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What OS should I put on my 2006 Core 2 Duo iMac?
- Thread starter sixty-nine
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Depends on if it's your daily driver or not. If its just a show-piece like say a Sunflower iMac G4 you should maybe install Tiger as its the version of OS X the system was always presented with in ads and videos. (Leopard has a much darker aesthetic more suited towards the aluminum iMacs)
But if anything, keep it at Mavericks or earlier, don't subject a classy girl like that to the current iOS wannabe snoozefest interface.
But if anything, keep it at Mavericks or earlier, don't subject a classy girl like that to the current iOS wannabe snoozefest interface.
I have Mountain Lion installed on my iMac 6,1 (Late 2006), though I used MLPostFactor to install as it was the only method that worked. Runs just fine, though this particular iMac is a high-end 24" model which I upgraded with an SSD and 4 GB RAM (3 GB usable).
A few points:
A few points:
- If you have less than 2 GB RAM, go with Snow Leopard. If your iMac has the original mechanical hard drive, performance will also be a little bit better on Snow Leopard vs. Lion or ML.
- The latest version of Firefox and some other apps require Lion or Mountain Lion, won't run on Snow Leopard.
- Don't install Mavericks or later if you can help it. You won't have any GPU acceleration which results in a pretty bad experience.
- OS versions before Snow Leopard are too old to be very useful and won't give you any performance benefit. Even Snow Leopard is showing its age badly these days, sad to say.
I've been using a brushed metal theme for OS X Mountain Lion, indeed it does go well with this iMac. A 2006 Core 2 Duo iMac can be more useful than a G4 "sunflower" iMac though, so I would not recommend an OS X < 10.6.8.
Linux Mint will likely run well on it and will give you a secure and modern OS on old hardware. I love my old Macs but once they are end-of-life for OS updates and modern browser support then it's time to move to another OS.