the beta quality
floppy driver for beige G3s that's never been finished as one example
of the open source community dropping the ball on a project.
I'm a huge fan of partitioning. My current drive has 40 GB for the OSes
(9 and X), applications, and almost all of my other files. The second
partition is for my websites. This makes for very easy backup. The
third is a shared volume for everyone on the network, which keeps
people from getting into my files on the other partitions.
There are lots of good reasons for partitioning, but as OS X
grows, even 8 GB is going to get small. I had a heck of a time
getting it on an iMac
333 with a 6 GB drive, and then had to run updaters in small
batches to accommodate the limited amount of free space.
I agree that every OS X user is another feather in Apple's cap. If it
doesn't sell hardware today, at least it sold a software license and
got one more Mac user to migrate from the classic Mac OS to OS X.
That's one less obstacle to buying a future Mac that won't be able to
boot the classic Mac OS.
End of OS X on Low End Macs
Responding to the same article, Bill Hornbuckle says:
Sorry, I think you're indulging in wishful thinking when you hope
Apple will fix up an installer for machines that are falling off the
performance curve. It would be nice for the people who have those
machines, but probably not good business.
First, these campers are not going to be happy with the performance
even if they do get it to load. Second, as current statistics indicate,
not many of these machines are getting upgraded to OS X, probably
because people don't feel the need and are also apprehensive about the
performance. Third, it will actually take Apple a lot of effort to
build the installer you describe, and once they do that, where do you
draw the support line? Should they support the installer but not the
install?
It is a slippery slope that ends up pissing off more customers who
think they should get support for $129. In the end, I think the right
thing for Apple to do is draw the line at full support or let the older
machines fall off the bottom and depend on the after market to take
care of them.
It's a cruel world, and progress marches on. I don't think Apple
wants to support machines that can't really run the software.
Apple could create OS X in such a way that it couldn't be installed
on unsupported hardware; they chose not to do that and instead rely on
the installer to prevent unsupported installations. The only limitation
with 10.2 is that it requires a G3 or G4 processor. With XPostFacto,
it's possible to install Jaguar on PCI Power Macs that have processor
upgrades.
That's an unsupported installation. Apple's installer doesn't allow it,
and the OS X user license apparently doesn't allow it, either.
Still, it can be installed, it can function, and users are reporting
that OS X is growing on them - even on such ancient
hardware.
It would take nothing but a check for Apple to obtain such an
installer. I'm sure they could license XPostFacto for a song if they
bundled it with every copy of OS X sold. The question is whether
they want to facilitate unsupported installations, and so far they
don't.
Part of the reason I'm promoting this solution is that people have been
buying beige G3s because of Apple's promise to support them in
OS X. There was nothing in that promise that said, "We'll only let
you run OS X up to version 10.2.x. After that, we're going to
abandon you." Besides, its more work to take out support for ADB,
serial ports, and SCSI than to just leave to code in there. If it's not
causing any problems, why remove it?
To turn you question around, will Apple tick off more customers by
abandoning the beige G3 completely in 10.3 (or later) - or by giving
them a way to install the OS understanding that they'll have no support
from Apple?
Panther a no-go on Beige G3
Ed Hurtley confirms:
Well, I just confirmed it. When I got the developer preview, I had
been planning on putting it on my backup iMac, as it's my 'testing
development' Mac. But after reading your column, I checked, and lo and
behold, the readme does just say "Power Macintosh G3 (Blue &
White)". I had thought it said it supported the beige, but no.
So I decided to try on one of my beiges anyway. The beige in
question is a Rev. 1 with Rev. A ROMs. It has stock processor, using
onboard 2 MB Rage IIc video, 512 MB of RAM, and PCI FireWire, USB,
and 10/100 ethernet cards. Stock 4 GB hard drive and CD-ROM, with
an external SCSI CD-RW drive. I turned off the CD-RW drive for this
test. It has 10.2.6 installed, with all the latest updates as of last
night. It does not have an OS 9 system folder. (All my OS
X-capable Macs are OS X-only.)
I inserted the Panther DP CD, double clicked "Install Mac
OS X", entered my password, and watched the computer reboot.
