Can Linux Save a 16 Year Old iMac?
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 29. 07. 2023
- Today we're installing the latest Ubuntu Linux on the very first aluminum iMac, which is over 15 years old! We'll also see if we can upgrade the CPU, and stick an SSD in there. I'm sure it's going to come apart real nice and easy-like...
We'll also try to run Windows games with Steam Proton!
Thanks @BranchusCreations for the cameo!
LINKS:
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đ @HrutkayMods video: âą Mid 2007 iMac CPU Upgr...
đ SSD: amzn.to/3qcPCLx
đ Ubuntu: ubuntu.com/
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#Mac #Ubuntu #Linux - VÄda a technologie
It's an HD2000 series Radeon. You'll have OpenGL support, but Proton is using DXVK, which translates Direct3D to Vulkan. The card has no Vulkan support, you need GCN1+ hardware to do Vulkan in the Radeon series, so, running HL2 Linux native would've used the OpenGL that the GPU supports, but using DXVK was actually impressive achieving a framerate at all, since it would have been using the LLVMPIPE Vulkan software rendering.
If this is one of the Macs with an MxM GPU module, you could try changing it out for a newer card, but I think sticking to OGL for things (which is the default in WINE) is probably more useful for this GPU.
Thank you!!
Among the reasons I dislike Macs. You can't upgrade the graphics cards so you're stuck with what Apple put in there - which is usually low balled.
And some of those Radeons are unreliable, best replace all the thermal paste and putty
technically it is also possible to compile Half-Life 2 fully from source code with a modern compiler and tweak the optimization. the term to search for that is "nillerusr" .
@@natejennings5884 unless it's MXM, but good MXM cards are essentially unobtanium (esp mac compatible ones)
You don't need Proton for Half Life 2, as it's a native Linux game, it would probably be playable at full resolution. Also using snaps instead of native packages will also slow it down.
don't *need* it, but it's still ok.
@@hufftoon9683 Agreed to that, as SNAPS are sluggish, tend to be more buggie, a system resource hog, and are less secure, so I prefer native packages, but if I'm forced to use a universal package manager, and I've not found a reason yet on Manjaro GNOME, or Solus Budgie, it would be Flatpak.
I believe that flatpak is leagues better than snap in term of speed
@@ok-tr1nw Flatpak very much is, but I feel native packages are still better when possible for the best system resource usage.
i made a script that purges all snap components from ubuntu and installs a version of firefox that doesn't pull in any snap-related packages.
Best SSD installation ever.
Itâs indeed fine.
âEngineering â đ
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â@@iangoodsellDuct tape holds the world together. It probably won't help Elon Musk stop Twitter/X from falling apart, but SpaceX use it to hold their rockets together, politicians use it to reinforce their failing policies, and geologists have used it to stop continental drift. đ
I had to do this on an old Thinkpad T60 I was restoring. Bracket was mangled, so I just put a bunch of folded paper in there to apply enough pressure to hold it in place.
That paper has honestly done a better job than the brittle half-shattered bracket that was in there previously. (Probably not the best for heat dissipation, but we're talking about a SATA 1 drive so heat is much less of an issue)
I also like the x pattern, very important for the function. hehe
You can probably eliminate the 1080p60 stutter on CZcams with a browser extension called "Enhancer for CZcams" (the icon looks like a magic wand on a red square). It has an option to completely disable VP9 and force H.264, which will limit you to 1080p60, but it's only a 1920x1200 panel anyways. That Radeon has HW H.264 decode but your Mac has to decode VP9 entirely in software, which is a bit of an ask for a CPU that old.
H.264ify-enhaced is my preferred option.
Isn't 1920x1200 just the 16:10 version of 1080p?
@@bland9876 1080p would be more equivalent to 1680x1050 if you want to talk about standard 16:10 resolutions.
@@bland9876 Yes, 1920x1200 is just 1920x1080 but taller. 16:9 videos would play as native 1080p with black bars on the top and bottom on a 1920x1200 display
@@JeremyLevi 1680:1050 is smaller than 1920:1080 so it's no good we need the 1080p video to be able to run at native resolution with black bars.
