DCEmulation

Yesterday, I got a free iMac G4. It's one of the older revisions, with an 800MHz CPU and a 15" (non-widescreen) display. It's got 512MB RAM, an 80GB hard drive, an AirPort card, and a DVD burner.

It's currently running Tiger (man, I'd forgotten how clean and fast Tiger is), but I'd really like to get Leopard on it. I *know* Leopard doesn't run nearly as well, particularly on a G4, but there are some OS features in Leopard that we'd really like to have on there. Plus, both of our laptops are running Leopard, so it makes synchronicity much easier.

First off: does anybody have a copy of Leopard they don't need any more? Or know where I can get a copy at little/no cost?

Second: I seem to recall something about it checking the system specs. This machine should be up to spec except for the clock speed. How can I get around this? It and our other two computers are all connected wirelessly via a Time Capsule (though I do have ethernet cables if need be), and both of our other computers are Intel-based (a MacBook and a MacBook Pro).

I tried running Leopard on my 21" 1.25Ghz G4, and it was painfully slow. I would highly advise against doing so on a slower G4.

In my experience, anything older/slower than a G5 shouldn't run Leopard. AFAIK, if you update the Airport Utility, Tiger should be able to read the Time Capsule as a hard drive over wifi. You'll have to run a separate backup application in Tiger if you want to backup that computer.

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