Powerbook G4 Dilema

Cheator · Oct 13, 2007

Hey all.

I got a powerbook G4 for a neighbour. They didn't want to pay the repair cost to fix it so I did it. The harddrive had died so I replaced with with a new one (it was tedious work for sure).

Anyway, now that I have it up, I want to get mac osx on it, but the guy can't find the discs for Tiger! He had a copy of his disc lying around but it was a no go. I have the first CD of tiger nowbut I need at lest 1 more and I can't find one!

I've even tried all the PPC distros I could find but none of them support this airport extreme and I am sick of trying to get it to work.

Does anyone have any ideas? I don't have any mac friends around so I can't just borrow a disc. And i don't want to buy ANOTHER copy of an OS i already have a license for technically. Is there a really cheap version somewhere?

HaTE · Oct 13, 2007

have you tried contacting apple to see if they'll send/sell you new cd's

aja · Oct 13, 2007

Yeah I would contact apple.

I know what you are feeling like right now. It was supposed to be a simple favour, now it seems to take up all your time - that was me a few weeks ago...

benbaked · Oct 13, 2007

They're probably going to have to buy a new copy of the OS for $129 (unless you can find it cheaper like ebay or something).

Best bet, if they can wait, would have them buy a copy of OS X Leopard when it comes out at the end of this month.

ihrsetrdr · Oct 13, 2007

@Cheator, Same situation here, except with an ibook G3; just a few days ago I put Ubuntu 6.10(ppc) on the ibook. Everything(including the Airport card )works great!

Before putting Ubuntu on the ibook, I had won an ebay auction for a set of OS X10.2 CD's(still haven't received CDs) but Ubuntu works sooo good on the ibook, I just can't see fixin' it if it ain't broke.

Cheator · Oct 13, 2007

ihrsetrdr said:
@Cheator, Same situation here, except with an ibook G3; just a few days ago I put Ubuntu 6.10(ppc) on the ibook. Everything(including the Airport card )works great!

Before putting Ubuntu on the ibook, I had won an ebay auction for a set of OS X10.2 CD's(still haven't received CDs) but Ubuntu works sooo good on the ibook, I just can't see fixin' it if it ain't broke.

How much did you win them for?

Yeah the iBook G3s (I had one) use Airport. I have Airport Extreme (B and G) which uses the broadcom bcm43xx module. I have the same chipset on my acer and it is HELL to even try to get to work, and I never could. So I need OSX

Cheator · Oct 13, 2007

HaTE said:
have you tried contacting apple to see if they'll send/sell you new cd's

Damn. Forgot about the multi-quote.

Anyway, would apple send them to me?

ihrsetrdr · Oct 13, 2007

Cheator said:
How much did you win them for?

Yeah the iBook G3s (I had one) use Airport. I have Airport Extreme (B and G) which uses the broadcom bcm43xx module. I have the same chipset on my acer and it is HELL to even try to get to work, and I never could. So I need OSX

I paid $9.99 plus $8.00(s&h+ins) for Jaguar. For 10.4.xx expect to pay between $30 and $50, plus shipping.

VinnyTAMU · Oct 13, 2007

ihrsetrdr said:
I paid $9.99 plus $8.00(s&h+ins) for Jaguar. For 10.4.xx expect to pay between $30 and $50, plus shipping.

How does Apple keep track of the licences for OSX? If I were to buy a copy thru ebay and the person who sold me the copy never uninstalled, would apple know when I went to install OSX?

ihrsetrdr · Oct 13, 2007

VinnyTAMU said:
How does Apple keep track of the licences for OSX? If I were to buy a copy thru ebay and the person who sold me the copy never uninstalled, would apple know when I went to install OSX?

I don't know, I'm pretty new to Apple products but I've 'heard' from Mac enthusiasts that Apple is "not like Microsoft". What that means, I'm not sure. The one thing I do know is: Mac owners are pretty possessive of their software disks; they'll sell you their old machine, but seldom include the OS X disks.

Edit: Here's Apple Computer's OS X Software Agreement; I still don't know if OS X "phones home" or not; it appears that Apple has not(yet) made the decision to treat it's customers like criminals, unlike a certain software company we know, based in Redmond, Wa.

