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Run Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) on pre-867MHz systems
Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) requires Mac with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or PowerPC G4 processor running at 867MHz or faster, and will refuse to install on any systems running at a lower clock speed (even dual 800 MHz systems are excluded). However, there's an easy way to trick your lower-than-867 MHz Mac into running Leopard: install the operating system on an external FireWire hard drive using a computer that does meet the minimum clock speed requirements. You can then use that drive to boot a Mac running at less than 867 MHz (see the screenshot below for proof).
Better yet, you can hook a pre-867 MHz Mac up to a Mac that does meet official Leopard requirements and boot it in Target Disk Mode, then install Leopard directly. This should (we haven't yet tested this method) allow you to boot Leopard from the system's internal hard drive.
For more information on installing Leopard on a FireWire drive, see this article.
Obviously, performance for some features will be somewhat sluggish on older processors, but we've already received reports indicating normal operation.
MacFixIt reader Jim writes:
"(I) hooked a Leopard drive to a 533 Mhz G4. It boots and runs fine. I don't know why Apple limited it to 867 or above. Maybe something will show up down the road but so far I don't see any slowdown in speed or any anomalies. QT movies and trailers play, Flip4Mac plays fine. It has only been a short while on it, but so far I don't get why they cut it off where they did."
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
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I intend to try the target disc installation on my DA 733 and think it will be just fine.
Why not give credit due to Reboot at MacCentral who made this GREAT Discovery !
[url]http://forums.maccentral.com/wwwthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=general&Number=911189&page=0&view=expanded&sb=5&o=14&part=[/url]
I know a lot of people who have been doing this for years. It's not like this is anything new or revolutionary.
Be careful with this method. Doing an upgrade via an 1GHz iMac works on the iMac, but cloning it to a FWHD, and attempting to boot a G4, 450 MP, ends with an prohibitionary sign. The best method I found was to do an E&I with a hacked OSInstall.mpkg installer restored to another volume, followed by using the Migration Assistant to transfer everything from your latest Tiger build.
They just don't want their paying customer ($130) to live nightmare of performance problems on their brand new operating system. I am sure anything having Altivec (or not?) can run Leopard but it will be a complete slow motion nightmare.
Apple wouldn't be happier to make more money selling Leopard to ALL CPUs but as a serious company, they have chosen not to.
I am sure Tiger will be maintained for a long time and it has become a real stable OS, just like 10.2.8 which is still in use on various professional studios.
Apple wants you to buy new equipment. If people used computers as long as they worked (or iPods, etc), they wouldn't make as much money.
An example was when they stopped selling the original Airport. We only had our laptop for three years and couldn't get one from Apple. Apple wants Obsolecence badly because they make so much money on hardware.
If performance was the issue, Apple could test the processor speed and advise against upgrading instead of blocking it completely.
I'm curious to get performance comparison with the same machine under Tiger and under Leopard. Does it run faster, slower, same? I have two 800MHz G4s running smoothly under Tiger, but I'd like to take advantage of the new Leopard parental control tools. Does it make sense to upgrade?
Eric
Some people have suggested that one reason Apple may have limited Leopard to 867 MHz and faster Macs, is that more work is being sent to the graphics chip, and slower Macs have older graphics chips that might be over-taxed by this, and so they might run hotter than Apple likes. This would also drain the battery in laptops faster. But I'd think that if a Mac contained an older graphics chip, that these older chips would be unable to run some of Leopard's newer graphics routines, and so they wouldn't necessarily be over-taxed--the main CPU would handle as many of these graphics routines as possible, with the rest simply not running at all on these Macs, falling back on simpler routines, resulting in some issues with speed, resolution, shading, etc.
