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Mac OS 10.4 Tiger v.s. Mac OS 10.5 Leopard

jrsx

jrsx

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 2, 2013
1,057
18
Tacoma, Washington
Well, here we go: I've always been questioning people (myself included :p) about the superior PPC Mac OSs. Both seem to be great OSs, and while a lot fo people hate Tiger and love Leopard, or hate Leopard and run Tiger (or hate or love both), I thought I would put this to the test. I happen to have access to legal copies of both OSs, and have had much experience with them.
leopardvstiger.png

Mac OS X v.10.4.11 Tiger: on G4 processors, Tiger definitely boots faster. Many people debate over it, but it honestly really does. This is demonstrated with this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qt-zZydca4
I've also experienced this because, on my 1.33 GHz G4, I had it set to automatic boot up. Tiger would fully load with the screen shut before the laptop went to sleep, whereas Leopard always sleeps before it is fully loaded. Tiger is also faster on most processors than Leopard, although I know people will disagree with me. A lot of people say that you're crippling a PPC processor by running Tiger on it, and if you have a G5, that may be true, but most G4s under 1.2 GHz perform much better under Tiger. With RAM upgrades and and a newer hard drive, Tiger is pretty darn snappy and responsive. Along the lines that Tiger is faster, I have to argue that the Finder is much more responsive and fast than Leopard's Finder. It also looks really nice, for an older UI. It has a very smooth appearance. A great feature that Tiger has the Leopard does not, is Classic Support, which I find very helpful at times. Tiger can still do the basics, word processing, web browsing, and so on, so I really don't think Tiger is all that bad. To me, it's like an old friend. It's still a great OS.

Mac OS X v.10.5.8 Leopard: Leopard is a very modern OS, even today. It can do anything most modern OSs can do, while still being able to run on a Processor under 867 MHz. On my G4, Leopard runs at a good speed, good enough to be able to run 4-5 applications before slowing down considerably. An upside to Leopard is it's customization abilities. It can allow you to completely change the dock, the overall look, or even the way the scroll-bars work. Tiger's dock is fixed, and while there are some ways to customize the UI, there's not much you can do to my knowledge. Leopard can run many modern apps, certainly much more than Tiger. They both can run the most basic apps, but Leopard's versions are more secure, and trustworthy. Leopard has many more features than Tiger as well, such as Spaces, Photobooth, and Stacks, which are all really fun and useful. Leopard is also much more secure than Tiger, and a lot of things just work on Leopard. Leopard is hard to beat.

So, which is the best? In my opinion <suspense>, neither. Yes, I know, too many people say that. But after having used both OSs for a long while (Tiger much longer than Leopard), I really can't just say, "This is better," or ,"This is better than that," because they all have their upsides and downsides. I must say, though, Tiger is basically obsolete, but that doesn't stop people from using it. If I had to make a choice, I would probably say Leopard, but I can't, since I could easily live on Tiger if I had to.

I'm preparing for all the negative response I'm going to get.... :D
But feel free to post your thoughts on these two amazing OSs!
 
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My only beef with Tiger is that in my opinion classic is an afterthought and runs terrible in Tiger. Try running classic games in Tiger? Crash after crash after crash. Some will run, but I have always had a crash at some point with Tiger. This is why I now boot separate into genuine OS 9.2.2. IMO when it comes to classic nothing beats the real deal.
 
I personally run Leopard almost every G4 and G5 I own (of course the various G3's I have keep Tiger, and my G4 exception is the 800MHz iMac G4 as Leopard runs horribly on there). The look to tiger is really great, and I like the squared edges on the dock. In terms of little improvements here and there, I like Leopard for the functionality of Finder with the Jump Lists and whatnot.

In Leopard's defense, it gets more recent updates such as the new VLC that came out recently. Tiger is still running 0.9 and it's not nowhere good as the newer ones. iTunes is another deal that is a hundred times more updated then the iTunes on Tiger. Of course people running iOS6 and uses a G5 as a daily driver, this could be a big issue if you need to sync music and stuff.

For Tiger, my iMac G4 flies with it. This mac is really only used for Spotify and every once in a while testing Tiger apps for PowerPC Centre. Web browsing isn't really all that delightful on there for me, and I'd much rather default back to my MDD or G5 with Leopard (although TFF is compiled for both 10.5/10.4)
 
All I have to say is, I ditched OS9 in 2003. Any need for OS9 support can be met by one of the two OS9 Macs I own.

