Macminis, Panther, and Ipods

[Mini Cooper779]

I have some problems:

I have a Macmini 1.42GHz G4, with 512MB of RAM running Panther 10.3.9 and I was thinking about getting a new iPod here in a few months, Its my understanding that the new generation of iPods do not work with 10.3.9. I have a Macbook running Tiger so it would be okay however I dont use it much I'm usually on this thing. I was wondering if I should upgrade this Mini to Tiger and upgrade the RAM to 1GB. The Macbook only has 512MB of RAM and it runs okay should I just upgrade the RAM in the laptop since I use it for more demanding stuff, I usually only do light office work on the Mini?

[shortkut]

i am not sure what your problems are, but i will address your questions: tiger should run on your mini without a RAM increase being needed. if you use your macbook for your more "intensive work," then extra RAM will only help you.

[Mini Cooper779]

My problems were just that I was confused as what to do. I was just wondering what your opinion was of how good Tiger would run with 512MB of RAM on a G4 processor, I know 512MB with Panther when running iTunes, Safari, and iChat I only have about 10MB of 'unused' RAM and the system beachballs now and then, esp. if a website has a Flash thing embedded. From what I've read on the internet the hardest thing is finding Tiger as apple doesnt sell it anymore... I'm going to call the local Apple store tomorrow and see if they have any.

[shortkut]

my tiger ran well on a powerpc with 768MB RAM. 512 is the minimum you need. if you upgrade the RAM it will definitely improve things

[Mini Cooper779]

I'm going to call up the local Apple Store to see if they have any Tiger left in stock today and I'll look around local shops and on the internet for the cheapest RAM. the first generation MacMinis only support 1GB max right?

Alright I think I've made my decesion on what I'm going to do. I found RAM for the Macmini and Macbook thats affordable so I'm going to upgrade the RAM in both, I looked on Apple's store and They are still selling Tiger (someone told me they stopped with Leopard coming out) I plan on buying a copy of that for the Mini and eventually get Leopard for the Macbook once I get cash built back up. Thanks for the advice!

[shortkut]

glad i could be of service

[jesuslovesosama]

My problems were just that I was confused as what to do. I was just wondering what your opinion was of how good Tiger would run with 512MB of RAM on a G4 processor, I know 512MB with Panther when running iTunes, Safari, and iChat I only have about 10MB of 'unused' RAM and the system beachballs now and then, esp. if a website has a Flash thing embedded. From what I've read on the internet the hardest thing is finding Tiger as apple doesnt sell it anymore... I'm going to call the local Apple store tomorrow and see if they have any.
Don't worry too much about "unused RAM", it is usually just OS X putting stuff in Cache so that things loads faster and such... I have 4 GB of RAM yet I only have a very thin slice of green (unused RAM) in activity monitor.