Leopard or Snow Leopard or Nothing?

About a month ago I purchased used a PowerBook G4. While certainly not
the latest thing on the market, it is enough for what I do. It was also
a huge advancement (not necessarily an improvement in all ways) over
what I had been using - which dated all the way back to OS 8.6 (really,
I have no need of a huge amount of the stuff that comes built into most
OSs these days).

Those who remember when I used to post to this newsgroup several years
ago will remember I was pretty much the last one whose newsreader gave
some really arcane results thanks to it being Newswather (not MT
newswater, but the 1980s era news reader that predated it).

In any event I have been exploring the various features of the MacOS,
and the ability to use wireless networking and the like is certainly a
huge improvement over the old desktop.

However, the MacOS version that came with this is OS 10.4. I went
through the entire upgrade process to get it up to 10.4.11. However,
10.4 didn't come with Pages, and the version of Preview that came with
10.4 doesn't appear to have the ability to resize images. There are one
or two other things that are missing that might be helpful too.

The local Mac store still has versions of Leopard available in the box
on the shelf at somewhat over $200 a package. I can probably find used
versions somewhere at a bit of a discount now that Snow Leopard has been
around for a little while, however:

+ With snow leopard available, should I just upgrade to that?

+ Does snow leopard even work that well on G4s? Isn't it really
intended for Intel based Macs?

+ Legacy software was at one time an issue, and that is why I kept OS
10.4 on it for the past month, but I now have an old laptop that runs OS
9.2 just fine, and it can be used to run, for example, my old version of
Photoshop, illustrator, and a few other several hundred dollar programs
that I used to use from time to time, but don't use enough right now to
justify buying completely new versions for use with OS 10.5 +.

+ It would, however, be kind of convenient to have the ability to run
everything on one computer - but not really a vital function. The old
laptop doesn't take up that much space, and if I really need to I can
dig it out of the drawer.

+ Are there any severe issues going directly from 10.4 to Snow Leopard
without the inermediate step?

+ It would probably be a good idea for me to install a larger hard drive
in the computer, and I assume that would be best done at the same time
as the upgrade to Snow Leopard. Any thoughts on that? Or move photos &
etc. to a large external firewire drive?

Thanks for any thoughts.

--
Please note this e-mail address is a pit of spam due to e-mail address
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In article <gl4317->,
Glen Labah <> wrote:

> + With snow leopard available, should I just upgrade to that?

not an option for a powerbook g4. snow leopard will not run at all on
powerpc macs. leopard is your only upgrade, or stay at 10.4.11.

> + Does snow leopard even work that well on G4s? Isn't it really
> intended for Intel based Macs?

see above.

> + Legacy software was at one time an issue, and that is why I kept OS
> 10.4 on it for the past month, but I now have an old laptop that runs OS
> 9.2 just fine, and it can be used to run, for example, my old version of
> Photoshop, illustrator, and a few other several hundred dollar programs
> that I used to use from time to time, but don't use enough right now to
> justify buying completely new versions for use with OS 10.5 +.
>
> + It would, however, be kind of convenient to have the ability to run
> everything on one computer - but not really a vital function. The old
> laptop doesn't take up that much space, and if I really need to I can
> dig it out of the drawer.

there is no classic in leopard. if the software is not os x native, it
cannot be used.

> + Are there any severe issues going directly from 10.4 to Snow Leopard
> without the inermediate step?

none, but you don't have that option with that computer.

> + It would probably be a good idea for me to install a larger hard drive
> in the computer, and I assume that would be best done at the same time
> as the upgrade to Snow Leopard. Any thoughts on that? Or move photos &
> etc. to a large external firewire drive?

it's a bit of a pain to upgrade the hard drive. actually, putting it
back together is the tricky part.

put the photos and videos on a large external drive. it's easier and
you can use it with any computer.

