“Apple usually weeds out a few machines with new versions of OS X, but 10.5 is the first release I’m aware of that will exclude a larger number of machines from being able to run the new OS. For example, my trusty G4 fails to meet the minimum processor requirements — it has enough RAM to run 10.5, but the installer prevents me from installing. I doubt I’ll be alone here,” ‘vorlonwarrior’ reports for macosxhints.
“All is not lost, however, as it is possible to modify the file that checks the machine specs and decides if 10.5 can be installed,” ‘vorlonwarrior’ reports.
The instructions are in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s a bit of a convoluted process and not explained in enough detail as Terminal newbies might like, but, as our old (circa 1999) test Power Mac G4 (AGP) 450MHz, yes, 450MHz, with 1GB RAM, attests: it does work. Have you been successful with installing Leopard on unsupported Macs? If so, please, let us know how did you did it below.
Anyone running this on a Cube?
Installing Leopard on really old Macs makes Lisa cry.
It’s running fine on my PS3
How is performance for those on an upgraded single or dual G4?
any way to install this on an old G3 iBook?
I just attached a a 533 mhz G4 in Firewire mode to my “approved G4” and installed Leopard on it that way, and it works just fine and actually, doesn’t seem to run any slower than Tiger did.
Just installed it on my IIvx. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if it’s working right as I have been waiting 4 days for the login screen.
Over at MacsOnly.com they installed Leopard onto an external firewird drive and used carboncopycloner to transfer it to a Cube. Go to http://www.macsonly.com/arch00710.html to see how they did it.
Clever Torn8o,
I wonder if I could hook up a G4 in Firewire Target mode to my Macbook? It probably wouldn’ t install the right software for the G4 hooked to an Intel Mac. Or does it always install a universal?
The FireWire Target Disk Mode trick only works from PPC-machines. The installer is Universal Binary, but it only installs code for the processor family of the machine it’s booted on.
I haven’ tried it yet, but what if I take the HD and install on an “approved” mac, install the OS then take that same drive and then install into an “unproved” mac?
If the restriction only happens during install, would this still work? Or is there a restriction check at boot as well that needs to be reconfigured?
MDN: AS YOU DELETED MY EARLIER COMMENT I REPEAT IT:
Your annoying pop ads are even more annoying under leopard, as they jump up in separate spaces from the one safari is running in….
MDN has lots of attitude but no style. This site is slow and badly designed.
Just Don’t Do It.™
If Apple has decided to forego the profits from a sale of a Leopard upgrade to you, it has undoubtedly done so because it would Suck Bad on your machine. The author says he has enough RAM to run Leopard, but so what? Is the GPU on his graphics card capable of running enough Core Image filters natively to give satisfactory performance in Spaces and Quartz Extreme? Does Core Video support GPU-accelerated codecs on that card?
If you want to install Leopard on your legacy machine, and don’t care that your experience will probably be Really Really Bad, then go for it.
I must agree that subjecting readers to pop-up ads is uncouth to the max.
Go it running on one of my robotic dogs.
Mac112 is correctly, you can’t do a PowerPC mac from an Intel, the intel macs will only work with GUID partition mode, so you would need a G4, or G5 to do the Firewire Target mode to an unsupported G4. Some people have run into video problems coming out of sleep using this method, but I haven’t run into that issue yet. The 533 isn’t my main computer of course, but it seems to be running just fine for the past few days.
FYI …. quit complainin’ !!
There IS a Pith Helmet made for Safari 3…
Look for it !
Fer crying out loud…
My dual 800 wasn’t supported, so I put it in Firewire target mode, through a cable over to my laptop, then installed it to the “unsupported” Mac’s HD by using the laptop as the source machine.
Slow-my-azzz, Leopard runs as fast (if not FASTER) on the old dually than did Tiger.
Apple should have made the minimum requirement 867MHZ single processor or DUAL 800’s.
@John
I don’t find the site that badly designed, and all you have to do to get rid of the pop-ups is click off “don’t show pop-ups” in the browser preferences.
On the other hand, my Safari installation on Tiger crashes exactly *once* each day and it’s this web site that does it.
Every single day I click on this site and every single day Safari crashes instantly. After restarting, everything is fine, but the first click creates a crash so predictable I often do it *first* just to get it out of the way.
Other than “MDN crashes” though I haven’t crashed Safari for months.
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I shared in another thread yesterday that Leopard installs from the DVD fine onto my daughters emac sing an external DVD drive, but Tiger wouldn’t. Runs great.
Going to install it onto my old G4 400 Sawtooth today just for fun.
I have to agree with the comments about ads and pop ups on MDN. I frequently use an iPod touch to access the site, and it’s a pain in the ass to load. There’s got to be a better way to code this site.
My IIe is much snappier now.
Fortunately Apple allowed me to install iMovie 08 on my lowly Power Mac G5 Dual 1.8 even though the minimum spec on the box was a Power Mac G5 Dual 2.0.
For those that have used Macs for a while, does Apple software typically install (without modifying the Installer package) only on machines that meet the minimum specs? Or does Apple typically allow software to be installed on machines that do not fully support the minimum spec’s (minor differences) as in the case of iLife 08?
Thanks in advance. Have a good weekend.
Peace.
Pop-up ads? What pop-up ads? I never get any and I have my pop-up blocker switched off on Safari
@Jeremy
I have the Block pop-up ads selected and I still get the damn things. I suspect that’s because they are pop-under ads.
And does anyone know what happened to the Fastclick solution to pop-unders? I cannot find it on their site.