Forums | MacLife

volk · 2007-04-06 9:44 am

I have an old beige PowerMac G3 tower that I would like to put to use in some fashion. I am thinking about using it as a general fileserver for backing up my iMac. So far I have been able to connect it headlessly using Chicken of the VNC, but I am not really wanting to run ethernet through the whole house to put it out of the way.

AFAIK, I should be able to add a wireless card to it, but I'm not sure about being able to connect the iMac and the G3 via wireless like a conventional ethernet network and still use VNC. This is possible, correct?

In addition, while I have been able to control the G3 with VNC, it is VERY slow. I think this might be due to the slow ethernet speed on the G3 (10 base T). If not, is there another free client out there quicker than Chicken? Maybe a way to just log in with the CLI?

Lastly, is it worth buying a copy of Tiger for it, or will 10.2 be sufficient enough for this? I have a copy of Tiger, but only a DVD, and for this application, spending more for another copy just doesn't seem like a reasonable investment. Would a linux install be a better option?

Once I know how to network it together, I will likely be building a hacked case and adding a PCI card for more hard drives. Then I will stuff it in the corner somewhere and back up to it. If anyone else has better ideas let me know, but at this point it seems like a fileserver is its last stop.

sturner · 2007-04-06 10:02 am

Remember that there are certain Macs that won't run the newer OS X versions. 10.2 should be fine for what you want to do. If you use wireless, your speeds will be relatively slow, and the older G3 might not be compatible with the newer "n" versions of wireless technolgy.

VNC will perform roughly equally regardless of app. The limiting speed factors are the processor speed, transmission rates on your network, and hard drive speed.

I would look into using a server OS rather than the regular OS. Another though would be to look into using a Linux OS to reduce overhead and increase speed since you want to use it as a pure fileserver. That will require some arcane knowledge that you will have to study up on.

willywalloo · 2007-04-18 12:09 am

Sorry to conflict a little with sturner, but here's what I would recommend that would either build or slightly change with the previous post.

A. I wouldn't use anything less than 10.3 - that's just the way it is. I consider everything in 10.0 and 10.1, 10.2 a beta form of OS X. Here, this means these older OS's are slower. I would definitely try busting out http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPo … l#Desktops - xpostfacto and getting panther running.

B. When using VNC server, try turning down the color depth that it serves out. 256-colors should work. If the server doesn't have a setting for this, try manually changing the color-depth in the system prefs. This will speed up VNC

C. I would do this only using the regular version of Panther, and then use SharePoints ( http://www.hornware.com/sharepoints/ ) to specifically share to the network any drive, folder or what have you.

This is hopefully a slightly easier solution to any novice.

Funkey Monkey · 2007-09-18 8:48 am

I use VNC regularly on my Blue and White G3 tower. I also run OSXVNC, which keeps a VNC server running in the background -- and a Java VNC applet served on my G3 that I can access VNC from anywhere within a web browser.

I've posted all this VNC info here before---just search for "Funkey" and VNC.... that should do it.

And FWIW, I usually use just 64 colors through VNC--sometimes even 16--this summer I was away in Europe for two months, and I used VNC every day to just run my home computer from across the atlantic.

Forums | MacLife

#1 2007-04-06 9:44 am

My old G3...suggestions?

#2 2007-04-06 10:02 am

Re: My old G3...suggestions?

#3 2007-04-18 12:09 am

Re: My old G3...suggestions?

#4 2007-09-18 8:48 am

Re: My old G3...suggestions?

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