My iMac (the one in my signature) shipped yesterday and will be here Friday! It is coming with Snow Leopard installed but will upgrade right away but don't know which one will be better on my hardware. What is everyone's suggestions?
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Mavericks or Yosemite?
- Thread starter GameGuru38
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I guess my basic question is if my hardware will run Yosemite well? Of course I want to be up to date with my OS but I also don't want it to be laggy. I know I don't want to stay at Snow Leopard because that is four versions behind. Minimum I would like to go is Mavericks but I will go all the way to Yosemite if it will run well.
But hey, read around a bit! Yosemite doesn't "run well" almost anywhere! Stay on SL.
Just a quick question. Why is no one saying Mavericks? Will it not run well on my iMac? And if not why isn't anyone recommending Mountain Lion or even Lion. I am sure Snow Leopard is good but it is old and you would think one of the newer operating systems would be preferred.
My last Mac was similar iMac and I do not recommend installing Yosemite because it is designed for SSD and it will not work fast enough on standard hard drive.
In my experience Mavericks is about 10-15% slower compared to Snow Leopard on same Mac, depending on type of software.
It might work well enough if you need Mavericks new features or if you use software which requires Mavericks.
In my experience Mavericks is about 10-15% slower compared to Snow Leopard on same Mac, depending on type of software.
It might work well enough if you need Mavericks new features or if you use software which requires Mavericks.
I get the "Stick with SL" advise. But what about machines which are already running Mavericks - should they be upgraded to Yosemite? Mine runs on Mavericks and I'm as happy with it as I was with the previous versions of OSX.
Why are the reviews of Yosemite on the App Store so polarised? I think I noticed a couple of people saying that having problems with Yosemite depends on whether the machine has a HDD or a SSD, is that it or is there another reason?
Why are the reviews of Yosemite on the App Store so polarised? I think I noticed a couple of people saying that having problems with Yosemite depends on whether the machine has a HDD or a SSD, is that it or is there another reason?
Then stick to whatever OS X that came with your Mac... If you're new to Mac post-SL, I guess you're too late for the party... If you really want to try out Yosemite, partition a small secondary space for Yosemite for tryouts.
But hasn't Apple abandoned Snow Leopard like Microsoft has WinXP now so no new update? Why recommend staying with an antiquated operating system instead of upgrading to a more modern and supported one?
I am not being snide, I really want to know why so many are saying stick with Snow Leopard instead of moving up to one of the Lions, Mavericks or Yosemite? I come from the Windows world and don't know much about OS X but I do know if someone tells me to stick with WinXP instead of upgrading to Win7 I would shake my head and walk away.
Am I missing something with all these Snow Leopard recommedations?
GameGuru38, I was about to ask almost the same questions you have in a new thread, and I'm honestly troubled by the responses here.
I get it, guys and gals, Snow Leopard is a solid OS, and my iMac will probably stay on it for a little while longer, as it is required for my XP installation in Boot Camp. However, SL has become deprecated from Apple's standpoint, and did not receive the last couple of global bug fixes like Shellshock and POODLE. iTunes has also left SL behind; if I were to buy an iPhone 6 right now, I can't sync it to my main iTunes library, which is on my iMac.
The iMac has more than the minimum hardware for running either Mavericks or Yosemite, and eventually I will need to update my system, XP in Boot Camp be da**ed. Staying on SL will NOT be an option.
Is there anyone out there with some in-depth Mav vs. Yo opinions on older hardware?
(Those who pointed out the apparent SSD bias in Yo, thank you.)
I get it, guys and gals, Snow Leopard is a solid OS, and my iMac will probably stay on it for a little while longer, as it is required for my XP installation in Boot Camp. However, SL has become deprecated from Apple's standpoint, and did not receive the last couple of global bug fixes like Shellshock and POODLE. iTunes has also left SL behind; if I were to buy an iPhone 6 right now, I can't sync it to my main iTunes library, which is on my iMac.
