Why Multiple Kernel "issues" w/G4 iMac/Tiger?

@BDAqua & Mr Hillyer:

Thanks for both of your posts on the Leopard installation . . . I'd first have to figure out what the problem is before trying to procure the 10.5 install . . . I had heard that there was a hack on getting the installer to install into a system that doesn't meet the requirements . . . the iBook might come a tad closer than the iMac, but it's the RAM that would also have to be increased as well . . . . I personally like Tiger, I've had no issues with it running on either PPC machine that I still have, just now it's falling behind on the modern web browser requirements or expectations from web sites . . . and that's why I turned to Linux, but Linux isn't exactly paying attention to PPC any more than Apple is . . . .

Anyway, before I spend any time on moving to Leopard, I'd like to first get Tiger "stabilized" . . . either with Archive/re-install, or as Mr H suggests . . . a clean install . . . and see how it runs . . . . Just had the idea of booting one of the Tiger clones (don't think I've done this yet) from the Ext HD and seeing what happens . . . or perhaps trying a fresh install of Tiger in the ExtHD and seeing if that eliminates the KPs when booted in a fresh clean install of 10.4.3 or whatever I have . . . not sure if I have a partition big enough, but I might try that and see if that gets over the problem . . . still thinking this is a hardware side problem so changing to Leopard won't be too efficient use of my time . . . ??????

e.e.p.

Neville Hillyer wrote:

You could use the latest SeaMonkey on Leopard although it might be slower than Safari:

http://links.zero.eu.org/seamonkey/

@NH: . . . "slower than Safari" . . . is that possible??? : - )))) In Tiger Safari takes so long to load pages I gave it up years ago and went mainly to Camino, and from the old Mozilla days I also have Sea Monkey running on all my computers . . . whether I have the latest version in the iMac, right now I don't know; but Ten4Fox is offering an updated version of FF for PPC computers and that's fine . . . I just wasn't that crazy about FF, but Camino seems to not be updating for PPC anymore so no choice but to use the FF tweaked for PPC. About a year and a half back I posted on the Unix forum askiing about options for OSs that would give newer browser and someone recommended Ten4Fox, but I listened to the "try Fink" answer . . . and that resulted in a lot of wasted time, the Ten4Fox option is just fine for the older PPC systems . . . . But, it took a lot of messing with Linux to see that it's a tad rough around the edges for a GUI driver like myself, even compared to 10.4.11, Tiger runs the Apple computer very well . . . I don't need max. speed . . . .

e.e.p.

BDAqua wrote:

I found Sea Monkey quite fast, but only tried it in 10.5.8.

BDA: Yeah, SM is fine . . . plus you get the HTML editor, etc . . . it's a "suite" . . . .

e.e.p.

Mr H:

Thanks for that clarification on the special build of SM for Leopard, sounds just fine . . . I would be happy to try it out, but right now I'm not sure that I would take the time and effort to upgrade the iMac OS . . . unless I take up the project to rip into its innnards and changing parts, I think the G4 iMac maxes RAM at 1 GB if I recall??? which would still come up short vis BDA's 1.5 GB.

Got things/issues to take care of today but if I can find the time the plan is to install a fresh 10.4 on the ExtHD and try to boot the iMac and run it from there . . . if we do OK that way then I'll try the archive/iinstall on the Int HD, and if that stumbles I'll go for the erase/install . . . seems like there would be no point to try to boot the present system as clone from ext HD in the iMac, since the system would be . . . the same. I'll post back when I've got some new development . . . unless someone has figured out what the problem is from the prior crash report . . . .

e.e.p.

@Mr H:

Right, no double layer reader . . . just the SuperDrive . . . . But, based on your thoughts I'm typing this in SM 2.0.14 in my iBook 10.4.11 system . . . it's fine, but does still get the "we don't support yr browser from Gmail."

