Tiger Upgrade For 800mhz G3?

[karly]

I found a recent thread on upgrading a G3 iBook to Tiger. We have an 800Mhz ibook with 640MB ram. Mostly my wife uses it, but I use it from time to time, either because I need to do a presentation, or I need to test something on a Mac.

My wife likes things to stay the same. I convinced her that we had to keep up with the OS updates, but she saw no reason to pay for Panther, and I didn't even bring it up with Tiger.

I now would like to test an application that requires OSX 10.3 or greater (http://scplugin.tigris.org/), so I'm going to have to convince her that we need to do this upgrade. Here are my questions.

1) Will the desktop look any different? How different?

2) What can I do to maximize my chances of a smooth upgrade? Googling around it seems that the upgrade can flush oout some hardware issues. Would it be a good idea to find the hardware disk that came with the ibook and see how everything looks before the upgrade?

3) Will we need to update any applications? (Office being the biggie).

4) Just curious, why does it _require_ firewire?

5) Is there any possibility of getting airport extreme to work on this iBook?

I know that's a lot of questions. Thanks for any response.

-karl

 

[perfessor101]

1) Will the desktop look any different? How different?
2) What can I do to maximize my chances of a smooth upgrade?
3) Will we need to update any applications? (Office being the biggie).
4) Just curious, why does it _require_ firewire?
5) Is there any possibility of getting airport extreme to work on this iBook?

1. There will be some minor changes on the menu bar and the file and search by content will be very different. It uses a brand new technology.
2. As far as I know there were no updates required for Office, but virtually every cocoa application, all file and disk maintenance utilities, all haxies, and all Safari extenders will have to be updated. You will also find that in file and maintenance applications the version that works in Tiger does not work in Panther and previous versions of OS X and vice-versa. Also there are application features available in Tiger that are not available in previous OS X versions. Some older applications may still work but in some cases have to be reinstalled after going to Tiger.
3. It is Apple's way of saying, "We are no longer going to support or guarantee compatibility with Macs that are that old." In other words, if you can get it to install you are on your own, don't bother to call Apple for help.
4. That would required replacing the logic board with one that has an Airport Extreme slot built in. However, it would be cheaper and easier to sell your current iBook on eBay and use the money as a down payment on a new iBook that does support Airport Extreme.

 

[karly]

Thanks perfersser

This is about what I expected. A few followups below.

1. There will be some minor changes on the menu bar and the file and search by content will be very different. It uses a brand new technology.

   , I think I can sell that. {-;
   
   OK

2. As far as I know there were no updates required for Office, but virtually every cocoa application, ...

   Sounds good. We don't have a lot of 3rd party apps on here. I suppose I should check if the subversion client has been updated for Tiger yet. It says "10.3 or greater", but that may be pre-Tiger. It would be silly for me to upgrade to accomodate an app and upgrade past the level it supports. {-;
   

3. Anything I can do to maximize (or increase) chances of success?
   You quoted this, but had no followup. Any pearls of wisdom?

4. It is Apple's way of saying, "We are no longer going to support or guarantee compatibility with Macs that are that old." In other words, if you can get it to install you are on your own, don't bother to call Apple for help.

   OK, that makes a lot of sense. I guess firewire has been standard on the Macs for quite a while now.
   

5. That would required replacing the logic board with one that has an Airport Extreme slot built in. However, it would be cheaper and easier to sell your current iBook on eBay and use the money as a down payment on a new iBook that does support Airport Extreme.

   What about a USB dongle? Maybe I'll start a separate thread on this. I'm thinking 802.11a is the way to go.

 

[perfessor101]

The guidelines for a successful upgrade are pretty universal:

1. Repair permissions before the upgrade
2. If it is the best you have run Disk Utility > Repair Drive to be sure your volume and file system are healthy. If an error is found rerun Disk Repair until no error is found. If there is an error DU cannot fix you will need to run DiskWarrior 3.0.3 or TechTool Pro 4.0.4 or you will need to backup your files and erase the target drive before installing.
3. Remove any external USB or Firewire devices except the keyboard and mouse prior to beginning the upgrade
4. Disable all startup items
5. If you have enough free disk space do an archive and install upgrade
6. Repair permissions after the upgrade

I have no experience with USB dongles but you might check out XLR8YourMac and see if you can find out anything about Airport dongles and OS X compatibility before buying one. Personally I hate dongles on general principle and because I have seen them damage logic boards by breaking the USB port off. But YMMV. Actually there is nothing wrong with the old Airport cards except they are hard to find since they are out of production, more expensive than when they were new, and a little slower than Airport Extreme. However, in your position that is the way I would go.

