Hey everyone.

I am thinking of buying a low-end used Mac. The one I am thinking of is a G4/450 MHz PowerMac tower, 256 MB RAM (will upgrade to 768 MB or 1 GB), 20 GB Hard drive (have a second 60 GB laying around that will also go into the Mac) and an ATI Rage Pro 128 Graphics Card.

I am not planning on doing video editing or anything like that. Would you say this desktop is sufficient for regular desktop work with OS X 10.4.5 (word processing, IM, Email, web browsing, listening to music, watching videos, maybe using Google Earth and applications like that occasionally, and storing digital pictures...rarely ever gaming, could live without, own a PS2)?

I cannot afford a new Mac right now, but can get this one for a couple hundred bucks and I already have a screen, keyboard and mouse available for it.

Oh, and one dumb question. The keyboard I would be using is a PC Keyboard....would this be fine? Would the Start Button replace the Apple button, etc?

Thanks!

Is that dual 450 Mhz? What's your budget?

I think you will be fine. If you will want to compare it to other Macs you can use this software: http://www.mactracker.ca/ ...there's also a useful website with all the information of every Mac released, but I cann't find it.

G4's are not low-end at all. They're only a couple years old (newer than any of my computers anyway). Most Linux distros will work on them.

If it's USB (Macs take USB keyboards and mice). Some of the keys might map weird but it'll probably work.

Hey. That's good to know. I was more worried about the MHz though, most of the G4's selling in current Macs are about a GHz, including the iBooks. While this is a G4, it is only 450 MHz.

I did look on Apple's website however, and they say even G3's are supported by the latest version of OS X, so I can't see this one not being supported at all. I am worried about the computer being so sluggish as to be unbearable though, which is why I'm going to upgrade the RAM in it to at least 768 MB.

No, it is a single processor, and my budget is very small which is why I am getting a used Mac, and using a normal monitor with it.

Most Linux distros will work on them.

I already have my Athlon XP 3000+ running Windows and Linux, I wanted this because I want to run OS X. Although I'll probably get curious and try out PPC Linux, so that's good to know.

So is there anyone running OS X on hardware like or close to these specs, that wants to share their experiences?

Oh, and I'm downloading the mactracker app right now, thx for the link.

My mom has a 400mhz g4 running panther, and it runs fine. She does email, web-browsing, and some photoshop editing. It ran a little slow when I first installed it for her, but then I found out she had only 192mb of RAM! 512mb later it runs great. I'm guessing tiger would run just fine on your machine.

Heck, I ran Jaguar on my beige g3 with 384mb of ram for a while. It worked OK, and wasn't too slow. (now I run Linux on it).

I think those early g4s are great machines for an average desktop. Plus, there is that "trap door" to get at the innards easier.

Hey, thx for all your speedy replies. I'm going to go ahead and buy it I think!