Snow Leopard vs Mountain Lion

I guess I'll write about my experiences here too.

I (still) have a Macbook Pro from 2007, the first Core 2 Duo line. Started with 10.4 Tiger and eventually upgraded to 10.6 Snow Leopard, and loved that upgrade. I imaged my hard drive to an external using Super Duper, and bought/upgraded to Mountain Lion (skipped original Lion). Things worked, but overall the experience felt less smooth than Snow Leopard. Applications took longer to open, transitions weren't as smooth, and generally I felt the hardware was just not up to snuff. So I reverted back to Snow Leopard and am going to stay that way for the life of the laptop.

I have a 2011 iMac at work that came with Snow Leopard and I am still running on there, pretty much without issue. I have run into a couple of application lately that I was considering using (Kaleidoscope and CodeKit being among them), but they only run on 10.7 and higher, so I've had to go without them. They're not a deal-killer, but I can't help but wonder if my workflow would be improved by using them. Also, having messed around with 10.8 on the demo machines at Best Buy, I am sort of impressed by the revisions to Exposé (or Mission Control, whatever), and the multiple desktops. I use Spaces at work, but have been eschewing Exposé for alt-tab since I have tons of windows and I have to hover over every damn thing to even find what I'm looking for. So I'm considering an upgrade to Mountain Lion on the work machine, although I'm still hesitant to mess with something that isn't broken.

I donwgraded from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion this week. Unfortunalty, I needed the superior hardware.

The OS sucks. Had I tried this when I was still using Windows, I would have not switched. All the beauty of Aqua and the eye candy in the bars is gone. Mail was one of my favorite apps, had a beautiful buttons and now it looks like a NES Mario Paint drawing

I cant write some curse words, so Im gonna say this in a metaphorical way. I hope some Monkey take this Apple of the tree and eat it very slowlly, smashing and grumming every bit of this apple until it becomes pope.

LeandrodaFL said:

I donwgraded from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion this week. Unfortunalty, I needed the superior hardware.

The OS sucks. Had I tried this when I was still using Windows, I would have not switched. All the beauty of Aqua and the eye candy in the bars is gone. Mail was one of my favorite apps, had a beautiful buttons and now it looks like a NES Mario Paint drawing

I cant write some curse words, so Im gonna say this in a metaphorical way. I hope some Monkey take this Apple of the tree and eat it very slowlly, smashing and grumming every bit of this apple until it becomes pope.

Click to expand...

I'm not going to change again for a while..

Everything works just like it's supposed to to include my CAC card and not timing out while on the server...

GermanyChris said:

I'm not going to change again for a while..

Everything works just like it's supposed to to include my CAC card and not timing out while on the server...

Click to expand...

Yep, I'm still on Snow Leopard...I don't want to upgrade, but started thinking, "Maybe I should download Mountain Lion now, while most of the bugs are gone (?), because if I don't, it will be a year before Mavericks is useable."

I'm not getting a warm fuzzy feeling about ML from these posts, a year on!

What issues have you come across ML and you claim that its a worse OS than SL? It seems strange to me because i have an corei7 iMac with SL and a MBPro with ML (with same specs as the iMac apart the memory, mbp has 4GB more) and the laptop runs much smoother in everything!

zoran said:

What issues have you come across ML and you claim that its a worse OS than SL? It seems strange to me because i have an corei7 iMac with SL and a MBPro with ML (with same specs as the iMac apart the memory, mbp has 4GB more) and the laptop runs much smoother in everything!

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Isn't that obvious...? Bump your iMac another 4GB and try again...

I think mountain lion is more stable than snow leopard since 10.8.3, now 10.8.4. I haven't had anything crash. I'm running two macs, a late 2009 macbook with 8 gb ram and a late 2009 mini with 2 gb ram. They both have the same processor and integrated graphics. The macbook runs super fast, the mini super slow. I think 4 GB ram is a must, 8 gb might be a little better.

If you're going to stick to 2 gb, keep snow leopard. Another things is that they removed a lot of useful shortcuts like expose and the ability to right click in multiple ways. So for power users, mountain lion might be annoying. For most people, it will be like snow leopard but more stable.

when I saw the title what suddenly came to my mind is a picture of a lion and a leopard fighting...

Where is the thread that shows how to put Snow Leopard on a 2012 MacMini?

LeandrodaFL said:

Where is the thread that shows how to put Snow Leopard on a 2012 MacMini?

Click to expand...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1489516/

Snow Leopard doesn't support Ivy Bridge natively, meaning you'd have to go down the OSX86 route with KEXT swapping.

I don't think it's worth the hassle on new Macs... you're better off just upgrading the necessary components (SSD/RAM) to make it run nice.

