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OS X on original iMac w/64mb ram?


jotokun
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I have recently aquired an original bondi-blue imac with 64mb of ram. Thing is, I want to install OSX on it. Could one of you tell me what woudl be ideal, as well as what I could run at the latest? I tried looking myself, but everything I am finding contridicts another source.

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Don't bother, its not worth the effort.

 

CPU - too limited (233 MHz)

RAM - not enough

Video card - No Quartz Extreme or Core Image support

HD - slow interface

 

You'll need install CDs, not a DVD and I think 10.4 doesn't support this model, so you might be stuck with 10.3.x series also.

 

Even if it is just for email/web browsing it won't a decent experience running OS X. Stick with OS 9

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uh, I beg to differ. I installed OS10.2 once on a beig G3 AIO unit w/128mb ram(no longer have it or the OS10.2 disks) and it ran fine, no real problems. The imac is more powerfull than that, so it is DEFINITLY worth it. I am asking only because of the ram. That is the only hurdle for me, and I cant afford to up it. And I dont mind pre-10.4 OS's. I just want to know how far I can push this thing, whether or not it is kicking and screaming.

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uh, I beg to differ. I installed OS10.2 once on a beig G3 AIO unit w/128mb ram(no longer have it or the OS10.2 disks) and it ran fine, no real problems. The imac is more powerfull than that, so it is DEFINITLY worth it. I am asking only because of the ram. That is the only hurdle for me, and I cant afford to up it. And I dont mind pre-10.4 OS's.

I never said you couldn't install it, but it isn't very productive. Maybe we have different ideas of practical but I have several higher spec G4s than that iMac and I have a hard time believing a G3 with 64M of RAM is anything but really slow with OS X.

 

I just want to know how far I can push this thing, whether or not it is kicking and screaming.

What does this mean?

 

Why not just install it and see then?

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what I mean by "kicking and screaming" is that I want to know what the latest version of mac os I can run is without upgrading the ram. That way, I can install the versoin before the last one installable so I get at least SOME speed. I would just install them, but I dont have disks and am going to try to find a non-stale(I know, fat chance) torrent of the release.

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what I mean by "kicking and screaming" is that I want to know what the latest version of mac os I can run is without upgrading the ram.

I know you don't believe me, but none without upgrading RAM. If you google you will find tons of reports about trying OS X on the original iMac.

(Several I read mentioned application load times of minutes.)

 

That way, I can install the versoin before the last one installable so I get at least SOME speed.

Usually each 10.x revision got faster than the previous so this might not be the best idea.

 

Good luck either way.

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I found an ISO image of 10.2 I made a while back, so I am now testing that. I tried updating the firmware, but it kept saying that my machine was not an imac and didnt need it, so I am going without.

 

EDIT: ok, it starts to boot, but then the gray aple logo gets a bunch of whilte lines throwu it. Sorry about the image quality, the only hting I had to take the picture with was an old webcam. I would try F8 and then -v, but sadly, I dont have a USB keyboard, only a mouse

 

 

Picture001.jpg

EDIT 2: Ok, I got past that by burning another disk, but now, shortly after the mouse appears, text appears that says, "The Installer has quit due to an unexpected error(exit code 138). Please restart your computer". Could someone explain to me how to get past this?

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i dont believe this is supported by os x 10.2 officialy and although you may know this, this does mean that it is incapable of being installed on those machines below the given specs without modifying the installer. If something isn't supported by os x, that doesnt mean "Go ahead and try. Maybe it'll work. We just don't reccomend it".

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I know the machine itself is supported, otherwise, why did it install on the older machine(refering to G3 AIO)? I am tempted to grab some memory out of my brother's machine(he uses PC100, same as the imac) and see if its the ram that is the issue.

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ResX, how do I change the ram requirement in Xpostfacto? I cant seem to figure it out.

 

EDIT: got the installer to actulay start doing something (screen comes up saying that it is staritng the instalatoin process or something like that) but when it finishes that, before I can click anything, another error code comes up (exit code 0). Since teh way I got that far was by changing CDR brands, I will try the last brand I have currently.

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ResX, how do I change the ram requirement in Xpostfacto? I cant seem to figure it out.

 

EDIT: got the installer to actulay start doing something (screen comes up saying that it is staritng the instalatoin process or something like that) but when it finishes that, before I can click anything, another error code comes up (exit code 0). Since teh way I got that far was by changing CDR brands, I will try the last brand I have currently.

 

Those imacs require a firmware update before they can run os X. Without it, you can find yourself in a situation where you can't install another os and X won't boot. The updater has to be run in OS 8~9 iirc. I installed X on a few of those for a charity, it runs ok as long as you have 256MB+. The memory they use are laptop sodimms PC66 to 133, but they are bit fussy about chip density on the "newer" 133 chips. In my experience 10.3.9 was smoothest, the only real delay was with program launches taking a while -which wasn't a problem as they were only used for office and web. 10.4 & 10.2 were a lot slower and the 128MB machine was struggling.

You will get QE and lack of CI is not much of an issue on panther.

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My iMac already has the latest firmware update, so I know thats not the problem. I was thinking of installing a CD-ROM drive firmware update that suposably helps it read disks better... but I bumped into another problem, much more serious. This morning, I turn on the machine, and the power button glows orange... and it just sits there. I experianced this before, but only on restarts. ANyway, I did what I did then: unplug the machine, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in. After the 3rd time, the power lite wouldnt even glow, although I got it back to glowing point. I tried reseting the CUDA switch, but that did not help. Any sugestions?

 

EDIT: after i came home from summer school, I thought I would try again... and it turned on. Dont know what the problem could be, but I would still like ot know what to do to pervent it from happening again...

EDIT 2: after updating the CDROM drive's firmware, I now belive that my OS10.2 iso I made a while back is corrupted. Looks like I will have to wait on that stale but fortently still being seeded(barely) torrent I found os 10.3

EDIT 3: First, turns out my torrent isnt stale, and has the best download rate I have seen so far. Currently at 69.5%. I found some ram that is in my price range. It is, however, PC100. Is this type of ram good to go for Bondi, or must I use PC66?

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Failed to look at the shiping price, and as a result, I am going to get two 64mb sticks off of ebay for less than the price of the one stick 128 mb. Panther finished downloading this morning, but I have a problem. My images are in the DMG format and I need them in the ISO format. I tried converting them with a few utilitys, all failed. MagicISO wouldnt open them at all, UltraIso made a disk that the computer thought was a PRODos disk, and DMG2ISO converted them, but they are useless because they arent bootable. How to I make the conversion and keep them bootable?

 

The machine's specifications are in my sig, in case you were wondering what I was using OS wise. To burn them, I used my parrents machine, which is a carbon copy of mine but with less ram and a working CDRW drive

 

EDIT: This thought just hit me... I am using Nero Burning Rom 6 to burn these ISO's. Is there any special settings I need to set?

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The CD drives in those older iMacs have alot of trouble reading ANY burned CDs after a few years, which it obviously has been. If you're serious about running that iMac hack it up and put it in a PC case so you can run a regular optical drive. And you need as much RAM as possible as the processor is painfully slow. That Beige G3 AIO is actually about the same level of power. In fact the Beige can use standard desktop PC66-133 RAM up to 768MB while the iMac is limited to SO-DIMMs up to 384MB if it's a Rev. A or 512MB if it's a Rev. B. I've run 10.3 at an acceptable level on a 333MHz iMac with 320MB of RAM. Running one app at a time and nothing intensive at that it worked OK.

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