@BDAqua, TMM, & Mr Hillyer, et al:

So, made so time to try out the fresh install on an Ext HD using black disk OSX 10.4.6 installed into partition . . . and then attempting to boot the iMac from it using Option key. The installation I did thru my iBook and then made probably 6 attempts to boot the iMac from various partitions . . . each one of them crashing before getting passed the verbose log in window . . . "we are hanging here" it said at the end of the log in data . . . . Seems interesting that doing the "verbose" command in the IntHD that somehow that choice is picked up by the extHD?? Anyway, I kept trying and finally it seemed to boot into "Open Firmware" with some CLI giving me the choice of entering "mac_boot" and when I hit return it went to "Default Catch! code=300 at XSRR0: ff847b8 XSRRI: 0000b030" and then it returned to a "0" with a non-flashing boot prompt . . . tried a few commands until typing "boot" got me finally into the internal HD OSX system . . . when I restarted I picked the newly installed 10.4.6 system in the Ext HD and was able to get in . . . this was a couple of hours doing all of that. Once in at 11:46 AM PDT I played around with Safari 2.0.3 which was surprisingly . . . fairly fast . . . opened iTunes and tried to get the internet Radio to work so I could run the iMac for as long as it would . . . opened a second safari page . . . checking emails in Gmail, got the "we don't support your browser" error and the "Basic HTML" window . . . and then at 11:59 AM Safari "Quit" . . . a several seconds after that the dock "collapsed" and we went into a beautiful Blue screen . . . perhaps it's "Aqua" ?? the default blue . . . and that was it . . . I shut it down . . . .

So, I did manage to get the latest "Panic Report" that Apple posts on reboot after a crash, sent it to myself and to Apple . . . but not too sure if anything was learned . . . seems like the longest times running were in "Safe Boot" . . . but in the crashes the "safe" command seems to have been removed, but we still have the "verbose" log in . . . then multiple crashes not even getting passed the boot from the Option boot manager, same thing in the Linux system . . . and then running a few minutes in the Ext HD . . . doesn't seem like even if I could get it to run long enough to boot to the install DVD that it would last long enough to do an internal install process????? The crash log always seems to say, "crash info for cpu0" . . . which doesn't necessarily mean anything about the health of the cpu? Was hoping that booting from the ext HD would show it as a software problem . . . seems less likely???? Other things to do today, but maybe a fresh idea might provide another test?

e.e.p.

@et al:

Last night I booted the fresh install of 10.4.6 in the Ext HD, and added the "Safe boot" args, w/o the verbose, and restarted back into a Safe log in window . . . got about 7 minutes before I got the kernel panic CLI in B & W draping over the desktop . . . with system and screen frozen. So, unless it's a problem with the FW port or the software having problems with the FW port . . . it doesn't seem like a fresh install would make any difference???

Since I've run the AHT test several times w/o discovering anything, cleaned the system with Onyx several times, used DU to repair disk, etc . . . I don't have any other diagnostic applications to try . . . would there be anything that might be "free" . . . low cost . . . or cheaper than a new computer that might be able to distinguish whether there is a software v hardware issue???

e.e.p.

"Since I've run the AHT test several times w/o discovering anything, cleaned the system with Onyx several times, used DU to repair disk, etc . . . I don't have any other diagnostic applications to try . . . would there be anything that might be "free" . . . low cost . . . or cheaper than a new computer that might be able to distinguish whether there is a software v hardware issue???"

@et al:

Would there be any difference in outcomes to try applejack if I can get it installed on the iMac over what Onyx does? I'm still looking for a way to analyze what is happening vis hardware/HD issues or software side.

e.e.p.

BDAqua wrote:

I much prefer AJ, but unless Onyx is the cause of the problem, I don't think it'll help determine the cause.

BD:

Many thanks for the reply. Right, I get that AJ doesn't determine the cause, but the question would be whether or not it might get some potential software issue "treated" a bit better than Onyx? I was looking at the AJ site or an Apple kb and something was mentioned about how "crashes" can cause further problems . . . that might cause further crashes; possibly AJ might do some "deeper cleaning" that might break the cycle of crashes?

I'm trying to find a way to beat the $99.999 cost of Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro . . . but, would either of those be able to diagnose specific hardware problems that AHT does not? I don't need to recover data, as there is a clone, just try to figure if this is the HD or what specific software side issue, etc.

e.e.p.