The annoying world of the iMac and Mac OS 8 updates NEWBIE!

[XDelusion]

My friend offered to sell me his old 233 Mhz iMac with 32Mb of RAM for cheap, and I thought I had talked myself out of buying it until my dual AMD PC died on my today.

No I am stuck using this piece of crap and am also stuck with OS 8.1 which, as fate would have it has NO support what so ever!

My first problem is the CD-ROM, it does not like Burned CD's at ALL, can I just pop that piece of crap out an put in a 52X IDE burner in in its place or is it a Sony Paystation story where you have to fork out A LOT of money to buy a company brand burner from Apple?

My second problem is how in the heck do I install Mandrake Linux on this, it will not boot off the CD, infact when I look at the contents of the CD's it looks kinda like you got to install that crap by hand, if that is the case, then forget it, I'm not a Linux nerd, I was ease of use (is that so hard to ask?).

My third and most troubling question is how do I update from OS 8.1 to 8.6? I thought updates were supposed to be free till OS 9, but it seems like I got to fork out $50 bucks or more for an obsolete OS, WTF!?!?

Forth question, if I really do have to fork out cash for a crappy Mac OS then forget it, what "good" browsers, FTP, Overnet, and IRC programs work with 8.1, and are there any good pages with FREE stuff to download. I'm poor, and I miss the free world of the PC and Amiga. :/

[XDelusion]

Oh yes, I also could use Samba and Wheel Mouse drivers for my Logitech Optical mouse ( all 3 buttons act the same right now) if anyone can help with that too.

 Sorry if I sound like a Mac virgin, but I pretty much am.

 As for browsers, I sadly have to admit that IE 5 works real good on here, and so far no pop ups?!!? Amazing!

[XDelusion]

Ok, I have "aquired" that bloated POS that we call Mac OS 8.5, so I am a step ahead of this horrible game.

 My new question is this:

How do I assign certain programs to certain file types. I.E. When I download a MP3 file in iCab, it ends up with an iCab icon, and when I double click on it, it opens iCab and makes a copy of the file.

I downloaded a Mp3 player, but it will not let me load the Mp3 files, except that random few that will download and not get a iCab icon.

Mac is on Crack!





Now for a short rant. Ok so PPC is better than pIntel, but Winblows blows Mac OS away! I had a PC with the same CPU speed and Ram as this Mac and Winblows 98 ran faster, and did not run out of RAM every five seconds while merely browsing the web. On top of that Winblows did not lock up and randomly begin to close programs because I ran out of RAM (where did it all go!!!). Another thing, with a PC I can hit the reset switch if I did crash, on the Mac, you got to unplug the thing.

 I'll never understand Mac users, let alone PC users, but now at least the PC makes more sence.

Amiga still rules! Too bad we can't have MorphOS or AROS on this iMac, then the hardware would actually shine!!!

[XDelusion]

Somebody PMed me a while back offering to sell me some upgrades for this system at a fair price, but I deleted his PM's when I thought I was no longer going to buy this Mac. I regeret that now! :/


 Anyhow if I wanted to run OSX on here I'd have to fork out a LOT of money, and would have to have that 600 some Mhz G4 upgrade with the fire wire and all. Even more RAM is not cheap because you can not use standard RAM, you have to buy iMac specific RAM, and I am poor. Someday....

 And even though OSX fixes a lot of my problems it is SLOOOOOOOWWWWWW and bulky just like our pal Linux when you want to run a decent GUI on top of it. But I guess I got to make that move some day if I wanna stop crashing.

 So can someone help me with my problems without suggesting I upgrade, cause I can't right now. :/

[XDelusion]

NT for PPC, ya good suggestion. Only...

...no software.

Your not going insane, it's just that there is no AROS or MorphOS for this hardware, that's all. What are we to do, sell out?!?! :/