Glen Labah <> wrote:

> About a month ago I purchased used a PowerBook G4. While certainly not
> the latest thing on the market, it is enough for what I do. It was also
> a huge advancement (not necessarily an improvement in all ways) over
> what I had been using - which dated all the way back to OS 8.6 (really,
> I have no need of a huge amount of the stuff that comes built into most
> OSs these days).
>
> Those who remember when I used to post to this newsgroup several years
> ago will remember I was pretty much the last one whose newsreader gave
> some really arcane results thanks to it being Newswather (not MT
> newswater, but the 1980s era news reader that predated it).
>
> In any event I have been exploring the various features of the MacOS,
> and the ability to use wireless networking and the like is certainly a
> huge improvement over the old desktop.
>
> However, the MacOS version that came with this is OS 10.4. I went
> through the entire upgrade process to get it up to 10.4.11. However,
> 10.4 didn't come with Pages

No version of Mac OS X comes with Pages.

Pages is part of the iWork suite, sold separately from Mac OS X. The
current version (iWork '09) runs on 10.4.11, but I expect the next
version will require Leopard.

Some Macs came with a _trial_ version of iWork preinstalled, but this
was part of the bundled software for the computer, not part of Mac OS X.
You had to buy iWork to use it beyond the 30 day trial period (which
starts when you first ran any of the applications in the iWork suite).

Similarly, the iLife suite (iPhoto, iMovie, etc.) is supplied (in full)
with new Macs as part of the bundled software, but it is not included in
the retail package for Mac OS X. If you want a later version than the
one which came with your computer, you need to buy it as a retail
product.

Since the start of 2009, Apple has been selling a "Mac Box Set" product,
which is equivalent to buying a particular edition of Mac OS X, iLife
and iWork, for a discount which in the US effectively meant you got
either iLife or iWork for free. (The pricing equation got more
complicated after the release of Snow Leopard, due to its price being
much lower than Leopard; other countries vary considerably due to
exchange rate changes between the release dates of the various
products.)

The original Mac Box Set (January 2009) included Mac OS X 10.5.6, iLife
'09 and iWork '09. It was updated in August 2009 to include Mac OS X
10.6 instead of 10.5.

> and the version of Preview that came with 10.4 doesn't appear to have the
> ability to resize images. There are one or two other things that are
> missing that might be helpful too.

Apart from any other factors, Apple is no longer supporting 10.4 for any
software updates (with the possible exception of Safari and iTunes, and
I don't expect them to continue much longer).

Leopard will still be supported until the release of 10.7, and due to
Apple's current emphasis on the iPhone and iPad universe, I don't expect
we'll see 10.7 before mid 2011.

> The local Mac store still has versions of Leopard available in the box
> on the shelf at somewhat over $200 a package. I can probably find used
> versions somewhere at a bit of a discount now that Snow Leopard has been
> around for a little while, however:
>
> + With snow leopard available, should I just upgrade to that?

You can't on that computer. Snow Leopard requires an Intel processor.
The PowerBook G4 has a PowerPC processor. Leopard is the last version of
Mac OS X it can run.

You should also confirm that your PowerBook G4 meets the system
requirements for Leopard: at least 867 MHz processor, 512 MB of RAM (I'd
strongly recommend having more RAM than that), and 9 GB of free disk
space (more would be good).

> + Does snow leopard even work that well on G4s? Isn't it really
> intended for Intel based Macs?

I know many people using Leopard on G4s. It can be a bit sluggish on
low-end models, but is fine on faster models, as long as you give it
plenty of memory.

> + Legacy software was at one time an issue, and that is why I kept OS
> 10.4 on it for the past month, but I now have an old laptop that runs OS
> 9.2 just fine, and it can be used to run, for example, my old version of
> Photoshop, illustrator, and a few other several hundred dollar programs
> that I used to use from time to time, but don't use enough right now to
> justify buying completely new versions for use with OS 10.5 +.

Fair enough.

> + It would, however, be kind of convenient to have the ability to run
> everything on one computer - but not really a vital function. The old
> laptop doesn't take up that much space, and if I really need to I can
> dig it out of the drawer.

Note that 10.5 can't run Classic, whereas 10.4 can.

If your PowerBook G4 is old enough to be able to boot into Mac OS 9
(roughly 2003 or earlier) then you could set it up with a separate
partition containing a bootable Mac OS 9 system, and restart the
computer to switch operating systems.

A PowerBook G4 of that sort of age is likely to be too slow to be
officially supported by Leopard, or slow enough that it would be
tedious.

For later models, a similar option would be to partition the hard drive
with 10.5 as your main system and a second partition with 10.4 and Mac
OS 9, which can be used with Classic.

