krs

I'm currently running OS 10.2 on a 450 M G4 AGP with 768K of memory and two 120 Gig hard drives. Planning to upgrade the processor to 1.2 or 1.4 Gig with a L3 cache.

I bought OS 10.4 which I was planning to install on one of the hard drives, but with some of the negative feedback I have read and the fact that Apple is already in the process of releasing their second update on 10.4, I thought it might be prudent to move to OS 10.3 for a while rather than jump right to 10.4.
Reason I can't stay on 10.2 is that patchburn for the LG DVD burner I want to use is only available for 10.3 and later.

Now looking at all the choices for 10.3 on ebay, Apple stores seem to only carry Tiger now, I see a wide variety of OS 10.3 being offered, all the way from 2 DVD's to 13 CD's...some are full installs, some are restore disks only (whatever that means). others seem to be disks that came as part of a system, eMac, iMac, iBook etc. I have also seen an upgrade CD that requires OS 10.2 on the Mac to install OS 10.3 - didn't think there was such a thing.
Prices are all over the map as well, from $C15.- which was the lowest I have seen to over $US100.-; most run about $US 22.- to $US 30.-

Can anyone simplify this for me? Which version of OS 10.3 would work for me? Do I need to worry about getting OS 9.2 at all when getting the OS 10.3 disks? I had OS 9.2 on the G4 originally and then received OS 9.2 again with my purchase of OS 10.2.

Never realized that there are so many different flavours of OS 10.3.

csonni

Check out Patchburn here. It's for 10.4 and later.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16466

moonsocket

Some of the "restore" CDs are machine specific. They may come from an eMac, iMac or Powermac . They may work on your machine but there is no guarantee. I would just buy the actual Panther Cds. I think there is a set for sale in the Trading Post.

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jlcinc

http://www.ehmac.ca/classifieds/show...1&cat=6&page=1

I can vouch for trentcanuck very good to deal with. I have run into a few problems with 10.3.9 doesn't support my second card. I need to get another card.

John

krs

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear.
Patchburn for Tiger isn't the issue - that's what I wanted to use. It's the Tiger problems that are holding me back from moving to Tiger now and patchburn for OS 10.2 doesn't support the LG drive for whatever reason.
I probably need to check into this some more to understand why.

mbaldwin

Personally, I love Tiger. I find it faster, more stable and the apps I use (I'm a programmer) work the same or better. I know there have been many complaints, but I'd never go back to Panther. *shrug*

I run it on everything from a 400MHz TiBook to a Dual 2.5 G5 and the only problem I had was with VPN support (fixed in 10.4.1). But I always start from a blank hard drive when I install a new OS, so that may be one thing that helped me out.

And Apple is always working on a new update for their current OS. 10.4.2 will likely come out in July, and 10.4.3 in Sept, and so on. Don't be afraid of Tiger just because Apple is working on it because that won't change until 10.5 is released.

- Martin.

krs

You know - when I really I think about it (and you comments started me thinking again). it doesn't make much sense to go to 10.3 when I have the 10.4 software already.
What I need to do is to maintain my Mac fully operational with 10.2 as it is now in case 10.4 gives me trouble for any reason.
I have the original 20 Gig hard drive that came with the G4 originally. Can I just wipe that clean and install Tiger on it, leave the existing internal 120 Gig drive with OS 10.2 and all the data files as is...then boot into Tiger on the internal 20 Gig drive and use all the data files on the internal 120 Gig drive (including the old ones from OS 9).

ct77

Hi krs -- what I'd suggest is reading up a bit on SuperDuper and its Safety Clone feature:

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDup...scription.html

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/forums/s...57&postcount=4

Using Safety Clone you should be able to evaluate Tiger and share data files as you've asked about. The only caveats are those described in that second link.

Digital_Gary

If you do decide to buy 10.3, hopefully this clears up the differences.

The Upgrade disk were given to customers who bought systems that had 10.2 installed on them after 10.3 was announced. Legally, they should not be sold separately but willl upgrade your 10.2 OS just fine.

The Restore disks are machine specific. Don't bother buying these unless you are 100% sure they are for your exact computer. Even if they are, they likely don't contain the OS. They are for restoring OS 9 and some additional applications. The OS 10.3 install will be on a separate DVD called OS X Install. Again, these legally shouldn't be sold separately.

The systems disks that come with eMac, iMac, G4 etc will all do a basic install of 10.3 on your system. Same legal issues as the other 2 options above.

All of the disks above are licensed to a computer which is why they shouldn't be sold separately unless the person wipes the hard drive and sells the computer with no OS loaded. Even then, it's kind of a gray area.

A retail copy of 10.3 should be 3 install CD's with a Developer Tools CD making up the 4 disk set.

krs

I did read it when you posted these links earlier. Not too happy with the change in mail format with Tiger but knowing about it at least lets one figure out how to work around that.