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To Upgrade OS or Not

S

smmsanders

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 27, 2009
17
0
My wife has an iBook G4, 1.33 ghz PowerPC CPU, 1.25 GB Ram, 55.7 GB HD operating on OS X 10.3.9.

We usually use her computer to watch online video. As some of the video content requires OS X 10.4 or higher to play, I was wondering if a software upgrade would be worth the money. (Before you say buy a new computer, my wife really doesn't want to spend money on a new computer) So if an upgrade makes sense, should I upgrade to Tiger or Leopard and where is the best place to shop for OS X installation dvds? I was looking on Ebay but I'm worried that a used install disc won't work.
 
smmsanders said:
My wife has an iBook G4, 1.33 ghz PowerPC CPU, 1.25 GB Ram, 55.7 GB HD operating on OS X 10.3.9.

We usually use her computer to watch online video. As some of the video content requires OS X 10.4 or higher to play, I was wondering if a software upgrade would be worth the money. (Before you say buy a new computer, my wife really doesn't want to spend money on a new computer) So if an upgrade makes sense, should I upgrade to Tiger or Leopard and where is the best place to shop for OS X installation dvds? I was looking on Ebay but I'm worried that a used install disc won't work.
Click to expand...

If you have doubts, don't do it. If you want to have the latest/greatest, do it. SL doesn't require Leopard, so it is not strictly necessary, although upgrading SL on top of Tiger would be a EULA violation, so search your conscience.
 
petermcphee said:
If you have doubts, don't do it. If you want to have the latest/greatest, do it. SL doesn't require Leopard, so it is not strictly necessary, although upgrading SL on top of Tiger would be a EULA violation, so search your conscience.
Click to expand...

In this case, SL is irrelevant, as OP's computer is PPC based.
 
I believe that Snow Leopard doesn't support power pc. But Leopard would be a nice upgrade if you wanted to try that.
 
Thanks for advice. I noticed that I forgot to add an important question. Would Tiger or Leopard slow down the iBook G4 or will the upgrade cause minimal change in performance?
 
smmsanders said:
Thanks for advice. I noticed that I forgot to add an important question. Would Tiger or Leopard slow down the iBook G4 or will the upgrade cause minimal change in performance?
Click to expand...

Tiger will run faster than Panther I'd imagine. Leopard may cause some slow-down but on the other hand you'll have more new software compatibility available.
 
NewMacbookPlz said:
Tiger will run faster than Panther I'd imagine. Leopard may cause some slow-down but on the other hand you'll have more new software compatibility available.
Click to expand...

second that. use a 1.33 g4 ibook everyday, also have 1.25gb, and the stock hard drive. tiger works very well. upgraded to 10.5 just for fun, and found it to be slower overall, so went back to 10.4.11 and have no complaints. movies, youtube (with a bit of time to buffer), even most flash sites seem to work fine for me. best of luck.
 
I just reloaded Leopard on my new 500GB HDD and inserted 4 GB of ram on my early 2009 uMB 2.4 it runs better now from the memory, and I needed the HDD upgrade bc I was out of space on my 320GB HDD.

Leopard runs fine for me, and I will wait for others to test SL 10.6 and get all the bug out before I venture out and install it, because everything I have now works and I would not rather mess with it and have trouble, besides there is no compelling reason for me to move to SL right now.
 
zbasarab said:
$100 for an old OS seems ridiculous to me. too bad OP has PPC and couldn't get SL for $30 (yes I know it's a EULA violation)
Click to expand...

Well it was/is $129 new. Typically amazon sells their apple software at the .edu or corporate discount price. OP can't get SL because his computer is PPC. There's nothing EULA related about it; it's just that SL is Intel CPU only!
 
See my sig for my iBook specs...I'm running Tiger and it is fast and problem free. I've never tried Leopard but the general feedback I hear is that it is slower on iBooks.
 
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