I've got an old G4 imac 933mhz. I'd like to use it to run itunes through my stereo but the OSX panther keeps crashing all the time. I don't know much about macs or computers etc but would OSX Leopard, the newest that it can run, be usuable or way too slow? WOuld it be able to browse the internet - at the moment it cannot format web pages properly.

Thanks!

It should run Leopard without any problem. the memory requirement is only 512k and I don't recall any Macs of around that period coming with less than that. The CPU is certainly fast enough to handle it.

TBH Panther should run without crashing anyway but the version of Safari at that time had a very early version of the rendering engine that could be temperamental so an upgraded OS X will have a better browser.

iTunes used to run fine though, at the time that Mac was current I regularly used iTunes to rip CDs to MP3 and play them back or burn them to CD without any problems.

What sort of crashes are you getting ? If they're OS crashes, causing a restart, rather than an application quitting, it may have a hardware problem, reseating the memory is always worth doing if you're getting random OS crashes.

I got a bit muddled up, its an iBook G4 not an imac, shows how much I know! It is 1gb memory. The computer doesn't crash, whenever safari is opened it quits unexpectedly after a few seconds. Itunes does work but its an ancient version and would really like to start afresh, we have 3 computers an iphone each with different itunes music libraries on them and would like to consolidate all onto the mac and chuck the old pc laptops.

I take it I have to get a complete version of "leopard" of ebay etc?

Thanks

Yes, best bet is to get a full version if you can. Once you've installed it and connected it to the internet run a software update (under the Apple menu) and it'll upgrade to the most recent version of Leopard and apply any security patches.

The easy solution without spending money would be to start using firefox instead of safari.
I don't know the exact version of my itunes but the itunes on my panther at home is able to share its music library with all my newer apple stuff in both directions. So you don't have to upgrade. But of course i could be totally wrong.

Yeah, Firefox is what I use on my old Mac, and it works fine. I use OSX 10.4.11 operating system on my G4.