What to do with iMac G5 circa 2005

The Lurker

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So I have in my possession the last of the PowerPC imac G5's. This one in particular has been upgraded with 2 gigs of ram.

I was thinking about throwing Lubuntu on it but I have my doubts about its performance for web browsing and flash content.


Should I put it on the curb or can I do something useful with it?
 
Boat anchor, or target practice. Those things can only run up to 10.5.8 so a lot of apps wont even run on it now. The capacitors in the power supplies were pretty common to go out.

It might be worth more as scrap than as a usable machine.
 
^ yeah, plus it's a G5 and fat binaries are rare nowadays if running OS X is a concern. IOW, the older OS X version is less of a problem than that most modern OS X software is x86 only.

It would probably work OK with *buntu, but it's a slow, power hungry system. You could probably sell it and replace it with a cheap used desktop that's better all around.
 
I still have mine, its sitting in the closet. I saw some where that you could install ubuntu or some form of nix on it
 
I figured as much. I feel like its such a shame to toss it out because its a great looking machine. Hard to believe its useless.

Anyone know if the screen in it can be plugged into a regular video card? I didnt look at the board in great detail but from a brief examination it looks like a VGA cable. I ask because I have a slim line intel machine that I could probably transplant into it. May be a project thats worth my time, maybe not.

I was also thinking about a custom aquarium.
 
There are people who still need Powermac hardware - Throw it up on Ebay after doing some price checking!

Normally I'd agree with the other replies, and make it a boat anchor. But don't tell people how to spend their money, especially when they are trying to spend it at you.
 
I offed my ex's G5 for her on Craigslist locally without too much trouble.
 
I feel bad putting this thing in the trash, so I figure ill let someone else do it. So I want to try selling this thing whole even if just for beer money. Where can I get OSX 10.5? I have been looking on the high seas but its been so long nothing is available.
 
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