Hardware requirement for Mac OS X Tiger

Hello allenm,

Welcome to the Apple User Forum!

No Firewire hardware is not required to support the OSX system.

Hello allanm:

The answer you received above is not correct. Tiger does require built-in firewire. The specifications from the Apple web site are below:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/requirements.html

Barry

Allan,

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger system requirements

To use Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, your Macintosh needs:

• A PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor
• Built-in FireWire
• At least 256 MB of RAM
• DVD drive (DVD-ROM), Combo (CD-RW/DVD-ROM) or SuperDrive (DVD-R) for installation
• At least 3 GB of free disk space; 4 GB if you install the XCode 2 Developer Tools

Make sure your hardware can run Mac OS X Version 10.4 Tiger

;~)

The iMac G3 350 will not run Tiger.

It will run Mac OS X 10.0 through 10.3.9, with the following caveats:

1. First you must upgrade the firmware to version 4.1.9 while you have Mac OS 9 booted on the hard drive (if running 10.2 or later, as I would not run 10.0 through 10.1.5):

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117

2. Second I would backup your data and upgrade the 9 to 9.2.2 if you intend to use Classic:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75288

3. You can choose to network those machines to Mac OS X machines using this method, and not upgrade to Mac OS X:

http://www.macmaps.com/network9X.html

4. Follow these tips when upgrading:

http://www.macmaps.com/upgradefaq.html

Can anyone explain why Firewire is required for the operating system to run?

The reason I ask is because most time I don't use any firewire devices on the Mac and the OS runs just fine.

Is it just a hardware spec just because or is there a technical reason?

Thanks.

There are technical things within Tiger that will only run with Firewire like the Migration Assistant.

In addition, it would seem silly not to use Firewire at least for backup hard drives. The reason is, until the Intel Macs, Mac OS X could only boot off Firewire external hard disks.

See my FAQ on backing up:

http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html

As for why it was added to the technical spec and what it checks for, that's anyone's guess, but that's one of the requirements. I would never try to assume the requirements are excessive. If anything they underestimate the amount of RAM to reliably run Tiger. I wouldn't run it with less than 512 MB of RAM. But that's me. There are ways of circumventing such requirements with third party software like XPostfacto, but considering the other hardware limitations of older pre-Firewire Macs, such as addressable RAM and graphics chip limitations, you will just be putting on a jet engine on a chariot. I don't recommend creating a jalopy out of your machine.

Thanks A Brody.

I have to say I couldn't expect OSX to run very well on an older machine even if it would install.

My Bad.

Is it just a hardware spec just because
or is there a technical reason?

Basically, it isn't that Firewire per se is a technical requirement but that built-in FW guarantees that the Mac has a hardware architecture Tiger can support. (This is why the spec says FW must be built in rather than added on.)

IOW, when Apple introduces new models, it often doesn't just plug in a faster CPU & graphics card & toss in a new port like FW but sometimes changes the basic architecture (how it all is interconnected) to make everything work more efficiently. That new architecture may require substantial modification of the OS for support.

FWIW, this is why even with System 7 & OS 8 or 9, there is a minimum OS version needed for a given model.

As I tried to explain (probably badly), it isn't that Firewire itself is a "must have" but that if it is built-in this identifies a certain class of hardware Apple guarantees Tiger will support.

So basically, you are running an unsupported OS version on the old iMacs which may or may not cause you problems, now or later. In a lab setting, you should be cautious of running apps or new updates you haven't pre-tested thoroughly on a test machine.