 

[TommyWillB]

1. There will be some minor changes on the menu bar and the file and search by content will be very different. It uses a brand new technology.

Wait a minute!


He did not say if that machine is current running OS 9 or some flavor of OS X.


If it's running OS 9, then the changes will be huge and his wife will be pissed!

 

[Lt Major Burns]

if you are going from 10.2 - 10.4, then the biggest advances will be Expose and Spotlight. Expose is amazing, and a complete and total leap forward in computers, and spotlight is instant, system wide file searching. which is again, very, very good.

if you are going from 9.2 or lower up to tiger, then it is very, very different, but, so, so much better. it's a system for the future, not from the past.

OSX is amazing.

 

[TommyWillB]

Yeah... Drink the CoolAid... You'll feel better... MUCH better... Better than you've ever felt in your entire life.

 

[SubaruWRC]

3. It is Apple's way of saying, "We are no longer going to support or guarantee compatibility with Macs that are that old." In other words, if you can get it to install you are on your own, don't bother to call Apple for help.
4. That would required replacing the logic board with one that has an Airport Extreme slot built in. However, it would be cheaper and easier to sell your current iBook on eBay and use the money as a down payment on a new iBook that does support Airport Extreme.
[/list]

3. Not entirely true. With OS X Tiger, Apple was finally able to freeze their API. Therefore, future versions from 10.4 and up should be 100% compatible with each other, barring any additional kernel-level (new hardware) or user-level (new hardware) changes. Again, the API is now frozen starting with 10.4. OS X 10.0-10.3 was in a constant state of change.

4. A quick phone call to Apple Support will send you to http://www.macwireless.com/


Also, you do not need to mess with 802.11a. The standards are B and G. Unless you are hauling down very large files over your home network, 802.11b (Airport) will be perfectly fine. And you do not need an Airport base station, any standards-compliant 802.11x base station will work. I use a Linksys/Cisco 802.11a/b/g router (WRT54G) for my network and it works perfectly. Do not forget to set up security and encryption, OS X 10.4 works perfectly with WPA, and that is what I use on my network.

As far as upgrading to Tiger, I backed up my data and installed Tiger as a completely clean install on my iBook 800Mhz G3 without one single problem. I also have the Tiger CD-ROM Edition as I have not yet upgraded to the SuperDrive.

 

[karly]

4. A quick phone call to Apple Support will send you to http://www.macwireless.com/


Also, you do not need to mess with 802.11a. The standards are B and G. Unless you are hauling down very large files over your home network, 802.11b (Airport) will be perfectly fine. And you do not need an Airport base station, any standards-compliant 802.11x base station will work. I use a Linksys/Cisco 802.11a/b/g router (WRT54G) for my network and it works perfectly. Do not forget to set up security and encryption, OS X 10.4 works perfectly with WPA, and that is what I use on my network.

We're already using wireless (802.11b, which I'm considering upgrading). The ibook has an Apple airport card, and there is one other laptop in the house (I won't mention the OS). I thought I had read that I couldn't put Airport Extreme in the iBook, which seems to be true (at least not without more hassle than I want to go through).

I do find I copy large files to and from the Mac quite a bit, so moving to the faster wireless would be handy.

Thanks

-karl

 

[karly]

Wait a minute!


He did not say if that machine is current running OS 9 or some flavor of OS X.


If it's running OS 9, then the changes will be huge and his wife will be pissed!

Oh, yeah! We are on the latest 10.2 though, so it shouldn't be all that bad. My current thinking though, is that it might make more sense to get a Mac mini, which will come with Tiger, then I'll have my own Mac to play with. I need one as a test target from time to time.

Since one way or another, I need access to Tiger, I can consider that I'm getting a $130 rebate on a $500 machine.

 

[TommyWillB]

If you already have a DVI monitor and a USB keyborard/mouse, then by all means buy the Mini + a monitor/keyboard/mouse KVM.

If you don't then you'll have to add in the cost of those items.

 

[fryke]

You could also buy a FW harddrive, install Tiger on that and always use that drive as startup when _you_ use the machine...