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max2

macrumors 603
Original poster
May 31, 2015
6,371
2,026
What are the specs of the iBook? What version of OS x? They are great little machines and I use mine daily.

1. something Ghz processor, I think, 512 MB of ram so on.

Mac OS X 10.4.11 I believe.
 

Appleuser201

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2018
400
219
Yes one sec.
[automerge]1574219581[/automerge]
1.33 Ghz PowerPC G4
512 MB
Mac OS X 10.4.11
Alright. You got yourself a pretty good machine. I would advice upgrading to at least 768mb of ram as 512 is barely enough for tasks like internet browsing. You can manage with 512 fine but you'll be more comfortable with 768 or 1gb.
For Internet browsers I recommend tenfourfox as your main daily browser as its modern and secure. I defintely recommend using enyoungrens tweaks for better performance, you can find his post in the pinned post section on this forum.
For basic google searching i recommend Camino as your go to browser as its light weight and easy on the memory. Don't use it for anything else as its an old browser but it still has its purpose.

Alternatively, you can use iceweaselppc which is ten fourfox with tweaks build right in. Arctic Fox is another good choice although it's unfinished.
For YouTube you can use dronecatchers grease monkey tenfourfox add on (see forum for post) which will allow you to stream YouTube smoothly in 360p and 720p with some lag.
There is lots of great software for tiger which you can find on Macintosh garden.
 

max2

macrumors 603
Original poster
May 31, 2015
6,371
2,026
Alright. You got yourself a pretty good machine. I would advice upgrading to at least 768mb of ram as 512 is barely enough for tasks like internet browsing. You can manage with 512 fine but you'll be more comfortable with 768 or 1gb.
For Internet browsers I recommend tenfourfox as your main daily browser as its modern and secure. I defintely recommend using enyoungrens tweaks for better performance, you can find his post in the pinned post section on this forum.
For basic google searching i recommend Camino as your go to browser as its light weight and easy on the memory. Don't use it for anything else as its an old browser but it still has its purpose.

Alternatively, you can use iceweaselppc which is ten fourfox with tweaks build right in. Arctic Fox is another good choice although it's unfinished.
For YouTube you can use dronecatchers grease monkey tenfourfox add on (see forum for post) which will allow you to stream YouTube smoothly in 360p and 720p with some lag.
There is lots of great software for tiger which you can find on Macintosh garden and Macintosh repository.

Can I make it a home server somehow ?
 

iTurbo

macrumors 6502
Sep 9, 2008
316
375
I have the same iBook G4 (1.33Ghz, 1.5GB ram, OS X 10.5) that I've been playing around with lately. I like the keyboard so I've used it for some homework. The trackpad is a pain compared to my MBA or magic trackpad. It isn't very good at all on the web, but I haven't even tried anything other than Safari yet. I did find that it backs up to my Time Capsule with Time Machine just fine despite it's age.
 

Amethyst1

macrumors G3
Oct 28, 2015
9,352
11,476
I would advice upgrading to at least 768mb of ram as 512 is barely enough for tasks like internet browsing. You can manage with 512 fine but you'll be more comfortable with 768 or 1gb.
If you want web browsing using any variant of Firefox to be fun, put in as much RAM as you can. 768 MB is only enough for very lightweight browsing.

For basic google searching i recommend Camino as your go to browser as its light weight and easy on the memory.
Camino fails to open many websites due to outdated certificates. Why use it for "googling" when there's a high chance of it not being able to open the websites that come up as results?
[automerge]1574336649[/automerge]
It isn't very good at all on the web, but I haven't even tried anything other than Safari yet.
There's your problem. The last version of Safari officially compatible with Leopard is pretty much a dead-end.
 

Appleuser201

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2018
400
219
If you want web browsing using any variant of Firefox to be fun, put in as much RAM as you can. 768 MB is only enough for very lightweight browsing.


Camino fails to open many websites due to outdated certificates. Why use it for "googling" when there's a high chance of it not being able to open the websites that come up as results?
[automerge]1574336649[/automerge]

There's your problem. The last version of Safari officially compatible with Leopard is pretty much a dead-end.
There is leopard WebKit which is a modern port of the safari WebKit browser for leopard and while the default user agent is safari 5, it has modern web standards. It can be switched to a safari 11 user agent that works well.
 
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Amethyst1

macrumors G3
Oct 28, 2015
9,352
11,476
There is leopard WebKit which is a modern port of the safari WebKit browser for leopard and while the default user agent is safari 5, it has modern web standards. It can be switched to a safari 11 user agent that works well.
I'm well aware of all that. My comment was in reply to iTurbo who said that the stock version of Leopard's Safari isn't holding up well.
 

Appleuser201

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2018
400
219
I'm well aware of all that. My comment was in reply to iTurbo who said that the stock version of Leopard's Safari isn't holding up well.
That’s the mistake a lot of PowerPC newbs make, they try and use the stock version of safari and say it doesn’t work well.
 

Bug-Creator

macrumors 68000
May 30, 2011
1,752
4,676
Germany
would advice upgrading to at least 768mb of ram as 512 is barely enough for tasks like internet browsing.

It's still not clear which iBook he has, at 1.33GHz it's either the last gen 12" or an 14" one generation older.

Last gen has 512MB onboard 2nd to last gen only 256MB and all have one slot that can take an extra 1GB.
Those are cheap enough so he should max out the RAM which will give him either 1.5 or 1.25GB depending on the model.
 
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Appleuser201

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2018
400
219
It's still not clear which iBook he has, at 1.33GHz it's either the last gen 12" or an 14" one generation older.

Last gen has 512MB onboard 2nd to last gen only 256MB and all have one slot that can take an extra 1GB.
Those are cheap enough so he should max out the RAM which will give him either 1.5 or 1.25GB depending on the model.
I would agree it's worth it to max out the ram assuming he's willing to throw a little extra money at it.
Mine is the older model with maxed out memory at 1.25gb
 

bobesch

macrumors 68020
Oct 21, 2015
2,124
2,196
Kiel, Germany
What should I do with a iBook G4 ?

Type writer, Calculator
Office: MS Office'08 / LibreOffice / iWorks
Paperless office: DEVONthink Office
PDF-editing
email
web (TFF/TFFBox/LeopardWebkit)
Fax-machine
Graphic-design (Adobe CS2 or lower)
ScreenSharing/FileSharing/ThinClient
WebDAV/(S)FTP
FileServer, PrintServer, FaxServer
Coding
Tiger/Classic and all the MacintoshGarden-abandonware-stuff ...
With mSATA/Converter-SSD an even faster and rock-solid companion.
AND you don't have to f*** with nagging updates!

It's more about the imagination than the tools ...

If that's not convincing enough go back to #6
 
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z970

macrumors 68040
Jun 2, 2017
3,580
4,502
Type writer, Calculator
Office: MS Office'08 / LibreOffice / iWorks
Paperless office: DEVONthink Office
PDF-editing
email
web (TFF/TFFBox/LeopardWebkit)
Fax-machine
Graphic-design (Adobe CS2 or lower)
ScreenSharing/FileSharing/ThinClient
WebDAV/(S)FTP
FileServer, PrintServer, FaxServer
Coding
Tiger/Classic and all the MacintoshGarden-abandonware-stuff ...
With mSATA/Converter-SSD an even faster and rock-solid companion.
etc etc ...

It's more about the imagination than the tools ...

If that's not convincing enough go back to #6

And if he's still not jazzed, he should just refer to #11.
 
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