Yes and Yes ! While Leopard does still provide a good platform, it is aging and I suggest going with Linux or BSD - PPC seems to also run better on those platforms. Plus, you get a modern web browser and updates constantly. It means, PPC is not going away and its getting stronger each day. I truly believe M1 and PPC though distant cousins of the same architecture(RISC) will both be the future.
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Operating Systems for PowerPC Macs
- Thread starter AmazingHenry
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Have realistic expectations...the G4 Mac Mini is a single core computer from 16 years ago, yes it can still browse the web and have use but at a very slow pace - Linux will offer a marginal increase on the web in some respects but also take you out of the OSX ecosystem and the wealth of software that is still available.
Morphos is the most agile OS for the Mac Mini but again, the software available is limited.
I’ve always found the Mac mini G4 to be pokey. Even when it was new. I remember the branch I worked for at the time (circa ‘04) upgraded our workstations from 800MHz iMac G4 15” and 1Ghz 17” to the entry level mini at 1.25GHz and there was a noticeable performance drop even with maxed out RAM.
It could be the stock 4200rpm drive, but I find my 1.42GHz mini feels quite a bit slower than my 15” and 17” Aluminum PowerBook G4’s.
Just a heads up in case you expected great performance
It will be very happy with MorphOS, Unsupported Mac OS 9 and Tiger to an extent. But Leopard is sluggish.
You might get good performance out of Debian or something though. But if you want performance, go for a dual or quad core G5, or even a DLSD PBG4 15 or 17”.
It could be the stock 4200rpm drive, but I find my 1.42GHz mini feels quite a bit slower than my 15” and 17” Aluminum PowerBook G4’s.
Just a heads up in case you expected great performance
It will be very happy with MorphOS, Unsupported Mac OS 9 and Tiger to an extent. But Leopard is sluggish.You might get good performance out of Debian or something though. But if you want performance, go for a dual or quad core G5, or even a DLSD PBG4 15 or 17”.
PPC is about as related to M1 as 68k was to x86.
And just as with 68k and x86, the fact that one is still going strong doesn't make the other any less dead.
RISC in this case isn't even a consolidated architecture. It's a family of architectures. The instruction sets of the M1 and any given PPC chip are going to be different and incompatible with one another. Really what RISC is defining here is a set of common traits that all architectures that fall into this family/category have.
Thanks for the tips guys.
High performance is not a requirement per se, I am in a (delayed) plan to move with my family to Spain in the next months (when the pandemic permits), so in my plan, the Mac Mini fits because it's small, portable, I could take with me to Spain. And I found one in decent conditions, with the lowest price I have ever seen here in Brazil. I still haven't bought it.
@AphoticD: Maybe the Mini would benefit from a upgrade to a small, cheap SSD? I didn't want to spend much money on it, when the plan is just have a bit of fun with it.
Definitely, Tiger and macOS 9 are of my interest here. I have a macOS 9 QEMU VM, so far I love it. Classilla definitely needs improvements. I am yet to do a QEMU Tiger install (this weekend will be perfect for it).
Last night I tried to make a QEMU install of Debian 10's PPC version, but after an hour or so of installation, when it completed and I had to reboot, there was an error and it did not boot, no matter how many times I tried. Ah, damn.
For now, I think it's better for me to keep doing my thing with the emulators, until I get more confidence to get the real thing for everything I want to do with it. The only real PPC mac I have ever tried was a G3 almost two decades ago, when I was in a lab at university doing my graduation in advertising and marketing.
I have two empty Mac Mini 2006 enclosures though, missing the rear and bottom parts. They were part of a (failed) plan from five years ago, an attempt at doing a small hackintosh.
I might have to cheat and put something else inside one of these enclosures, then resort to QEMU emulation for it: a Raspberry, a Intel NUC or the "expensive" mini AMD Ryzen computer, which would be great for any gaming when not doing my things.
It wouldn't be the first time - I've helped my 63 yr old dad to use a Raspberry to create his Apple IIe clone with Linapple for his nostalgia fun, it boots straight to Linapple and he's presented with a ProDOS screen... he's quite happy with that.
Again, thanks for the info!
High performance is not a requirement per se, I am in a (delayed) plan to move with my family to Spain in the next months (when the pandemic permits), so in my plan, the Mac Mini fits because it's small, portable, I could take with me to Spain. And I found one in decent conditions, with the lowest price I have ever seen here in Brazil. I still haven't bought it.
@AphoticD: Maybe the Mini would benefit from a upgrade to a small, cheap SSD? I didn't want to spend much money on it, when the plan is just have a bit of fun with it.
Definitely, Tiger and macOS 9 are of my interest here. I have a macOS 9 QEMU VM, so far I love it. Classilla definitely needs improvements. I am yet to do a QEMU Tiger install (this weekend will be perfect for it).
Last night I tried to make a QEMU install of Debian 10's PPC version, but after an hour or so of installation, when it completed and I had to reboot, there was an error and it did not boot, no matter how many times I tried. Ah, damn.
For now, I think it's better for me to keep doing my thing with the emulators, until I get more confidence to get the real thing for everything I want to do with it. The only real PPC mac I have ever tried was a G3 almost two decades ago, when I was in a lab at university doing my graduation in advertising and marketing.