I have a tablet with the 1920:1200 resolution and I used a second monitor with the 1680:1050 resolution so I have some 1st hand experience.
The tablet is kind of weird though because the scaling actually makes monitors look like there is more room on them even though they have less pixels. So even though I have experience with both resolutions take it with a grain of salt.
These macs are amazing for actually getting work done in a studio no joke. Gets the adhd problem taken care of when no social media will load
LMAO, that's pretty true. When my wifi won't let social media load on my phone but it'll load Blackboard on my PC, I begrudgingly have to work on stuff
I love when old machines get repurposed. Thereâs something magical about it and itâs sad that so many people throw them away.
DShack, Why you should still use it then ?
magical needs, as a lamp ?
â@@lucasremits not like it's unusable. This would be a great computer for a kid perhaps
Feel fee to "throw it away" but make sure to "throw" it in my direction XD
Yeah reminds me when I was in Germany I seen so many things thrown out I collected a lot of electronics then rented a van and took it home then fixed what needed fixing, cleaning etc then donated it to schools etc.
Most of them were in perfect condition, a TV for example had only a broken remote that simply needed contact pads cleaning with alcohol and everything worked again as new. Imagine being so out of touch with reality to throw out a TV due to a dirty remote ...
It really stressed me out thinking that was my one trip, imagine how many things being tossed out for DECADES just like that.... it's legit PTSD to me just thinking about it all. I hate people who are ignorant and wasteful.
Ages ago I decided to convert my age old originally xp, at that time windows 7 potato to linux ubuntu. I have not seen a more dramatic jump in performance and to this day I believe linux should be on every potato out there because of that. If it cannot run 10 whack linux onto it.
@minmogrovingstrongandhealthy just buy a new printer it cost less than buying ink ??!!!
Hey Sean, I suspect Ubuntu wasnât using the correct card or the drivers were not adequate. That machine should be running some of those games without problem.
Also the card built into the system doesn't support Vulkan, and it's probably trying to use OGL and not DXVK. See pinned comment.
@@TylerFurrison The other way around, the games were running in Vulkan (DXVK is DirectX to Vulkan translation), in OpenGL they would run better. But something might be wrong with the drivers too, the OS doesn't seem as responsive as it should be, but it may be Gnome's fault.
@@piotrmazek540 honestly Ubuntu says they recommend 8gb of RAM so his better bet would have been using Lubuntu which instead of Gnome uses LXQT/LXDE much lighter I use it on a Telekin All in one for seniors which is the same as the Wow all in one Computer for seniors that Ken from Computer Clan covered last year I swapped it from tiny core to Lubuntu and it runs great
@@piotrmazek540 if you're talking about the pointer jumping around like that it could be a driver issue, but being that the amd driver is baked into the kernel it's more likely just Wayland being Wayland with a bogged down cpu. X11 would give better results
@@red_ben3487 Oh yeah, forgot about Wayland being the default now, I'm still using X11 everywhere :p Sounds like that might be the issue
I have this exact same computer and I have been running Ubuntu Mate on it for several years. It is my go to computer for doing all my 3D design work and functions as good, if not better, than it did when the computer first came out. It is the maxed out version from Apple because I had actually ordered the older model when Apple contacted me and said they were not making that model anymore and they upgraded me for no additional charge to their newest iMac. I lived in Nome, Alaska at the time and believe it or not is showed up pretty darn quick! I am also running Linux Mint on my old 17" MacBook Pro. That computer is my daily driver for running projects in my shop. Love your channel and all the crazy cool stuff you do with old Macs!
Yes, a lighter version of Linux would most likely be a significant improvement on such old hardware. Also, CZcams might work significantly better with the h264ify extension for Firefox. That old video card might actually have hardware decoding for h.264. By default CZcams videos play with VP9, which is all software decoding for hardware that old. Of course, getting games to use OpenGL where possible would also help there.
Gnome is pretty heavy for old hardware. I'd say Xfce maybe?