There are a couple of instances where I use Tiger for a specific purpose, but on the whole I abhor it.
 
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paulwgraber said:
My only beef with Tiger is that in my opinion classic is an afterthought and runs terrible in Tiger. Try running classic games in Tiger? Crash after crash after crash. Some will run, but I have always had a crash at some point with Tiger. This is why I now boot separate into genuine OS 9.2.2. IMO when it comes to classic nothing beats the real deal.
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Really? I've had absolutely no issues with Classic under Tiger! Sheepshaver fails a lot for me, though.
gavinstubbs09 said:
I personally run Leopard almost every G4 and G5 I own (of course the various G3's I have keep Tiger, and my G4 exception is the 800MHz iMac G4 as Leopard runs horribly on there). The look to tiger is really great, and I like the squared edges on the dock. In terms of little improvements here and there, I like Leopard for the functionality of Finder with the Jump Lists and whatnot.

In Leopard's defense, it gets more recent updates such as the new VLC that came out recently. Tiger is still running 0.9 and it's not nowhere good as the newer ones. iTunes is another deal that is a hundred times more updated then the iTunes on Tiger. Of course people running iOS6 and uses a G5 as a daily driver, this could be a big issue if you need to sync music and stuff.

For Tiger, my iMac G4 flies with it. This mac is really only used for Spotify and every once in a while testing Tiger apps for PowerPC Centre. Web browsing isn't really all that delightful on there for me, and I'd much rather default back to my MDD or G5 with Leopard (although TFF is compiled for both 10.5/10.4)
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One thing I have noticed, as you pointed out, is the Finder is WAY faster and more responsive than any newer version of OS X, in my opinion.
The thing about Tiger that gets me is applications support, like you, and under-customization abilities.
 
paulwgraber said:
My only beef with Tiger is that in my opinion classic is an afterthought and runs terrible in Tiger. Try running classic games in Tiger? Crash after crash after crash. Some will run, but I have always had a crash at some point with Tiger. This is why I now boot separate into genuine OS 9.2.2. IMO when it comes to classic nothing beats the real deal.
Click to expand...

I think that's sort of the case with all emulation. Yes, it may work, but you have to coerce it into doing so.
 
eyoungren said:
There are a couple of instances where I use Tiger for a specific purpose, but on the whole I abhor it.
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Now their, I must disagree with you (in a friendly way of course!). I have no problem with Tiger accept what I mentioned above. I really like it. Man is entitled to his own opinion, though, so I won't press you. :)
 
jrsx said:
Now their, I must disagree with you (in a friendly way of course!). I have no problem with Tiger accept what I mentioned above. I really like it. Man is entitled to his own opinion, though, so I won't press you. :)
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Yes…you are entitled to be wrong. :D

Just kidding. I know, there are lots of users who like Tiger and that's cool. It all comes down to preference. Ford or Chevy, iPhone 5c or 5s and so on.

Tiger was a good OS for it's time (and good now) and on my own machines it performed well. But at work it was a mess and at some point you get tired of bugging devs to release apps for 10.4. Staying on Tiger also held me back at the time from QuarkXPress 8.x and Adobe CS4 as well as Suitcase Fusion. Those don't run on Tiger. I'm also a sucker for the UI and based on looks alone, my preference is Leopard.
 
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paulwgraber said:
My only beef with Tiger is that in my opinion classic is an afterthought and runs terrible in Tiger. Try running classic games in Tiger? Crash after crash after crash. Some will run, but I have always had a crash at some point with Tiger. This is why I now boot separate into genuine OS 9.2.2. IMO when it comes to classic nothing beats the real deal.
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Do these run in a Classic environment under Panther, or do they also crash there?

Some tweaks to your Classic setup can improve stability, and it can't handle some types of extensions. I find that 9.1 or 9.2.0 is a bit slower, but less susceptible to this sort of problem; 9.2.2 is optimised to run in Classic.

I think that a side-by-side-by-side comparison of Panther/Tiger/Leopard would be a worthy subject, using 800Mhz, 1.0Ghz, and 1.2Ghz systems, with 512MB of RAM on each, and 1GB of RAM (again, for each of the three speeds), as a basis.

A comparison of Tiger/Leopard, vs. Tiger/leopard Optimised for G4s, would be interesting as well.
 
I'm also a sucker for the UI and based on looks alone, my preference is Leopard.
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The default UI is the single biggest problem I have with Leopard. Whoever thought that light blue folders, pink desktop, and two shades of gray (windows and menu bar) was a good idea should be shot.

