iBook G4 running leopard?

Hi! You should be able to run Leopard on it, as I too have an iBook G4 PowerPC G4 1.33 GHZ machine, with 1 GB of memory, and a 60 GB hard drive. I hope this helps.
And, I too have an iPad and it works fine on my iBook.

Processor must be any Intel, PowerPC G5 or G4 (867 MHz and faster)
DVD drive (for installation of the operating system)
At least 512 MB of RAM (additional RAM (1 GB) is recommended for development purposes)
At least 9 GB of disk space available.

I had seen a mac box set on apple's website some months back -and it supported both PPC and intel. Now, when I went back to the same item, it says "Mac computer with intel processor required". So, it looks like they have stopped selling mac os/x leopard 10.5 which was PPC compatible and are selling an intel only version.
You may want to try contacting a reseller/apple store if they have copies of mac os/x 10.5.7.

is there something that leopard allows you to do that tiger does not? Im surprised why that should be the case with the same hardware and improved kernel -but believe it is possibly the case coz nokia e52 has a mac suite which works on leopard but not on tiger.

regards
-kamal

I too am a G4 user looking to upgrade to either Leopard or even Tiger as I am currerntly running Panther 10.3.x and finding it won't cope with modern internet applications.

Obviously I will need to install more memory to run Leopard, but what about Tiger?

Also, Someone mentioned above that some earlier G4s didn't have the graphic capabilities to support Leopard. How do I know if my G4 is one of those? Because if it is then I may as well go with Tiger. According to the system specs I'm running an ATI (0x1002), whatever that means, with 32MB of VRAM. Will this do it?

Thanks you guys, this thread has been really helpful so far but there's just a couple more things I need to know before I dive into upgrade-land!

mushman,

In the future, you're better off starting your own topic in order to get answers to your question.

Your computer can run Tiger or Leopard, but you definitely want more RAM. For Tiger, I recommend at least 512 MB and for Leopard, no less than 1 GB. You can still get Leopard from the Apple online store if you give them a call.

~Lyssa

Thanks Lyssa, will do! How difficult is it to find an older version of Leopard - one that supports PowerPC chips? As I hear most later versions only support Intel. Much appreciated!

The current version of OS X is called Snow Leopard; this is the Intel-only operating system you're thinking of. Leopard, the previous version, is what you'd be looking for. I'd try calling the Apple online store first and see if copies are available. If that doesn't work, you'll have to try eBay, Amazon.com or Craigslist.

~Lyssa

Hi Mushman

I have a G4 iBook (mid 2005) that I upgraded to Leo. At the time I had 1GB of RAM but found the machine was struggling. My advice would be to max out your RAM to get the most from Leo. Keep an eye on your battery consumption: Leo seemed to devour more battery power from my G4.I found Leo a blast. To help with speed, or at least your perception of it, consider upgrading the HD to something on 5400 rpm. Looking back, I wish I had as I sometimes found my machine lagging a little bit with some big programmes.

When I upgraded I did an archive and install, but probably ought to have gone for the straight erase and install option since I spent a couple of years with limited HD space. About a year back I did a fresh wipe and install and recouped 10GBs of space (and I did erase the 'previous system folder, ran Monolingual and used Xslimmer to extract all the unwanted Intel code).

Good luck and I hope you enjoy Leo.

Gareth