New official Mac idiot: Bought iPad, never heard or read need for OS X 10.5.8

[TheBritishBloke]

Help!

I purchased an iPad on Friday but returned it Saturday when the Apple Store geeks said I would have to install Leopard to my MacBook running 10.4.11 Tiger. They said I could buy it myself on the web for $150-200 or maybe they could get it for $130. I declined as my MacBook is four years old and screen is failing.

Can I simply buy this $29 DVD and install on my Tiger MacBook? That's not what they said.

Nope. That is an upgrade DVD for leopard to snow leopard.

 

[MacMonkey13]

I wonder why this WRONG information is still spreading? Tiger users are NOT required to buy the Mac Box Set. Full stop.

The 29 bucks DVD is a RETAIL DVD, which means that it is a FULL version of the software. And it says NOWHERE on the DVD that you are required to own Leopard in order to be eligible to buy or use this version of the software.

You just cannot upgrade an existing Tiger installation with this software, that's correct - you have to install Snow Leopard from scratch.

But the point is that you shouldn't even try to upgrade Leopard either. Always perform a clean installation - upgrade installations always carry around garbage that either slows down the performance of the system or causes unpredictable results.

Of course, if the OP is still on a PowerPC Mac, he cannot install Snow Leopard but has to purchase and install Leopard instead.

So what does this mean then? Can I buy this $29 DVD and get Snow Leopard on my Intel mac running 10.4.11?

 

[spinnerlys]

So what does this mean then? Can I buy this $29 DVD and get Snow Leopard on my Intel mac running 10.4.11?

Technically yes, legally no.

 

[wesk702]

We're everywhere.

I'm in your closet

 

[Dooger]

Nope. That is an upgrade DVD for leopard to snow leopard.

Wrong. It's a complete copy of Snow Leopard. You may use this disk to upgrade Tiger to Snow Leopard, just as Winni said. It's just that it'll be a clean SL install, which is preferable anyway.

So what does this mean then? Can I buy this $29 DVD and get Snow Leopard on my Intel mac running 10.4.11?

Yup. I did it on my Dad's 2006 white MB

 

[gnasher729]

So you didn't celebrate at the turn of midnight into 2000 for the new millenium? Whether there was a year zero or not, the convention was accepted worldwide in 2000, the precedent was set. You're swimming against the tide. So 10.6.4 (the latest version) was released this decade!

You are wrong except for the last second: Yes, 10.6.4 was released this decade, that is in the last year of this decade.

I know about all the idiocy surrounding the year 2000, including the £1 billion monument of Labour stupidity in Britain called the "Millenium Dome" which shut down on the last day of the previous millenium, and one of the more stupid Labour ministers claiming we should celebrate at that time because it was Jesus' 2000th birthday (which was completely stupid, because even if Jesus had been born on the 25th of December 1 AD, which he wasn't, his 2000th birthday would have been Christmas 2001), but we should never, ever give in to stupidity like that.

 

[gnasher729]

So what does this mean then? Can I buy this $29 DVD and get Snow Leopard on my Intel mac running 10.4.11?

As others said, you can, it will work, it is, well, not really legal, but Apple has sold you an expensive product that you can't use if you don't have either Leopard or Snow Leopard, and Apple doesn't sell Leopard (10.5) anymore, so as a social experiment, you could go to the nearest Apple Store, tell them that you bought an iPad but you only have MacOS X 10.4, do _not_ tell them that you want to buy Snow Leopard but just ask them what you should do to get your iPad working, and I think chances are excellent that they will advice you to buy Snow Leopard for $29.

 

[SA22C]

Using the Snow Leopard disc to 'update' a Tiger installation contravenes the Eula, but it's hardly illegal. Get the cheap disk, do a fresh install and you're golden. Snow Leopard is a fantastic update from Tiger.

 

[Dooger]

As others said, you can, it will work, it is, well, not really legal, but Apple has sold you an expensive product that you can't use if you don't have either Leopard or Snow Leopard, and Apple doesn't sell Leopard (10.5) anymore, so as a social experiment, you could go to the nearest Apple Store, tell them that you bought an iPad but you only have MacOS X 10.4, do _not_ tell them that you want to buy Snow Leopard but just ask them what you should do to get your iPad working, and I think chances are excellent that they will advice you to buy Snow Leopard for $29.

If you read his post you'll see that they already advised him to buy the mac boxset. If he tells them that his OS doesn't work with the iPad they'll know that it must be Tiger (or lower) so why would you expect the Apple employees (imo the "genius" tag is a joke) to do anything other than parrot the company policy of the $169 upgrade for Tiger users.

MacMonkey, forget all this complicated crap and just buy or get your hands on the simple $29 SL disk. There's really nothing more to say on the issue.