The default Tiger interface, in my opinion, is clean and complementary.

I'm an unabashed Tiger fan. Every Mac I've owned in the past ten years has run Tiger without fail. I still run Tiger to this day and do not have any problems doing what I need to do. By contrast, Leopard is a resource hog and I've had problems running it on two separate G4 MDDs. I know for dead certain that Tiger can run flawlessly with 512 MB of RAM on up to 5GB of RAM. Leopard was slow and dragged on 2GB of RAM.

The only use I have for Leopard is for iTunes and iPhone organization. Otherwise, Tiger is where it's at for me.
 
robertdsc said:
The default UI is the single biggest problem I have with Leopard. Whoever thought that light blue folders, pink desktop, and two shades of gray (windows and menu bar) was a good idea should be shot.

The default Tiger interface, in my opinion, is clean and complementary.

I'm an unabashed Tiger fan. Every Mac I've owned in the past ten years has run Tiger without fail. I still run Tiger to this day and do not have any problems doing what I need to do. By contrast, Leopard is a resource hog and I've had problems running it on two separate G4 MDDs. I know for dead certain that Tiger can run flawlessly with 512 MB of RAM on up to 5GB of RAM. Leopard was slow and dragged on 2GB of RAM.

The only use I have for Leopard is for iTunes and iPhone organization. Otherwise, Tiger is where it's at for me.
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I guess it comes down to personal experience. Tiger was highly unstable in the years I used it at work. Leopard (and Panther for that matter) were (are) rock solid.

As I've said many times there are a few things you can do to minimize resource use, but Leopard really works best with 1GB of ram or better.

That said, I'm running it at work right now on a G4/450 AGP with 192mb ram.
 
eyoungren said:
I guess it comes down to personal experience. Tiger was highly unstable in the years I used it at work. Leopard (and Panther for that matter) were (are) rock solid.

As I've said many times there are a few things you can do to minimize resource use, but Leopard really works best with 1GB of ram or better.

That said, I'm running it at work right now on a G4/450 AGP with 192mb ram.
Click to expand...

I liked Panther. It was pretty smooth and was my introduction to OS X.

When I reinstalled it on a lark on my MDD Dual 1.0, it was kind of neat to go back to it. I wound up using the version of iCal to print 50 years' worth of calendars in PDF form for future use in my home-made calendars.
 
I came in to OS X at 10.1.5. That version was seriously irritating to use when it came to networking with PCs. Jaguar was better but still frustrating.

Panther came with our G5 and while boring, boring, boring as far as the UI it was the most stable version of OS X that I've used.
 
I have a ton of classic games. Some older and some newer. It was always hit and miss with classic under osX. For instance Diablo and Diablo II worked great when it worked. But almost every session it would always lock up at some point. Same with Dungeon siege. So I saved a lot. But in 9.2.2 on my G4 I have not seen it lock up once. Same with Warcraft III. Granted this was with a G5 so maybe that had something to do with it. Myth would always get weird too.
 
robertdsc said:
The default UI is the single biggest problem I have with Leopard. Whoever thought that light blue folders, pink desktop, and two shades of gray (windows and menu bar) was a good idea should be shot.

The default Tiger interface, in my opinion, is clean and complementary.

I'm an unabashed Tiger fan. Every Mac I've owned in the past ten years has run Tiger without fail. I still run Tiger to this day and do not have any problems doing what I need to do. By contrast, Leopard is a resource hog and I've had problems running it on two separate G4 MDDs. I know for dead certain that Tiger can run flawlessly with 512 MB of RAM on up to 5GB of RAM. Leopard was slow and dragged on 2GB of RAM.

The only use I have for Leopard is for iTunes and iPhone organization. Otherwise, Tiger is where it's at for me.
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I use all three, but I use Tiger on my daily workstations. (I have Panther on a Powerbook, and on a Luxo 20"; and Leopard on Serve systems, and my Dell 910; while I have Tiger on over eleven other systems).

I've honestly only used 10.5 Server.... The default desktop is a dark, rich royal violet-violet; not pink. Is 10.5 client really pink?

The folder icons seem to be the same colour range of blue, between Tiger and Leopard, although I prefer the depth-perspective on folder icons in Tiger, versus the 'flat' image on Leopard (Server), that seems a throwback to System 7/ System 6/ earlier MacOS.

It is easy enough to change them in any event.

