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Need Tiger for College?

masse

masse

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 4, 2007
840
0
MA/GA
I'm currently running OSX 10.3.9 on my powerbook which I intend to take to college with me. I'm an engineering major at a fairly prestigious university. I was planning on getting a new laptop sometime in the next year, but I know I want to wait for penryn and leopard (in the new macbook pro's).

In the meantime, should I be fine with OSX Panther for school? I know some newer applications won't run on anything older than 10.4.

I've checked the school's recommendations etc. They recommend 10.4 or higher. I just don't know if I'll really need it...

Any suggestions? I really don't feel like buying it.
 
What year are you in? What field of engineering? What technical software do you plan on running *on the Mac*? I don't think there's anything major in the technical arena that exists on Macs that does not run in Panther.

My suggestion...Tiger is nice. You ought to be able to find a retail PPC Tiger install for not too much... $30 or so? If so, that'd be worth it to me, just for Spotlight and some of the other little niceties. But I doubt you need it.
 
What software do you intend on running? I just use the lab computers for most of the work I do, since I don't have to worry about licensing issues then. MATLAB is the only serious engineering app that I run on my PowerBook.

Heh, you beat me to it by mere seconds, mkrishnan ;)
 
If you're really adamant about sticking with Panther but need to run MATLAB, you'd have to run an older version of MATLAB. Not even sure if you can legally get the student version of older software, since The Mathworks might not sell it and the student license agreement may prevent transfer of the license.

Honestly though, I found Tiger to be a huge improvement over Panther and well worth the money. I'm less excited about Leopard, so I probably won't bother getting it until I buy a new Mac eventually. For only like $30, it's probably worth getting Tiger. It'll save you hassle in the long run, I'm sure.
 
elfin buddy said:
Honestly though, I found Tiger to be a huge improvement over Panther and well worth the money. I'm less excited about Leopard, so I probably won't bother getting it until I buy a new Mac eventually. For only like $30, it's probably worth getting Tiger. It'll save you hassle in the long run, I'm sure.
Click to expand...

Leopard looks good if you are a Cocoa developer (Carbon needs 64bit which Apple aren't adding :rolleyes: ), want to run UNIX software (as Leopard is now officially a UNIX OS) or are using an Intel Mac.

For everyone Time Machine is good for backups and the new Finder looks like a vast improvement.

If you are starting Uni in September holding out until the end of October for Leopard is probably sensible.
 
I just noticed that your signature notes:

Powerbook G4 15" Panther (currently dead)
Click to expand...

Wouldn't the boldface pose more problems for you than using Panther? :confused:

If the computer has >1GB of memory, most likely, upgrading to Leopard should be painless. If you have <1GB, it might be painful. If it contains 640 or less, you may need to consider disabling some things to smooth out functioning, even in Tiger, unless you're a very "one app at a time" sort of person.
 
Oh yeah, I fixed it. The hard drive died so I bought a 120 gig and put it in. I'm on it now and it's running fine.

I'm going to be a first year engineering student at Georgia Institute of Technology. Aerospace Engineering as intended major if it matters. I don't think buying leopard for this machine is going to be that important. I'll just wait til next spring or next back to school season to get an updated macbook or macbook pro (probably the latter).

I'll price a PPC copy of tiger I guess..
 
masse said:
I'm going to be a first year engineering student at Georgia Institute of Technology. Aerospace Engineering as intended major if it matters. I don't think buying leopard for this machine is going to be that important. I'll just wait til next spring or next back to school season to get an updated macbook or macbook pro (probably the latter).
Click to expand...

I went to Michigan -- I did my first three years in aero but ultimately switched to engineering physics to get my BSE. I'd say that, particularly in your first year, and based on how the Michigan curriculum works / worked, you're not going to be asked to do a lot that would need Tiger or a new computer. Certainly, most of it will be MS Office type stuff as far as computer usage goes. If you have a programming class, it'll either be in something very generic (like using gcc or java, so you can compile on whatever you want), or else you'll need to use the chosen IDE anyway, probably on Windows. If you use math software in typical freshmen / soph classes like Calc III and differential equations, you'll probably have access to workstations with whatever you use on them anyway.

The other thing that'll be worth looking into is this: You have X11 on your computer. If there are still engineering workstations running the engineering heavy apps on top of Solaris or HPUX or whatever, then you can probably get help configuring to use them with remote display on your Mac in X11. :D It may likewise be worth it to see if there's a windows terminal server or other windows computer to which you can do remote desktop client. If so, on Cable modem or dorm internet speeds, any Windows technical apps will be very usable.
 
masse said:
I'm going to be a first year engineering student at Georgia Institute of Technology. Aerospace Engineering as intended major if it matters.
Click to expand...

Hooray for the shaft. :D (MGT '05)

The labs are pretty good at Tech, so even if you couldn't get the latest version of Matlab on the computer, you'll be okay with the lab machines.

My question is, what courses are you taking this fall? If you're going to be a first year student, are you taking any courses that will require intensive Matlab? I took calc I, chem, english I and CS I my first semester, and think I only needed matlab for a few CS projects later on in the semester. Are you planning on taking physics or CS this fall (meaning that Leopard wouldn't have been released yet) or waiting until spring (after Leopard is already out)? If you're not going to need Matlab until spring semester (or late fall semester) then just wait for Leopard.

EDIT: Do you even need MATLAB? Haha. I just realized that you never even mentioned needing MATLAB. :D

And MKRISHNAN, dedicated T1's for each student in the dorms :D:D The fiber clusters are massive.
 
masse said:
I'm going to be a first year engineering student at Georgia Institute of Technology. Aerospace Engineering as intended major if it matters. I don't think buying leopard for this machine is going to be that important. I'll just wait til next spring or next back to school season to get an updated macbook or macbook pro (probably the latter).
Click to expand...

As a 4th yr Mech E student currently I can tell you that you will be fine. The only software I have ever had to run for school was Solidworks, Mathematica, and Matlab. All of those programs were widely available on school computers. Also I am pretty sure that most of the engineering modeling packages out there only run on PC anyway.

Also remember that 1st year is basically a wash, almost a complete waste of time IMO, not to discourage you here. Basically the entire year is spent in some basic intro classes and getting up to speed on things like math, physics, science, and liberal arts. So aside from a good word processing program, I can't see you knee deep in some new application you've never used.
 
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