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To upgrade or not to upgrade

steve2112

steve2112

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Feb 20, 2009
3,023
6
East of Lyra, Northwest of Pegasus
That is the question. No, this isn't a Snow Leopard question.

I upgraded my Mini to Snow Leopard. When I bought said Mini from a coworker last year, he threw in a retail copy of Leopard. So, now I have this nice copy of Leopard sitting here with no home, and a 17" Powerbook G4 1.67 still running Tiger. The Powerbook has been rock solid and still runs great, but Tiger is looking a bit dated. So, should I upgrade the Powerbook or not? It's got the 120GB HDD, and 1.5GB of RAM.
 
i was running leopard on my 1.5 ghz powerbook and it ran fine, i would be surprised if it didnt.
 
You may need to carefully check the small print on Snow Leopard's license agreement. Currently Snow Leopard is only being sold as an upgrade to Leopard, not a separate OS in itself. The legalese for upgrades often says you can't use or sell the original version ... that's why you get it at a cheaper price than the full version.
 
My 12" 1.5ghz powerbook ran leopard fine with 1.25 gigs of ram, so there's no reason why yours wouldn't. Upping it to its 2 gig ram maximum wouldn't hurt.

There's a couple of good websites that detail how to custom configure older rigs to run 10.5 at maximum efficiency, it mostly involves turning off processor sucking eye candy that you won't be using or needing.
 
Before you take the plunge
review this site to ensure your software and drivers work as expected. If you have no compatibility issues, then there's no reason not to take the plunge.

I've been very happy with the SL, its been very fast and stable. I look forward to further refinements and updates to my applications to enhance the experience.
 
maflynn said:
Before you take the plunge
review this site to ensure your software and drivers work as expected. If you have no compatibility issues, then there's no reason not to take the plunge.

I've been very happy with the SL, its been very fast and stable. I look forward to further refinements and updates to my applications to enhance the experience.
Click to expand...

It may be a little unclear from the original post, but he's wanting to install 10.5 on a g4 powerbook.
 
Thanks for the replies. I was really just wondering what kind of performance I would see from Leopard vs. Tiger. I have a 2.5" Firewire drive I use for backups, so I don't really need Time Machine, and I was trying to think of other stuff I might prefer over Tiger. The Powerbook has basically become a living room computer. I have it on a finely crafted laptop tray (TV dinner tray) by my favorite chair. I use it for MacRumors while watching TV. :)

I'll also check the licensing for SL. I hadn't thought of that. I also need to check with my co-worker on the copy of Leopard. I know he had a stand alone copy, then went back and got a family pack. He is a total Mac addict. Every time something new gets released, I go ask if he's bought it, and wants to sell any of his older stuff.

One other thing: Is it worth an upgrade to iLife 08/09? I have 06 that came with the Powerbook, but I really don't use it too much on this machine.
 
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