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OS X 10.3.4 upgrade
- Thread starter tdonnelly
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You should be able to go to Leopard 10.5.8 on your PowerMac G5. Nothing higher supports PPC, no matter what PPC system you have.
Note that Leopard is easy to find on eBay, but is expensive. Be sure to buy a retail version if you go for Leopard because the model specific disks (gray) won't work (unless you get fabulously lucky and the model specific disk you buy is for your specific Mac).
Panther ended at 10.3.9. Tiger ended at 10.4.11
If you want your Mac to still be relevant, a Tiger upgrade is the least you want to do. But to run most of the latest or newest stuff you'll need Leopard. Note too that "latest" or "newest" simply means the last version of an app capable of running on a PowerPC Mac.
Try giving AppleCare a call. When I called, they offered disks for Leopard even though my PowerMac shipped with Tiger. Though the disks are machine specific and are generally 10.5.6, they are guaranteed to work. The price was a nominal fee of about $20.00. Give that a shot and if they say no the worst you lost was a little bit of time.
that won't happen with a Leo disk, as all of the machine specific gray Leopard disks were shipped with Intel machines.
That's why you'd have to be fabulously lucky for that to happen!
Seriously though. Thanks. I always forget that. I didn't get Leopard until sometime in 2010 so I've always been totally unfamiliar with the actual release.
That's why you'd have to be fabulously lucky for that to happen!
Seriously though. Thanks. I always forget that. I didn't get Leopard until sometime in 2010 so I've always been totally unfamiliar with the actual release.
The only time a gray model specific disk was made for PPC machines, was support disks for AppleCare.
10.5.8 is the latest, but I find that 10.4.11 is better suited for PPC systems. 10.5 was ultimately designed with the Intel architecture in mind, and uses far greater resources.
On a G5, 10.5.8 runs nicely, but I would never suggest it on a G4, and I use 10.4 on my dual-G5 towers (AND 10.5 on my G5 XServe systems).
On a G5, 10.5.8 runs nicely, but I would never suggest it on a G4, and I use 10.4 on my dual-G5 towers (AND 10.5 on my G5 XServe systems).
I find the complete opposite. Tiger was a train wreck on the G5 at work. Never stable. Couldn't start more than one copy thread to or from our server or Finder would crash. Every time. A few times after that the machine would lock up completely and it'd be a forced restart. Adobe CS 4 and QuarkXPress 8.x, two of my main programs won't run in Tiger.
Leopard is much more elegant in handling server shares. Bonjour and printer sharing is far more robust and it's more compatible with apps. I have it on every Mac I own and on the two PowerPC work Macs I use. It's running on my 1.73Ghz PowerMac G4 Quicksilver. Tiger is only on 1 PowerPC Mac at work and that's because for what I need it for it's not necessary.
One of the Macs at work is running it with less than 200mb ram. It's a G4/450 AGP. But I've had Leopard on a TiBook/400 before with 1GB ram.
Disable the eye candy and Leopard runs just as fast if not faster than Tiger and it's ultimately more stable with better useability.
Was that on 10.4.11?
I've seen Finder crashes on 10.4, so i believe you, but I am curious if that was on the last revision, or on an intermediate stage. I noted that some Tiger builds were better at this kind of operation...
Spotlight really broke in several ways between 10.4 and 10.5, and I never really liked the changes, with content as the default search, but that's a minor complaint.
I stream content from XServe systems running 10.5 to Dual-G5 systems running 10.4 routinely, with no problems using SMB. File copy threading: I generally don't start more than one file copy process in the Finder at any one time, as the Finder is not elegant in the way it handles task threading of this kind.
Multiple copy processes slow down file transfers, much more so than should be apparent. Thus, if I want multiple copy processes, I drop to a shell and use cp.
I actually have quite a bit of eye candy enabled in 10.4 as add-on software (e.g. Shapeshifter). 10.5 did add some useful features, such as adding a directory to the dock, but i run both in a mixed environment of systems without much trouble.
Do you know if you were using AFP or SMB when you had these problems?
10.4.11. I'm one of four Macs in a mixed Win2000/XP/7 environment (about 20 PCs). We've got a Windows 2006 Small Business Server that we all connect to.
With 10.4.11 I had to use DAVE to get any kind of reliable connection. So many connection issues without using DAVE. The Tiger Mac at work still has it installed.
We're using SMB because the server only supports AFP with Services For Macintosh. SFM uses an ancient version of AFP that only allows for 32 character filenames so it's impossible for us to use it.
I'm the network admin (such as it is) but my main job is the Graphic Designer (Manager) for our little weekly newspaper. We are often doing multiple copies and deletes. Leopard handles it. If the server drops Leopard will give you a box to disconnect gracefully or it will pick up the connection. Tiger just dumps you with a beachball.