So MacOS kinda got shit starting after 10.4 right?
If I were to get one of the last gen of PPC macbooks how would wifi support work? What's the browsing situation like since I think tenfourfox went away?
Yes I'm probably trying to talk myself out of a stupid purchase when I already own like 5 different laptops. I swear they all have their own niche
It did indeed start getting shit after that. However, if you're going to venture into PPC Macs and OSX nowadays you really want 10.5 Leopard, because barely any of the available apps work on older versions. It's preferable to completely disable file indexing in the OS though, since it takes up a lot of resources. It's well worth it.
Wifi works perfectly. I've yet to have issues with it.
InterWebPPC is the latest updated browser afaik. It's not new, but works pretty well. It's not fast though. A bit like browsing with a slug, lol. https://github.com/wicknix/InterWebPPC
Everything is a smoke machine if you operate it wrong enough. Main site deadnet.se
zero cool wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2025 8:20 am
It did indeed start getting shit after that. However, if you're going to venture into PPC Macs and OSX nowadays you really want 10.5 Leopard, because barely any of the available apps work on older versions. It's preferable to completely disable file indexing in the OS though, since it takes up a lot of resources. It's well worth it.
Wifi works perfectly. I've yet to have issues with it.
InterWebPPC is the latest updated browser afaik. It's not new, but works pretty well. It's not fast though. A bit like browsing with a slug, lol. https://github.com/wicknix/InterWebPPC
This right here.
If I were to run Mac OS X, that's probably what I'd stick with. But I agree, the difference from Tiger to Leopard was noticeable, and not in a good way.
I actually thought 10.4 was the last version on ppc. 10.5 might be tolerable, but are they still actually nice? I didn't mind...10.2 or 10.3 (I don't recall which) that I put on my blueberry ibook but it couldn't do anything and the OS was dog slow on 90's hardware.
i have a maxed-out 1.5 GB RAM 1.33ghz A1133 12" 2005 iBook G4 running 10.4.11 on a "SSD" (mSATA to IDE) that i find really enjoyable to even browse with tenfourfox on
i really want a TiBook because i want a laptop that can book OS 9 natively tho
One thing to bear in mind is that all of the Powerbooks, and even MBP's pre-unibody are insanely flimsy, because they made them as thing as possible. Nearly all of them have a bent frame, corner dents, cracked corner trim and so on. So an iBook would be a better pick.
Oh, and the onboard soldered RAM chips seem to like going bad from old age. I fixed that in my Powerbook G4 by desoldering and lifting the power supply pins on the chips. They're really damn neat old machines, but they seem to age sort of like yoghurt. That being said, if you find a working one in decent shape for a good price, just grab it.
The mSATA-IDE SSD mod is a nice one indeed. I did that to mine when the old HDD was failing, and it's a lot quicker.
OSX loves swap when running so little RAM, which in my case meant I couldn't even play an MP3 without stuttering just by moving a window around.
Everything is a smoke machine if you operate it wrong enough. Main site deadnet.se
i once had an A1054 that would only boot if i pressed hard on the left side of the palmrest. there is so much online about it being bad solder joints on one particular power control chip yet no matter how much i reflowed it with a hot air station the damn thing really only ever booted if i choked it. maybe it was into it. i can't judge
(d-d-double post!!!) i've now tried InterWebPPC RR4 with TenFourFoxPEP and i cannot tell much performance improvement over latest TenFourFox, if anything it might be slightly worse. the PEP description makes it sound like it should be leagues faster but it isn't really
A maxed out iBook G4 (extra RAM, SSD, Bluetooth module, SuperDrive) works just great for everything I can throw at it, including web browsing (with a custom-made fork of TenFourFox, which has everything I don't need disabled, like videos, webp, midi, audio). I only use a web browser for browsing text and looking at *mostly* cat pictures.
MacPorts does an amazing job of keeping you updated (if you compile gcc14 the whole world is open, but it will take about 3-4 days to compile), updating X11 via macports gives you access to Pidgin, HexChat, Sylpheed and a bunch of other pretty GUI stuff.