I have two empty Mac Mini 2006 enclosures though, missing the rear and bottom parts. They were part of a (failed) plan from five years ago, an attempt at doing a small hackintosh.
I might have to cheat and put something else inside one of these enclosures, then resort to QEMU emulation for it: a Raspberry, a Intel NUC or the "expensive" mini AMD Ryzen computer, which would be great for any gaming when not doing my things.
It wouldn't be the first time - I've helped my 63 yr old dad to use a Raspberry to create his Apple IIe clone with Linapple for his nostalgia fun, it boots straight to Linapple and he's presented with a ProDOS screen... he's quite happy with that.
Again, thanks for the info!
I eagerly waited for the release of the first 7200rpm 2.5" HDD in 2005 to replace the stock 4200rpm, even going from 80 to 60 GB in the process; and it perked things up quite a bit. With that being said, the mini is no speed demon for sure.
Definitely, but not as substantially as more modern systems.
I get your point, but OS X in an emulator is just not the same as on real hardware.
I can attest to this. OS X benefits a lot from running on real Mac hardware.
@Bruninho There are a lot of great starter machines for PPC OS X and OS 9. I, for instance, started on a Power Mac G4 Digital Audio almost four years ago (oh, how time flies). If you have the space and are interested in a machine that is easy to work on, a Power Mac G3 Blue and White or Power Mac G4 (earlier is better, as some later models can't run OS 9 natively, I'd recommend the Digital Audio or Sawtooth given I have a lot of experience with the former and have heard good things about the latter).
Thanks! Yeah, I know and I understand it, but as of now I am not in a position to spend money without being 100% sure about what I want to do with it, for now I have a plan, the first thing on it is to replace my 2013 intel rMBP "13 with a M1 or whatever Apple launches next, when certain apps (I am a Front-end web developer part time, and now a full time UI/UX designer) get transitioned to native versions or when I get the money, whatever comes first. Then next on the list is to get a small PPC machine to play with when I want to have some fun or do some basic stuff.
Meanwhile I do some experiments with emulation whenever I can. UTM on my iPad Pro 2017 and QEMU on my Mac runs macOS 9.2.2 (with screamer fork for sound enable), DOS 6.22/WFW 3.11 and Windows 98 SE ridiculously well, I am able to play games, and almost every night I go into the macOS 9.2.2 to talk a bit on IRCle and play with the things, customize it the way I like it. I've got several apps installed, such as Photoshop, AppleWorks, Classilla. So far so good.
I can barely remember doing stuff on Photoshop with a G3 at university, around 2003. But I will certainly get a PPC mac at some point, probably when the move to Spain is near - currently, even though I have a spanish citizenship, I can't move because we have to wait for the vaccine and certain family affairs to be resolved. This delayed my plans in two years, we could've moved in 2016 without all these problems.
BTW, do we have a section to talk about emulation in this forum? I just joined this week, and I usually do that on VOGONS, MSFN, recently joined macOS9lives forums and sometimes read whats new on e-maculation forums.
Interestingly enough, the firmware of the M1 does have a few Open Firmware-isms. According to the folks at Asahi Linux (bringing Linux to M1 Macs), the device tree for M1 is based off the OF specification.
I have observed that the G4 Mac Mini's performance has a lot to do with the resolution it drives and the VRAM. I have a 1.42GHz with 32 MB VRAM and a 1.5GHz "silent upgrade" mini with 64 MB VRAM. When driving a 1080p display, the 1.5 has much greater performance in the Leopard environment, even if they have the same GPU. If you have a display with a smaller resolution anything will be fine, but for 1080p I recommend the 1.5GHz mini if you can find it.
Ughhh, all of the good OSes are locked up in BetaArchive, can't get FTP access.
Does anyone have any of the G3 Leopard builds?
Does anyone have any of the G3 Leopard builds?
The latest - 1.2v3 aka 5.6.
Thanks - I went with one version earlier, 1.2, because I've read that 1.2v3 has a few weird quirks like number of USB ports at the same time. I'm gonna have a go with it in the next few days just for fun with my QEMU setup.
But not tonight, installing an OS is a task for a few hours and it's 11PM right now. Instead I will just keep tweaking my OS 9.2.2 install tonight
EDIT: had to give up on Rhapsody anyway. QEMU support lacks networking for this OS.
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Classilla definitely needs improvements - about 10 of us are working on that currently. We hope it will breathe new life into OS 9. We are also working on ways to make OS 9 compatible with later G4's and possibly a G5.. but that is taking a lot of time. 1st we want to get classila updated to handle 100 percent of the web, except for youtube given its bloatness.
Maybe if someone was a wizard and could compile VLC for the unicorn that is OS 9. Classilla could then hand off the video file to VLC somehow?
I know coding is absurdly hard, and I can't code worth a lick, but I thought I could offer some kind of idea for the solution to "Getting Youtube to play nice in OS 9."
Firefox has trouble with this and Mozilla has 750 employees, what makes you think 10 people can make that happen with a hobbyist project? As much as I'd love to see new browsers do miracles on old operating systems, I feel like it would help to have far more realistic goals.
No.Would BeOS R5 work on G5 Macs with ATI Cards? Always was interested to see it in live
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