I used to repair these professionally. I don't remember having an issue with the hard drive bracket. The mechanical hard drive was the most common failure. The GPU was the next most common. The CPU/GPU heatsinks in line with the PSU usually caused the video cards to overheat with constant use. This design was changed as video cards required more and more power. The trick to keep dust from sticking when closing it static electricity control. Either use the official cleaning roller or carefully canned compressed air.
I love these older macs, the ones that actually can be upgraded. I still use my old mac mini as a NAS and plex server.
>joins LTT stream
>types "computers"
>does not elaborate
>leaves
why does he not install a core 2 quad extreme cpu don't they work with the same socket as the core 2 duo?đ€
I actually took an old 2006 MacMini, and using DOSDude's memory mod was able to get it to use 4gb of RAM (with a CPU upgrade (Intel T7400) ). After putting in an SSD, was able to get it to dual boot Linux Mint and Windows 10. It seems to work fine with both for web browsing, and light modern tasks.
I have a MacBook Pro from early 2011 model. You inspired me to install Linux on my MacBook. I have tried the latest Ubuntu build on it, system stability was an issue. So then I tested another Disro of Linux, and Linux Mint cinnamon edition works WONDERS on that system. I would suggest you try it too.
As a side note, Linux Mint also has other versions that can run on older hardware or different levels of system resources. I also did have to install the proprietary wifi drivers and connect it by LAN cable to get it to work.
Mint works wonders on damn near anything. It is based on ubuntu, but for whatever reason, it seems to run _way_ faster, and Cinnamon is closer to Windows, which means less time figuring out the intricacies of the DE.
Can you put the MacBook to sleep/standby? I tried other linuxes on my white MacBook 2009 but battery drain, heating, and sleep were three main issues which prevented me from installing it permanently.
@@dradpa I am able to put mine into sleep mode with no issues, even the sleep mode light glows like it should.
As for the heating issue? Yes that is an issue, but I find using an external laptop cooler helps. The kind that you sit the laptop on top of and plug it into power and it helps cool the underside of the laptop.
Linux Mint is amazing, it's bitlocker support is better than Windows lol
My 2010 has Mint on it. I tried Fedora which had super slow wifi until I jumped through some hoops and installed the Broadcom drivers. I tried Debian which had no wifi so I had to tether to my phone and install the broadcom drivers. Mint had slow wifi and a one click option to install the Broadcom drivers. So nice. I just wish the nVidia drivers didn't cause a black screen so I could get some 3d acceleration.
I have a bunch of these from an old job many years ago, I gave most of them away when El Capitan was the latest OSX, but I still have a couple that I use for exactly what you're using this one for. Running a pretty lean Arch Linux it does the job and Parsec to do games, it serves its purpose pretty well.
Great video! Itâs pretty cool that the DVD drive on this old iMac still works.
Awesome video! Thanks so much for doing this!
I just found your channel and im so glad. I love putting linux on old computers, I love giving them new life. Its super fun
The yellow streaks in the screen is dust collecting between the LCD and the backlight plastic sheets which requires screen dissasembly to be cleaned. It can be delicate but doable without damaging the thin flex cables.
I ran Ubuntu on my old Mac Pro for a few years, it was a great alternative as the Mac was so old it couldnât run a new enough MacOS to even use a modern web browser. Got Steam up and running on it and ran a few low-demand Linux games. It was pretty great.
The timing of this video is great! I just picked up an early 2009 aluminum iMac at VCF Southeast on Saturday. If I had known they're usually free I might not have paid for it ;-) But this one is in good condition, which is good as I'm not a hardware person. I was able to get Linux Mint installed on it, and your package reference about the wifi drivers was super helpful. This is my first dedicated hobby machine and I'm looking forward to finding out what I can do with Linux and Haiku on it!
Sad that what should be free and widely get isn't. Finding 10 year old hardware on the various sites with price of modern hardware is so sad
Very cool. I have one of these sitting in my garage. I love your playlists, btw.
Your profile photo reminds me of MySpace in the best possible way.
