Powerbook and new Mac Mini compatibility

Yes indeed. You can enable the Apple Remote Desktop service on any Mac in the Sharing Preference Pane - and remotely connect using VNC client software from the network.

Select the access privelages and select VNC viewers may control the screen with password. Be sure you pick a good one - anyone that can guess this password can connect and see your screen and type/mouse.

There are lots of viewers to connect (You don't have to pay for Apple's more fully featured software if you simply want remote control). I like Chicken of the VNC for macs and RealVNC for all other OS.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc/
http://www.realvnc.com/

Hi, all. I'm looking to do the same thing with my new Mac Mini Dual core (10.4.5) and my old iBook G3 500mhz (10.3.9?)

I am currently using a Netgear 802.11g wireless router and both computers have wireless access.
I'm wanting to control the Macmini using the iBook and it looks like Chicken of the VTC will be able to do the trick. ( I tested it successfully at work using two macs)

My question is, will the two computers be able to see each other over the wireless network using Bonjour? Do I need to do any port forwarding on my router?

I'm using a 32" Sony HDTV as the monitor for the mini, but it would be nice to control the mini remotely when I'm watching a different source such as the cable box.

MacEnstein. Welcome to discussions!

Best to start a new question - many people will stop looking here since it is marked answered. This lets you get the attention you deserve and keeps one problem per thread.

But - we are here - so let's see what happend.

Bonjour will find computers on the same network. That means unless you have gone to pains to set up two DHCP servers and change things substantially - things will work on most home networks.

Open the terminal application on both computers and do a netstat -nr - each should have the same gatway for the default destination and same network destination (look for 192.168.1/24 or similar) under the Gateway column where it says link#4

Most likely you will have IP addresses like 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1/24 - feel free to start a new thread or post your netstat -nr results of it's not clear what I'm doing.

Also - you can simply test this out from the command prompt. Each machine is known by a host name - type hostname -s on each. If Bonjour is going to work - machine "a" should be able to ping machine "b" as follows:

ping b.local

the .local says use Bonjour to find the machine named b and ping it.

Thanks, for the tips, Michael. I'm a newb here on these discussion boards. 🙂

Well, things work with COTVNC but the performance is woefully slow. It's too laggy to really be useful. I'm not sure if it's the slowness of the wireless network or the iBook G3. I've read a few threads that indicate that the wireless performance of new Mini is suspect. I only get two bars on the mini and get full on the iBook even though it's farther away. It was worth a shot trying.

VNC takes some horsepower if you have a large screen.

I would open the activity monitor (Applications -> Utilities) on both the sender and receiver and watch the network traffic. (As well as the CPU usage - you can sort on CPU by clicking with word at the top of the column).

I always dial down the colors to 256 and only increase it when I don't mind slowing things down. All those extra colors actually make a big difference in the amount of data that VNC has to transfer.

No worries about being a noob - jump right in and participate. The mores and habits are pretty easy to pick up. There used to be a good primer somewhere - but it appears to be buried in the small text way at the end of the Help & Terms of Use Page....

Are you using a wired/wireless router? It would be good if you could try again with the Mini using cabled ethernet to see if performance improves.

If you can get acceptable performance, you can also have the router forward the VNC port to the Mini so that the Powerbook can access the Mini from anywhere on the internet!

When my Mini arrives (Monday?), I hope to create a similar setup; but my laptop dual boots Windows XP and FreeBSD. You can use VNC across different computer architectures and operating systems!

Well, I tried it again using the regular ethernet connection and VNC worked much better. Turning the colors down to 256 also helped. Also, after switching to 256 colors I was able to go back to the wireless network and it performed much better. I'm still having issues with the wireless reception on the Mac mini and will be taking it to an Apple store this evening to have it checked out.

Thanks for the help guys. Now I just need to figure out how to set up port forwarding on my router.

Mr. Bradshaw.

Pardon this intrusion but you seem quite knowledgeable.

I would like determine if I could use a Mac Mini as a Windows device from by PowerBook G4 [one of my activities requires that I use Internet Explorer in a version not available to Macs (and Virtual PC is too slow)]. To restate, can I (with Firewire, USB, Ethernet or other connectivity other than wireless) use the PowerBook's monitor and keyboard to run the Window's application on an Intel-based Mac Mini?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.



PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)