Many of the system apps you'll find in Leopard and older versions of OSX are very similar to the ones used today. Below are my thoughts on each software and the general usability of this G5 in 2020. I replaced the thermal paste as well.Īfter creating a user account and installing updates (yes, Apple's servers for Leopard still work!), I went ahead and tried an assortment of software, both old and new, on the iMac.
Once I figured out how to boot from usb via Open Firmware (I had no Mac OS X DVD), I installed OSX 10.5 Leopard, which is the latest OS that any PPC-based Mac can run. After receiving it, I cleaned the stains on the plastic and installed an SSD I had lying around. I won it at a Goodwill auction as a parts/repair with a flashing folder icon. As Apple moves toward another change in their CPU architecture, I wanted to take a look at the past to see just how capable these machines were and still are today.įirst, a bit of background on my specific G5: it's a 17 inch 1.8ghz model with 768MB of RAM.
The transition to Intel marked the end of a great era in computing and the beginning of another (arguably not so great) one. The iMac G5 was one of the last Macs to be shipped with a PowerPC CPU.