I have a PowerMac G4 (QuickSilver 2002) as my "last PowerPC Mac". I've
deliberately left it running Tiger so I have easy access to old
software, but at some point I'm intending to set up Leopard as its main
operating system and put Tiger plus Mac OS 9 on a second hard drive. I
still have a working PowerMac 8600 with Mac OS 9, so don't really need
to use it on the G4.

> + Are there any severe issues going directly from 10.4 to Snow Leopard
> without the inermediate step?

Moot point because you can't run Snow Leopard, but if you had an Intel
Mac running Tiger, my experience having done a few such upgrades is that
I haven't observed any problems.

> + It would probably be a good idea for me to install a larger hard drive
> in the computer, and I assume that would be best done at the same time
> as the upgrade to Snow Leopard. Any thoughts on that?

No particular reason to do the hard drive upgrade at the same time, as
long as you have enough space. Leopard needs a fair amount more disk
space than Tiger. (Snow Leopard needs a fair amount less.)

If you have a means to connect the old drive externally, you could do
the hard drive swap, install Leopard on the new drive, and migrate data
from the old one, keeping it running Tiger. Tidy up the new drive to
remove anything you don't want in the Leopard system after the
migration.

Note that Disk Utility in Leopard can repartition a hard drive without
erasing it (growing or shrinking the size of a partition, and add or
remove later ones; you can't shift the start position of a partition).

Depending on the PowerBook G4 model, replacing the hard drive is
anything from relatively easy (Titanium 15" models) through medium
difficulty (Aluminium 15" models) through a pain the neck (12").

They all use parallel ATA hard drives, which are limited in capacity and
manufacturers, so your upgrade options aren't as good as with more
recent models.

> Or move photos & etc. to a large external firewire drive?

That would certainly be easier.
--
David Empson

Glen Labah wrote:

> + With snow leopard available, should I just upgrade to that?

You can't.

> + Does snow leopard even work that well on G4s? Isn't it really
> intended for Intel based Macs?

It only works on Intel based Macs. It won't even boot on a G4.

> + Legacy software was at one time an issue, and that is why I kept OS
> 10.4 on it for the past month, but I now have an old laptop that runs OS
> 9.2 just fine, and it can be used to run, for example, my old version of
> Photoshop, illustrator, and a few other several hundred dollar programs
> that I used to use from time to time, but don't use enough right now to
> justify buying completely new versions for use with OS 10.5 +.
>
> + It would, however, be kind of convenient to have the ability to run
> everything on one computer - but not really a vital function. The old
> laptop doesn't take up that much space, and if I really need to I can
> dig it out of the drawer.

You can run SheepShaver, a PPC emulator. It will run MacOS 7.6 up to
9.0.4.


> + Are there any severe issues going directly from 10.4 to Snow Leopard
> without the inermediate step?

Not an issue in this case.

> + It would probably be a good idea for me to install a larger hard drive
> in the computer, and I assume that would be best done at the same time
> as the upgrade to Snow Leopard. Any thoughts on that? Or move photos &
> etc. to a large external firewire drive?

Yes.

Now that you found out you can't do what you ask, you have to decide if it is
worth the upgrade to Leopard and ask a whole new set of questions.

Geoff.



--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation.
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.

