Powerbook G4, need OSX disks, ebay my best bet?

[Emlyn_Dewar]

Not a frequent poster round these parts... I am in need of assistance though and there's only one place that can help.

I've got given a 15" 1.25ghz Powerbook G4 from my mate, it's in need of a clean as it's spent all of it's life in his restaurant kitchen, but I figure it'd make a nice-ish machine for web browsing to give to my younger sister.

After it's stripped down and cleaned, I think I'll need a full OSX reinstall but we couldn't find the original disks for the machine. It's on OSX 10.3 just now, but I understand I could go to 10.5 max?

What is my best bet for getting hold of older versions of OSX? Ebay?
I know pretty much nil about anything Apple so am not sure what I should be looking for.
Does OSX work with a key/online activation service like Windows? Do all OSX disks work on all Apple machines?

I know there'll be suggestions not to bother given that it's an old G4, but it seemed quick enough to me, and it's better to fix something up than just bin it.

Thanks for any help

 

[SeraphX]

ebay yeah, your machine will support 10.5 but for the money, you might be better off picking up 10.4 ;

OSX does not require online registration or keys for activation

not all discs will work on all machines

grey discs are machine specific, hence, powermac G5, mac mini, iMac etc etc
Black discs are retail, so apart from 10.6 only working on an apple made since 2006 they will work on most machines

only other thing is, you cant install an OS older than the version that came installed from the factory

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

Thanks for that info Seraph, that helps.

The only stumbling block has been iTunes for sister's iPod needing a newer OS, or it would have been fine with 10.3.
Will install 2gb of memory and then see what I can get best deal on. As you say, 10.4 would probably be a wiser purchase. Would just need to grab an old download of iTunes.

Still find it a bit foreign to use, but I am beginning to get my head round OSX...

Edit: Forgot that there were some Apple users at work... Managed to grab a redundant Tiger retail from them.
Fresh install of Tiger done today, found an old iTunes 9.2.1 installer to get a more uptodate iTunes...
Just running through all the software updates now. Must say, it's far less hassle with this machine compared to a Windows install...
Aside from being able to use newer applications, I really can't see the difference compared to the previous Panther install. Must need to be a user to see these things.