I have the same model-minus the beefier processor-and I use mine as an excellent retro emulation device running Snow Leopard. Using individual emulators (rather than RetroArch for performance reasons) and a slick front end (the name escapes me at the moment), the machine works like a charm. It can also easily boot and work well off a Batocera install, running everything up to N64 without too much trouble.
you could probably make 1080p60 work with a little extension called h264ify, it forces youtube to use the widespread h264 video codec instead of AV1/VP9, of which this mac probably has no hardware decoder built in.
Did the SSD upgrade on this machine back around 2012 which gave it a whole new lease of life. Handed it off to my parents for their general mail/browsing. Eventually after being so out of date upgraded them to an M1 Air with external monitor and have this in my closet. I did the same Ubuntu install on it about 2 months ago and was delighted to see everything was supported and just worked. Trying to decide if I'll put it one of my kids rooms as a CZcams machine.
I think you should have used velcro 2x4 inch for the ssd. Works great and won't get all sticky stuck.
great fro baby kittens too (Garfield)
@@billfusionenterprise Yes!
First video I watched from this CZcamsr. Love his personality. Itâs a sub for me brah!
Sean,
I thought it's worth mentioning that: That Core2Extreme isn't the highest CPU you can go with for that model. I have a 7,1 myself running Fedora 38 on spinning rust. My plan is to upgrade to a Penryn architecture C2D with the faster (800mhz) FSB.
This would be the same recommended CPU required for the DosDude macOS upgrades for unsupported hardware.
Caveat being that these are actually pricey chips, and most of them seem to be in China.
This model also supports 6GB of ram. It won't take 8GB, and Apple only officially says it supports 4GB, but OWC has a 6GB ram upgrade made for this model.
You should be able to find a way to get Linux (and newer macOS) running fairly smoothly on that machine if you're willing to keep throwing some money at it.
This is my daily driver. I use mint tho. I love this machine, itâs basically my tv!
1st comment! Woohoo!
@@95Comics Actually, it's not first
I rescued the same model of iMac as yours last year. The glass was missing and the screen works but has some scratches but it works. Also rescued a 27 inch late 2011/early 2012 iMac and the glass was missing and the screen was cracked and and had some bent corners as if the previous tried to bend to remove the screen. So I removed the screen and used the displayport on the back and connected it to a monitor and it booted as it should. I'm not entirely sure if i'm going to replace the screen (if it's worth it) or transplant the parts to another case. I'm pretty good at modding. Great video.
I strongly recommend using a different Distro, Linux Mint Cinnamon or XFCE edition would work way better, use the built in driver manager in mint under the administration menu to detect and install any missing drivers (Wifi and Microcode probably) and use the System package version of Steam, Vulkan won't work on that old GPU, stick to WineD3D Launch options and Native OpenGL Games. You might even get 1080p video playback :) Also heads up, in steam's settings, try enabling Hardware Acceleration and disable GPU Blacklist, I suspect the forced default software rendering on steam client is chewing up some sparse CPU cycles!
Hell yeah, live WAN Show from LTX! I was in the audience for that stream! đ
Windows XP saved all my old iMacs recently purchased just for the purpose of installing XP and LANing with the boys. So easy to store and will play pretty much all XP era games without fuss.
Two 06 polycarbonate one being early core duo. Great speakers on those.
Three 08 24" less great speakers but the ati x2600 easily plays rainbow six 3 and battlefield 2.
Two 09 21" are just a good size.
Will be using this video as a guide on what to expect installing linux on a 2,1 MBP 17".
Great channel thanks lots of fun inspiration thanks. Gonna be trying windows 11 on a 1,1 also for kicks.
I'm literally doing the same thing right now! Unfortunately, some of the iMacs I've collected have dud CD drives, and I've tried every possible way of installing XP from a USB stick that I can find without success... So I'm currently sitting in front of a 2009 27" iMac running PopOS waiting for steam to download Left4Dead...
@@spencerharding same thing happened to me. was unable to install xp via usb drive. Luckily one of the 08 iMacs had working optical and same specs so a storage swap was easy. And the 06 polycarbonate ones I ended up swapping optical drives. Bit of a pain but was able to get them all sorted eventually. Good luck on the linux
After the last video you did for linux+mac, I realized my old 2008 mac mini fit the bill. So, I dropped 22.04 onto the thing - shoved it full of a new 500GB SSD and upped it to 8GB of RAM because even though the docs say it only goes up to 4GB, after a little noodling around online (and in my parts bin) I had the right kind of memory in the right amounts.
