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Can I run OS 10 on this G4?

J

jenrafi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 4, 2006
26
0
Hello,

I've got a Power Mac PC G4 (gray/silver tower): 512 RAM, 800 MHz speed, 23 GB space. (any other info needed?)

Can I install 10 and have it run smoothly? This is at work, and we're on Quark most of the day w/ a little Photoshop and Illustrator.

I know more RAM is most likely a must, anyone know how much to add? Anything else that should be added?

Thanks!
 
jenrafi said:
Hello,

I've got a Power Mac PC G4 (gray/silver tower): 512 RAM, 800 MHz speed, 23 GB space. (any other info needed?)

Can I install 10 and have it run smoothly? This is at work, and we're on Quark most of the day w/ a little Photoshop and Illustrator.

I know more RAM is most likely a must, anyone know how much to add? Anything else that should be added?

Thanks!
Click to expand...


It will run OS X absolutely fine - even 10.4. It won't be superfast, but application-wise, with a GB of RAM in there you'll be able to do the things you want to do.

Also, it would definitely be worth upgrading the hard drive unless you've got lots of external storage. Ideally you'll want to keep about 10GB free on the HDD with the OS on it.
 
jenrafi said:
Hello,

I've got a Power Mac PC G4 (gray/silver tower): 512 RAM, 800 MHz speed, 23 GB space. (any other info needed?)

Can I install 10 and have it run smoothly? This is at work, and we're on Quark most of the day w/ a little Photoshop and Illustrator.

I know more RAM is most likely a must, anyone know how much to add? Anything else that should be added?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Hmmmm, 10.2 Server runs fine on my Blue and White G3. Quark is probably OK with 12, but PS and Illustrator need at least a gig to run smoothly. If you don't need ZTiger, don't get it. Panther is a lot faster on older hardware. If spotlight and dashboard are needed, there are patches/clones to make them work on panther, but I forget their names. Just google panther dashboard or panther spotlight. Hope this helps.
 
jenrafi said:
...we're on Quark most of the day w/ a little Photoshop and Illustrator.
Click to expand...

Quark 6 & 7 are OSX native. Anything before that will have to run in Classic mode which may be a little demanding on your machine and if so, it's not a straightforward business setting up fonts and printers from Classic.

Photoshop 7 & up, Illustrator 10 & up will run natively in Panther at least.

To be completely honest, if you have a workflow that works, why upgrade your OS just for upgrades sake? Unless you're going to run the latest version of your productivity software, then I would reccommend against it.

BTW: Reports are that Quark 7 runs about 25-50% slower than Quark 6 so this might be a little demanding...

We didn't transition to OSX (Panther) until all our apps ran natively in OSX and we then bought new machines (dual G5s) for the production team.
 
Thanks. We have one IMac G5 computer and are getting familiar with it, but we'd like them to all be on 10. Quark 4 is very outdated as far as design layout options (transparency, bitmapped images etc.), as well as options to be more efficient. I feel like it's time to move on!
 
That will run Mac OS X fine.

Not sure how Quark,Photoshop and Illustrator run on 800Mhz G4 as Ive never tried it, but with more RAM it should be fine.
 
I run Photoshop on a G4 Quicksilver 733Mhz with 1.12GB RAM and it's fine.
 
Blue Velvet:
To be completely honest, if you have a workflow that works, why upgrade your OS just for upgrades sake?
Click to expand...

We were forced to upgrade because our clients had the newest software and we couldn't open their files. So, sometimes you have to upgrade.

We just upgraded to Tiger from OS 9.2.2 in Jan. '06. Are G4s are older than yours and work fine in Tiger. Mines a 466Mhz, 640MB RAM, 80GB and 30GB HDs, 2 ext. 80GB HDs Firewire. I run QuarkXPress and Illustrator without any problems. I recommend at least 1 GB RAM and replace the HD and add another HD for 2 internal HDs. We even run the stock ATiRage vcard.
 
If my 400 MHz Sawtooth could run Tiger, that thing could definitely run Tiger - double the MHz and probably more than double the power.

I had 1.3 GB of RAM in my Sawtooth though, so yours might require some extra RAM too.
 
once again I'm blown away by the quick, detailed, numerous responses. Thanks very much!:)
 
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