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G4 Cube - mirror MacBook Pro..?

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  1. MacBook Pro
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  1. Power Mac
Hi all I'm a newbie, awaiting the arrival of my first cube, super excited and wondering what form the Cube will take in my life.

I'm not hugely technical so I'm thinking I'm probably not going to carry out any heavy modding, also I don't like the idea of butchering any of the bits.

I'm happy to upgrade components but even so I understand it has its limitations unless I get pretty have on its ass.

So I was thinking, isit possible to use the G4 Cube to mirror my MacBook Pro? And if it's not, is there anything I could do to enable mirroring?
 
Goldfiinger welcome to the forum.

The Apple Power Mac G4 Cube is sixteen years old. I think that you can get OS X 10.4.11 to run on it, but it is by todays standards dead slow and out of date. You run into not being able to open/run many web sites.

I suggest that you read through as many G4 Cube build logs as you can.

If you have never built a PC and if you have never installed operating systems then you have a larger learning curve ahead of you.

Your mirroring question. Are you asking if the G4 can open a screen sharing session with you MBP?

Take your time. Ask the community here if you have questions.



Again welcome,
neil
 
Hey GoldFiinger,

If you're planning on using the cube in a modern environment, I'd ditch the old hardware and get something a bit less dated. If you're using a MBP(Even an early Intel model), it's likely eight or more years newer than the hardware in the cube. I assume you're referring to using Apple Airplay Mirroring, in which case, the cube couldn't support that with the best stock configuration possible. Airplay Mirroring requirements state that you need at least OSX 10.8. As Neil mentioned, the best you can hack onto the hardware is 10.4.11.

Ironically, if you're just looking for something that can do mirroring and don't mind low specs, there is the Apple TV(Gen 2 or better). All kidding aside, with a 0.8-2.0Ghz Processor and 512 MB of LPDDR2 memory, the Apple TV Gen 3 has better specs than the best config of the cube.

In my opinion, you should give yourself a bit of a challenge and hack in an ITX with a LP CPU or even a NUC. There is huge amount of knowledge in the project logs here and a community that is willing to give advice! Even if you butcher the bottom panel on the cube...it's on the bottom and you won't see it 90% of the time!

Best of luck with your project!
 
Thanks for the replies, shame that I won't be able to get air play mirroring working; that had been my initial short term hope (but not the reason for my purchase).

Sounds like I'm going to need to take the plung and go for it, all though I'd really rather avoid butchering the cube even if it is just the bottom.

I imagine there's still a lot that can be done without going that far?

Would 10.8 be possible without structural case modifications, or is it literally just 10.4 without tampering with case?
 
Would 10.8 be possible without structural case modifications, or is it literally just 10.4 without tampering with case?

The G4 is an IBM PowerPC architecture. 10.8 requires x64. Totally different ball-game.
 
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