Glen Labah wrote:
> About a month ago I purchased used a PowerBook G4. While certainly not
> the latest thing on the market, it is enough for what I do. It was also
> a huge advancement (not necessarily an improvement in all ways) over
> what I had been using - which dated all the way back to OS 8.6 (really,
> I have no need of a huge amount of the stuff that comes built into most
> OSs these days).
>
> Those who remember when I used to post to this newsgroup several years
> ago will remember I was pretty much the last one whose newsreader gave
> some really arcane results thanks to it being Newswather (not MT
> newswater, but the 1980s era news reader that predated it).
>
> In any event I have been exploring the various features of the MacOS,
> and the ability to use wireless networking and the like is certainly a
> huge improvement over the old desktop.
>
> However, the MacOS version that came with this is OS 10.4. I went
> through the entire upgrade process to get it up to 10.4.11. However,
> 10.4 didn't come with Pages, and the version of Preview that came with
> 10.4 doesn't appear to have the ability to resize images. There are one
> or two other things that are missing that might be helpful too.
>
> The local Mac store still has versions of Leopard available in the box
> on the shelf at somewhat over $200 a package. I can probably find used
> versions somewhere at a bit of a discount now that Snow Leopard has been
> around for a little while, however:
>
> + With snow leopard available, should I just upgrade to that?
>
> + Does snow leopard even work that well on G4s? Isn't it really
> intended for Intel based Macs?
>
> + Legacy software was at one time an issue, and that is why I kept OS
> 10.4 on it for the past month, but I now have an old laptop that runs OS
> 9.2 just fine, and it can be used to run, for example, my old version of
> Photoshop, illustrator, and a few other several hundred dollar programs
> that I used to use from time to time, but don't use enough right now to
> justify buying completely new versions for use with OS 10.5 +.
>
> + It would, however, be kind of convenient to have the ability to run
> everything on one computer - but not really a vital function. The old
> laptop doesn't take up that much space, and if I really need to I can
> dig it out of the drawer.
>
> + Are there any severe issues going directly from 10.4 to Snow Leopard
> without the inermediate step?
>
> + It would probably be a good idea for me to install a larger hard drive
> in the computer, and I assume that would be best done at the same time
> as the upgrade to Snow Leopard. Any thoughts on that? Or move photos&
> etc. to a large external firewire drive?
>
> Thanks for any thoughts.
>
IF its an Intel Mac you would be better of going straight to snow Leopard.

I OTOH have PowerPC Computer I would love to get my hands on a copy of
X.5 there are a couple of programs I wish to get that run on nothing
prior to Leopard.

--
Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T. "If it's Fixed, Don't Break it"
http://www.phillipmjones.net mailto

Glen Labah wrote:
> About a month ago I purchased used a PowerBook G4. While certainly not
> the latest thing on the market, it is enough for what I do. It was also
> a huge advancement (not necessarily an improvement in all ways) over
> what I had been using - which dated all the way back to OS 8.6 (really,
> I have no need of a huge amount of the stuff that comes built into most
> OSs these days).
>
> Those who remember when I used to post to this newsgroup several years
> ago will remember I was pretty much the last one whose newsreader gave
> some really arcane results thanks to it being Newswather (not MT
> newswater, but the 1980s era news reader that predated it).
>
> In any event I have been exploring the various features of the MacOS,
> and the ability to use wireless networking and the like is certainly a
> huge improvement over the old desktop.
>
> However, the MacOS version that came with this is OS 10.4. I went
> through the entire upgrade process to get it up to 10.4.11. However,
> 10.4 didn't come with Pages, and the version of Preview that came with
> 10.4 doesn't appear to have the ability to resize images. There are one
> or two other things that are missing that might be helpful too.
>
> The local Mac store still has versions of Leopard available in the box
> on the shelf at somewhat over $200 a package. I can probably find used
> versions somewhere at a bit of a discount now that Snow Leopard has been
> around for a little while, however:
>
> + With snow leopard available, should I just upgrade to that?
>
> + Does snow leopard even work that well on G4s? Isn't it really
> intended for Intel based Macs?
>
> + Legacy software was at one time an issue, and that is why I kept OS
> 10.4 on it for the past month, but I now have an old laptop that runs OS
> 9.2 just fine, and it can be used to run, for example, my old version of
> Photoshop, illustrator, and a few other several hundred dollar programs
> that I used to use from time to time, but don't use enough right now to
> justify buying completely new versions for use with OS 10.5 +.
>
> + It would, however, be kind of convenient to have the ability to run
> everything on one computer - but not really a vital function. The old
> laptop doesn't take up that much space, and if I really need to I can
> dig it out of the drawer.
>
> + Are there any severe issues going directly from 10.4 to Snow Leopard
> without the inermediate step?
>
> + It would probably be a good idea for me to install a larger hard drive
> in the computer, and I assume that would be best done at the same time
> as the upgrade to Snow Leopard. Any thoughts on that? Or move photos &
> etc. to a large external firewire drive?
>
> Thanks for any thoughts.
>


1. Consider learning how to express yourself concisely.

2. Don't post post multilevel complex questions and expect a clear answer.

But I'm going to try anyway.

PLEASE don't quote an entire two-page post only to add two lines proving
you didn't read the first line.

--
Wes Groleau

A pessimist says the glass is half empty.
An optimist says the glass is half full.
An engineer says somebody made the glass
twice as big as it needed to be.

