Optimizing 12" PowerBook Performance
From Mark:
Hi Charles,
Once again it's been a few years since I reached out for some of
your sage advice, but here I am again. I hope you don't mind. Like you,
I like to keep my old hardware in use. I am faced with the following
challenge: I have two 12" PowerBook machines that I would like to give
to my friends and am looking for the optimum OS X version to run
on them vis a vis speed. Their specifications and present OS
versions are:
- 1 GHz PowerBook G4
with 768 MB RAM presently running OS
X 10.5.8 Leopard
- 1.5 GHz PowerBook
G4 with 1.25 GB RAM presently running OS X 10.4.11 Tiger
Both of them are running slowly, either because of the RAM
limitation or age of hard drive - or maybe because my experimenting
with different OS X versions was unrealistic, etc. If I remember
correctly, both are maxed out as far as RAM goes (please correct me if
I am mistaken). What OS X version do you think would best suit
these machines? Which web browser do you think is the best for them as
well?
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thank you in advance,
Mark
Hi Mark,
Good to hear from you again. Glad you're still on the
Mac.
I have some experience with getting the most from old
PowerPC Mac laptops, since I still have two G4 upgraded Pismo PowerBooks in service and
my wife is running a 1.33 GHz 17" PowerBook G4 as
her daily driver.
Here's the maximum RAM specs for your two machines: As
I recall, these 12" PowerBooks have 256 MB of RAM hard-soldered to
their logic boards and one RAM expansion slot, so either should support
1.25 GB of RAM, but it looks like you'll have to remove a 512 MB stick
from the expansion slot in the 1 GHz machine to make room for a
1 GB module.
- 1 GHz - 256 MB of PC2100 (266 MHz) DDR SDRAM; one open SODIMM slot;
support for up to 1.25 GB
- 1.5 GHz - 512 MB of PC2700 (333 MHz) DDR SDRAM; one open SODIMM
slot; support for up to 1.25 GB
Regarding operating systems, we have OS X 10.5 Leopard
on my wife's G4, and that's what I'd recommend for your 1.5 GHz unit.
You might find that you'll get a bit livelier performance from the
1 GHz machine with OS X 10.4 Tiger. A hard drive reformat and
clean reinstall of the operating systems could yield better
performance.
Web browsers are getting to be a problem with these
older PowerPC rigs. The TenFourFox Firefox
hack for PowerPC was my pickup until a couple of months ago, but recent
builds have become pretty much unusable on my Pismos with their
1 GB of RAM and 8 MB of VRAM. I've switched to Camino as my main PowerPC Web browser
app, and so far it's been working out quite well with good stability,
reasonably efficient memory management, and within context decent
speed. My wife has also switched to Camino from old Firefox 3.6 on her
G4.
I'm using OmniWeb 5 as my #2 PPC
browser, and it's giving reasonably acceptable performance as well.
I hope this information helps and that your friends
can still get some useful service from those old 12-inchers.
Charles
TenFourFox Sluggish on Pismo? Try NoScript
From Peter:
Hi Charles,
As a Pismo user myself, I'm always interested in what you have to
say about your old PowerBooks. I was a little surprised to read that
TenFourFox is becoming too slow for you, since I use it daily on my
Pismo (500 MHz G3, 1 GB RAM) with very few problems. It's always
seemed reasonably speedy to me, but I do use the NoScript add-on since
JavaScript can slow things down considerably. You might give NoScript a try, unless you need JavaScript a
lot more than I do.
Anyway, I always look forward to your columns. Keep up the good
work!
-Peter
Hi Peter,
Thanks. That's interesting. Since about version 8,
TenFourFox has caused my Pismo to slow to a crawl.
I remain a TFF fan if one's hardware is up to running
it, but my Pismo (550 GHz G4, 1 GB RAM), for whatever reason,
isn't.
I do generally have 10 or so other applications up and
running on the Pismo, and I suppose a conflict or just competition for
available memory could be the issue.
I've switched to Camino, which so far is working we'll
for me.
Charles
What About Yellow Dog Linux on Your Pismo?
From Lloyd:
Good Morning, Charles,
Your Pismo musings got me to thinking.
These are fine machines, and it is a shame that working hardware may be
shelved due to obsolescence. I regret letting mine (1 GB RAM, G4
upgrade) go, but I still have a WallStreet PowerBook running
OS 9 that gets occasional use, and which I plan to drop a hard
drive w/Tiger into for one last try at making a daily driver of it. The
G3-era machines are certainly worth trying to breathe new life into for
as long as we can.
This brings me to the reason for this message: Have you considered
Yellow Dog Linux?
One of my current projects is to try and get Yellow Dog Linux to
work on a 12" PowerBook
'Little Al' G4/867. The install went fine, and even with only 384
MB RAM, YDL 6 runs fast. The only thing I haven't tested
successfully is the WiFi, as I suspect a bad AirPort card. YDL may give
you a few more years' service with the Pismos at performance levels
you'd find to be acceptable.
The downside would be having to find open-source alternatives to
your favorite OS 9/X programs, and that may be a deal-killer, but I
thought the suggestion worth making. Even if the OS switch means that
the Pismos have to be replaced by a machine that will use TextWrangler,
for example, perhaps YDL will allow for their repurposing for some
other use.
At all events, I wish you the best with them and I enjoy, as always,
your writing.
Regards,
-Lloyd
Hi Lloyd,
I actually did install Yellow Dog Linux on my old
WallStreet back in the early oughts. It was pretty lively, but then so
was OS 9 on the WallStreet, and as you mention, there was the
issue of finding Linux software to substitute for my Mac productivity
suite. There probably are alternatives available, but the investment in
time in climbing the learning curve and developing an efficiently
productive workflow ecosystem are difficult to justify for a machine
that has a short future at best as a work platform.
I've also heard good things about Mint Linux, but it only supports Intel
Macs.
The old Pismos are still chugging along reasonably
well since I switched to Camino as my workaday browser. It will
probably be lack of browser support that will finally kill off these
old G3 era machines as useful work tools.
Charles
iPhoto '11 No Longer Updating in Snow Leopard
From Nathanael:
Mr. Moore and Mr. Knight,
I have just noticed that iPhoto will no longer update on Macs that
are running OS X 10.6 Snow
Leopard. Instead, OS X 10.7
Lion is required to install updates 9.3 or 9.3.1.
Since I had not seen this anywhere previously, I thought you guys
might want to know.
God Bless,
Nathanael
Hi Nathanael,
Thanks for the heads-up. Hadn't been previously
aware.
Charles
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