Hey Guys,

I finally broke down and upgraded to a Strawberry iMac 333. It is currently running its original SSW: Mac OS 8.6. Man, that's so 1998! I would like to put at least 10.0.4 on it, but I'm not sure about whether it "has the guts*" to use 10.0.4. I think it's got 64 MB of RAM, and at least 6 GB of hard disk space.

Any software upgrade ideas?


* This is meant literally. For instance, if the hardware requirements live up to Apple's specs.

You can run 10.2 comfortably on it, 10.3 with enough RAM, but I dunno about 10.4

Yea, go for 10.2 it will run much better on the imac than 10.0.4. I have manged to run 10.3 on a 233 imac with 96 mb ram. Used it as a server for some time, so don't really know about the performance of the user-interface...

With enough RAM you should be able to run just about anything on it. The only catch is you won't be able to run the Tiger installer on it, since it doesn't have Firewire. It's possible to get it running on a machine that old, just a pain to get in installed on the Hard Disc. That's discussed at some length in this thread.

I currently run 10.3 on my iBook (a 366) and my iMac (a 400), and am pleased with how well they run.

I'd say max out the RAM (or put as much as you can afford it in), and go for a bigger hard disc. Then install whatever version of the OS you have, and prefer (I'd say go for 10.3, I like it LOADS more than older releases of OSX).

Good luck.

Always keep one thing in mind when running/installing OS X. os x LOVES ram. You can never have enough of it. if you can get 2 256 meg chips in there, It will probably triple your overall prformance. I'm sure you know what your doing with these machines, but they are a pain in the @$$ to work on, so this guide: http://www.macworld.com/2001/10/bc/howtoimac/ may help. If you have it, once and if you do the ram upgrade, 10.3 will run great on that ol' workhorse.
-Jeff

OSX should run okay on it unless you plan on running any video or graphics programs. I should
just fine for word processing and internet. Just buy as much ram as you can afford. Shoot for
at least 256mb. I think you can get by with that. Your hard drive will fill fast so replace it if
you can. Go to Best Buy or OfficeMax or a store like that and buy an 80gb hd for $30.
-maestro

Im running 10.3.9 on a 350mhz slot loader. with 512Mb of ram and a 40Gb hdd, runs Fine the extra dock affects dont run to well tho...

i second the idea of a second harddrive...
being a photographer, i like to have multiple back ups
i have a 200gb western digital in a usb2 case with everything, including a bootable partition that i update ever 3 weeks, and i make dvd back ups of all my work and documents
on a weeky basis.