Do DVD's from a Macbook Air (OSX 10.5) work on an eMac (2005)?

Question

I purchased a used eMac for my daughter but it did not come with the discs. The previous owner wiped the system and now I need to install the OS to the eMac. I'd prefer installing OSX 10.5 since it will work on the eMac, but want to know if I can use the discs from an older Macbook Air with 10.5 discs for this eMac. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Thank you! I am a native Dallasite but headed north about 27 years ago. I now say I am bilingual--I speak both English and Texan!
As you are in the US, you can try a long shot action. Get on the phone and call Apple's Store at 1-800-MY-APPLE. Ask to speak to an operating system specialist. Give them the serial number of the computer. You can find the number easily inside the door for the optical drive.
If they have the software for your model/sub-model on their servers, they can burn you a copy at a nominal charge, usualy around US$16 per disk.
You can also ask if they have 10.5 available on disk. Some people get the right agent and find they can still get burned copies from Apple. Again, both are long shots.
Before going much farther, let's deal with the two elephants in the room:
Elephant #1: Even the fastest eMac (1.42gHz 2005) is going to be a struggle with the modern internet. You will have an old version of Safari that many sites will reject as out of date. The modern internet has abandoned support for the powerPC processor used in all eMacs. You can get a browser, TenFourFox, that keeps the sites from rejecting your browser because it causes the sites to show you are using a recent version of FireFox.  However, it does not support Flash Player so videos are out. And it is slow. I use TenFourFox on an old G4 tower I keep running and, even on our speedy 50MBps cable conecction, many sites run slowly. That said, if you have older games contemporary with eMacs (2002-2005), they will do OK on faster eMacs. Same with productivity programs--Office 2004 runs quite nicely on G4 Macs.
You will not be able to find much new software that runs on that computer.
Elephant #2) A very large number of eMacs with USB 2.0 logic boards and 1.0 and 1.25Ghz processors have a fatal logic board fault that is not worth trying to fix, even if you can find someone who claims to be able to do it. See if the serlal number falls in any of these ranges:
G8412xxxxxx- G8520xxxxxx
YM412xxxxxx - YM520xxxxxx
VM440xxxxxx - VM516xxxxxx
If it does, my recommendation is to stop any action on the computer now and don't throw any money at it.
So we need to pin down your version (there were four versions in two "families"). Please use this Apple article to find which you have and tell us:
eMac: How to locate the serial number and identify your model - Apple Support
Then we can recommend whether to proceed or look for a used Intel Mac--the better choice.