Mac Panther OS X 10.3.5

I have an iMac G3 Indigo 450mHz PowerPC running OS 9. I used to have an older iMac (tray-loading) that a friend gave to me, but I gave it back to him when we were going to get someone to run the office and wanted to provide some sort of computer for him. I upgraded that one to OS X 10.0, but I don’t know where my discs are. Since I wanted a ‘spare’ desktop computer, and since the Indigo was cheap, I picked it up. (If I ever get the older iMac back, I have a friend who can use it.)

My G4 PowerBook has the latest version of OS X Tiger on it, and I’m used to OS X. So I’d like to have OS X on the iMac.

Will 10.3.5 Panther work on it?

According to the Apple support page,

As long as you have 128 MB RAM (I am pretty sure you have built-in USB, no?), you should be good to go. IIRC, to go to 10.4, you would just need 256 MB RAM

Oh, you would also need a DVD drive, or barring that, request 10.4 on CD.

Thanks. I’ve found out that I need to update firmware, but that the firmware requires OS 9.2 and I have OS 9.0.4.

I’ve gone ahead and ordered OS 10.3.5, and I’ll be getting a free OS 9.2 upgrade disc with it.

This should be good enough for a spare/guest computer. It looks as if I could install Tiger if I doubled the memory in the iMac. But I don’t see why I should.

Although if you have a FireWire cable you can boot the iMac in FireWire Target Mode, connect it to the PowerBook (its HD will mount on the desktop) and install from the PowerBook’s DVD drive.

Ar? :confused:

I do have Firewire on the PowerBook and the iMac. I’ve only used it for connecting the external drive on the PowerBook though. What is it I’d be installing?

The iMac has a 24x CD-ROM, and the new OS is on CD.

If the new OS is on CD, you don’t need this. But for future reference…

• Go to System Preferences and select Startup Disk
• You should see the option “Target Disk Mode” as a button on that screen
• Connect that Mac to another Mac via FireWire cable
• The internal hard drive of the Target-Mode Mac will appear on the Desktop of the other Mac as if it were an external FireWire drive. That lets you copy stuff to/from, and you can also use Mac 2 to install stuff to Mac 1, which would’ve been useful if you had Tiger on DVD media and needed to install to an iMac that only had a CDROM drive.

That’s good to know.

Maybe I will put Tiger on eventually, if I ever get round to getting that extra 128mb memory. (And I’d have to find my OS X disc too.)

Okay, another question.

I’ve got like 2,500 songs on iTunes. As I understand it, you can’t copy iTunes songs from one computer to another (anti-piracy measure). But will this technique allow me to copy them from my PowerBook to the iMac?

I’d hate to copy all of my CDs again. I could use the docking port to plug my iPod into the iMac if I wanted to listen on it; and I could always connect it to the PowerBook if I accidentally leave the auto-update on on the iMac and wipe the iPod when I connect it.

That is incorrect. You can copy your iTunes library wherever you like. If you have media purchased from the iTunes Music Store, you will have to authorize the receiving computer to play your purchases. You should deauthorize the origin computer first, though, if you plan on erasing the hard drive.

Problem.

I got the OS X discs. I’ve also received a ‘Complete OS 9 Updaters from 9.04 to 9.22’ disc. I tried to run an update from OS 9.04 because I’m told that OS X won’t install without it. When I ran the programme it said that it did not recognise my computer, and that I’d need to use the original discs. Only OS 9 came pre-installed and I don’t have the discs. I quit the Updater by clicking in the left corner of the window and tried to eject the disc. It said that it could not eject the disc because Update.smi was running, and to quit the programme before ejecting the disc.

Uh… I thought I did quit it. So first: How do I eject the disc? Second: How do I update OS 9 so that I can update to OS X?

Okay, I got the disc out by restarting the computer. It allowed me to eject it then.

Still need to update though, so that I can put on OS X.

Okay, wait. I think the OS 9.0.4 Update is to update to OS 9.0.4. I’ve gone to the next step and have installed OS 9.1.

Johnny,

I would suggest you take a look at XPostFacto by Other World Computing (OWC). I have used it to install Tiger on hardware a lot older than your Indigo. And I think you don’t need to upgrade your RAM, either. Tiger will run on 128MB just fine, if a bit sluggish in Finder and other memory hogs. There are all kinds of tricks for speeding it up by turning off the various aqua UI Enhancements (the visual cool effects)

I’ll check it out.

Turns out that I was trying to upgrade OS 9.0.4 to OS 9.0.4. I used the OS 9.1 upgrade, and it worked fine. Then there were two OS 9.2 versions, and then the firmware update and the OS X 10.3.5 and OS 10.3.9 updates. I haven’t played with it yet, since the guys came over just as I was finishing the install (which took a rather long time). But it seems to be up and running.

For future reference, a lot of Mac software is distributed on diskimage (like “Update.smi”, “install.img”, or “software.dmg”). When you double-click one of these, it mounts a virtual disk on your desktop — as far as the operating system is concerned, it’s as if you inserted a floppy disk, a CD, or attached an external hard drive. It appears on your Desktop as a volume with a name. Lots of times, the virtual disk will open itself as a window, within which will be the installer software, or, in some cases, the application along with instructions to drag it to your regulard hard disk.

In this case, the diskimage file, “update.smi”, was on a CD. When you double-clicked “update.smi”, it mounted a virtual disk on your desktop, probably opened a window to itself which popped up in front of everything else, and contained an Installer. You ran the installer and then when you were done, you went to eject the CD. The OS would not let you eject the CD because “update.smi” was still in use: the virtual disk was still mounted on your Desktop!

It was waiting for you to unmount the virtual disk. Then you could have ejected the CD.

You’ll see a lot more of diskimages under OS X, a whole lot of Mac software is distributed that way nowadays.

Is there a way I can set up a function key (e.g., F12) to eject the disc? The PowerBook has an Eject button, but the iMac keyboard doesn’t.