In July of 2000, Apple released the Power Mac G4 Cube, a powerful work of art. Originally running Mac OS 9, it held up well with iterations of OS X. In October of 2007, Apple released Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Although one was created seven years after the other, I believe they were meant to be together. This weekend, I spent upwards of ten hours trying to get Leopard to run on a G4 Cube.
Apple states that the system requirements for Leopard are a Macintosh with a 867 MHz G4 processor and 512 Megabytes of RAM. My Cube meets one of those requirements, but not the other. When the Leopard Installer is booted on an unsupported system, it refuses to run the install process.
Specs of the Cube:
Machine Name: Power Mac G4 Cube
CPU Speed: 450 MHz
Memory: 640 MB
Graphics Card: ATI Rage 128 Pro, 16MB
From my research, I discovered two different methods to accomplish the task:
1. Patch an Install DVD to boot and install from [link]. This option removes the file that checks the system requirements.
2. Run some commands in Open Firmware and boot from a standard Install DVD [link]. This option has the system’s Open Firmware trick the installer in to thinking that the computer is fast enough to pass the system requirements.
I chose the second option. Unfortunately, after three separate attempts at the install, I realized that my Install DVD, which previously functioned fine, was corrupt. Eventually, I fixed the issue, and installed Leopard.
If there’s a word to describe the user experience of Leopard on the G4 Cube, it is slow. It simply isn’t usable. Apps launched and clicks registered, but anything involving graphics was awful. Unfortunately, everything in Leopard involves heavy graphics card use. In Tiger, for example, applications bouncing in the dock would be smooth. In Leopard, no such luck. Everything that was previously smooth is choppy.
It hurts me, but I’m rolling back to Tiger on the Cube. It’s evident to me now that Apple set the requirements for Leopard not by CPU speed, but by graphics card. It was a fun experiment, though.
Putting Leppy on an old comp would be like puttin me in a XL Leppy T-Shirt: doesn’t quite fit, looks ugly, and nothing works the way it’s supposed to.
Yeah, the Rage 128 will hold you back. But my cube has a Radeon 7500 and a 1.2Ghz CPU upgrade and Leopard installs & runs just fine on it. So you could always look at doing those upgrades.
Thanks for the report. I did an installation as well. I placed the HD from the Cube into an enclosure. Then I used my wife’s G5 to do the install to the HD. Once the OS was on the drive I placed it back into the Cube. Everything booted fine. The OS is slow without an unsupported videocard. My card is Quartz Extreme compatible, but not Core Image compatible. I suspect that a lot of Finder stuff is CI needy.
It is possible that an Nvidia 6200 card would fix these issues, but such cards are costly at about $100 via eBay.
S
I’m running 10.5.2 on a Cube with a stock 450MHz processor, a 160GB 7200RPM HDD, 1GB RAM and a GeForce 6200. All the applications that I use frequently – Safari, Mail, Office v.X, iTunes 7.6, iPhoto 5, Preview, Quick Look, Time Machine, and Front Row – work fine. The old G4 with the 1MB cache runs daily apps better than my old 800MHz G3 iBook running Panther (and which can’t run Leopard).
The cost for my Cube hardware upgrades for Leopard? $50-HDD, $35-RAM, $75-Flashed GeForce 6200… for a grand total of $160.
And while I’m sure that a new Mac Pro really has ~24x the processing power, how much does one need for email, browsing, word processing and multimedia playback?
Can anyone here tell me how the upgraded there processor and graphics for the G4 cube as im trying to find a different graphics card that will fit to run leopard.
Thanks
Max – I recommend signing up for the G4 Cube mailing list at http://themacintoshguy.com/lists/MacCube.html to pose your question. I don’t have any real experience modding cubes, but these guys do.
I upgraded my Cube to a 60GB 7200rpm drive. I also added more RAM. I put in 2x 512MB PC133 sticks. (says OK in About My Mac) and should down rev to PC100.
I would like to put a better graphic card in. Is there some list to go by? Eventually running Leopard would be good..
I also am interested in how the CPU upgrade works out…is that a whole new motherboard that some third party makes? combo cpu/board?
I am about to install iLife 08 on my Cube. My Cube right now runs Tiger 10.4.7 (i think thats the latest one).
My main issue right now is iPhones. I have a 1st Gen iPhone that I am trying to sync with iTunes and it mostly works but if you dont connect it a certain way, you get the message saying there is an error. A few times last night, the system crashed and a backtrace popped up asking it to send to Apple and made me reset the box.
Anyone have experience with an iPhone on a G4 Cube running Tiger? How did it go? Anything special to get it to work properly? Any trouble? Thanks!
Robbie – Those sound like nice upgrades! Did you get the RAM for cheap? Last time I checked, the PC133 or PC100 sticks are expensive.
In terms of CPU upgrades, the G4 Cube mailing list at themacintoshguy is the best place to ask the upgrade gurus for help – http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/cube
The problem with syncing an iPhone with it is that the Cube only use USB 1.1 and not USB 2.
My cube is now running Tiger, 10.4.11, and works as a server. It’s great.