Oh shoot I have an old Mac Mini of a similar vintage, maybe I should do the same. It's just collecting dust at the moment, might make a good media pc or something
I used an intel iMAc similar to this to replace my pi in my DIY mame standup. works well for 80s/early 90s titles and arcade roms. and that glass covered screen is just wonderful.
Iâve still got my Bondi blue 233Mhz iMac running 10.2, which I used to use as a music server.
I have an iMac G4 and I use it to mess around with old applications and I want to get music on it and use it like a boom box or something
I would love to see a similar video like this with the emac, my personal favorite mac
The eMac uses a 32-bit PowerPC processor which no mainstream distribution supports.
I loved the eMac. Those things were just neat.
@@babyboomertwerkteam5662 No MODERN mainstream distribution, Ubuntu had an official Power PC version up to 14.04 LTS from 2014. There's still an unofficial Ubuntu Power PC community supported thingy though.
Debian
Thank for this video, i did it too, b43 for wifi was a big help!
Oh, the good old 2007 iMac. I was doing âstudent ITâ at my old school and they had one of these running Snow Leopard. I put KDE neon on it. Probably still runs well to this day as a library catalog with Data Crow :D
Although I still recommend Fedora (or Debian 12) Ubuntu is ok⊠itâs full of snaps and bloated though. And KDE is way lighter than GNOME (itâs less ram heavy than xfce and many of the effects that are not needed can be disabled to make it even better, although I left them on on that iMac)
Less apparent RAM use does not magically equal faster performance. Plasma is a mixed bag - the panel and Kickoff are quite slow but KWin is pretty fast. Xfce is fast all around. GNOME performs about the same as Plasma does in their default configurations - it *is* true that you can make Plasma have the edge by turning off a bunch of effects (the blur effect especially kills old GPUs), but I've never, ever been able to make Plasma run as fast as Xfce on low-end hardware. (The hardware in question being a junky old Intel Atom netbook.)
@@babyboomertwerkteam5662 Iâve never experienced that on the aforementioned 2007 iMac (or any other slow hardware Iâve had to deal with).
@@tejasraman6913 I have seen plasma struggle on old hardware.
It might have gotten better, but I wouldn't say plasma is way lighter than Gnome. Both are pretty demanding.
Thinking of installing Ubuntu on some older MacBook Airs I have laying around. Thanks for the video!
Interesting. For one of our executives in my office, installed Linux Lite. It was 7 years old laptop & was painfully slow.
Works pretty fine now.
hahahaha this is totally how I installed the SSD in the All in one I am using right now. Good old duct taoe ftw ! Keep up the good work my man ! :)
This was the first ever computer i used when i was like 3. I remember playing so much flash games on this
my 36 year old ass reading this
The glare from the glossy glass drove me from the iMac. I did have the white first Intel iMac but went with a mini, so I could chose my own matte display. Now a 2019 Mac Pro so eventually another mini or Studio đ
This is some good stuff, I love slapping Linux distros on old tech.
you got me with the title. I thought this is Linus vid. but nice content. Carry on
I recently installed Kubuntu 23.04 on my Mid-2010 MacBook Pro, and it does work surprisingly well, even after having to install the packages required to get Wi-Fi up and running properly, said packages being the only things I had to download through Windows 11 on my Surface Laptop 2, since I didn't have access to an Ethernet cable.
i love videos like this they're so fun for what
I managed to revive a Core 2 Duo 2009 iMac with Manjaro Xfce, worked wonders. It even detected the network adapter correctly.
YOU WERE IN A BAND??? Sounds good ngl for 2000s Emo music
I have a 2008 Core 2 Duo MacBook. Iâve upped the RAM to 2 gigs and installed an SSD. I have Linux Mint running on mine. My machine gets taken to Amiga events. Itâs a great system for storing loads of Amiga files on. I use it to transfer files to and from the Amiga using compact flash.
