new to mac...need help with leopard

medic527 said:

hello all,

first off thanks to everyone here, and all the great info that is availible

i am in search of upgrading my ibook g4 with leopard and i have check the specs and able to run it, but i have found out that its no longer sold ....wth.

where is the best and most economical place to make this purchase???

thanks much in advance

Click to expand...

Ebay might be your best shot. If it makes you feel any better, most prices for Leopard are now under the retail price Leopard had when it first went on sale.

medic527 said:

hello all,

first off thanks to everyone here, and all the great info that is availible

i am in search of upgrading my ibook g4 with leopard and i have check the specs and able to run it, but i have found out that its no longer sold ....wth.

where is the best and most economical place to make this purchase???

thanks much in advance

Click to expand...

Well unfortunately you're left with two bad options:

1) Purchase a used install disk from a 3rd party retailer. Unfortunately, these retailers try to sell the install disks for close to if not full retail prices because they know people can't buy them new anymore.

2) There are "illegitimate" means of retrieving Leopard online. I won't go into detail.

It pretty well boils down to either get ripped off for a used disk or retrieve it illegitimately. It's a bad situation.

Leopard

Sadly, the information so far is correct. Leopard PPC so bloody expensive it is sad! I ran into this issue when I purchased my G5 with Leopard installed, but no disks with it. When my hard drive went wonky, I was left with Tiger. Which to be honest was still quite useable.
However I wanted leopard back. I lucked out with some patients and a troll through criags list for about two months. Ended up with a full retail "clean" install disk for $50.00. So there are other options out there. Just be careful that you do indeed buy a retail install disk of 10.5 as there are no system specific install disks for the iBooks that are beyond 10.4

~Drake

Personally, to cut down on the piracy around people obtaining Leopard, & for Apple to make themselves some money. I think Apple could at least sell Leopard online or in stores for a reduced price, or even if Apple charge you to install Leopard in-store. A number of people I know, even running an Intel Mac (especially Mini's that are being used as a media centre) still run Leopard, or even Tiger.

But as other people have said, it's either eBay, a 3rd party retailer, pirate it yourself or use Carbon Copy Cloner & clone another Mac's HDD over to your iBook's.

Could not agree more Gof!

This has also come up more than a few times at the local MUG here. The majority in the group here are academics in some form or another with most running 10.4 as the main os for work in the school environment and most doing the same at home, or running Leopard to be compatible with work related software.

As of late though, most are going back to 10.4 for numerous reasons, the chief of them being price if they need/have to/want to reinstall the primary OS. I can understand the Apple model of: "Keep moving forward!" And all that. Especially the push away from PPC's with their "retirement". However, cutting out a large and still viable market to either down grade or pay a king's ransom for the OS they are comfortable with and choose to use? A bit short sighted and snobbish in my book.

I know about profit margins, business models and the like, so that for is really not the issue in this regard. It is simply that there was a time when Apple really seemed to care about not only the quality of their products but the contentment and dedication of it's customers. As of late it seems the shift is now going back the other way to profits first! Everything else? Meh, when we get to it. A bit sad really

~Drake

I can see how it makes you feel better but I don't see how purchasing a used copy of leopard from someone else is anymore legitimate than the other means mentioned. Apple doesn't see a penny of the money you paid to the person who is selling the disc, who undoubtedly has a "backup" of the said disc. Most likely unlicensed copying is still taking place, you are just letting some other person benefit enormously by paying them for it. Still I understand completely why we don't talk about it on the forums as it attracts negative attention to the community.

Do whatever you feel okay with. It's not an enormous financial hurdle to obtain one "legally" these days but it can cost you more than a used powerbook based on ebay's completed listings.

I think the options of obtaining a Leopard disc have been fully covered.

But there's another option: the Genius Bar.
I was at an Apple store a couple of months ago and there was a guy in there with his G5 PowerMac running 10.4. He was having hard drive trouble. The genius bar had installed 10.5 onto a new drive and were migrating his account, files, programs over to the fresh install.
I know he was paying for the hard drive, but don't know what he was paying for the OS upgrade.

It's worth a shot.

hmm

Now that is something I did not think about that MiniFridge brought up. If in theory you can take you mac into one of the local shops and get 10.5 installed on it under some sort of legacy support from Apple, then to be honest there is really nothing stopping you from doing a CCC on the drive when you get home. Which in essence will give you a viable hardcopy backup of your drive.

Huh, learn something new everyday...

~Drake