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pretty decent iMac G4
Posted by: ironborn65 on 2026-02-18 23:37:21
Iā€™m quite happy with this.
The colors of the picture are false, the Mac itself is pure white while the keyboard is terribly yellow, so a bit also the mouse. The speakers are perfect! Ah, I have the box.
Iā€™m planning for RAM upgrade.
Any recommendations for the MacOS X upgrade?
Posted by: Byrd on 2026-02-19 01:16:50
Nice, I'd go Mac OS X 10.4 on it (good bridge OS between old and new) or 10.3.9 for more speed
Posted by: Fred1212 on 2026-02-19 17:27:34
Nice score
Posted by: finkmac on 2026-02-19 17:31:54
i would install mac os 10.1
Posted by: mac27 on 2026-02-19 19:17:36
I've had good luck retr0briting these keyboards, though they are a fair bit of work to disassemble completely to isolate the plastic backing plate that needs the treatment.

Unfortunately the mice not so much; not clear there's a way to remove the acrylic shell reasonably.
Posted by: Unknown_K on 2026-02-19 19:28:37
That's a perfect OS 9.2.2 machine to me. I have a later G4 1.25 Ghz widescreen iMac that is OSX only but would love to run OS 9 on it if I could.
Posted by: Fred1212 on 2026-02-19 20:17:58
Yes 9.2.2 runs really well on these
Posted by: ironborn65 on 2026-02-20 00:46:54
I've updated it to 10.3.9, and it seems to fly pretty well to me. I read different suggestions here about downgrading it to even 9.2.2 or 10.1, why?
But yes, it depends on how I want to use it šŸ™‚
At the moment it will sit in the livingroom to show its nice design and to let friends play music coming from my NAS.

I've disassembled the keyboard, and the retrobright is ongoing.
The mouse is a problem. I've not found a non-invasive technique to disassemble it.
Still, I have to update the RAM.
Posted by: MacUp72 on 2026-02-20 02:18:42
the unofficial 10.5.9 Sorbet Leopard is also nice, I have this on my 12" G4 PowerBook

Sorbet Leopard Revision 1.5 - Macintosh Garden

Imagine if Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was released for the PowerPC architecture. Aging machines would have received a much-needed boost in performance, software updates would have carried on for a little bit further, and instrumental features would have been newly claimed -- resulting in...
web.archive.org web.archive.org

or Shuriken
Posted by: finkmac on 2026-02-20 08:17:59
windows xp gold edition type beat
Posted by: Snial on 2026-02-20 09:24:04
I've updated it to 10.3.9, and it seems to fly pretty well to me. I read different suggestions here about downgrading it to even 9.2.2 or 10.1, why?
But yes, it depends on how I want to use it šŸ™‚
At the moment it will sit in the livingroom to show its nice design and to let friends play music coming from my NAS.

I've disassembled the keyboard, and the retrobright is ongoing.
The mouse is a problem. I've not found a non-invasive technique to disassemble it.
Still, I have to update the RAM.
10.3.9 will feel great compared with 10.2.x. I only use versions of Mac OS X I actually have copies for, or the version that came with the Mac, but you might be happy with downloading Mac OS X 10.4. For my (Dad's) 1GHz G4 iMac 15", I run 10.4. Because Apple seemed to do tock/tick style OS upgrades; 10.3.9, I think is more of a performance upgrade and 10.4 is more of a feature (tock) upgrade. Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) was also a tock upgrade, but Snow Leopard was a performance improvement.

The advantage with 10.4.x over 10.3.x is that there's lots more software for it and although it's not as light as 10.3.x, it's relatively nippy, and will work in 256MB fairly well (that's the same RAM as on my (Dad's) iMac G4).
Posted by: Unknown_K on 2026-02-20 15:14:24
OSX 10.4.x with 256/512MB of RAM and an unsupported GPU is not fun (yes, I know the geforce2mx is supported in this case).
Posted by: Jacques on 2026-02-21 01:34:21
The geforce2mx is a bit slow imho, struggles with window animations and basic games in 10.4.
Posted by: CC_333 on 2026-02-28 21:43:37
windows xp gold edition type beat
Well, technically this is possible if one uses Virtual PC, I suppose.

c
Posted by: croissantking on 2026-03-03 03:13:41
i would install mac os 10.1
Poo-ma
Posted by: Snial on 2026-03-03 04:08:47
Poo-ma
Jagwire!
Posted by: CC_333 on 2026-03-04 20:32:35
Jagwire!
Tie-grr!

c
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