I have a 2008 iMac. It was sitting in storage for years when I took it out for a Covid lockdown project. Maxing out the RAM and replacing the 5200 RPM HDD with an SSD turned it into a nice 24" basic internet browsing and school work machine. I gave it to my niece and nephew and while they don't use it much anymore, it still serves those functions well.
7200RPM*
great video, just wana say man im so glad for proton. running linux on my chromebook so i can play civ 5 at work, best way to kill time.
Thanks for the video, it is nice to know these old iMacs can be useful, Nice looking hardware and shame that they can't be used
Those old Macintosh computers are still useful, though The pre 2010 ones are less so. Colonics really can breathe new life into these machines, bringing them as much security updates as possible and allowing them to do basic tasks like 1080p streaming and music playback.
One quick note: I would suggest going endeavor OS before going Manjaro. Just better general project management and security practices in my opinion.
I was looking for a good arch based distro with an installer recently and I might have to give Endeavor OS a shot, ty for mentioning it
â@@notNajimiEndeavourOS is great. It can be *slightly* clunky during installation (though I haven't installed it in a while so it may be just 100% fine now!), but it's rock-solid otherwise.
I'd try Zorin OS 16.3 LITE, which I believe does use XFCE. It looks nice and is snappy on an older 11-12 year old Dell laptop that I use it on.
Zorin looks hideous compared with gnome3 on ubuntu or debian. It really shows that they don't have any money to pay an artsy person to work on the appearance bits.
â@@matthiasmartin1975 The XFCE desktop environment puts performance on older hardware over and above aesthetics. The goal in this video is to run a functional and snappy OS on older hardware. This is not about installing an environment to test eye candy on the latest PC build with a $1K+ GPU.
It looks pretty good with the aluminium front fascia removed. Maybe you could get a clear front made to show off the internals.
I had the exact same thought, it looks so dope! Though a quick google didn't yield results for a transparent case :(
Would be very easy to have a piece of acrylic laser cut to fit
Its kind of weird that a modern day phone can do so much more than a 2007 Computer at a FRACTION of the power.
I'm thinking that as far as these models go in the future? If you want to do an Easy way to make them usable? Something like Remote Desktop sure works a treat.
Been doing that with my old chromebooks to tap into my Xeon workstation to edit videos and do transcoding while out on the deck smoking a cigar. Pleasantly surprised by how good the old version is! It just works great with HARDLY any lag noticeable.
Since all its doing it just displaying video, (Something almost all computers are capable of doing) seems like the perfect way to keep the aesthetics, and enjoy the modern.
13:00 - I've managed to get CZcams to work on Windows Vista more recently, so seeing it working on an iMac from around the same time period was really nice to see! I've been wanting to get CZcams to work on Windows XP, but don't have quite the viable hardware yet, as my only capable XP units are an HP Compaq 6005 Pro with XP Pro SP3 and a Gateway 566GE with XP Home SP2.
If you have a PC with Windows Vista from about the same time period there's approximately a 100% chance it will work perfectly with XP. Actually the HP 6005 is such an example. The dual-core AMD should be sufficient for playing YT video.
I'm running Ubuntu Budgie 23.04 on a 2017 iMac. Practically perfect in every way.
In 2020 I used Lubuntu on a Core 2 Duo iMac (2008 version) with 2gig of ram. Worked fine, so I gave the machine an additional 2gig ram stick. Lubuntu (as well as Xubuntu) discovered all hardware parts, the built-in camera, the microphone, even discovered my printer on the network. I tested several other Linux distros, too (Mxlinux, Opensuse, Zorin OS Lite for instance). But Ubuntu and its derivatives seemed to have the best out of the box hardware support for this kind of machine. NomadBSD, a lightweight FreeBSD live version, didn't like the hardware as well as GhostBSD which stumbled over the graphics card. There were two limiting factors: a slightly flickering screen and the spinning harddrive.
The most professional repair. I give 10 of 10. I would buy again.
I never realised that you only have sub 100k subs, you deserve more, bud!
