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walsh1996

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 17, 2011
5
0
Gallatin, Tennessee
I need a patched or hacked osinstall.mpkg file for the leopard installer, so I can put it on my iMac. Any help would be strongly appreciated.
 
Last edited:

Winni

macrumors 68040
Oct 15, 2008
3,207
1,196
Germany.
I need a patched or hacked osinstall.mpkg file for the leopard installer, so I can put it on my iMac. Any help would be strongly appreciated.

Regards,
Adrian


You don't want to go there. Leopard runs bad enough on G4 Macs (it CRAWLS on 1GHz G4s/1GB RAM), so even if it were possible, you wouldn't want to use it on weaker hardware.

Seriously, don't waste your time on this. You'd be better off installing Linux on that machine. And PowerPC Linux on Apple hardware is not very convincing either, especially not if you have an nVidia graphics chip in your Mac.
 

d88co88

macrumors 6502
Dec 8, 2009
301
0
MN
Leopard runs bad enough on G4 Macs (it CRAWLS on 1GHz G4s/1GB RAM)

That's complete trash! My 733 MHz Quicksilver tower ran leopard great, and it only had 512 mb ram! My 1 GHz eMac runs it just fine too!
 

chrismacguy

macrumors 68000
Feb 13, 2009
1,979
2
United Kingdom
I need a patched or hacked osinstall.mpkg file for the leopard installer, so I can put it on my iMac. Any help would be strongly appreciated.

Regards,
Adrian

The G3 CPU cannot install or run Mac OS X Leopard. 10.4.11 is the highest your machine can go to (I run 10.5.8 on a 450Mhz G4, and while tolerable, I wouldnt want to have it full time) - on a G3, if it did run it would be useless - but it wont run, the OS physically requires the AltiVec unit of the PowerPC G4 processor.
 

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
10.5 can run on a G3, but it is very, very, slow and very hard to do. You have to get one of the developer betas and get the kexts out of it, then mod them to work on the retail version. Then get it onto the G3's hard drive. Its just not worth it, because it'll run very slow, even on the most powerful G3's ever made.
 

jdiamond

macrumors 6502a
Dec 17, 2008
699
535
Not only that, but...

I realize this is in the eye of the beholder, but I think OS Tiger was the most beautiful OS Apple ever made. After that they went more and more minimalist/retro.

Why not stick with the best? There aren't that many features you really miss from Leopard are there?
 

YanniDepp

macrumors 6502a
Dec 10, 2008
556
132
I realize this is in the eye of the beholder, but I think OS Tiger was the most beautiful OS Apple ever made. After that they went more and more minimalist/retro.

Why not stick with the best? There aren't that many features you really miss from Leopard are there?

Tiger was good, with two exceptions:

- Leopard's Finder is a lot better.
- Brushed metal.

On topic, I contemplated doing this with my 600MHz G3 iMac (1GB RAM). I decided it wasn't worth the hassle (and I have a degree in computing science) and kept Tiger on it.

Incidentally, G3's can only run iTunes 8.2.1, aka the last version before Apple ballsed up the interface.
 

Queso

Suspended
Mar 4, 2006
11,821
8
Panther is the best OS for a G3 IMO. After that everything felt a bit sluggish.
 

chrismacguy

macrumors 68000
Feb 13, 2009
1,979
2
United Kingdom
10.5 can run on a G3, but it is very, very, slow and very hard to do. You have to get one of the developer betas and get the kexts out of it, then mod them to work on the retail version. Then get it onto the G3's hard drive. Its just not worth it, because it'll run very slow, even on the most powerful G3's ever made.

Evidence please - I have done all that to get it to run on a "g3" (B&W with G4/450 upgrade) - but with the original G3 CPU it refused to boot - it stayed at the loading screen for 4 hours, after which point I got bored and turned it off.
 

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
Evidence please - I have done all that to get it to run on a "g3" (B&W with G4/450 upgrade) - but with the original G3 CPU it refused to boot - it stayed at the loading screen for 4 hours, after which point I got bored and turned it off.

I'm unable to find the sources right now. But I assure you Leopard can run on a G3 Mac. You just have to do massive file modding, such as replace the kernal, swap out "newer" drivers with WWDC 2006 versions, and get it on the G3 Mac. My guess is you missed some steps or didn't swap the drivers correctly.
 

TheMasin9

macrumors 6502a
Dec 22, 2004
585
0
Huber Heights, OH
installing leopard on a g3

What i have been able to do is use another ppc mac (g4-g5) and install leopard using a firewire encolsure (or the like), popping that drive out of the enclosure and into the g3 mac. However, i would agree with the rest of the posters, that leopard is SUPER sluggish on a g3, Panther was great for that line of processors!
 

DoghouseMike

macrumors regular
Jan 18, 2011
163
21
UK
What i have been able to do is use another ppc mac (g4-g5) and install leopard using a firewire encolsure (or the like), popping that drive out of the enclosure and into the g3 mac. However, i would agree with the rest of the posters, that leopard is SUPER sluggish on a g3, Panther was great for that line of processors!

Surely that just left you with the white screen/apple logo once you tried to boot it?
For what it's worth, you can run itunes 9.2.1 (I think, double check on lowendmac.com though) on a G3, which gives you a few more features (like home sharing)
I think someone got leopard running on a beige G3, via numerous hacks involving the beta version. Can't recall if I saw it on modmac, or macmod, or something, or http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/
But, as has been said, Tiger is probably your best bet
 

RedTomato

macrumors 601
Mar 4, 2005
4,161
444
.. London ..
I realize this is in the eye of the beholder, but I think OS Tiger was the most beautiful OS Apple ever made. After that they went more and more minimalist/retro.

Why not stick with the best? There aren't that many features you really miss from Leopard are there?

Leopard is the oldest OS I'll seriously consider using. Why? Time Machine. Worth it all.

Old macs used hard drop like flies - I've seen 5 iBooks die through motherboard / hard drive failures. Not a problem with Time Machine running. They were used hard though - daily use for 5 years.

Another iBook lastweek just semi-died - battery shot, and dvd drive died. It was mainly used for watching DVDs so I may be able to rescue it by swapping out a DVD player and battery from one of the dead iBooks tomorrow.
 
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