Should I upgrade to OS 10.3?

Question

Hello,
I'm a new forum user. I have a late-2001 white iBook. It has a 15 GB hard drive, PowerPC G3 processor, 500 MHz. It has the CD read-only drive, that's a tray that pops out. I got an ipod shuffle for Christmas, but haven't used it b/c it requres 10.2.8. I was thinking that I should upgrade to 10.3 (was thinking of buying one of those iPod nanos that require 10.3.4), also for the reason that 10.1.5 seems kind of buggy. For example, my company offers a disk that contains Anti-virus software, and I tried to install it but it caused crashes, and IT told me that it doesn't work with 10.1.
I use a classic application (Finale) that works better if I actually restart in OS 9, so I don't want to lose that ability.
Is it possible/a good idea to buy Panther and install it? I don't really want to spend a lot of money on this computer. For example, I have some problem with the screen (it goes black if opened past a certain angle), but the store said it would be $400 to fix it, so I'm not willing to do that. I got a separate monitor, but haven't had to use it b/c I just have been leaving the ibook at home, open to the same angle.
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

900/3346
Hi annaesm,
Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Yes, it is possible and it is indeed a good idea, but add some more RAM if you have only the original 128MB; as much as possible, up to the maximum of 640MB if you can.
Panther is very stable, fast and full of wonderful features, not to mention the thousands of undocumented hidden ones that you discover while using it.
Be careful with the quality of the discs. They may be quite difficult to find now that it's been discontinued since more than a year.
A lot of Panther discs that you can find for sale are in fact hacks from computer-specific DVDs or CDs.
The ones you are looking for are the set of three black install CDs + one white "Xcode Tools" CD.
Tiger 10.4.x:
At $129, Tiger is not too far from Panther, available everywhere, and simply even better than Panther at quite almost everything.
Classic vs restarting in OS 9:
Old enough Macs like yours that could boot in both OSs, well can still work the same way with Panther or with Tiger.
You'll simply have to keep your original Mac OS 9 on its partition, and install Panther (or Tiger) on the other one.
I think. Others, correct me if I'm wrong?
Good luck!
Axl