Adventures in Technology – Resurrecting an iBook 3G
A while back, a friend of mine gave me an iBook (PowerPC 3G-600Mhz, 256MB RAM, 20GB hard drive). It was in good working condition, running OSX 10.1.
I love technology in all of its forms, so having this as another toy to play with was fun. But I can never leave well enough alone. Since I am a glutton for punishment always up for a challenge, I set out to improve this laptop as much as I could. My goal: to actually make it more useful.
My first order of business was a memory upgrade. The one available memory slot would only accept up to a 512mb so-dimm, so I snagged one from E-bay and installed it. Next, I attempted an OS upgrade. My research showed that anything above OSX 10.2 was too much for the hardware. Again, E-bay provided me with a 10.2 install and I upgraded successfully.
What I ended up with at this point, was not really what I was hoping for. My intention was to have something that would handle light web-surfing and maybe some writing. Unfortunately, there was not a sufficiently advanced web browser that would run on OSX 10.2. For a moment, I was ready to accept defeat.
There is an unwritten rule that pertains to most all computing devices: If it has a microprocessor, there is a good chance that there is a Linux distribution that will run on it. Some further research pointed me in the direction of the Xubuntu Linux distribution, a derivative of Ubuntu, which had a port for PowerPC processors. Xubuntu was suggested because the user interface uses less system resources than a standard Ubuntu install.
I was able to download version 9.04 of the Xubuntu distribution for PowerPC processors, which installed flawlessly on my iBook 3G, no configuration file hacking required. Video display, wireless networking and sound worked with no additional tweaking. Now I have an up-to-date operating system with the latest version of Firefox, and a ton of productivity applications to boot. Xubuntu is not terribly resource-hungry either, which makes for a snappier interface than even OSX 10.1 or 10.2 in my experience.
If you’re looking to resurrect some older hardware, but want the modern features of the latest OS, Xubuntu (or many of the other flavors of Linux) may be what you are looking for. Fair warning: if you’ve never attempted a Linux install (or any other OS install for that matter), the effort involved may be more than you bargained for. On an iBook 3G with similar specifications (or most any other PowerPC based Mac), a novice should be able to follow the prompts and have a successful install. For other hardware, it could get much more complicated, especially getting video, sound and networking operating as it should. Your mileage may vary, Google is your friend.
Good Luck!
What about Firefox. not sure about in april of 09 but now..november 2009 mozzilla has the same 3.5 version for MAC and PC……
Im looking to acquire a ibook for son to use garage band but maybe I dont want a system that old……hmmmmmm
dub Reply:
November 11th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
If it runs on a Power PC and the specs are higher than mine, you can (I think) upgrade to leopard (10.5). Mine was too old to run leopard (and at least be usable). The current versions of safari and firefox require at least 10.5.7, which was my problem here. To get a newer version of firefox, I had to upgrade the OS. I would look for a G5 if you can find one. There are not that many on the market though, because their so darn reliable, people just don’t upgrade that often. I would make sure and check the requirements for Leopard before I got anything though. I’m sure that Snow Leopard (10.6) does not run on Power PC chipsets.
Congrads on resurrecting you old computer…I need some help with mine.
I am trying to give life to an iBook 3g 800 Mhz/128 MB RAM/30 GB HHD. The hard drive died, so I installed a new, blank hard drive. Now with I hold the option key to go to the blue screen, it doesn’t show anything (Unlike before when I did it and it gave me the option of selecting the hard drive to boot. What am I missing? Do I need to disassemble the iBook again (a real pain too). I know that I will need more RAM as well. Do I need a MAC OS X disk too before I intsall Xubuntu 9.04? And can I download a disk for Mac from the PC computer? I know it’s been a year since you was hear but I really need some help. Thanks again.
I have an ibook 3g that my friend is trying to sell my brother is interested in purchashing after following these steps will it be good to edit movies with using I movie or should we just get a g4?
dub Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 9:11 am
I’m pretty sure you are going to want as much processing power as you can get for iMovie. An iBook 3g is not going to be able to run the latest version of iMovie. A G4 would at least be able to run Leopard, which could run the most recent iMovie.
I am fan of Ubuntu and absolutely delighted to discover your post on running Xubuntu on the iBook. Thank you for making this helpful information available!!
Also, thanks to those generous friends who give away their old iBooks! A few months ago, I was given a iBook (PowerPC 3G-600Mhz, 640MB RAM, 20GB hard drive, OS X 10.3) and later purchased an identical used iBook that needed some repair work. Both iBooks required minor logic board repair, a new display inverter, and one had a cracked screen, that I replaced.
Once both machines were functional, I decided to install 10.4 on both. I performed clean installs and both with no issues. After a few software updates, both run rather well with 10.4.1 and are fairly fluid with 640 MB RAM. However, from time to time, during the boot process, both machines will hang during startup. At first the machines are completely unresponsive and get to where they both hang on a gray screen and become uncresponsive. It will happen 1 out of every 8-10 boot proceedures. Although this problem is isolated, it is incredibly frustrating when it occurs.
The machines will go through a similar process each time where they will not respond during power on, to taking at least 5 minutes to show any activity, to booting to a gray/blue screen and becoming unresponsive, to finally booting all the way to OS X. Getting to this point requires that I cycle the power on and off resorting to all of the various reset drills recommended by Apple and finally after 20-30 minutes of futile attemps, the iBooks return and run flawlessly. I can then reboot and the machines and have no sign of the problem (for a while anyway).
I realize the issue could be due to a flaky logic board, bad hard drive or data cable, heat, or possibly the software. I have diligently investigated and tested every hardware related possibility and cannot determine the cause. Both machines exhibit the same behavior and are essentially identical twins in terms of hardware and software. Downgrading to 10.3 did not solve the problem. In fact, the combo update to system update to 10.3.9 made both machines inoperable.
Incidentally, after doing some research I found Leopard 10.5 for Power PC available and read it will run on iBooks with a G3 processor. I may experiment with 10.5 soon.
Has anyone encountered this before with 10.4 running on iBook, PowerPC 3G-600Mhz, with 640 MB RAM? Please fill me in so that I can avoid more brain damage! Thank you in advance for any insight or suggestions!