Ibook too old to use?

My mom bought this ibook in 2003, and due to a myriad of reasons has never learned how to use it, so it has been collecting dust ever since. Now she wants to use it.... She will get a dsl or cable hook-up (she tried dial-up and that's the reason she dropped interest) do we need to do any upgrades? Please help. I'm not much of a techie myself but I try! BTW, it's not the Jag that came out in late '03, the one before that.

I can look up the basic specs, but can you tell us exactly which iBook it is? With 2003 I should be able to get the basic specs.


Here is the reason. In 2003 was the last G3 iBook but also the first G4 iBook. A G3 is really too slow for a lot of internet usage where a G4 model depending on it's clock speed would be a lot better.

Give us a bit more info if you can.

I've got an old iBook G3 (600MHz, 384MB RAM) with 10.4 Tiger installed. It works however it is quite slow and it is very usable. The thing holding it back is that 10.4 Tiger is 5 years old and PPC applications are slowly starting to go away.

Bottom line is you can use an old iBook G3 today however things will be very slow. If I were to have to use my iBook G3 for some reason I would probably try to install either xubuntu 9.10 or kubuntu 10.10 because they are much more modern than 10.4 Tiger and they both run great on old hardware.

Keep in mind if it's an iBook G4 it will run A LOT faster than an iBook G3.

For heaven's sake, unless you and your mother enjoy frustration, buy her something newer. Check Apple's refurb store or your local Craigslist for something from 2007 or newer.

My iBook G4 works perfectly fine for anything the OP's mom would ever do. It works fine for what I use a notebook for in fact. Sure, if I had extra $$$, I would get a Macbook, but I don't. If it's a G4 it might serve his mom quite well at least for now. The price is right if you are poor. Free.

I think they are still valid for this type of use, even a G3 as mentioned.
My daughter uses an old G3iMac with Tiger for simple school stuff and her music and it's fine. Slow, but fine.
As mentioned, cost is an issue for many, you can't always upgrade when you would like.

I appreciate the desire to avoid spending money, but this is a computer from 2003 we are talking about. That's three eons back in computer time.

It's not likely to be a G4, and even if it was, it's not likely to be a 1GHz+ model.

I reiterate -- you might get it to work in a limited way, but it will be slow and frustrating. Moms don't deserve that. A more-recent machine will not cost much, will work better, and is way overdue.

We were actually hoping the OP would return and give us the real specs. He could be incorrect on the date. Then we can know for sure and better advise him.

With the info he provided it's either the Last Generation G3 or First Generation G4. If that is the case it will not be the best performing machine for sure.

Now, I'm trying to figure this out. What the OP meant by "BTW, it's not the Jag that came out in late '03, the one before that" I'm not sure. But if the original iBook G4 came out in 2003, I would imagine that this is an iBook G3 and not a G4. Even if it is a G3 though, it's still likely to be a 700-900 MHz model, as the G3 was nearing the end. If this is true, I think that it can still serve as a nice little laptop for basic computing.