You should be able to download old builds of Firefox here. Mozilla dropped support for Mac OS X 10.4 with version 4, so the last version compatible with 10.4 would be version 3.6.9 (release notes).
But that’s official Mozilla releases. The TenFourFox project maintained PPC builds compatible with 10.4 for many years afterward. That project has ended, but you can download its builds here.
The last TenFourFox release was Feature Parity Release 32.5. See also its release notes. This is based on Firefox ESR 45.9 with key features and security updates from later releases back-ported to it. It was released on May 29, 2021.
TenFourFox releases come in four builds. One for G3 processors, one for PPC 7400-series G4 processors, one for PPC 7450-series processors and one for G5 processors. See also WhichVersion to determine which PPC processor you are using/emulating, if you are unsure.
Note, however, that since the last TenFourFox release was in 2021, it should be considered insecure. Use it with caution if you plan to do any web surfing with it. I don’t think there was a lot of malware targeting PPC Macs, but if you run across any, your browser may not be able to protect you from it. And it you may be vulnerable to JavaScript-based attacks.
Depending on the nature of your emulation environment, you may be able to set up a shared folder that can be used to transfer files between the emulator and the host system. Or if you turn on file sharing on the host, you may be able to use it (or FTP) to copy files between them.
It’s still hanging half-way into booting up. I’m guessing this isn’t possible but I wonder if there is a key combination I can hold down while it boots up to repair it with Disc Utility or something similar. It took two hours to install it and update it all.
Re: File transfers via AFP; the last line of these instructions cannot be done:
AFP
VM settings: Network → Port Forward → New → Protocol: TCP, Guest Port: 548, Host Port: 54854
Guest: Enable Personal File Sharing in Sharing preference pane
Host: Finder → Go → Connect to Server → afp://127.0.0.1:54854 → Connect
On my MBPro M1running latest Sonoma there is no “Connect to Server” to be found in the menu.
I’m not home to check but I think if you boot up with your original installer you can get to Disk Utility under the Utilities menu and run it from there.
Yes. All of the CD/DVD distributions should have some recovery tools. Boot the installer media and then, instead of running the installer, look through the menu bar. You should be able to open a shell, launch Disk Utility, and maybe a few other things.
I think you may have disabled Connect to Server using Onyx, TinkerTool, or some other utility. This showed up on the Apple Discussion Forum:
Thanks for the suggestions Barney - found the “issue” while noodling around with Onyx…I don’t remember deselecting “connect to server” in the Parameters->Finder->Go Menu->Show area but I guess I did…
CORRECT! I fixed that in Onyx. Re UTM; I verified the volume using Disc Utility from the Tiger install .dmg - it was damaged so I repaired the volume. Then verified permissions; they needed repairing too. Then verified the item below that - the ‘disc’? That was ok. Then I changed the drive order in UTM back to before but it still hangs while booting up :(
When you say “hangs”, is the VM actually hung? Or are you seeing CPU and disk activity?
I know from my own personal experience that if there’s a bad crash on a PPC system, Mac OS X may take a long time to run the “fsck” utility on the next bootup. This once happened to me and it took hours for the internal 80 GB hard drive to get fully checked before it would mount, and then the system booted normally.
When this happened to me, I assumed that the drive had failed. I replaced it and restored a backup to the new drive. Then, just for kicks, I connected the bad drive via USB adapter. It wouldn’t mount when connected, but I was able to use a Terminal window to see what was happening, and there was a fsck operation running against that drive. After letting it finish (which took a long time), it mounted and seemed just fine.
Another thing to check - use Disk Utility to make sure journaling is enabled on the disk. I think it was off by default for these builds, but using it can greatly speed up this fsck process under most circumstances.
Just checked and journalling is enabled. It hangs with the spinning wheel indicators as on Mac OS+ systems displaying just the grey Apple logo. I think mounting the floppy drive and it displaying the folder momentarily (like a few seconds) before then crashing did something. Maybe something to do with invoking the built-in OS9 emulation in OS 10.4? But having repaired the disc and permissions I thought that would solve it. I guess UTM is a bit fragile.
On another note I see there is a system called ‘Leopard Sorbet’ which has been built from scratch. It’s supposed to offer all the advantages of quick booting of Tiger with newer features of Snow Leopard. Has anyone tried running this in UTM? And would it be likely to run my Film Art CD-ROM?
Interesting! I’ve not tried it, but in theory it would run your CD-ROM as Leopard & Snow Leopard both support the HFS format. Maybe worth giving it a try if you’re gong to have to do a re-install anyway to solve the hanging problem (to which I have no other suggestion).
If OS9 were to have been needed for the floppy disk, you would have seen the Classic environment come up with the usual graphic bar that indicates progress. It could have gone by quickly I suppose but I think you would have noticed that. Maybe try Disk First Aid again and see if that does anything before you decide to install all over.
This is the symptom if fsck is running on the boot volume. The boot process can’t continue until it finishes. But Apple doesn’t provide much feedback.
If you hold down CMD-V at the start of the boot sequence, you should be able to see console messages for everything it does during the bootup. That might help you figure out the problem.
That would be “Sorbet Leopard” :-).
It’s an unofficial build of Mac OS X 10.5, based on the 10.5.8 release, the PowerPC beta of 10.6 and PowerPC binaries extracted from the universal portions of 10.6.8, and removing Intel binaries.
The latest build (revision 1.5) was released on May 2, 2022. It appears that the official distribution is via the Macintosh Garden download site.
Coincidentally, while watching a YouTube video about the iMac G4, I heard about another similar project, Shuriken, which appears to be a similar project for Mac OS X 10.4. (Skip to time index 14:13 for that part).
Shuriken is a follow-up project to Sorbet. It applies lessons learned from Sorbet, and applies them to the more efficient 10.4 platform.
But it appears that you need to apply the changes over a working 10.4 system. I don’t think there’s a direct system installer here. At least that’s what the text on the download page says. But I guess you could install it on a G4 Mac (if you have one) and then clone it to a disk image for the emulator to use.
So I reinstalled Tiger making sure to exclude all the unnecessary languages etc. Then did all the updates and it works. Web browsing is limited to searching in Safari’s search bar and then of course no links work. I tried to share files from my host MBPro M1 to the emulated G4 with the “connect to server” method from the Go menu but it’s not working; see screenshot. I wonder if there’s an easy way to get files onto the ‘G4’? Update: I fixed it - had wrong number in port. Seems to work now along with the replacement for TenFourFox; Interwebppc browser.
I assume this is because web sites expect an HTTPS encryption method more recent than anything built in.
Thanks for the reference. But note that it is also over a year old.
The last GitHub Release is dated April 2023. And the last non-documentation change in its commit history is from September 2022. The repository itself was set into archive mode (no more changes) in July 2023.
But that having been said, the TenFour Fox GitHub repo is still somewhat active. Its last commit was last week. But since the TFF project no longer makes releases, you’ll need to compile it yourself. And there is no active bug reporting system - you can submit bug fixes to the repository, but they say any reports without fixes will be summarily deleted. Better than nothing, but only for the tech-savvy.
