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Likely reformatting soon...Tiger or Leopard?

wallaby

wallaby

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 5, 2007
514
143
Iowa
After the holidays I will probably be going from a 160GB 5400rpm drive in my Macbook Pro to a 320GB 7200rpm drive (granted that I don't screw up the installation and make a giant paperweight of my laptop). I've been rolling comfortably on 10.4 ever since I got it, doing mostly design work in CS3 and net-surfing. I've been planning on waiting for 10.6 to upgrade, but since it may not come out until after I've graduated college (and me therefore no longer eligible for a student discount), I'm considering just jumping into 10.5 now since I'm assuming it's gotten more stable by now. I can see Time Machine being easier to use than my manual backups, but is it really any better than SuperDuper? And do most programs run alright on it? I've run into virtually no applications that require Leopard.

Any arguments for or against? And please, no "OMG LEOPARD SO GREAT I'M JUST SAYING THIS BECAUSE IT WAS INSTALLED ON MY COMPUTER", I'd prefer to hear from people who have actually upgraded.
 
Why not just install 10.4 for the time being... and wait until the apple event in January to see if any timing is sent out...

If they don't mention timing, then buy the 10.5....



Also, there really isn't a huge difference in price with the student discount and without.... So, it may also be worth waiting just to see what apple offers in 10.6 (iChat 5 please... iChat 5 please... iChat 5 pleassssse...). Even if you wait until September, Snow Leopard might be worth the extra $20 without the student discount (As it would be cheaper to spend $20 in september, than 110 now and 130 then...)
 
Probably a good idea... and I don't know what schools you've been to, but at mine OS X is half the price, not $20 less.

iChat would have to be pretty much like Adium with video/voice chat support to make me switch. And for some reason, everyone I try to video iChat with fails... I always end up using Skype instead. :confused:
 
wallaby said:
Probably a good idea... and I don't know what schools you've been to, but at mine OS X is half the price, not $20 less.

iChat would have to be pretty much like Adium with video/voice chat support to make me switch. And for some reason, everyone I try to video iChat with fails... I always end up using Skype instead. :confused:
Click to expand...


Ah... I refuse to give any money to my school bookstore (I think they're a bunch of crooks)... So I just use the Mac Education Discount at their stores... Oh well....


I love Adium as well, but I can't for the lift of me get file transfers to work. I could care less about video support, but I send documents and Power Points quite often to friends and not being able to send files it just miserable.

So, I want iChat to be much more like Adium (Since Adium isn't making any leaps and bounds in the file transfer department... I've been waiting YEARS for it!). Multi-line away messages... better message logging, etc etc is much wanted!
 
Amazon usually has great deals on OSX Leopard.

I wouldnt jump right into a new OS (Snow Leopard) until after it goes through a few Combo Updates, wait to atleast 10.6.2 to try it out.

alot of bugs usually come around in the first iteration of any OS.


Leopard is pretty mature and completely usable now.
I upgraded my Sept 2007 MacBookPro 2.2ghz from tiger to leopard.

it runs flawlessly and boots quicker and everything i do seems more clean and neater.
It also has better capabilities for my needs, small time machine back ups, easier to access other computers on my network.

I thought i'd have issues with my apps, but im still using CS2 Suite and it runs solid, same with office 2004.

However CS2 will probably cease to work on my system, once Rosetta is dropped in Snow Leopard.


i waited till Leopard was 10.5.4 to dive in and its the best Mac OSX ive used thusfar and thats saying ALOT since Tiger was running solid on my previous MP for almost 2 full years, and that was a great OS to say the least.

I just like the feel and functionality to it. Much more fluid and solid in my experience.



I think you may benefit from using Leopard.
 
Quick Look alone makes it worth it. Leopard is very stable for me. Since you can get it for about $90, I would suggest upgrading.
 
I run Tiger on my iBook G4, and Leopard on my Mac mini. And I gotta say, I prefer Tiger. It boots faster, runs faster, and IMO, looks better then Leopard.

So, I would go with Tiger, unless Leopard has some features you really want. (I must admit, I LOVE Quick Look on Leopard.)
 
I have tiger on my macbook, and leopard on my imac. I honestly dont see any reason to upgrade to leopard, maybe I dont take full advantage of the new features, but for what I do I'm more than happy with tiger. The macbook was my first mac and it is so many light-years a head of windows maybe i have set the bar too low :)
 
I upgraded my iMac to Leopard about 90 minutes after it released (I had to drive home - 45 minutes - and interact with my family for a while, which was why it took so long).

Then I upgraded a Mac Mini (1.66GHz CD) and an original MacBook (1.83GHz CD) in the following week once I'd tried it out.

I have no regrets. Spotlight improvements, Spaces, Screen Sharing and Quick Look all make it worthwhile. I haven't had any stability issues. And I think it's faster than Tiger was, and looks better too (once you make the 3D dock into a 2D one ... and I've got used to the translucent Menu bar, but my desktop is dark so it looks better than over a light desktop)

If you haven't upgraded to Leopard by now, you're hardly an early adopter, so if you go with what Catch Them said and wait for 10.6.2 before installing Snow Leopard, you'll be using Tiger for another year probably (I don't see 10.6 being released before early summer next year).

One thing I suggest you do is, keep Tiger on your old disk and get a 2.5" enclosure for it. That way, you'll be able to clone everything back to the new drive if you don't like Leopard. And you'll probably be able to get most if not all your $69 back by selling Leopard on.

Edit: Actually, I have one regret. Although for the most part I prefer Leopard's Front Row, you still don't get album art from shared libraries, something that worked with Tiger's Front Row. That sucks.
 
plinden said:
Edit: Actually, I have one regret. Although for the most part I prefer Leopard's Front Row, you still don't get album art from shared libraries, something that worked with Tiger's Front Row. That sucks.
Click to expand...

Wow, a Front Row user... I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've used it. Granted I'm on a laptop and using it for work more than media, but I always forget it's there. :p

Think I'm convinced to go ahead and do the upgrade to Leopard, the stability issues being mostly fixed by now is a big reason why. I'll go with your suggestion Plinden and get an external enclosure for the older drive just in case.
 
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