Forums | MacLife

pumibel wrote:

Hi,
This is my first post. I am looking for advice. I hope that this is the right forum, because I am not sure my Mac is considered "vintage" I don't have a lot of tech experience, and I just started using my first Mac. I have an eMac G4 with Os X 10.2.8, 700mhz, 256 RAM. Yeah, its old and needs RAM. I'm not asking about that, though.
I have been looking for good graphics software. I typically use PS elements 2 with a butt-load of plugins and PS 5 LE on my PC, but PSE 2 and LE 5 run on earlier versions, and my PSE 4 disk runs only on OSX 10.3 and later. It seems this is a problem I keep running into with all of the programs I look at. My OS X10.2.8 is in the middle- either too old or too new to run them. The cheapest 10.3 upgrade I have found for the eMac is $79, which I think is too much. I bought a full DVD 10.3 install on ebay for $16. Is it easy to install a whole new operating system or is it risky? I don't care if I wasted $16- I won't install it if it is going to create a mess. BTW-The emac has a CD drive only.  I was going to use my PC, which has a DVD/CD drive, to burn a cd then use it on the Mac- is that possible?

Put the disc in the drive and power on the computer holding down the C key. After that just follow the on screen instructions. You were right when you said you needed more RAM. OS X is more of a RAM hog than windows.  Also your eMac is easy to put a DVD ROM in if you ever wanted to consider that route.

BTW.. i wouldnt consider it vintage.. since it runs X natively.

Oh and welcome to MAF!

Edited for Grammatical Errors.

Last edited by dhack21 (2007-12-03 4:46 pm)

If you bump the RAM up to 1 GB and put in a DVD drive(or get an external), 10.3 would run great. You could even get 10.4 and run that.

I would proceed directly to 10.3.9.  This allows you to have a more recent version of Quicktime, iTunes and Safari.

Use SOFTWARE UPDATE in System Preferences.    (But first, repair Disk Permissions using Disk Utility.)  Quit all other programs while doing the Software Update for the cleanest possible upgrade.

dhack21 wrote:

FutureDreamz wrote:

dhack21 wrote:

OS X is more of a RAM hog than windows.

http://www.apple.com/support/panther/install/
Minimum Hardware requirements for 10.3: 128MB, rule of thumb is to double amount given by Apple;
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/ … sreqs.mspx
Minimum recommended is 128MB, possible to run on 64, but not recommended, good rule of thumb is to quadruple amount given for windows specs, for Antivirus, IE7, etc.

A computer running XP with 128mb of ram will feel "snappier" than a machine running 10.3 with 128.. is what i was trying to get at.

It'll feel snappier, but not if you want it secure.

1. 10.3 is available on a CD - it usually costs $50.
2. If you are going to the trouble of putting in a DVD and more RAM you might as well  use 10.4
3. PSE should run nicely with the max RAM in 10.3 or 10.4.

FutureDreamz wrote:

dhack21 wrote:

OS X is more of a RAM hog than windows.

http://www.apple.com/support/panther/install/
Minimum Hardware requirements for 10.3: 128MB, rule of thumb is to double amount given by Apple;
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/ … sreqs.mspx
Minimum recommended is 128MB, possible to run on 64, but not recommended, good rule of thumb is to quadruple amount given for windows specs, for Antivirus, IE7, etc.

Never owned a Mac?

Personally I wouldn't run OSX with less than 512MB. For anything important and for newer versions, that amount jumps to 1GB. The speed up is very noticeable. With OSX the rule of thumb is: feed it lots of RAM or become a lover of the rainbow beach ball. Doubling doesn't work anymore.

On your PC you could creat an iso of the OSX DVD in something like Nero. Compress and split it into CD sized chunks using rar, burn the CDs, copy the segments onto your Macs drive, join with MacPar mount the image, use disk utility to "restore from that image to a hard drive, go to the startup disk prefs pane, select the 10.4 system revealed by the "restored" DVD contents, choose that, reboot and install.
Or you could find the 4 CD version installer package for 10.4 which would be a little bit easier.

pkmgarf wrote:

Hahah...I new that method would be coming up shortly.  Or you could just create an .iso of the DVD, and transfer it to the Mac with an ethernet cable.

Or, if you can borrow another Mac with DVD, use Target disc mode and a FireWire cable.