OS X on a Beige G3/Tips for new OS X users

J

J. Charles Holt

Registered
I've been running OS X on my Beige G3 for about a month now, and I LOVE it! Everyone's complaining about speed... I work on a G4 running OS 9 at work, and yes, the G3 running OS x is slower; but it's certainly VERY usable, and now all that much slower in comparison. Especially considering I'm using the built-in video. Blech. :p

It's still taking me a while to get used to the UNIX stuff, but I'm starting to get comfortable enough with it that I'm having quite a bit of fun. Will it appeal to the same kind of people who bought iMacs because they were so simple to set up? Absolutely not. But as long as Apple doesn't REQUIRE you to use OS X, I think it'll be fine.

Tips for new OS X users:

* Get OmniWeb. IE sucks, and OmniWeb, although it's still got some bugs to be worked out, is quite a bit faster, more stable, and easier to use.

* Get the QuickStart Visual Guide to UNIX by Deborah S. Ray and Eric J. Ray. Probably the fastest way to get familiar with the UNIX bowels of the system.

* Become familiar with www.versiontracker.com. Visit it daily. :)

* Learn how to "prebind" from the terminal, or get a GUI interface that allows you to do so (XOptimize for example).

* Enable the root user. Try going to www.google.com and do a search on: "os x" enable root
(use the quotes around "os x")

* Leave your machine on all the time so it runs its maintenance routines, or get MacJanitor and do it manually.

Following these simple steps will make your life MUCH easier.
 
Cool tips! Thanks.

Could you explain a little more about "prebind"? I have never heard that term.

-jdog
 
I'll tell you what little I know...

Have you noticed how, when you update the machine it says "Optimizing System," sometimes for a looong time? It's apparently prebinding. What is prebinding? Good question. Here's what the description from XOptimize says:

"Xoptimize performs the same system level optimization that installing the developer tools triggers. That is, it uses an Apple provided command line tool (i.e. a command you would use in a Terminal Window-- the "Matrix" interface, as some have labeled it) to optimize the loading time of applications. It will also make applications execute faster immediately after startup as the application will spend less time dynamically looking up and binding with various libraries and frameworks."

The command to do it from the terminal is "sudo update_prebinding -root /" (sans the quotes).

Maybe someone more enlightened would care to elucidate on what it all means?
 
Apparently, If you have the Developer tools installed then it will do the prebinding for you automatically and you don't need to issue the terminal commands.

Might be a stupid question, but when you say 'leave the machine on all the time', does that include it being asleep?
 
J. Charles Holt, you said that you were running os x on an old g3. It's chuggin a bit, but stable. What kind of g3?

I'm using an original iBook: g3 300 with 160 MB of ram running OS 8. It's stable and fast enough, but I'd prefer using a unix shell...unless if it's REALLy slow.

Anyone out there using a 300 with os x? How's the performance? Stability?

Thanks
 
I have run OSX on an iBook 300 with 160mb. It runs OK not as fast as the powerbook G3's but its stable. The GUI can be a bit slow but the latest updates speed it up alot, classic feels about as fast as OS9.1 when booted up directly. The CLI runs great, when running the CLI its difficult to notice a difference bettween a 300 iBook and a 450 G4.

I reccomend
 
I run OS X at home on a g3 266 MT and it runs pretty good. It is sluggish at times, but I prefer OS X to OS 9. It also runs pretty slow with Classic going and has some problems with some of the more sofisticated screensavers.

It's specs are:

G3 266 A/V
6 GB + 20 GB HD
192 MB Ram
4 MB VRam
USB Card
 
I run OS X at home on a g3 266 MT and it runs pretty good. It is sluggish at times, but I prefer OS X to OS 9. It also runs pretty slow with Classic going and has some problems with some of the more sofisticated screensavers.

It's specs are:

G3 266 A/V
6 GB + 20 GB HD
192 MB Ram
4 MB VRam
USB Card
 
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