SeenJeen said:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1489516/

Snow Leopard doesn't support Ivy Bridge natively, meaning you'd have to go down the OSX86 route with KEXT swapping.

I don't think it's worth the hassle on new Macs... you're better off just upgrading the necessary components (SSD/RAM) to make it run nice.

Click to expand...

I have the time and passion to achieve the impossible. thanks fo the reply, im gonna try my best

zoran said:

What issues have you come across ML and you claim that its a worse OS than SL? It seems strange to me because i have an corei7 iMac with SL and a MBPro with ML (with same specs as the iMac apart the memory, mbp has 4GB more) and the laptop runs much smoother in everything!

Click to expand...

Nobody is coming across any real issues, its just typical fussiness.

Mountain Lion is incredibly stable. I highly doubt anyone here can give a great explanation of why not to upgrade (provided they don't have some snow leopard only piece of software).

I do a ton on my machine, it never stops running. I use Modo, Maya, Houdini, Realflow, After Effects, Photoshop, ZBrush, Unity, XCode, Mudbox and more on mine all the time and I never have an issue.

ML is stable. But in SL...

Preview is better
Quicktime is better
Finder is better
Spotlight is better
MAil is better
iTunes is better

Im gonna make a 2 hour video explaining the real diferences and then post online. It stuff that people who only acess facebook wouldnt notice, so for most users ML is great, but SL is better.

LeandrodaFL said:

ML is stable. But in SL...

Preview is better
Quicktime is better
Finder is better
Spotlight is better
MAil is better
iTunes is better

Im gonna make a 2 hour video explaining the real diferences and then post online. It stuff that people who only acess facebook wouldnt notice, so for most users ML is great, but SL is better.

Click to expand...

I'm looking forward to that video of yours...

just for the record

i had a macbook black (6 years old)
2.16 duo core // 2GB RAM // 500GB HD Snow Leopard ran on fine...
Ms word 2011, photoshop CS5, Chrome and few other apps all at the same time meant it got a bit sluggish...

So i updated to the new mac.
I7 2.2 quad core // 4gb ram // 500GB HD Mountain Lion with
Ms Word 2011 // photoshop CS6 // Chrome and few other apps is just if not more sluggish than my old laptop.

I really do feel mugged off! im not sure if its cs6 though also helping on the sluggish effect as lots of people have said thats slow in its own right as well!!!


Grr this is not a good year for mac developers!!!

grazzeeee said:

i had a macbook black (6 years old)
2.16 duo core // 2GB RAM // 500GB HD Snow Leopard ran on fine...
Ms word 2011, photoshop CS5, Chrome and few other apps all at the same time meant it got a bit sluggish...

So i updated to the new mac.
I7 2.2 quad core // 4gb ram // 500GB HD Mountain Lion with
Ms Word 2011 // photoshop CS6 // Chrome and few other apps is just if not more sluggish than my old laptop.

I really do feel mugged off! im not sure if its cs6 though also helping on the sluggish effect as lots of people have said thats slow in its own right as well!!!


Grr this is not a good year for mac developers!!!

Click to expand...

I have a 2011 macbook pro with 4GB ram and if I keep Xcode, iOS simulator, Safari and Chrome opened it becomes very sluggish

chrono1081 said:

Nobody is coming across any real issues, its just typical fussiness.

Mountain Lion is incredibly stable. I highly doubt anyone here can give a great explanation of why not to upgrade (provided they don't have some snow leopard only piece of software).

I do a ton on my machine, it never stops running. I use Modo, Maya, Houdini, Realflow, After Effects, Photoshop, ZBrush, Unity, XCode, Mudbox and more on mine all the time and I never have an issue.

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This is so misbased & insulting to actual real-life users that it makes me doubt if you really use those apps/programs you mention at all. Not calling you a liar, but definitely calling you a clueless dude when you put out stuff like "I highly doubt anyone here can give a great explanation of why not to upgrade " or worse: "provided they don't have some snow leopard only piece of software".

I have had my 2011 MBP (16GB + 512GB SSD, PowerPC apps at all) dual boot with SL & ML for a long time; & SL is more stable, faster, runs waaaay cooler (it's not even close), apps open faster, shutdown is faster (remember I'm on an SSD not HDD); & many other things.

No matter the (multiple) ML clean install & SMC/PRAM resets on various SSds (to rule out sample variation), permissions verification/repair, ML re-introduced me to crashes again (from since I had switched from Windows to OS X); hindered workflow (I'm a pro photographer of 24+ yrs in the job) without countless Terminal hacks……

Good for you that you are OK with ML with no issues; we all have to use what works for us.

