Mac Forum / General / Hardware / November 2007

Maybe - but it's a minor portion only, running hardware that old. And it
might be a kick for them to get something new.

I could understand a cut where they say min. G5,
I could understand even better Intel only.

But these would have been major cuts.

From the technical point of view (such as RAM size, Level 3 cache,
Graphics Board) I could understand such a move.

But taking just clock speed for CPUs which might be identical otherwise
(different a 800 MHz model from a 900 MHz model)
does not make sense to me. However, when they state a requirement that
explicitly, they would refuse any return policy after buying a license
which I can not use.

I feel there's a good chance that it MIGHT run. I guess I'd have to swap
hard drives and try a clean install instead.

- Martin

Nonsensical. That last clause, I mean.

Almost certainly not. The Leopard installer checks whether your system
meets the minimum specification, and 800 MHz is less than 867 MHz, so it
won't let you install. I think this is ridiculous in the case of that
model, because for many tasks, a dual-800 will be faster than a
single-867, and it was the top of the line model from the original
QuickSilver series.

I tried installing Leopard on an iBook G4/800 with 384 MB RAM (so it
failed on two counts) and got an error message that the computer didn't
meet the requirements.

There is a workaround:

If you have access to a faster PowerPC Mac, you can install Leopard on
an external hard drive, and that hard drive is able to boot a slower Mac
model (in my case, the aforementioned iBook). Leopard doesn't check the
machine capabilities at boot time, only in the installer.

This method will also work with a hard drive physically removed from a
PowerMac G4/dual-800, having Leopard installed on it elsewhere, then
putting it back in your G4. If you can get the two computers together,
you should also be able to use Target Mode to install directly onto the
dual-800's hard drive (but I haven't tried that).

I expect that a dual 800 would work well on Leopard. You might
occasionally run into performance issues because the speed of a single
CPU isn't quite fast enough.

Another option you have it to buy a third party CPU upgrade (867 MHz or
faster, preferably dual for extra performance). Leopard will then be
happy to work on your G4.

No, that makes no sense at all.

The retail package of Leopard is a universal install. If you install it
on a PowerPC Mac (to a drive partitioned using the Apple Partition Map
scheme), that drive will boot any supported Mac model (including G4
models which are "too slow", and also including Intel models) and use
the computer to its full capabilities.

If the computer is in the "too slow" camp then some features of Leopard
and applications running on Leopard may not perform properly.

I expect that if you go too far back, Leopard won't work at all: it
might not work on a PowerMac G4 (PCI Graphics) - "Yikes", for example,
because that model has a different logic board chipset from the AGP
Graphics ("Sawtooth") and later models. It won't work on a G3 processor.
It might also require an upgraded video card in an older G4 model.

(If I set up the iMac G3 I have here, I can test the theory about
whether Leopard boots on a G3. I expect it will fail.)

Note that if you install Leopard using an Intel Mac, it has to be done
on a drive partitioned using the GUID Partition Table scheme, and that
can't be used to boot a PowerPC Mac, but it will boot other Intel Macs.

No, unless you hack the installer or use a faster Mac to install it from
using Firewire disk mode or by physically swapping HDD's, that said I
have successfully installed it onto a GigE 450-DP by hacking the
installer as detailed in:
<http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=371302>
The Mac is a standard GigE-450-DP with 1GB ram and 32MB Apple Nvidia
Gforce4 MX.
It runs as fast as 10.4 did (I have not measured the speed, but it feels
as fast), however I will not be keeping it on this Mac as I need one
machine that I can run classic on.
Ben.

NB I may try installing onto a 400MHZ Sawtooth sometime, just for the
fun of it. (Shame it will not run on a G3, I would love to run it on my
Pismo G3-500Mhz)