It restarted, showed the nice
dark-gray-Apple-logo-on-light-gray-background just like normal, then
the monitor made a sound like it was being sent a video signal it
couldn't handle. Then the monitor turned off. (It's an old Apple
Multiscan 17", 1024 x 768 max.) I let it sit for about 5 minutes,
thinking maybe it would change resolutions. Nope. The CD stopped
spinning, the hard drive sounded idle, and nothing was going on. So I
restarted. Now I get the good old 'can't find boot disk' flashing
floppy with a question mark. If I try forcing it by holding down 'X', I
get open-firmware-esque 'can't OPEN:' repeating about 30 times, then
the question floppy.
So now I'm booting off an OS 9.2 CD, (I'm going along as I'm typing
this message now, with pauses in typing to see what happens.) The
Startup Disk control panel still shows my hard drive as a valid
OS X boot drive, so I've selected it, and I'm rebooting now. I'm
back to OS X.
So let's try that Panther install again.
Same thing. Apple logo on light gray, then monitor goes out. Maybe
when I feel like cleaning off my desk, I'll take out the PCI cards and
nonstandard DIMMs and try again. (I had to do that to get Jaguar to
install, but it at least would start running the install.)
Two notes on Panther: The PDF viewing part of Preview really is as
fast as demonstrated. Even on an old 350 MHz iMac. And iChat AV on
Panther crashes if you try to use Rendezvous.
Thanks for the feedback - and I hope you're not violating any NDAs
by providing this information.
Really looking forward to Preview on Panther. PDFs are excruciatingly
slow in Jaguar.
The end of the Beige G3?
Dr. Joseph Ballo writes:
What is one of make of articles such as this? How is one to evaluate
an article interspersed with statements [but the beige already lacks
DVD support and has a video subsystem that's challenged by Aqua, to say
the least] that are simply not true [I watch DVDs on my beige
all the time] or misleading [I have an ATI 7000 card that works
well with Aqua although 'QE does not work and the analogous PVI Extreme
is more trouble than it is worth'].
With friends like this poor ol' Apple doesn't need enemies.
On the other side of the fence, the Wintel user puts up with garbage
but meekly submits to it and appears defensive and hostile when you
point his position out to him. On our side of the fence the Mac
user hardly seems to miss an opportunity to trash his own platform. A
simple misinformed rumor ['Panther is not going to support the Gossamer
platform'] and the sky is said to be falling.
And on the same day I read that Ryan R's XPostFacto is expected to
support Panther without difficulty. Does that mean that my 8500 server is OK but my Beige is
not?
Phooey. Gotta keep my temper under control.
You do that, and I'll do the same. I get a bit miffed when someone
tries to paint me as a traitor to the cause for pointing out hardware
limitations, whether on new hardware or old. Would you rather we
glossed over Apple's mistakes?
I know of one beige G3 owner who sued Apple because he couldn't watch
DVDs using OS X, something that his hardware supported under
OS 9. Anne Onymus raked Ward
W. Vuillemot over the coals for his gripes. Since Mr. V. hoped to start
a class action suit against Apple over DVD support in OS X, I
kinda assumed that just maybe he wasn't able to watch DVDs when he ran
OS X.
From all I've read, the Radeon 7000 is a fine card with Aqua, but it
doesn't support Quartz Extreme without a hack, and with the hack a lot
of users have reported problems. Better to just use it as Apple and ATI
intended.
It's no news to anyone that the beige G3, which hits its sixth birthday
in November, really isn't an ideal platform for OS X. From the
factory it had 2 MB of VRAM, a 6 GB hard drive on a 16.67
MBps bus, and only officially supported up to 192 MB of RAM. To get
decent OS X performance you need a faster hard drive and a lot
more memory. A good third-party video card is also a wonderful
addition, as I'm sure you realize.
Then again, Apple creates installers for their hardware, not for
unsupported configurations such as you have. And for whatever reason,
the installer for the developer preview of Panther will not run on the
beige G3.
As for your 8500 being able to run Panther but not your beige G3, I
think that's pretty unlikely. It's more likely that Ryan Rempel will be
able to support both or just the beige G3. A recent comment from him on
our Unsupported OS X email list:
"...motherboard USB is a handy way of distinguishing between "Old
World" Macs and "New World" Macs. So, the 'Panther requires onboard
USB' rumor really equates to a 'Panther requires a New World Mac'
rumor.
