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OS X 10.2 vs 10.4 on Quicksilver

LaPorta

Well-known member
Opinions wanted: what are the positives/negatives to running 10.2 vs. 10.4 on this machine? There's a game I believe that will run better in 10.2 on there, but I don't know what I'll be losing by doing so if I'm not on 10.4. Need the OS X experts on this one...
 

Byrd

Well-known member
The sweet spot would be 10.4, the QS has more than enough grunt and 10.2 is too early a release of OSX to work with the breadth of PPC games and applications.
 

MOS8_030

Well-known member
10.4 Tiger was the first version of OSX that was actually usable.
I too would recommend it over any earlier release.
I can't imagine anything that would run better on 10.2 vs. 10.4.
 

volvo242gt

Well-known member
10.4.11 would be what I would run. Not the newest that'll run on a PowerMac, of course, but it still has the Classic environment available, so you don't have to dual boot if you want to run something like Color Super Tetris, etc... It's actually pretty decent even on my G3/400...
 

LaPorta

Well-known member
It’s funny how everyone recalls things differently…I remember going from 10.1 to 10.2 felt like the first truly usable system on my iMac G4.
 

kitsunesoba

Well-known member
It’s funny how everyone recalls things differently…I remember going from 10.1 to 10.2 felt like the first truly usable system on my iMac G4.
Same here. On the little 400Mhz G3 Summer 2000 iMac I was using at the time Jaguar was a remarkable improvement over either of the two previous versions. 10.1 was so minor that it probably could've been a point update for 10.0, mainly just addressing some of 10.0's crashiness. In comparison, 10.2 felt much more snappy and well-rounded.

As far as resource consumption goes, I don't think 10.2 and 10.4 are all that different. That same 400Mhz G3 ran 10.4 pretty well despite only having 128MB/256MB of RAM. It couldn't do Quartz Extreme with its Rage 128 Pro, but that's not going to be an issue with a Quicksilver which can have its GPU upgraded to something much more beefy (if it isn't already equipped with a QE capable card).

The only reasons I can think of for running 10.2 over 10.4 for a Quicksilver would be maybe if Classic is important, since apparently Jaguar's version is better than Tiger's in a few ways, or maybe if your application needs aren't too demanding and you prefer Jaguar's aesthetics (personally, I like 10.2/10.3's version of Aqua better than 10.4's) but in 10.4 you can change themes reasonably easily.
 

Unknown_K

Well-known member
10.3.x is where I draw the line at usable, but mostly for slower G3's with slow low VRAM video cards.
 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
QuickSilver should run 10.2 fine. If your primary purpose is running software that does run on 10.2 and you don't have it elsewhere and/or You Just Want To, there's no downsides at all to 10.2 on this hardware.

As per my usual advice: try it and see what you think. There's lots more software and much more modern and convenient software for 10.4, but, also, you can just slam a SATA card in these and do a mega multiboot setup where you split a 2tb drive several ways and still end up with partitions 2-5x the size of the stock disk.

Vintage Computing, as a hobby, isn't always about picking what was best -- it can be about picking what you think will be fun, or just having fun poking around, or seeing what was realistic or common. It's one of the reasons I tend to post so much about "no bad Macs" these days.

The affect won't be The Same as if you were there, for lots of reasons, but a QuickSilver would be a great machine to step through all the different versions of OS X that run on it.

My first version of OS X was 10.2 on a TiBook/1000 and then I used every version until 10.4 on that Mac, and 10.4/5 on my Core2 iMac, skipped 10.6 at home (but ran it on hackintoshes and at work) then bought my '11 Mac mini with 10.7, which I stepped through all the way to 10.13, and the changes over the years and the different points at which (in retrospect, at least) Eras Had Changed can be fun.
 

LaPorta

Well-known member
Thanks, Cory. That's a great perspective. I may throw another disk in there. As you mentioned, I already have a 1 TB partitioned in there, and I have space on the original bus for one more, so, why not?
 

CC_333

Well-known member
10.2 vs. 10.4
Several years ago, I encountered a strange, rare exception where 10.2 was genuinely better than subsequent versions, but it had a catch.

