I was just wondering how well those 900mhz G3 ibooks run

#1 Thu, 26 Feb 2009 - 00:58 68kMLA

I was surprised to see that the ibook series stayed with the G3 all the way to 900mhz, and I am just wondering how those run 10.4, and how the high end 900mhz G3 compare against a G4

#2 Thu, 26 Feb 2009 - 02:38 68kMLA

10.4 should be perfectly usable on a 900 MHz iBook. I would probably disable both Spotlight and Dashboard, but even on slow laptop hard disks I know some who persevere with them still turned on.

#3 Thu, 26 Feb 2009 - 03:46 68kMLA

I have no probs with spotlight on a 466, though dashboard definitely needs to be ditched. Tiger should be right snappy on that unit.

#4 Thu, 26 Feb 2009 - 16:38 68kMLA

I run 10.4 on a 800Mhz G3 iBook and it runs fine. No more sluggish than Jaguar and Panther were.

#5 Sun, 1 Mar 2009 - 09:13 68kMLA

How do I end dashboard on 10.4?

#6 Sun, 1 Mar 2009 - 18:37 68kMLA

To turn Dashboard off:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

To turn Dashboard on:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean NO

You have to restart the Dock after making either change for it to take effect:

killall Dock

If you hit F12 after all that, it won't do anything.

#7 Sun, 1 Mar 2009 - 23:18 68kMLA

The iBook G3 Dual-USB are great machines... if you can find one that doesn't have the dreaded GPU failure. I love my 900MHz iceBook, to be honest. It's really still a fairly capable little thing, suitable for everything from light gaming (Diablo II-era stuff) and DV-editing (but not compression, unless you let it sit for a while...) to moderate internet activities, including YouTube. Just don't expect it to process a filter on a 2048x1024 image in Photoshop in less than ten seconds, or you'll be in for disappointment.

#8 Mon, 2 Mar 2009 - 15:55 68kMLA

The iBook G3 Dual-USB are great machines... if you can find one that doesn't have the dreaded GPU failure. I love my 900MHz iceBook, to be honest. It's really still a fairly capable little thing, suitable for everything from light gaming (Diablo II-era stuff) and DV-editing (but not compression, unless you let it sit for a while...) to moderate internet activities, including YouTube. Just don't expect it to process a filter on a 2048x1024 image in Photoshop in less than ten seconds, or you'll be in for disappointment.

Ah but if you had a G4 you could beat the P3.

#9 Wed, 18 Mar 2009 - 18:36 68kMLA

I was surprised to see that the ibook series stayed with the G3 all the way to 900mhz, and I am just wondering how those run 10.4, and how the high end 900mhz G3 compare against a G4

Mac OS X is supported by G3's up to 10.4 Tiger, so yes, it will run. I would advise using a previous version of Mac OS X unless you need it for some reason. The later the OS, the slower it tends to run, and we wouldn't want to stress out the older processor.