Can a PowerPC G3 iBook run Panther?

jsnap

jsnap

Bohemian
My daughter's iBook is now a logic board replaced (yee-ha!), Dual USB 700MHz PowerPC G3 with 256 MB. She is presently running OS X version 10.2.8 (thanks to my diligent upgrading).

We're using the U.S. Robotics 22 Mbps Wireless Cable/DSL Router, Model:USR8022 for wireless access. Yes, it's a password protected network and she's got the password.

The Problem : she is having trouble getting connected to our in-house wireless network. At first everything was great, but within a couple of weeks, we discovered it was getting much worse, to the point where her computer doesn't even see it as a possibility anymore. I was told by a network Guru that she should upgrade to Panther to get the support for the wireless.
Is this true?
Can I put Panther on this iBook?
She's got 5.86 GB left on her HD so I think the room is there.
 
fbp_ said:
yes.
Click to expand...

Ok. Should I back up everything first, just in case?
She doesn't have an extra HD or any external back-up system. I just signed her up for the Free Trail of .mac to get some back-up space. I've never tried using it though myself. I hope that's enough space.
 
If your daughter's iBook was networking fine at one point under Jaguar but is now some how losing the connection, well that sounds like a the kind of problem that upgrading your OS alone may not fix. Seems like this Guru was trying to sell you on Panther (which you would do well to install anyway.) Also I sincerely doubt that you will find enough room on a .mac account to back up your drive should you choose to install OS 10.3, so best to do an Archive and Install.
 
Not so much need to install Panther as there is to figure out why you can't connect wirelessly. Maybe there's some interference or some sort of slow down with your wireless up/transmitter. Your daughter's computer could have turned off Personal file sharing or just stopped networking altogether due to a restart. My laptop loses connections even on a hardwire every now and then. :)
 
Natobasso makes a good point about interference. Can't guess in how densely populated an environment you are living, but where I am there are at least twenty overlapping wireless networks competing for airwaves and it has really loused up connections. Which suddenly gives me an idea... Why don't you try hooking up the iBook to the router with an ethernet cable and see if she can connect, it might be easier to sort things out that way. (She need not have any File Sharing settings turned on just to make a connection to the network.)

You might also want to investigate whether any firmware update has been issued for your router that could help prevent disconnections. The wireless network to which my Mac connects also employs a 22 MB router and there was such an update available for our model, though the administrator never installed it because it would have locked the bandwidth to 11 MB. But I digress...

Again, it is unlikely that Jaguar is causing the network problems, unless the install has somehow been corrupted. You could run some diagnostics from Disk Utilities to see if there is anything irreparable, for which a fresh install would be warranted. At which point you may decide to go with Panther just for the over all performance enhancement. If you shop around online you should find it selling below list.

Hope this helps.
 
andychrist said:
If your daughter's iBook was networking fine at one point under Jaguar but is now some how losing the connection, well that sounds like a the kind of problem that upgrading your OS alone may not fix. Seems like this Guru was trying to sell you on Panther (which you would do well to install anyway.) Also I sincerely doubt that you will find enough room on a .mac account to back up your drive should you choose to install OS 10.3, so best to do an Archive and Install.
Click to expand...

My network Guru said I need Panther to get all the updates for the wireless router from Apple, not updates from US Robotics.

I guess when Apple introduces a new OSX they stop creating updates for ones and for older things. I had this happen with the DVD Read/Write drive I put in my PowerMac G4 Tower just a year before OSX 10 came out. I could never find any updates for it after that.

I didn't want to back up the entire thing, just anything important. However, she wasn't here to tell me what she wanted backed up anyway. Later, I decided not to back up anything on .Mac, but only because after getting the free trial account, I couldn't get her logged on. I must have done something wrong when I created her account.
 
My network Guru said I need Panther to get all the updates for the wireless router from Apple, not updates from US Robotics.
Click to expand...

Not true. Any updates for your Robotics Router would not come from Apple, they would have to come from Robotics.

Shouldn't matter if you were using Jaguar or Panther, the router should work fine with either.
 
