Hi, any reports on classic imac users with panther?????
I have a graphite 600 Mhz, 256Mgb. 10.2.8 40Gb. and will be installing panther this week.
And since I'm in Mexico i don't have much help, so i would appreciate any preinstallment tips
will i have access to Expose? will i be able to continue using classic 9.2 the same as Jaguar, etc.
Fernando, here is an excerpt from Small Dog Electronics newsletter Tech Tails #189 (I recommend subscribing to it and any of their other newsletters that my interest you):
Panther Experiments By Russ White
It's official, Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" is finally out. It's pretty much a given that it will run well on the newest machines like the G5, the G4, the eMac, the iMac flat-panel, the new aluminum PowerBook G4, and the iBook G4. But what about those of us that haven't yet upgraded to the latest hardware, are we out of luck? I spent this weekend finding out what's the slowest machine you can install Panther on and still have it usable.
From slowest to fastest, my target machines were:
* 266MHz iMac Bondi w/ 160MB * 366MHz Key Lime Clamshell iBook with 320MB * 500MHz IceBook with 384MB * 667MHz PowerBook G4 with 768MB * Sawtooth G4 w/800MHz Sonnet G4 upgrade and 1.5GB RAM
(Geez, I have all these machines in my apartment, no wonder my power bill is so expensive ;) )
First off, the system specs! Any G3 to G5, *as long as it has native USB ports* (sorry beige boxes looks like you're out in the cold this time ---not sure if X Post Facto would make this work or not), should work. Also, according to Apple, Panther "doesn't support" processor upgrades.
iMac 266MHz Bondi: I did this one primarily because of my curiosity. It has a minimal amount of RAM, a small hard drive, a slow processor, and a 66MHz bus speed. Things didn't look good based on the hardware specs, but I did it anyway, just to see how it would work. The install was exceptionally long, 2+ hours just for the first disc (there are 3 discs but unless you install X11 or the new Text-To-Speech voices, you probably won't need it), but once it was over the iMac was actually quite usable, faster than Jaguar on the same machine.
I experienced a roughly 10% speed increase, Safari, Mail, AppleWorks, etc. all worked quite well, with minimal delay. What was truly amazing was that the iMac booted in about a *MINUTE!* How is that possible? --- Faster boot than my 800 MHz Sawtooth (which admittedly has a lot more stuff in it, 3 drives, all 3 PCI slots full, 1.5GB RAM... must be the RAM check that's slowing down the G4). I imagine pushing the RAM past the 256MB barrier on the iMac would probably help Panther run a little more smoothly.
iBook 366MHz Clamshell: Just like the iMac, I did this one as an experiment. And just like the iMac, it works remarkably well; smooth, faster than Jaguar, a very nice piece of programming.
iBook 500MHz Dual USB: No problems, just like the Clamshell. Obviously the faster the machine the smoother and faster it runs, and it looks like Apple did a really good job optimizing the code for the older G3's.
PowerBook G4 667MHz: Installed it on my TiBook, and WHOA, what a difference. It's noticeably faster. Everything feels snappier. Percentage-wise I'd say the TiBook experienced a speed gain of about 20-30% (based purely on playing with the OS, I haven't actually benchmarked it yet). The overall Aqua interface animation is smooth and fluid, I see no signs of dropped frames or glitching, even on my TiBook's outdated video hardware (16 MB video ram, AGP 4X Mobility Radeon chip-set).
Power Mac G4 Sawtooth 800MHz: This one I was looking forward to as a real challenge. Apple officially states that Panther "does not support" processor upgrades, and I have a Sonnet Technologies 800MHz processor upgrade in this, as well as some old legacy PCI cards (ATTO SCSI, Keyspan 2 port USB, ATI Rage Orion vidcard driving my second 15" monitor...) So it's possible that I may not be able to install Panther on the Sawtooth... I popped in the install CD, and it went through the install process just fine, and the machine rebooted.
Time for the moment of truth... it booted just fine. Panther saw the Sonnet card and recognized it as an 800MHz processor. All of my legacy cards were seen just fine. Panther's running just fine on my Sawtooth. As with all the other machines, I noticed a distinct speed improvement.
I'm not sure what Apple means when they say that processor upgrades are not supported, as I can conclusively prove that Panther is running on my Sonnet-powered G4 Sawtooth. Maybe the "processor upgrades" they're referring to are the G3 to G4 upgrades that are out for the tray load iMacs and the blue and white G3's. Regardless, Panther does seem to support Sonnet processor cards for the G4, at least it's working on my Sawtooth with the 800MHz Sonnet; I can't vouch for other makes though.
I'm quite impressed. Panther is a fast, scalable OS that runs fine on whatever you install it on. The more I play with Panther, the more I like it. There are the big things, like the speed increase on my G4, and the amazingly fast boot times (My old Sawtooth 800 boots, on average, in around one minute and thirty or forty seconds from a cold start, just imagine what the 64 bit G5 will do.).
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