Older iMac without an OS

I just acquired an older iMac. There is not an OS installed on it. What are my options? I am not even sure if it works. Thanks in advance.
Rick

Rebel1970 said:

I just acquired an older iMac. There is not an OS installed on it. What are my options? I am not even sure if it works. Thanks in advance.
Rick

Click to expand...

First, if you will post your Mac specs (model etc) we will give you options for an OS.

I found the serial #, no model # and it was assembled in Mexico, in 1999. I am open to areas to look in for the model #. I was told it was a g3. Not sure there either. Can I install Linux on it?

Rebel1970 said:

I found the serial #, no model # and it was assembled in Mexico, in 1999. I am open to areas to look in for the model #. I was told it was a g3. Not sure there either. Can I install Linux on it?

Click to expand...

From what I have read (I don't own an older Mac) older iMacs play well with Linux. Ubuntu is always a good choice.
Will do. Some checking and post back, but I suspect your model has a CD drive , so you'll need to burn the distro to a CD.

EDIT: Based on the info you provided, you have an old CRT version, and it came with a CD drive. It will support up to OS X 10.3.9, which may be pricy and hard to find.

EDIT2: We have some guys with a lot of experience with older Macs. Hopefully one of them will chime in, as you may need to look for an earlier release of Ubuntu and If so, I don't know which to reccommend.

Rebel1970 said:

I just acquired an older iMac. There is not an OS installed on it. What are my options? I am not even sure if it works. Thanks in advance.
Rick

Click to expand...

If you have an G3 iMac you can install:

- OS 9
- OS 10.0
- OS 10.1
- OS 10.2
- OS 10.3
- OS 10.4 (needs at least 256meg of ram)

The cpu speeds for G3 iMac's ranged from 233mhz to 700mhz. The slower your iMac...the "less well" it will be able to run OS 10.4 (OS 10.4.11 is actually the newest Mac OS version you could install).

If you're interested in obtaining any of the OS install disk versions mentioned above...e-Bay is your best bet (no silver/gray disks).

HTH,

- Nick

Yes on the front there is a cd slot, and maybe I have a boat anchor...lol Thanks for all of the good advice, I really appreciate it.
I am assuming that the keyboard and mouse are going to be usb, since that is the only ports that make sense other than for the speakers and mic.

FWIW here's a link to a post on installing Ubuntu on an iMac G3

Installing Ubuntu Linux on a G3 iMac | Nuketown

You can't install Linux without an OS already pre-loaded onto the machine. I've tried before, and it just doesn't work. This is because you can only make a "Live CD" and an OS is required to read it, and install it.