Natobasso said:
Not so much need to install Panther as there is to figure out why you can't connect wirelessly. Maybe there's some interference or some sort of slow down with your wireless up/transmitter. Your daughter's computer could have turned off Personal file sharing or just stopped networking altogether due to a restart. My laptop loses connections even on a hardwire every now and then. :)
Click to expand...

The Guru also said rebooting either the laptop or the router might have messed up some configuration. He still advised installing Panther first then going from there.
 
bobw said:
Not true. Any updates for your Robotics Router would not come from Apple, they would have to come from Robotics.

Shouldn't matter if you were using Jaguar or Panther, the router should work fine with either.
Click to expand...

I didn't mean updates for just this particular rounter, but for all wireless networking capabilities.

Whatever the problem turns out to be, I've already begun the Panther install so I won't be doing anything until that's completed.
 
andychrist said:
Natobasso makes a good point about interference. Can't guess in how densely populated an environment you are living, but where I am there are at least twenty overlapping wireless networks competing for airwaves and it has really loused up connections. Which suddenly gives me an idea... Why don't you try hooking up the iBook to the router with an ethernet cable and see if she can connect, it might be easier to sort things out that way. (She need not have any File Sharing settings turned on just to make a connection to the network.)

You might also want to investigate whether any firmware update has been issued for your router that could help prevent disconnections. The wireless network to which my Mac connects also employs a 22 MB router and there was such an update available for our model, though the administrator never installed it because it would have locked the bandwidth to 11 MB. But I digress...

Again, it is unlikely that Jaguar is causing the network problems, unless the install has somehow been corrupted. You could run some diagnostics from Disk Utilities to see if there is anything irreparable, for which a fresh install would be warranted. At which point you may decide to go with Panther just for the over all performance enhancement. If you shop around online you should find it selling below list.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

We use MacStumbler to find networks and can monitor their strengths to know which ones are strong enough to connect to. There are a few other networks around us, we live in a house in an upper middle class burb, but there is only one strong enough to connect to and only that was possible sometimes. Depended on the day and where in the house the computer was, etc..

I've heard wireless phones in a house can interfere tho too. I have a 2.5 GHz Panasonic cordless phone systems, but it didn't interfere at first either.

As for using an ethernet cable to connect, we already do that and that works fine. The point of having wireless though was to get her out of my office and afford us both privacy and space to work.

And what's this about File Sharing needing to be on to connect to a network?
 
More conversation with my network Guru. He explained why I need Panther: Jaguar has a bug in it that wasn't fixed and as such was not stable enough to contiune using. The laptop needed software drivers that will allow it to lock in on my SSID network and configure an encrypted 128 bit WEP key permanently. He said unless you undersatnd UNIX and networking, you might not know what he's talking about. Apparently, Macs are supposed to do this in the background, but mine wasn't and the support for the present drivers under Jaguar wasn't there anymore from Apple. Hence the need to go to Panther - updated drivers, more stability, and more support.

He also said my router is locked down to 11 Mbps, on purpose, by him. Security reasons. Don't need new firmware.
 
andychrist said:
Sorry but I couldn't help myself.
Click to expand...

Huh? I don't get that remark.

So here's the deal now...
After loading Panther, talking to my network Guru, and do a very little bit of configuring for the router, everything worked perfectly!
 
andychrist said:
Sorry but I couldn't help myself.
Click to expand...

Ahhhhh, now I see the attached photo and I get it. Where did you get that? I don't see it's bug attached tho. ::ha::
We were updated to 10.2.8 and still had the bug. I seem to remember a magazine lying around my house for a long time that had the front cover saying "Bugs Fixed in Jaguar". I suppose that wasn't true, but then I never got around to reading the magazine and I don't even know where it's gone off to now. It was an old issue tho.
Any known ones with Panther?
 
MBHockey said:
As if you needed any more convincing, the iBook will definitely run Panther just fine.
Click to expand...

Panther is installed. Getting on the home network is working perfectly now. No other issues at themoment.

End thread.
 
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