What I honestly detest in leopard is the changes to searching, with searching by content set as a default, rather than by filename. The transposition of content and filename as the search default is a really bad move, in my opinion.

I also prefer the tabbed Terminal in leopard to the windowed Terminal in Tiger, but at the same time, i fell that Tiger performs better as an OS, despite its flaws, and it has the Classic environment, that I depend upon for Framemaker. Sheepshaver works, but it isn;t entirely stable, and its integration with the host filesystem can cause it to crash, forcing me to resort to mounting the system and work disk images that I use in Sheepshaver, on the OSX desktop, to permit cross-file operations.

If Apple had retained Classic support in Leopard (PPC), I would probably switch to it on my 2.7GHz G5s. I'm still shocked that there has never been a hack to re-integrate Classic on Leopard/PPC.
 
I've always preferred Tiger to Leopard, for three simple reasons:

1. It's much quicker and more responsive on G4 hardware than Leopard, and plays pretty nice with G3's as well.

2. It's been near flawless in stability of the OS, as well as the specific apps/app versions; Leopard isn't too bad either, but I've definitely had to force quit more apps and reboot more often with it.

3. The UI is so much cleaner, balanced and refined. Leopards clashes a bit too much, and feels like it's trying to show off and constantly remind you of its presence, while the Tiger UI is much more seamless and focused on function rather than appearance.

I'll give Leopard the larger library of recent and still updated apps as a big positive in its favor, but personally, it isn't enough of one to sacrifice everything Tiger does better for me.
 
Tiger > Leopard. Leopard started the trend of bloat in OS X. Tiger has yet to cause me a single issue.
 
here are my ultimate thoughts on this subject:

Neither Tiger, nor Leopard, is a 'better OS' than the other. What matters, is how you intend to use it, and on what hardware you will run the OS.

I use Tiger for most of my workstations, and Panther on those that are less powerful, where I do not require Tiger. That means that all of my G4 systems run panther, or Tiger, primarily Tiger.

For servers, I run primarily Leopard, as it tends to perform better in that capacity. I also run Leopard on all Intel systems.

Panther workstations, I generally use for literary work, which involves Office, and Framemaker, which runs only in 'Classic'. I use the more powerful Tiger systems for design & print work, and I use the servers as servers, unless I need to run an Intel-specific programme, that needs a lot of power behind it.

When determining what is best for you, the most important factor is how you will use the OS.

For the record, the 'bloat' started in tiger, which was 50% larger than Panther, that was 30% larger than Jaguar. Leopard is more than twice the size as Tiger, and its 'features' (i.e. eye candy) eat up far too many system resources, unless you completely rework it. If my software runs on 10.4, why run it on 10.5, and waste those resources on the host OS, instead of graphics, design, and print software, where it is most needed?

I have one system running Jaguar, which has a small footprint, but still overflows one CD.

What irritates me, is that many newer programmes could use older XCode versions, as they don't do anything for which XCode 4 or later is actually needed, and if the developers used XCode 2.5, which is likely all that they would need, then their software would run in OSX 10.3 through 10.9.

For software that needs more, I can understand the problem, but I see many programmes that force you to upgrade your host OS, without a good reason, purely due to the developer using XCode protocols that are not usable on 10.3, 10.4, or 10.5.

This is also true of drivers...

I run one instance of 10.6 (Server) at present: It is in a VM, on an XServe that runs 10.5.8 as its base OS. I honestly do not know what in Snow Leopard is in any way an improvement over Leopard, and Lion was a farce.

I'm perfectly happy to use 10.4, on G5 systems, for the foreseeable future. i can use 10.5, or even XP in an VM, if something simply will not run, or a website will not load.

I have not tried an optimised Leopard, for G4s, but I will eventually make my way around to doing that. I am curious about the performance difference between Tiger, stock leopard, and optimised Leopard.

I never changed the default OS on my Luxo. It shipped with 10.3, and is still running 10.3. The 20" display can place two pages, side-by-side, and I use that system as a console for writing, and for editing. It needs no more than it has.
 
One addition:

It does more have to do with iMovie, but, since iMovieHD-05 comes with the grey Tiger discs, I add it here.

If you have projects before iMovie 5, and you open them in iMovie06, you loose a few minutes at the beginning and at the end. So, I keep iMovie05 to migrate iMovie3 projects, then save them as iMovie05 file and then open them in iMovie06 (under Leopard, because I have it installed on that drive).
 
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