I found an RTMac (for digitizing analog video, such as that found on a VHS tape or LaserDisc), and it included a home-burned disk with some updated drivers. However, the latest one on the disk, 4.0, is only compatible with 10.2 and FCP 3.

The machine I was trying to use it with (an MDD) is otherwise compatible, but I had upgraded it with a good, hardware-based Core Image capable video card so I could enjoy 10.4 to its fullest, so the catch was that I had to somehow make the card work as is on 10.2, as I didn't want to downgrade anything and lose out on my 10.4 experience (I wanted to dual boot both). I lucked out, as the particular card I used had 10.2 drivers, but they were unique to the G5-specific build of 10.2.7, so to make it work on my G4, I had to somehow find a copy of an early 10.2.7 install DVD for a first generation G5 and extract the drivers from it. I eventually did, and I managed to get the mess working so I could use my new RTMac properly, but what a chore!

There once existed a version 4.1 of the RTMac drivers which would eliminate much of this problem, allowing one to use FCP 4.x on Mac OS X up to 10.3.x or early 10.4.x, but it has apparently gone extinct, as I couldn't find it anywhere, and the one place that may have had it (Matrox, I think), apparently excised it from their servers and neglected to fix the download page accordingly, because the link is a dead end.

c
 

mdeverhart

Well-known member
One other point in favor of 10.2 is that it includes support for AFP over AppleTalk as well as over TCP/IP, so classic Macs running earlier systems (especially 6-7.1) can connect to file shares using a stock installation. Later versions restricted and removed support.

On 10.2 you do need to enable AppleTalk support in the NetInfo Manager first, but after that it’s straightforward.

More info here: http://www.applefool.com/se30/#afpnetwork
 

LaPorta

Well-known member
So I took @mdeverhart 's advice regarding AppleTalk. With finagling, I got it to work as per his post. I now have a clone of my Mac Archive on my d2 FW800 drive hooked to my Quicksilver running 10.2 With AppleTalk enabled, I can get my IIfx to connect to it with System 7.1 (oddly, the Quicksilver sees, but can't connect, to the IIfx). I will have to try my SE with System 6 as well. The bonus is if I use any machine to, say, image a new floppy or something, I can save it to the Archive clone over the network. Then, my Mac Mini server running 10.12 with my RAID drive (which holds the real archive), has ChronoSync on it and I made a workflow to do a bidirectional sync between the clone and it. This way, any new images I make will be backed up to the RAID, and any new software I may have added to the RAID via the garden or something will be synced to the clone. Now, finally, all of my machines, from System 6 up to macOS 12 can all see and use all the archived software I have.

Thanks veyr much for all the info!
 

mdeverhart

Well-known member
Sounds like a great setup, glad you got it working! I should set up something similar - right now my (small) archive is split between my Synology and my iBook G3 bridge machine (running 10.2).
 

chillin

Well-known member
I always wanted to eventually run Jaguar Server because I heard it could be configured to netboot and provide services to Classic Macs.
 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
Mac OS X Server 10.2/3/4 can all be configured as NetBoot hosts. Newer versions of OS X Server are, in my experience, easier to manage and run on newer machines which are both faster, usually have better storage/networking, and sometimes cheaper.

NetBoot, on Macs, and what these versions of the OS can support, is only for NewWorld Macs, and so can only boot the iMac/233 and newer. If that's what you're thinking of, I wrote a super brief primer on NetBoot here.

If I'm remembering right -- some network booting code has been found in various things pre-newWorld but it was never productized and as far as I know nobody's gotten it running, yet. When/if they do get that running, stock OS X Server (and in fact OS X server at all) likely won't be able to run whatever gets built.

You don't need Mac OS X Server for just file sharing, however. I'm tempted to say I'd recommend against OS X Server for just file services, as well, because "Easy Mode" wasn't really added until OS X Server 10.5, so you're jumping into a product Apple was aiming higher than where ASIP had been before. (It's fine, but there is a learning curve that's steeper than for plain file sharing in the client version of the OS, so, for whatever that's worth.)

To add to the comments about using 10.2 as a bridge machine: 10.3 should also be able to file share to AppleTalk-only Macs (Regardless of whether the AppleTalk is on LocalTalk or Ethernet wiring) and 10.4 can share AppleShare IP (so as far back as 7.5.x and newer w/ OpenTransport and AppleShare updates, possibly 7.1 if you extract the 7.5.x OT+AS updates by hand, and as new as macos 11, that I've tested.)