In article <htj3i5$nms$>,
Phillip Jones <> wrote:

> Glen Labah wrote:
> > About a month ago I purchased used a PowerBook G4. While certainly not
> > the latest thing on the market, it is enough for what I do. It was also
> > a huge advancement (not necessarily an improvement in all ways) over
> > what I had been using - which dated all the way back to OS 8.6 (really,
> > I have no need of a huge amount of the stuff that comes built into most
> > OSs these days).
> >
> > Those who remember when I used to post to this newsgroup several years
> > ago will remember I was pretty much the last one whose newsreader gave
> > some really arcane results thanks to it being Newswather (not MT
> > newswater, but the 1980s era news reader that predated it).
> >
> > In any event I have been exploring the various features of the MacOS,
> > and the ability to use wireless networking and the like is certainly a
> > huge improvement over the old desktop.
> >
> > However, the MacOS version that came with this is OS 10.4. I went
> > through the entire upgrade process to get it up to 10.4.11. However,
> > 10.4 didn't come with Pages, and the version of Preview that came with
> > 10.4 doesn't appear to have the ability to resize images. There are one
> > or two other things that are missing that might be helpful too.
> >
> > The local Mac store still has versions of Leopard available in the box
> > on the shelf at somewhat over $200 a package. I can probably find used
> > versions somewhere at a bit of a discount now that Snow Leopard has been
> > around for a little while, however:
> >
> > + With snow leopard available, should I just upgrade to that?
> >
> > + Does snow leopard even work that well on G4s? Isn't it really
> > intended for Intel based Macs?
> >
> > + Legacy software was at one time an issue, and that is why I kept OS
> > 10.4 on it for the past month, but I now have an old laptop that runs OS
> > 9.2 just fine, and it can be used to run, for example, my old version of
> > Photoshop, illustrator, and a few other several hundred dollar programs
> > that I used to use from time to time, but don't use enough right now to
> > justify buying completely new versions for use with OS 10.5 +.
> >
> > + It would, however, be kind of convenient to have the ability to run
> > everything on one computer - but not really a vital function. The old
> > laptop doesn't take up that much space, and if I really need to I can
> > dig it out of the drawer.
> >
> > + Are there any severe issues going directly from 10.4 to Snow Leopard
> > without the inermediate step?
> >
> > + It would probably be a good idea for me to install a larger hard drive
> > in the computer, and I assume that would be best done at the same time
> > as the upgrade to Snow Leopard. Any thoughts on that? Or move photos&
> > etc. to a large external firewire drive?
> >
> > Thanks for any thoughts.
> >
> IF its an Intel Mac you would be better of going straight to snow Leopard.
>
> I OTOH have PowerPC Computer I would love to get my hands on a copy of
> X.5 there are a couple of programs I wish to get that run on nothing
> prior to Leopard.

Snow Leopard does not run on PPC, so won't run on PowerBook G4.

Tiger as you now have is the last version to support Classic, which is
what you need to run your old old applications. Therefore if you
upgrade to Leopard you will lose this possibility.

No versions of Mac OS come with Pages, this is part of the iWork
package. The current version of this still supports 10.4.11.

Changing the internal disk in a Powerbook is not impossible, but also
not trivial. And 80 GB is tight now.

Kind regards,

Dave

Jolly Roger wrote:
> In article <htj4co$rfh$>,
> Joseph Capgras <> wrote:
>
>> 1. Consider learning how to express yourself concisely.
>>
>> 2. Don't post post multilevel complex questions and expect a clear answer.

There are several clear answers.

> I have a much better idea. Why don't YOU consider being nicer to people
> and actually offering useful advice, instead? Why are you here?

Indeed!
And learn to trim.

--
john mcwilliams

In article <1jj45i2.12oywfs1o34senN%>,
(David Empson) wrote:

> You should also confirm that your PowerBook G4 meets the system
> requirements for Leopard: at least 867 MHz processor, 512 MB of RAM (I'd
> strongly recommend having more RAM than that), and 9 GB of free disk
> space (more would be good).


Right.

It's a PowerBook Aluminum 15", 1.25 GHz, 1 GB.

--
Please note this e-mail address is a pit of spam due to e-mail address
harvesters on Usenet. Response time to e-mail sent here is slow.