But please be polite & don't insult knowledgeable users with victim-blaming tirades based on myth;
because saying ML is way more trouble/issue free than SL is a myth; a sort of "reverse-FUD" if you will.

Joseph Farrugia said:

This is so misbased & insulting to actual real-life users that it makes me doubt if you really use those apps/programs you mention at all. Not calling you a liar, but definitely calling you a clueless dude when you put out stuff like "I highly doubt anyone here can give a great explanation of why not to upgrade " or worse: "provided they don't have some snow leopard only piece of software".

I have had my 2011 MBP (16GB + 512GB SSD, PowerPC apps at all) dual boot with SL & ML for a long time; & SL is more stable, faster, runs waaaay cooler (it's not even close), apps open faster, shutdown is faster (remember I'm on an SSD not HDD); & many other things.

No matter the (multiple) ML clean install & SMC/PRAM resets on various SSds (to rule out sample variation), permissions verification/repair, ML re-introduced me to crashes again (from since I had switched from Windows to OS X); hindered workflow (I'm a pro photographer of 24+ yrs in the job) without countless Terminal hacks……

Good for you that you are OK with ML with no issues; we all have to use what works for us.

But please be polite & don't insult knowledgeable users with victim-blaming tirades based on myth;
because saying ML is way more trouble/issue free than SL is a myth; a sort of "reverse-FUD" if you will.

Click to expand...

I've used both Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion on a lot of systems. Not only do I have them at home we have them at work. Again, like I said no one can ever give specifics on why one is worse than the other, they just say things like "Crashes all the time!" which I haven't seen on any machine I use. What crashes? Is it a particular app? What goes on when it crashes? Does the OS reboot? If people were to post specifics it would be more believable and others could help narrow down what may be causing the crashes.

I never see specifics and using a lot of different Macs with different OS's I call it like I see. The only time in the last year on work and home Macs is when I had a crash was very recently when I installed a new video card and that was because the drivers from nVidia were incomplete. They got pulled, I switched back to the apple drivers and two days later the correct drivers were released.

And here you go, since you don't think I use any of those apps I mentinoed here is my dock:

From right to left after contacts is Modo, Mari, ZBrush, Maya, Mudbox, Realflow, Houdini, Photoshop, After Effects, Corel Painter, and Aperture. They're all pretty expensive pieces of software, people who don't use them don't normally have them. I even have a lot more I use (like XCode, Unity, Crazy Bump, Logic) but I'm not using them for a project currently so they're not on the dock.

Joseph Farrugia said:

This is so misbased & insulting to actual real-life users that it makes me doubt if you really use those apps/programs you mention at all. Not calling you a liar, but definitely calling you a clueless dude when you put out stuff like "I highly doubt anyone here can give a great explanation of why not to upgrade " or worse: "provided they don't have some snow leopard only piece of software".

I have had my 2011 MBP (16GB + 512GB SSD, PowerPC apps at all) dual boot with SL & ML for a long time; & SL is more stable, faster, runs waaaay cooler (it's not even close), apps open faster, shutdown is faster (remember I'm on an SSD not HDD); & many other things....

Click to expand...

chrono1081 said:

I've used both Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion on a lot of systems. Not only do I have them at home we have them at work. Again, like I said no one can ever give specifics on why one is worse than the other....

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If you look at chrono1081's sig, "Mac Pro (2010): 3.33Ghz Intel Xeon (6 core) - 24 GB RAM - NVidia Quadro k5000; Macbook Air (2010): 2.13 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo - 4GB RAM", perhaps there is minimal difference on that 6 core Mac Pro with (key here) 24 GB RAM? But, I am not buying that you, chrono1081, do all that on your Macbook Air. Period. You would notice a difference running SL over ML on that for sure.

I will say again, I think I posted previously in this thread.

Mountain Lion will get my fans spinning up just using safari, or with several things open, or one pro app (or just iPhoto for that matter). It uses more RAM, and not well (doesn't efficiently empty RAM not in use). Perhaps with 6 cores and 24 GB RAM, this is not noticeable. I've had issues with ML, over-use of processor, getting bogged down, and using battery life up in nearly half the time SL would. Apps can crash at the drop of a hat. Yeah, it has some more iCloud/iOS syncing features, and some other things SL doesn't, but at the expense of not being a better overall OS, at least, not in user experience.

Snow Leopard was the fastest most stable OS X I've used, and I've used them all. (I've had Macs since Mac OS 8). Let's hope Mavericks, releasing tomorrow, takes Apple forward...c'mon Apple, let's have an OS X that is better AND faster AND more stable than the last (like you used to do before Lion). (I recall Tiger was pretty impressive too.)

LeandrodaFL said:

ML is stable. But in SL...

Preview is better

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I agree. ML doesn't play nice with Preview