"As to whether I can solve the rumored problem, I will certainly try.
In theory, it ought to be possible, but there are several issues to
deal with, and the degree of difficulty depends on certain details that
aren't totally apparent yet."
As for keeping the faith, did you actually read my article where I
proposed that Apple actually include installers for unsupported
hardware with the OS? This is Low End Mac, after all, and we'd just as
soon see those old Macs remain in productive use as long as
possible.
G3 Support not Quite Win-Win
Wayne Folta writes:
I don't know that support of G3s is quite the win-win you describe.
Some tradeoffs:
1. The time and energy spent modifying the installer to do checks,
etc., is time that could be spent fixing a bug in the Finder or
tweaking performance for a Mac that isn't geriatric. Maybe this time is
small. As an ex-programmer, I can say it's very easy to underestimate
the level of effort required. (Including Q&A, meetings,
coordination, documentation, etc.)
Add in, as you mention, SCSI support, ADB support, etc., and it
would be a literal nightmare that I, as a user with a new Mac, would
strenuously object to. It would be handicapping us to make a small sale
to users of ancient computers who want to upgrade even though their
computer works just fine as-is, doing the things they've been doing for
years.
2. Apple will probably get way more negative press from it than
positive. Regardless of how many "Click Here to Agree that you're doing
something not really sensible" notices the installer has, people will
install it, then jump on forums to complain about bugs or slowness, and
extol how much faster Mac OS 9 is. (Witness Applelinks, where Mr.
Moore has made his living for the last year complaining about Mac OS
X's performance and lo, it turns out he's installed it on a geriatric
system in a tiny little partition and runs all kinds of haxies to try
to make it look like Mac OS 9. After a year or more of kvetching
and rallying the troops against Mac OS X, he finally got an iBook
and, well, Mac OS X ain't the dog he made it out to be.)
Even if users don't give Apple bad press, they'll constantly be
getting a negative Apple impression as their machine struggles along
with software that requires more than their old machine can deliver. (I
disagree with your statement that Panther, being more efficient, should
run better on G3s. It's more efficient on G4s with reasonable memory,
disks, and graphic cards. That doesn't necessarily translate to G3s.
For example, more widespread use of AltiVec will make everything
snappier on G4/G5s, but does not apply with G3s.)
3. Six years is a good life to get out of a machine. I had a
Mac SE that I used for years,
then handed to my sister who used it a couple of years, then handed it
to a church that used it. I pushed my Mac 9500 hard for 6 years before it
finally gave up the ghost. You'll be happier and more efficient with a
newer machine.
Obviously, your budget is what your budget is. But I fear your
suggestion is like The Karate Kid quote: "If you walk on left
side of road, ok. If you walk on right side of road, ok. But if you
walk down middle of road, SQUISH, just like grape."
We're not talking about adding in ADB, SCSI, and Mac serial
support. They already exist in the OS X code base from the beta
through 10.2.x. It shouldn't be a nightmare to keep them - probably
more work to remove them.
The OS X installer already checks your configuration to make sure you
have a G3 or newer processor and sufficient drive space. Having it
check the gestalt ID or ROM version on older Macs should be trivial, as
would asking the Mach kernel for information on the hard drive and the
install partition.
I've never done system level programming, but the fact that someone
like Ryan Rempel can make OS X install and run on officially
unsupported hardware tells me that some of Apple's decisions are a bit
arbitrary, perhaps more driven by marketing than by the market.
You seriously understand Charles Moore and myself, who kept running
notes on our experiences with OS X for over a year. Neither of us
"made a living" by dissing OS X. We make our living by providing
helpful information for Mac users - and the sluggishness of OS X
on older hardware is definitely useful information for those with aging
Macs.
Truth is, Jaguar was a lot slower on my 400 MHz TiBook with a fast hard
drive and 512 MB of RAM. It was even slower on Moore's G3 Pismo. Today
I'm running a 700 MHz eMac, and OS X finally feels fast. Moore
says the same of his iBook. Faster processors, plenty of RAM, and
Quartz Extreme have helped us move beyond complaining about sluggish
performance - but that doesn't mean it's gone on the older
hardware.