The main logistical advantages of newer versions of the OS are, again, newer hardware, faster storage, and bigger volumes, 16TB for 10.3/4/5, bigger for 10.6+. If most of your collection can run 7.5+ then standardizing on 10.4 for most things also has the benefit of running on cheap early Intel Mac minis and in virtual machines.

(The QS and QS'02 can run 10.2/3/4 and arguably 5 very well, my points about logistics are more for anybody else considering running a Mac OS X Server machine as a bridge. I should probably get some of the media and look into writing up guides on how to do a couple things with a few different server OSes, including shoring up my unfinished guide on ASIP6.)

All that said: You can use Netatalk 2 to host files for vintage Macs as well, so using a slightly newer vintage Mac to do it is a style choice, basically.
 

LaPorta

Well-known member
My setup may be somewhat unique in that I am using it incidentally to share files. It’s primary purpose is to allow me to play those games in the 2001-2004 range well. The 10.2 downgrade was just so I could squeak the networking between my mini server and machines down to System 6 at the same time as being able to play the games.
 

slipperygrey

Well-known member
[...]

To add to the comments about using 10.2 as a bridge machine: 10.3 should also be able to file share to AppleTalk-only Macs (Regardless of whether the AppleTalk is on LocalTalk or Ethernet wiring) and 10.4 can share AppleShare IP (so as far back as 7.5.x and newer w/ OpenTransport and AppleShare updates, possibly 7.1 if you extract the 7.5.x OT+AS updates by hand, and as new as macos 11, that I've tested.)

The main logistical advantages of newer versions of the OS are, again, newer hardware, faster storage, and bigger volumes, 16TB for 10.3/4/5, bigger for 10.6+. If most of your collection can run 7.5+ then standardizing on 10.4 for most things also has the benefit of running on cheap early Intel Mac minis and in virtual machines.

(The QS and QS'02 can run 10.2/3/4 and arguably 5 very well, my points about logistics are more for anybody else considering running a Mac OS X Server machine as a bridge. I should probably get some of the media and look into writing up guides on how to do a couple things with a few different server OSes, including shoring up my unfinished guide on ASIP6.)

All that said: You can use Netatalk 2 to host files for vintage Macs as well, so using a slightly newer vintage Mac to do it is a style choice, basically.
I can confirm that 7.1 can be tricked to use AFP over TCP, if you manually copy over a compatible AppleShare extension.

Also, +1 for running Netatalk 2.2.x on a modern Linux or *BSD system. While it was a pain to get the 2.2 codebase to compile on a modern Linux distro (I have a bunch of upstream patches pending in the github project) it has been a game changer for serving my local archive of Mac software to my fleet of vintage Macs. I have it running in parallel with RaSCSI on a mid-range Raspberry Pi, which is perfectly adequate for low to moderate use.

This is just to chime in and say that you don't have be tied to particular legacy OSX versions to achieve a highly performant AFP file server. :)
 

LaPorta

Well-known member
That is great that you can do that with 7.1. That means that 10.4 could work with this. For me, however, that precludes using a system running 6.0.8.
 

slipperygrey

Well-known member
That is great that you can do that with 7.1. That means that 10.4 could work with this. For me, however, that precludes using a system running 6.0.8.
FWIW, a Netatalk 2 AFP share works perfectly with System 6.0.x as long as your (Linux) kernel has the appletalk module loaded, and Netatalk compiled and configured to enable DDP support.
 

LaPorta

Well-known member
I appreciate that. I was trying to work that way back when, but I ran into a major issue (with A2SERVER): it could not map its root directory to a real drive. My Mac mini RAID drive is an 18 TB monster that has everything I have on it. I wanted to have the A2SERVER share a directory on it, but it will only map to its virtual drives. This precluded me from ever using A2SERVER much, since it would require me to have a duplicate setup.

I am interested in seeing if 10.3 will allow 7.1 to connect to it with the proper extensions though. I have been having issues with games on 10.2 because it is so old, and also with the USB PCI card that I have in there as well. I was hoping 10.3 would fix that.
 
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