Happy 200 Vids!
i have an 8,1 iMac running the Dosdude1 patched version of Mojave, and it isn't a bad time, but im gonna ugrade the ram and cpu (im hearing about a certain quad core Centrino that can work in one) as well as see if it will run Catalina with the patcher. But anything after that for updates will be Linux in a dual boot. love the content!!! gotten me to get tinkery with my older gear
I have A 2007 20" iMac which I maxed the RAM out at 6GB and installed a 500GB SSD. I did not change the CPU. I have Linux Mint 21.2 installed on it and it wortks great. That is to say that it is a good basic Email, Web Browsing, Basic home use machine. I was given the iMac as it was headed for the dumpster. So it cost me nothing. I bought some RAM, an SSD, and a tool kit for working on the iMac. All in all it was about $100. The screens on these machines are awesome still and the form factor is also great. I would put it up against any $100 PC anytime. Great post.
I have one of these that I've turned into a monitor for a modern computer. I just gutted the machine and replaced the computer bit with a special board that converts the display ribbon connector into hdmi, vga, etc. Probably the best monitor I could get for less than ÂŁ100.
I installed Ubuntu on an old iMac 24 inch from 2009 and itâs so much better than macOS. Having actually working apps is pretty nice
I have one of these Mac. Batocera with ps1 and prior games work perfectly!
In the future I'd reccomend getting some cheap suction cups with the locking handle. two in diagonally oppsoing corners will make job of getting the glass off very easy for a fraction of the cost of the special tool
leaving a lot of performance on the table by using ubuntu. would recommend linux mint or manjaro for such a system
Maybe a good option, but that will not improve YT reproduction, for instance.
Iâm rocking as a daily driver a 2006 iMac 20â running OpenBSD 7.3 for C++ and go. Besides the wi-fi and bluetooth not working (openbsdâs lack of support, not the mac), everything runs silky smooth.
I had one of these iMac's with a Core 2 Duo E8420 (or whatever it was, C2Duo E8400 Equivelent) and a 8800GT - that thing was a beast at the time :D
I installed Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon on an old 2007 24in 2,4 GHz Core2Duo iMac (model iMac7,1) with 4 GB RAM and its original 320 GB hard disk. I'm blown away by how FAST it is! I didn't think it would work, but it even played x265 encoded movies smoothly without a hitch. A modern, capable, secure operating system with current software (LibreOffice, Firefox, etc) running on a 16 year old Mac like it is a brand-new computer - I'm VERY, VERY impressed. There is the occasional driver to install (eg my Wifi wasn't recognised) but a quick search found a suitable driver.
Thats cool, my mac mini from 2012 still runs great with ubuntu linux on latest firmware as a backup computer. Its still on the hard drive it came with but its just fine though.
You might be able to replace the optical drive with yet another SSD with the right bracket, I did that with laptops. If it has onboard wi-fi that could possibly be upgraded as well. I'd consider velcro perhaps over just duct tape. I'm curious if it can get up to a core2 quad
At least you've got one of those early iMacs that did have a magnet-screen, not the glued and bonded screen of the slightly later ones.
I have the smaller version of this iMac. The hard drive died several years ago and I just ran a Slax livecd for a couple years. Now it has an external (Firewire) HDD running MacOS 10.6 and it's just fine.
I did something similar with my 2007 era Inspiron 1720, not exactly top of the line even then. Tried Ubuntu (works OK) but prefer Mint (tried XFCE, then settled on MATE). As you've foudn out, works perfectly fine for youtube, watching vids, but definitely does not like enjoy 1080p! 720 or lower and it's totally fine, and nice to be able to use again.
Thanks! Really enjoyed this! Ubuntu! Yeah :) What SSD did you use that worked on this?
used one of these in university upgraded to 3gb ram, was a very reliable computer for the 3 years I used it heavily, ran windows xp great in boot camp also.
Dortania Opencore works great to make the latest macos install on unsupported older hardware. I think a Core2 duo is too old though, but it worked for me on my 2013 macbook air which only has 4gb ram etc and it's quite responsive and still in daily use.