If someone wants to stick with OS 8.1, 9.2, or 10.2 on their beige G3,
that's their call. But if they're sold on OS X, have upgraded
their machines with lots of RAM, a big fast drive, and a better video
card, why should Apple force them to sell it and move up to at least a
B&W G3 so they can
migrate to the next version of OS X?
If Apple won't do it - and I don't expect them to - at least we know
Ryan Rempel will give it his best shot.
Reading CD-R in an Old Mac
Bill Doty wonders:
I have an LC 580 (OS 7.6)
connected to a LaserWriter 4/600ps and networked to a G4 Quicksilver (10.2). I made
a CD copy of the 580's hard drive as a back up. When I put it in the
580, the computer would not read the CD-R formatted disk. (The 580 is
running fine, I just want to be able to restore it if it crashes.)
The question: Where can I find an extension or driver for the LC 580
that will allow the computer's original CD drive to read CD-R and CD-RW
formatted disks?
It's not a matter of drivers. The ancient 1x, 2x, and many 4x
CD-ROM drives were designed and built before CD-R became popular. They
were only designed to read mass produced CDs, which are silver. CD-R
and CD-RW discs are usually gold, so they don't reflect as much light,
and the older drives are not able to read them.
Your no cost solution to make a boot floppy with network support and
boot from it if your 580's hard drive crashes. Then mount your backup
CD in the G4's drive, share it, connect over the network, and copy your
files.
The alternative would be to find a Mac bootable SCSI CD-ROM that can
read CD-R and use it to replace the old drive in your LC 580.
Mailbag Musings
Chris Kilner has several suggestions:
Re: Mark Florida's suggestion to differentiate between Q's and A's,
how about using italics for the questions?
Re: Steven Palm's iChat AV comments, note that the KB article he
cites only deals with using DV cameras; the minimum requirements for
video (with a non-DV camera?) are a 600 MHz G3 or a G4 (see Requirements for
iChat AV (Public Beta)) so Steven's 900 MHz iBook should work with
USB and FW webcams. He might want to check MacFixIt or MacInTouch for other
troubleshooting (i.e., firewall problems, etc.).
Re: Ryan Scott and putting a SuperDrive into a G4/400. First, why
put a SuperDrive in the Zip bay? Just replace the regular drive with
the SuperDrive and put the CD-RW FireWire drive neatly on top of the
tower. Second, as someone who just put a SuperDrive into a B&W with
a G4/400 processor, I can assure Ryan that the CPU will really limit
the ability of the machine; he needs to be prepared to let iDVD render
iMovies overnight.
Also, if he goes the cheaper OEM DVR-105 route instead of getting a
DVR-A05, he needs to be prepared to have his SuperDrive come without a
manufacturer's warranty. As someone who has spent the last year and
nearly $1,000 souping up a Rev. 1 B&W G3 tower ($350)
with G4-400 ($120), 768 MB RAM $70), 6 GB + 40 GB($100) + 40
GB($60) HDs, 4X SuperDrive($170), 17" Multiscan($15), ATA 133 PCI($70),
FW PCI($20), and iLife($18 on
eBay), I can definitely recommend buying a new MDD 1.25 with a
SuperDrive for $1,499. That extra $500 to get a new Mac gives you with
a 312% faster processor, a 67% faster system bus, faster memory, a
faster IDE bus, a faster and bigger stock hard drive, a better video
card, better included software, and a warranty.
Last item first, Ryan Scott emailed me, "Thanks for the advice.
Though I am seeking out either a 1 GHz or 1.25 DP G4 from January,
as the current G4s being sold by Apple are lacking both FireWire 800
and Airport Extreme." He's planning ahead and making a wise move.
On the second item, iChat has no support for USB cams. The linked page
specified FireWire. Too bad. I think Apple is really limiting their
market by insisting on FireWire. Besides, one users see how bad USB
cams really are, maybe they'll be more likely to upgrade.
