Mac Mini G4...throw it away or keep it?

[gaula92]

Since the Amiga OS 4.0 - Moana fiasco (you win, f**ng wimps who didn't want it to spread: Amiga OS 4 won't show anything readable in my mini, just boots and shows currupt screen even with the fixed "safe" radeon driver), I am seriously thinking on selling this machine.

It's actually a pretty useless computer, since it doesn't have an AMIGA-like OS I like: Mac OSX CRAWS in this one, it's sticky and awfull, and mantaining Gentoo up-to-date is more than I can afford. Amiga OS 4.0 will never happen (SAM440..yes...you can wait until I'll invest in PowerPC hardware again, heh), and it's likely that Morphos will never be released for the PPC Mini by now (it was shown more than a year ago, and no Morphos for Mini has been released in any tagible form, so I suspect it's another Moana case).

So, what's your advice, guys? What should I do with this dust collector? A shame as it seems, it won't take me back to the Amiga dream. Are those things worth any money?

[HammerD]

You will probably never see Amiga OS 4.x on it, but it has been announced that MorphOS will be available for the Mac Mini.  Maybe you want to keep it for that.

[Matt_H]

Hold out for MorphOS.

[amiga_3k]

Throw very hard my way, then I will take good care of it :-).

[Wol]

@gaula92


Yeh, Iv'e got one of those, I had the same problem..

I ripped it open and put 1Gb ram in it, it improved it
a great deal, but still not prefect tho.


My Amiga still feels 100 times faster ;-)


Wol..
 

[nine3o]

So, what's your advice, guys? What should I do with this dust collector? A shame as it seems, it won't take me back to the Amiga dream. Are those things worth any money?

Keep it.  Once MOS is released for it, the price for a G4 Mac Mini with rise, and you will regret it in the end.  Mind you they still fetch a pretty good price in Craigslist and so forth.

I could not wait any longer for MOS (and I needed some extra cash) so I sold my G4 for $420 CAD, considering I purchased it used 2 years ago for $500 that tells you that there is still a demand for them.

Also, if you have a faster 2.5" hard drive than the one in there (most likely a 4200RPM drive) it will increase performance quite  a bit.  I threw in a 160gig 7200 drive in mine and was a great machine, did not find it bog slow at all running Leopard.

[da9000]

For starters: put some fscking RAM in it! With 1GB my Mac Mini runs just fine with Leopard! You've probably got the stock 256MB, right?

EDIT: as nine3o said: add a faster hard drive. I did the 7200 RPM hookup as well. Of course if you have cash there's always SSD...

For afterwards: stick with it for MorphOS. It must be really sweet on the Mini (from what I've seen and read)! And you surely ain't going to find another such small and nice device to run MorphOS other than the Mac Mini.

For last: throw it my way if you're gonna throw it, as the previous poster said. It'll take real good care of it! :-) And one more hint: make a "carputer" out of it. It can easily fit in a car and provide all the entertainment you'd want OR setup FrontRow on it and use it in your living room. It's an awesome media box!

[Zac67]

I'd be glad to relieve you of this burden...  ;-)

Actually I've just resurrected an old PowerMac 9500 (nearly as old as the last A4000Ts) I got for close to free with an absolutely fantastic Sonnet Crescendo G4 1 GHz ($99). Also having expanded the RAM to 248 MB, OS X (10.2) runs pretty well on this ancient machine. Could use a bit more RAM, but for my fooling with OS X and BSD it's quite enough (the Mach32 graphics sucks though).

A Mac Mini should run pretty nicely - if low on RAM, just throw it some more, it's nearly free nowadays.

[gaula92]

I did, guys; I added more ram to this little box: it has 1GB actually, but MAC OS 10.4 still feels slow as hell (compared to my Amiga 1200 or a well-optimized Gentoo Linux, wich has about the same speed feeling: click and open, click and use..I ONLY use really responsible oses, and 10.X isn't remotely as responsive as Amiga or Gentoo).

I thought MOS wasn't gonna be reeased for the mini, at least in version 2.x... I think it was announce A LOT time ago, and knowing other cases like this in the Amiga/Amigalike past...hmm...I want to believe, but...
Oh, if this thing could boot MAc os 9.x natively...but it sadly can't, and that leaves out A LOT of Amiga-like fun, too...

Well, let's wait and see, but...

Oh, and thanks for your opinions!

[darksun9210]

i'd keep it, ( or as others have suggested, post it to them :-D ) but don't throw it away...

hmmm, i wonder if ebay have any on at the moment....

[spirantho]

Don't know what you're doing wrong then because Leopard runs just fine on my 1.25GHz 1GB RAM MacMini. Sure it's definitely not as responsive as my Miggy, but it's not much slower than most Windoze boxes I've used (in terms of responsiveness).

Maybe stick a faster hard disk in it?

[gaula92]

Yes, well, it IS more responsible than Windoze boxes, but then again Windoze is the most unresponsible thing on earth and I just CAN'T stand it.
Anyway, is Leopard faster than Tiger? (Yes, in nature I KNOW it is...I mean in a MAC Mini! ) More responsive? Just for curiosity: I am not gonna buy it, if MOS is ever coming out, that's what my mac will have.

[Painkiller]

You should really save it for MOS.  It is something that is actually going to happen.

[Zero]

gaula92 wrote:
Anyway, is Leopard faster than Tiger? (Yes, in nature I KNOW it is...I mean in a MAC Mini! ) More responsive? Just for curiosity: I am not gonna buy it, if MOS is ever coming out, that's what my mac will have.

I don't have a Mac Mini, but my Mac is of similar spec, it's an G4 1.25ghz,(Single CPU), Quicksilver MDD, (2003), with 1gb of RAM.

Leopard on here runs much better than Tiger did.
In fact I use this system all the time, I prefer it over my P4 2.93ghz PC with 1.5gb RAM running XP, and the speed between the two is not that different.
The PC is slightly faster, but the Mac is much smoother in use, if that makes any sense!!!

 
 :-D

[persia]

1) There are millions of these thing out there, the available of both Mos and OS4 won't change the price of them 5 cents.
2( Leopard is, in most cases faster than Tiger.
3) Gentoo PPC exists.