Good uses for old Macs

with 96 MB RAM, definitely 8.6.

10.0 was painfully slow no matter what. 10.1 with less than 512 MB was also nothing I would call with any other adjective than slow. (also funny, 10.0 was Cheetah, Cheetah being the fastest of the big felines...).
 
Actually Mac OS 10.0 and 10.1 ran really fast when I installed it before. If I go with Mac OS 8.6 can I have PHP support?
 
#1 Rhapsody said:
Actually Mac OS 10.0 and 10.1 ran really fast when I installed it before. If I go with Mac OS 8.6 can I have PHP support?
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PHP support in what sense? Are you trying to run an HTTP server in 8.6? MacHTTP doesn't support PHP parsing.

If it's for PHP support in browsers used in classic Mac OS, the only one available is iCab. You could try WaMCom, but it's REALLY outdated since it's based on Mozilla 1.3.1 code.
 
I'm thinking of buying a Power Mac G4 for my web server instead of my iMac G3 233MHz. Is the video out the same as the video out for an iMac? What I'm saying is it (the Power Mac) compatible with a Performa monitor?
 
#1 Rhapsody said:
I'm thinking of buying a Power Mac G4 for my web server instead of my iMac G3 233MHz. Is the video out the same as the video out for an iMac? What I'm saying is it (the Power Mac) compatible with a Performa monitor?
Click to expand...

Are you referring to the DB-25 connection that the older Macs used before using standard VGA? I don't believe the iMac ever used DB-25. If anything, you can get a DB-25-to-VGA adapter to use with the PMG4 and that particular monitor.
 
NixGeek, what is your server's upstream speed and where did you get your domain name and for what price? Because my iMac G3 233MHz should be faster than your server but it was really slow. Would not having a domain name have anything to do with it?
 
#1 Rhapsody said:
NixGeek, what is your server's upstream speed and where did you get your domain name and for what price? Because my iMac G3 233MHz should be faster than your server but it was really slow. Would not having a domain name have anything to do with it?
Click to expand...

I'm using the free DynDNS dynamic hosting service. Once I signed up there for the free account, I configured the domain name using one of the free available domain suffixes they had available. For the dynamic DNS updates, my WRT54G router has built-in support for sending updates to DynDNS when my IP changes.

My connection at home is just your standard Comcast cable internet connection. IIRC, my plan was for 8 Mbps downloads and I believe it's 768 kbps uploads, but don't quote me on that. ;)
 
#1 Rhapsody said:
RacerX, is your site hosted by your own web server or is hosted by some service. If it is the latter then what is the service and if it is the 1st option what computer is it and what specs.
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I use DreamHost... there is a link to them on my home page.


Also, can you load VideoShop 3.0 and MediaPaint 1.1.2 on your site? Tell me please when you sell your Power Mac on eBay.
Click to expand...
Here ya go... software titles released for free by Strata:
 
nixgeek said:
I'm using the free DynDNS dynamic hosting service. Once I signed up there for the free account, I configured the domain name using one of the free available domain suffixes they had available. For the dynamic DNS updates, my WRT54G router has built-in support for sending updates to DynDNS when my IP changes.

My connection at home is just your standard Comcast cable internet connection. IIRC, my plan was for 8 Mbps downloads and I believe it's 768 kbps uploads, but don't quote me on that. ;)
Click to expand...

Is their a way to use DynDNS with an Airport Wireless Router, because whenever I restart it because it runs slow, I have to get the IP address again and input it into my domain name host website.

Also is their a way to host your own domain name with Mac OS X Server 10.5?
 
icemanjc said:
Is their a way to use DynDNS with an Airport Wireless Router, because whenever I restart it because it runs slow, I have to get the IP address again and input it into my domain name host website.

Also is their a way to host your own domain name with Mac OS X Server 10.5?
Click to expand...

Depending on the Airport basestation version, this might be possible. There would be a section in there that would have to do with Dynamic DNS resolution (sometimes abbreviated to DDNS). At least this is how it shows up on my WRT54G. I'm not exactly sure how that would show up on the Airport as the last Airport I had was an original Graphite one.

If you don't have that option, the DynDNS page has a list of various types of software updaters that you can run on Mac OS X, Windows, and GNU/Linux. These apps run in the background and update DynDNS whenever your IP changes.
 
Which would be faster? My iMac G3 233MHz with 96MB RAM running Mac OS 8.6 with MacHTTP or it running linux with Apache (or some other hosting program)? If linux what distro would you recommend?
 
I would say it depends on how you're going to run it. Let's consider the following scenarios with only 96 MB RAM:

Scenario 1
  • iMac + Mac OS 8.6 + MacHTTP
  • iMac + GNU/Linux + Apache (no GUI)
Outcome: Possibly a tie. You'd have more options with Apache than with MacHTTP. However, OS 8.6 would give you a GUI as opposed to the command line in GNU/Linux.

Scenario 2
  • iMac + Mac OS 8.6 + MacHTTP
  • iMac + GNU/Linux + Apache (GUI)
Outcome: Mac OS 8.6 would be faster. Today, Xorg on GNU/Linux with a desktop environment would run quite sluggishly on only 96 MB RAM compared to Mac OS 8.6, even if you were only using a light window manager. That extra layer for the GUI on only 96 MB RAM would not leave enough for Apache to work with IMO. But again, you're faced with the limitations of MacHTTP.

None of this is scientifically precise, of course. ;) This is all just from my experience with the two operating systems.

As for a Linux/ppc distribution, Debian hands down. It just works on all PPC Macs that I've come across. Ubuntu, while much nicer, would not even install with that little memory and has been riddled with problems since 7.10. You can also try Yellow Dog Linux which is tailored for server use, but expect the packages to be even less current than those in Debian "stable".

You can also look into running Lighttpd (pronounced "lighty") instead of Apache. Lighttpd is much leaner than Apache and has been picking up steam in the last year or so. Lighttpd should be in the Debian repositories, so it's just a matter of pulling it with either aptitude or Synaptic (CLI and GUI, respectively).
 
I use a G3 at work as a web server/print server.

and I also use one at home as a media server which streams all my tunes to XBMC (xbox media centre)

G3's are great machines

P.S. Both G3's run MAMP and my stripped version of tiger (no dock, dashboard, and OpenGL effects e.t.c)
 
BTW, I've installed Ubuntu 8.10 on my iMac G5 and save for two small issues, I was finally able to install it successfully. The first issue was that the optical drive was not detected upon bootup of the installation. That was solved by Alt-F2 to a command prompt and typing "modprobe -a ide-scsi", and once I hist Alt-F1 to go back to the installation, the installer was able to detect the optical drive after I chose the language and keyboard setup.

The second issue was post-installation where I needed to do the following:
  • Type "video=ofonly nosplash" at the boot: prompt in yaboot. That got me to the login screen, where I was able to login.
  • Launch a Terminal session after logging in.
  • Type "sudo -s" to become root.
  • Modify the "append=" line for the default boot option in /etc/yaboot.conf to read "quiet video=ofonly nosplash" (I added the nosplash option due to the fact that the boot splash does not work with XFS filesystems) and then save the /etc/yaboot.conf file.
  • Type "ybin -v" to finalize the changes to yaboot.

Aside from that, everything was detected properly and even Compiz Fusion was working with my RADEON 9600 graphics on the iMac G5. The only side issue is my M-AUDIO MIDIsport 2x2 which requires the firmware to be loaded each time. I've installed the midisport-firmware package but udev isn't loading the script to load the firmware. Still working on that one. :rolleyes:
 
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