As for italic type, it's always harder to read than regular type. How
much harder varies with the font on the user's system, their OS, their
browser, whether antialiasing is enabled or not, and what size text
they have as their default. For the sake of legibility, I try to avoid
using italic on the Web.
Another source of "free" music
In response to MP3 Sharing Isn't
Piracy - and It Isn't Legal, Either, Carl Bachellier writes:
I was reading your article on copyright infringement and MP3s. One
source of pure digital music that has been overlooked (in Canada
anyway), is the music service called Galaxie (http://www.galaxie.ca/anglais/0/)
provided on "upper" channels on local cable and satellite systems. My
Bell ExpressVu satellite system has many digital music channels.
Commercial free. If you leave the channel on, the title and artist act
as sort of a screen saver on the TV.
Top 40, classical, alternative, rock, 70s. Quite an impressive
selection. The quality is top rate. What would stop someone from just
turning on the VCR and taping the top 40? With devices like TiVo, why
not capture 12 hours onto a hard drive? You see what I mean?
I rarely remember these channels exist. They are great when company
comes over and you don't want to fiddle with the CD player. I suppose
no one ever thinks of recording radio stations, because the quality is
low, but why doesn't anyone care about the "free" channels that the
cable/satellite providers throw in? It's top quality, better than
anything you could download from the Internet. In fact, why even
download it? It's right there.
Installing OS X on a FireWire Drive
Mark J. Mirsky
Usually I encounter you on the
[SuperMacs] list, but recently I have been trying to install OS
10.0.3 on a FireWire drive in order to play with my daugher's G4
without disturbing anything on her hard disk.
The CD does not recognize the FireWire drive, an OWC Mercury. Is
this because it is too early a version of OS 10? Or am I doing
something wrong? Is it possible to get an upgrade disk without
installing this version of OS 10 if this is so?
Sounds like a "chicken and egg" situation. Any version of OS X
should see a FireWire drive as long as it's connected to the FireWire
port on the motherboard. Can you see the drive when the G4 is booted
into OS 9? Has the drive already been formatted? If not, the
OS X installer won't see it.
The first generation Power Mac G4 models (Yikes! and Sawtooth) support FireWire
drives, but they cannot boot from them. That capability didn't come
along until later. I believe the "Two Brains Are Better Than One"
Gigabit Ethernet
models were the first that could boot from FireWire, although I can't
find this documented on Apple's site.
So even if you can see the drive and install the OS to it, you may not
be able to boot from it. Here's hoping you have a model that does
support booting from a FireWire drive.
Building a Clone
SFJ writes:
I just read the article in Macworld about building a clone. I have
an old but dependable Power Tower
Pro that I want to perform the upgrade tricks described in
Macworld, especially the move to OS X. is this doable for an
advanced novice, or am I pissing up a rope?
I finally got around to reading the new Macworld over the weekend.
It was nice to see Low End Mac mentioned as a great resource for
building up your own Mac for a lot less than the cost of a new one. Too
bad that article doesn't seem to be on their website.
I'm not personally familiar with the Power Tower Pro, but it appears to
be based on the same motherboard as the Power Mac 9500. Both, in turn, are
similar to the SuperMac S900 I used
to use. With six expansion slots, room for at least a gig of RAM (which
nobody could afford in 1996), and lots of drive bays, it's a great
candidate for upgrading under either the classic Mac OS or
OS X.
The best places to ask for advice are our Power Computing and Unsupported OS X mailing lists. The
first group will be more familiar with the hardware issues of the
various Power Computing clones, and the second group has hands-on
experience with OS X on a wide range of unsupported hardware. Ryan
Rempel even posts once in a while.
Between the two lists, you should be able to get a lot of good advice
about SCSI hard drives, which CD burners work best, what brands of USB
and/or FireWire cards are recommended, which video cards have the best
support, and so on.
iChat AV Letter
Responding to iChat AV Trouble
Shooting, David Neumann writes:
I think the person's local lab problem is that he's using the same
AIM account to attempt the chat. He either needs to register for
another AIM account or simply use the Rendezvous buddy list instead of
the AIM buddy list. No config at all for that one. Macs just auto-show
up when iChat is active. That's what I did anyway.
Dan Knight has been publishing Low
End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.