Cheator · Oct 13, 2007

Hm. Well i will look on ebay for some cheap sales. Thanks for the info. It sucks that linux doesn't work out of the box with this damned chipset. Its like its haunting me. First with my laptop, now a mac.

ihrsetrdr · Oct 14, 2007

Cheator said:
Hm. Well i will look on ebay for some cheap sales. Thanks for the info. It sucks that linux doesn't work out of the box with this damned chipset. Its like its haunting me. First with my laptop, now a mac.

I consider myself very lucky, in this instance. I sorely needed a 'victory' with this laptop; been wrestling with it for several weeks. It has the dreaded video chip Ball Grid Array micro-fracture problem that was so widespread with the G3(and some G4) ibooks. I shimmed it, to put pressure on the video chip and thus close the fractures. I don't consider this to be a permanent solution, but every day that the laptop works properly is a good day.

Cheator · Oct 14, 2007

ihrsetrdr said:
I consider myself very lucky, in this instance. I sorely needed a 'victory' with this laptop; been wrestling with it for several weeks. It has the dreaded video chip Ball Grid Array micro-fracture problem that was so widespread with the G3(and some G4) ibooks. I shimmed it, to put pressure on the video chip and thus close the fractures. I don't consider this to be a permanent solution, but every day that the laptop works properly is a good day.

Huh. Dude that sucks. I had an iBook clamshell, way before those problems. I was lucky i guess

ihrsetrdr · Oct 14, 2007

VinnyTAMU said:
How does Apple keep track of the licences for OSX? If I were to buy a copy thru ebay and the person who sold me the copy never uninstalled, would apple know when I went to install OSX?

My take: Both Apple and Microsoft require the original purchaser to uninstall the operating system before ownership is transferred, that's part of the contractual agreement. With XP activation~reactivation, the only thing that appears to be tracked is the number of times the activation is requested, probably for a given time period. A couple years ago I bought an XP pro disk off ebay; I've reinstalled it a couple of times, and have always had to call India. I'm guessing that there may be a "lifetime cap" on the numbers of reinstalls. I'm betting that the XP pro disk I bought must have been used to install XP on a great many machines.

Moto7451 · Oct 14, 2007

Actually in Apple's case the license is linked to the computer as opposed to MS who links the software to the person. Apple doesn't require you to uninstall the software.

http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macosx104.pdf

OS X EULA said:
2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.
A. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time, and you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time. If you use Setup Assistant to transfer software from one Apple-labeled computer to another Apple-labeled computer, please remember that continued use of the original copy of the software may be prohibited once a copy has been transferred to another computer, unless you already have a licensed copy of such software on both computers. You should check the relevant software license agreements for applicable terms and conditions. You may make one copy of the Apple Software (excluding the Boot ROM code) in machine-readable form for backup purposes only; provided that the backup copy must include all copyright or other proprietary notices contained on the original.

Apple OS X Eula said:
3. Transfer. You may not rent, lease, lend, redistribute or sublicense the Apple Software. You may, however, make a one-time permanent transfer of all of your license rights to the Apple Software (in its original form as provided by Apple) to another party, provided that: (a) the transfer must include all of the Apple Software, including all its component parts, original media, printed materials and this License; (b) you do not retain any copies of the Apple Software, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage device; and (c) the party receiving the Apple Software reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of this License. You may not rent, lease, lend, redistribute, sublicense or transfer any Apple Software that has been modified or replaced under Section 2B above. All components of the Apple Software are provided as part of a bundle and may not be separated from the bundle and distributed as standalone applications.

Because of this it's perfectly fine to sell the computer with the OS on it to another person. Also because OS X has no serial number and doesn't phone home to Apple like Windows does with WPA.

Basically, so long as you have a license for each copy of OS X, Apple doesn't care in particular how it's installed (i.e. transferring from one computer's HD to another as in part 2). To this end, seeing as the laptop does have a licensed copy of the OS, just not the applications disc, any old 10.4 disc will be legal to use

.

Cheator · Oct 14, 2007

Yeah. Well i gota get my hands on one. A friend made a copy of his old one but it doesn't boot for some reason. I'll have to track down a friend with one :/

slaytalera · Oct 14, 2007

i had to replace my ibook g4's HD awhile back and called to see how much it was to get a copy of the OS that came with it(panther i believe). they wanted $80 for it. i hung up went out and got tiger for 130 i think from newegg. unfortunantly it doesnt come with the iLife suite, which is another $70

Powerbook G4 Dilema

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