OCLP does support the iMac7,1, with some caveats
got the 2009 model, snow leopard came out later in the year, happy days
I run PCs, dual-booting Ubuntu / Windows. My wife likes Apple. Her 27" 2010 iMac (very fancy in its day, 14 years ago) was so slow as to be unusable, so she bought herself a new computer and gave the old iMac to me. I watched your video and decided that I'd do all the hardware upgrades and put Ubuntu on it. Firstly, I wanted to make sure that I could get Ubuntu running on it, so I downloaded the .iso file and transferred it to an external USB disc using dd. Setting up the mac with the external disc was pretty painless. The mouse and keyboard stopped working, so I had to plug in a USB keyboard and mouse during set-up. Once the system was working, I got the original mouse and keyboard back simply by pairing them again with the bluetooth. It plays CZcams videos. Firefox is fast. It connects to my DropBox and lets me edit text files. Spotify works... I don't see the need to upgrade the hardware at all. It's never going to be a ball of fire (boot-up and desktop load takes about 1 minute 45 seconds) but once it's on its feet, it works for these relatively basic things and it's a much nicer display than the monitors on my PC. When my wife looked at trading it in, she was offered ÂŁ20 (?about $25 US). That's less than half a gallon of beer in a London pub....
You're a professional, a shenanigans professional đ
Edit
So THAT was you on the WAN Show chat
I have the slightly smaller version of this gen iMac I inherited from my late father. I had some luck with Fedora until an update killed that installation, and then I moved over to Bunsenlabs which is a streamlined Debian distro, and that's seeming to work well so far. I have yet to find a distro that will let me suspend without corrupting the display upon resume, which is a bummer, but at least Snow Leopard still runs like a champ in dual boot.
I'm using one of these, right now! ripping a bunch of CDs for my 5th gen iPod classic lol
I was wondering what vacuum cleaner you were using. I looked on your amazon tools list and that wasn't one of the items on it.
That hole to your right in the wall...
I actually flickd my screen thinking there's a bug on it.
What's crazy is almost the same time this video came out I received a near identical Mac. Mid 2007, 24" Core 2 Extreme, 4GB RAM and an OCZ SSD (240GB). It runs Mac OS X 10.6 (although I'm going to load up 10.7 soon) and it's a great CD player!
Does the adjust brightness keys on the keyboard actually adjust the brightness? I have Linux Mint running om my 2011 iMac. It runs perfectly fine, but I can't adjust the brightness either by the keys or in the settings, so I'm stuck on the set brightness.
I take these apart all the time at work. I've gotten to be pretty good at it. They usually sell for about 20 bucks or so.
Did it have a problem with suspension? I have an Imac early 2008 that I recently refurbished. Evyerthing perfect except that when it suspends, upon to wake up, the screen looks all wrong, with weird colors. You can still use it, since it is responsive but it would need to get restarted to work be able to see the right colors. Any help with it? IO think it's an isssue with the graphic card.
i'm watching you on a 2008 version of that, with os x 10.11 still daily driver, does all i ever need to do.
How did you solve the bad audio quality issue? Booting macos vs linux the last is giving less good experince in sound quality, basically the higher tones are completely missing. I tried alsamixer, changed the speaker setup from stereo to 2.1 and 4.0 but the issue remained
Simple answer: Of course! And especially if you upgrade the HHD to and SSD and ram. Then the CPU (if you think you need it). These old Macs are just awesome! And F Apple for not allowing OS upgrades. Even 2017 iMacs are no longer upgradable. This planned obsolescence needs to stop!
Lubuntu worked great on my 07 imac. Raspberry pi os works amazing also with how lightweight it is
Can you make a video about this iMac but running macOS Monterey or Ventura using OCLP? It would be great to see what the newer macOS feels like on that.
It has a GPU that doesn't even support Vulkan or Metal. Even if you could get it running a supported MacOS, it would run without any video acceleration and be unusable.
Was the GPU recognized or was it rendering things in software mode or something like that?
Lol I have also sometimes done the duct tape mount when I canât be arsed to go find two screws