Basic Architecture

Zoë did this one freehand, using only a ruler. And a book about Greek architecture.

Speaking of basic architecture: I'm finally getting around to installing Leopard on our desktop iMac. Here's the thing. I actually tried it once and it encountered some problem, causing it to eject the disc summarily at a certain point. Somewhat nervouse-making, when one might be betwixt and between systems. But maybe our machine isn't meant to take it. Our specs are as follows:

Machine Name:    iMac G5
Machine Model:    PowerMac8,1
CPU Type:    PowerPC G5  (3.0)
Number Of CPUs:    1
CPU Speed:    1.8 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU):    512 KB
Memory:    1 GB
Bus Speed:    600 MHz

I would have thought a G5 with 1.8 GHz processing speed was good enough. Supposedly you only need G4 and 800+Mhz. But maybe the Bus speed is too slow. I dunno. Should I just try again?

Will a machine like this run slow on Leopard. It runs just fine with what we've got. Maybe I don't even need the upgrade. What do you think?

Comments

[Saheli]

Ooh, Ionic is my favorite. Belle, is D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths remotely kosher? B/c it was one of my top ten favorite books as a child. I wonder if Zoe likes/would like it. . .the illustrations are so sweet.

[David Moles]

Leopard was running fine on my 1.6GHz G4 Powerbook (albeit with 2GB RAM) till the hard drive died. Not noticeably slower than with whichever big cat 10.4 was.

[jholbo]

Hey Dave, I hope you were able to use the beauty of Timemachine to recover.

Yeah, I'm wondering about the RAM. If I upgraded, only to have the thing run slow when I have Photoshop and InDesign and iTunes and seven tabs worth of FireFox open - well, maybe it wouldn't really be worth the trouble.

D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths, Saheli? I think I had that one myself. I'm not actually sure what illustration she was working from for this one. She just showed up with it. Maybe she indepenently invented the design!

[jeet]

The freakier illustrations in D'Aulaire's gave me nightmares for years as a kid.

Which isn't to say that Zoe and Violet may not well be made of sterner stuff than I.

[belle waring]

there is no less stern stuff. they're made of, like, marshmallow fluff.

[bill benzon]

John, I had the same experience as Dave, except my G4 PowerBook was only 1.5 GHz and I only had 1.5 gigs of RAM. I did use Time Machine for backup; it wasn't completely transparent, but nothing was lost. Also, I had to replace a RAM chip in addition to the internal drive.

Things don't seem notably slower under Leopard, & I typically run with 3 or 4 browser windows w/ multiple tabs each, Word, Entourage, Photoshop (& Bridge) & this or that open. There seems to be more disk accessing (Time Machine doing its record-keeping) and that can be annoying occasionally.

Your system should be fine with Leopard. Have no idea why it kicked your disk out. Did you get any intelligible warning or error message? In any event, I've concluded that computing technology is inherently vulnerable to sunspots, gamma rays, hexes, and other mysterious phenomena.

[David Moles]

I haven't had the chance to test the limits of Time Machine's powers since I haven't replaced the dead drive yet, but when the Powerbook first started misbehaving last fall I invested in a new Mac Mini and sent the Powerbook down to the minor leagues, so no great loss.

My experience with the Mini and its mere 1GB of RAM, by the way, is that Photoshop etc. run fine, but switching between, say, Photoshop and InDesign (generally with a bunch of Safari windows open and iTunes going) can take a while as it can't fit everything in memory at once. But my guess is you won't notice much difference from whatever performance you're seeing under 10.4.

[Keith]

Leopard is not meant for G5 processors, it's Intel only.

[jeet]

If Zoe and Violet can handle the freakier moments of Hayao Miyazaki, they can probably handle D'Aulaire's.

[jholbo]

"Leopard is not meant for G5 processors, it's Intel only."

I understand that it optimal, but technically it does work with PPC systems. The question is: will it slow me down?

Maybe I'll just buy another gig of RAM first.

[Sean]

I am running an iMac G5 with exactly the same stats as yours (bought it in December 2004), including the 1 gig in RAM, and I've been running Leopard for several months with no noticeable slowdown.

I don't use Photoshop much and don't have inDesign -- I pretty much just run Firefox, Mail, Google Earth, and NeoOffice with a bit of iTunes and iPhoto.

It may be worth trying the install again before upgrading.

Separately, watch out for unexpected power offs in this vintage of iMac -- I am now on power supply number three on this machine.