Also, there are a few Mac models at or just above 867 MHz, that have the same graphics chip as Mac models just below 867 MHz, which just illustrates that Apple decided to use the same simplistic Installer routine they've been using for a few years, to determine what Macs to allow the Leopard installer to install onto--it's a simple speed check that checks the Mac's processor speed. Oddly, from what I've been reading, this speed check is so simplistic, that it even prohibits Leopard from installing on dual processor Macs, whose two processors, added together, makes them faster than a single-processor 867 MHz Mac--if the two processors aren't running at or above 867 MHz each, then the installer won't run. You'd think Apple's programmers were smart enough to not just check a single factor like processor speed, ignoring whether there are two processors, what type of graphics chip is installed, etc.--but no.
You can create a modified backup of the Leopard installer DVD that will install on Macs slower than 867 MHz, but it requires a little skill at editing the preflight script in the DVD's OSInstall.mpkg. See http://blog.kupferman.net/?p=3.
As to which Macs running slower than 867 MHz, and which graphics chips, still run Leopard at a decent speed, I don't know first-hand yet, but reports are starting to come out that some of these Macs run Leopard at a speed acceptable to some people, though it's a little early for these people to have tried all of Leopard to determine if there are some things in it that do run annoyingly slowly on these slower Macs.
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-d
I think it would work but I dont know. if it does it will be major slow since it is a G3
No, 10.5 won't run on a G3 even using this technique. I just installed 10.5 (clean install, hard drive erased using Disk Utility's "zero all data" option) on an iBook G3 Opaque 16 VRAM, 700 MHz, connected to a tower G4 867 MHz in Target Mode, and though the install went without a hitch, the resulting installation wouldn't boot on this iBook (it booted the G4 just fine)--it just shows the white startup screen with an Apple logo and spinning activity indicator. It even failed to start up into single user or verbose mode fully--it freezes soon into the startup process, after only about a half-screen of text appears. This iBook model contains an ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 graphics chip, but I doubt if that's the issue, but I don't have a way of testing that--the first iBook G4s, which will run 10.5, contain an ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 graphics chip, and the 867 MHz Powerbook G4 contains an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics chip. I don't know of a Mac that combines a Mobility Radeon 7500, and runs at least at 867 MHz, but I think the limitation really is the G3 processor. Too bad--for most purposes, a G3 processor, at the same MHz speed, is essentially the same speed as a G4, except for software that uses the G4's Altivec circuitry. Maybe there's some average-user software (system features and apps) in 10.5 that uses the Altivec processor more than earlier systems, and without it, that software may run too slow. But I wish Apple had let us decide for ourselves.
Some pre-release versions of 10.5 ran on G3s, but some of Apple's programs crashed, and though most worked, many of those ran annoyingly slowly. It's doubtful whether XPostFacto will be updatable to allow the release version of 10.5 to run on G3s, since there may be too much in 10.5 that relies on G4 processor calls, Altivec, etc.
I mean, when did this become HackFixIt?
For as long as I remember (I've visiting this site daily for about 3 years now) they have always posted hacks like this. It doesn't bother me too much, but I think they need to post big disclaimers. I've noticed, especially in the last year a lot of non-techies posting questions because they have tried some of these hacks and had problems and are dead in the water. I'm not saying they don't belong here but they should be more open about certain hacks and their dangers.
Maybe these are the same people who will try to build a nuclear (or conventional) weapon/bomb from what they read about on the internet. "House blasted into toothpicks-- gas leak suspected."
Stoopid is as stoopid does.
LOL. Or maybe I'm just a 15 year experienced Mac technician that wanted to share the good news.
Not only do I agree with this comment, I cannot imagine why anyone with a PPC Power Mac would even want to upgrade to Leopard. No way am I giving up Classic, along with ClarisDraw, Myst Masterpiece, Riven, Journeyman Project 3 - Legacy of Time, Starship Titanic, Traitors Gate, etc.
Because most folks with PPC Macs haven't run a Classic app for years?
Bingo.
Maybe true for folks for whom the PPC PowerMac was their first Mac. Those of us who go back to the Mac Plus feel differently and have a lot of legacy "Classic" applications that are irreplaceable.
- by harrymcq October 29, 2007 6:05 AM PDT
>>>>>This is a reply to a previous comment by Bill Strohm
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (34 Comments)I go back to the 512k Mac. Never use Classic.