The iMac has more than the minimum hardware for running either Mavericks or Yosemite, and eventually I will need to update my system, XP in Boot Camp be da**ed. Staying on SL will NOT be an option.
Is there anyone out there with some in-depth Mav vs. Yo opinions on older hardware?
(Those who pointed out the apparent SSD bias in Yo, thank you.)
I am running 10.10.3 on a 2011 iMac, 2009 MacBook Pro and 2009 Mac-Mini. I have not had any issues running Yosemite on any of the computers. I find that Yosemite is at least as responsive on all my computers as Mavericks was. Safari is a lot more responsive then it was under Mavericks on all my computers which were running 10.9.5 before I installed 10.10.2. Not a single WiFi or bluetooth issue on any of the computers running Yosemite. I know there are people having issues running Yosemite on their computers but there are also people, like myself, that have had no issues. I always suggest that if someone is uncertain about using Yosemite, create a new partition on the hard drive, install Yosemite on the new partition, boot to the Yosemite install and test use it. When done, reboot back to the primary partition and delete the new partition.
Thank you, Taz Mangus. I have a 17" MBP that I upgraded to Mav from SL, and noticed that it's a little slower. It's good to know that Yosemite is not likely to make it worse and may even be better.
FYI, iPhone 6 requires a minimum of iTunes 11.4 and 10.6.8... I'm using an iPhone 6 and syncs my entire iTunes library on Snow Leopard without problem. That includes Contacts and Calendar (iCal on SL), and I can still use Notes on iCloud via Apple Mail.
As for Shellshock, there's a 3rd party Bash Update available. POODLE, go download the latest Firefox or Chrome... done deal... No problem running SL here.
On my 2010 MBP, Mavericks has resource problems causing drop frames on my VLC and MPlayerX playbacks, so as Yosemite.
And the damning side of Yosemite, after 10 minutes or so of usage, I feel like punching my display.
There are privacy issues with Yosemite. Work arounds are available but I'd rather not support a product that I do not agree with the direction that it's heading. Plus I have vm machines running old fusion 5 which I believe is not compatible on Yosemite.
I would not recommend upgrading beyond Mountain Lion. I am currently working on a series of performance benchmarks which compare every revision of OS X from 10.5 to 10.10, using the same hardware. Anything beyond Mountain Lion exhibits significant graphical performance issues on the desktop which will be very apparent on older hardware.
If it neither has an SSD not a Retina display, I'll stick with SL. It's much faster.
If it has an SSD but no Retina display, go for Mavericks. It's much easier on the eyes.
If you have an SSD and a Retina (HiDPI) display, Yosemite looks good and runs decently(if you restart your computer regularly).
My suggestion: Either stay at SL and enjoy the most stable and responsive version of Mac OS X, or install a SSD and put Mavericks on it.
I wound up installing Mavericks yesterday because I really wanted tags, notification center and finder tabs and I am loving it. It is running ing great on my hardware. Thanks all for the responces.
Ive just upgraded from Snow Leopard to Yosemite..the migration assistant hung and froze and was a nightmare but I decided to partition my drive and finally after a week of faffing and having to do a fresh Yosemite Instal and speaking to apple about migrating an older iPhoto library to photo's its now running well. I like notifications and a lot of newer software I couldn't run on snow leopard I now have access too but still use Snow Leopard for older apps that won't run on Yosemite so I have a solution that works for me both ways
Just don't ask what others think you should do. Look at all the opinions that are posted here on the forum and other places on the web. This Yosemite thing is not all so great right now. Ask yourself if you have all the other devices that this new (not working so well) Yosemite is designed for. To be informed as to your needs just might save you from making a BAD choice. Just cause it's new and wanting to jump out of the box, does not mean you really need it for now.
Just my take after searching all the comments. So I am still using my Mavericks which works for me.
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Being that you're going to have to stare at your computer quite a bit, you want a system that easy on the eyes. . and Yosemite ain't it!