Apple Mac mini G4 - OS X

For machine info, see main page.

This machine runs Mac OS X 10.4.x

Work log

2014-08-17: I've connected the firewire drive with hfsexplorer and the image file (mac_drive.dmg) to this Mac, and now I'm happily extracting from the image. For now, I put the extracted files on the firewire disk too. A little test shows that at least a few of the files work. Nice!

2014-08-17: file sharing - I've set up File sharing via SMB on the Mac mini G4 (2), and now I try to get it working. If I connect to server via name (Tingo-media) or via ip address smb://10.1.161.6 the result is the same, after a while it errors out with "The Finder cannot complete the operation because some dat in "smb://10.1.161.6" could not be read or written. (Error code -36). According to this list of error codes, that means "I/O error (bummers)". Enabling Windows File sharing on this machine doesn't help either. OK, back to sneakernet.

2014-08-14: I ran software update, selected 2 out of 4: J2SE 5.0 Release 4, Migration and DVD/CD Sharing Update. After installing, another update: Java for Mac OS X 10.4, Release 5 which I also installed, followed by Java for Mac OS X 10.4, Release 6, Java for Mac OS X 10.4, Release 7, Java for Mac OS X 10.4, Release 8, Java for Mac OS X 10.4, Release 9, the I installed Security Update 2009-005 (PowerPC), which required a reboot.

2014-08-14: file sharing - I turned on AppleTalk on both machines (in Network) and turned on File Sharing on the other one. Verified that both has sensible names, go into Network, My Network (which is AFP), find the other one (named "Tingo media" aka tingo-media.local) but get a "connection failed" after a while. Next try is Connect to Server, which also fails after a while. Update: AppleTalk protocol is not needed, I turned it off again, but that didn't change anything.

2014-08-14: wlan - after the update to OS X 10.4.11, my WLAN is correctly identified. Puh!

2014-08-14: I ran software update, which brought in Java 1.3.1 and 1.4.2 Release 2 (45.3 MB), Mac OS X Update Combined (PowerPC) 10.4.11 (186 MB), DVD Player 4.6 (9.8 MB). I selected all three and agreed to the license agreements, and the updates was downloaded and installed. Restart required. After the update, the machine now runs OS X 10.4.11 (8S165). And the SSD ("Mac_HD") has 26 GB free.

2014-08-14: wlan - it is OS X 10.4 (8A451) which is installed, and unfortunately it only allows me to use WEP passwords for AirPort, so I can't connect to my WLAN. Connecting via Ethernet fixes this.

2014-08-10: installing OS X 10.4 (8A451) on the new SSD. I booted this machine in target mode, connected it with a firewire cable to the other Mac mini G4, and booted that off the OS X 10.4 Install Disc 1. Now I'm trying to install onto "Mac_HD" which is the name of the new SSD. I selected English and did a minimal install. After the installation, the other machine rebooted from the target mode (firewire) disk, works ok. I then rebooted this machine, it also works ok. The minimal install takes up 3.32 GB, there is still 26.37 GB free.

2012-08-09:using a ssh file system: following this article, I installed MacFUSE 2.0.3.2, Macfusion 2.0.4, but it doesn't work on OS X 10.4. It seems like Macfusion 1.2 beta 3 works. The version of sshfs used is 1.7:

kg-mini:/Applications/Macfusion.app/Contents/Plugins/SSHFs.plugin/Contents/Resources tingo$ ./sshfs-static -V
SSHFS version 1.7 (MacFUSE, 10, May  4 2007, 15:04:35)
MacFUSE library version: FUSE 2.7.3 / MacFUSE 2.0.2
no mount point

So update it with the new version (found here). The new version needed some tlc:

kg-mini:~/download tingo$ ./sshfs-static-tiger -V
-bash: ./sshfs-static-tiger: Permission denied
kg-mini:~/download tingo$ ls -l ssh*
-rw-r--r--   1 tingo  tingo  655900 Aug  9 13:18 sshfs-static-tiger
-rw-r--r--   1 tingo  tingo  211487 Aug  9 12:44 sshfs-static-tiger.gz
kg-mini:~/download tingo$ chmod u+x sshfs-static-tiger
kg-mini:~/download tingo$ ls -l ssh*
-rwxr--r--   1 tingo  tingo  655900 Aug  9 13:18 sshfs-static-tiger
-rw-r--r--   1 tingo  tingo  211487 Aug  9 12:44 sshfs-static-tiger.gz
kg-mini:~/download tingo$ ./sshfs-static-tiger -V
SSHFS version 1.8 (MacFUSE SSHFS 1.0.0)
MacFUSE library version: FUSE 2.7.3 / MacFUSE 2.0.2
no mount point

Ok, move it into place (via drag and drop). After that, I can start Macfusion, add some of my mounts to Favorites, and mount them. Nice!

2011-10-20: Mac floppies - formatting: I have floppies which are MS-DOS formatted (FAT12) and need to reformat to HFS. Start Disk Utility, select the volume, click on the "Erase" tab, Select Mac OS Standard format, give it a name, and click on the "Erase" button. If the floppy is bad, you will get the "Disk Erase failed" message. Try another floppy.

2011-10-20: Mac floppies - I read somewhere on the net that a machine running OS X up to version 10.4 could read and write HFS-formatted floppies with a usb-connected floppy drive. So I connected a generic USB floppy drive (Teac FD-05PUB) to the machine. The floppy drive was recognized, and when I inserted a Mac-formatted floppy,the files showed up. "Info" says that this floppy is "Mac OS Standard" format. Neat! Next, I did a "Verify Disk" operation on this floppy in "Disk Utlity", and it said "Checking HFS volume", while if I verify the internal Hard drive on my mini, it says "checking HFS Plus volume", so it appears that this is indeed a HFS formatted floppy.

2011-09-25: I installed GeekTool version 2.1.2 (version 3.0 doesn't work on OS X 10.4), and set it up to view my mailx new mail, like this.

2010-06-12: The machine currently runs OS X 10.4.11 (8S165).

2005-07-08: the machine came with OS X 10.4.1 (8B15). I selected the English version.

Apple Mac mini G4 - OS X

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Work log