Running Leopard on a Mac that barely qualifies: I’m impressed
One month ago I wrote a post speculating on whether installing Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on an older Power PC-based Mac – particularly one on the edge of the minimum system requirements – would result in a less responsive machine compared to that same Mac running its predecessors.
A few days ago I installed Leopard on my 2001 G4 Quicksilver tower with an 867 MHz Power PC processor – the oldest Mac model that Leopard officially supports.
And it rocks.
My previous concerns were based on a report that Apple had raised the minimum requirements just a few weeks before Leopard’s release. AppleInsider said Apple engineers had determined Leopard ran too slowly on Macs with less than an 867 MHz processor.
Based on my experience so far, I’d say those engineers – if in fact that actually happened (AppleInsider is a rumor site, after all, though a very good one) -- were overcautious.
Subjectively speaking, I think Leopard is slightly more responsive on my Quicksilver than Mac Os X 10.4 Tiger was. The fancy new eye candy such as QuickLook Cover Flow in the Finder work fairly smoothly. Not quite as well as they do on my 2006 MacBook, but certainly well enough.
Now I do need to point out that I did a fresh install of Leopard on a secondary internal hard drive rather than upgrade over my existing system. So it could be the new snappiness is attributable to a clean system that lacks the hundreds of legacy font files and oddball system hacks gumming up my Tiger volume.
Nevertheless, I’m keeping Tiger as my primary OS X version on the Quicksilver for three reasons: 1) Leopard consumes several gigabytes more space than Tiger, and I can’t spare the room on the hard drive; 2) I need to run Classic mode because my daughter still plays a lot of old Mac OS 9 games; and 3) I’m planning to replace the Quicksilver as my primary Mac with a Mac Pro the day the new models are announced, which could be as soon as next week (let me dream, OK?)
Aside from the loss of Classic mode and the unpredictable glitches one might encounter as an early adopter, performance-wise Leopard should purr on any Mac that meets the minimum requirements.
Vista, eat your heart out.
Comments
"Leopard", not "Tiger", should purr ...
By the way, the same on a 2000 G4 DP 450 MHz.
Posted by: Jules | November 9, 2007 10:13 AM
Nice article. I just might try it on my son's CPU-upgraded (1.2 GHz) Sawtooth G4. BTW, I think you meant "Leopard" instead of "Tiger" in your next to last paragraph. (Hope I'm not one of several hundred posts to point this out.)
Posted by: Kevin J. Weise | November 9, 2007 10:24 AM
That is good news. I have an 867 MHz G4 PowerBook.
How much RAM is in your G4 Quicksilver?
Posted by: Ken McKee | November 9, 2007 10:37 AM
This is good to hear. I've been waiting, and wondering. I have a G4 Dual processor 867, and have access to a copy of Leopard. Just haven't had the time/courage to upgrade!
Posted by: Corine | November 9, 2007 10:42 AM
I have installed Leopard on my FW800 1.42 GHz dualie and ran MacBench on it. It benches as well as Tiger. Everything in the OS runs smoothly. I haven't had time to do a lot of testing, but what I did try works fine. Leopard barely sips processing power in idle usually at 1% or 2%.
I only tried a few applications, but the ones I tried worked as well as they did on Tiger. Seems like a sound upgrade to me. I did a clean install with no problems.
Posted by: Constable Odo | November 9, 2007 10:49 AM
Try "monolingual" , which is a utility that can remove all the foreign language localizations in OS X. This can recover 1-3 gigs. Also, internal hard drives are pretty cheap these days but I guess you don't want to sink any more money into the old mac if you're going to a Mac Pro.
And of course, if you need classic, then you have to stay with Tiger. I haven't booted into classic in years, but lately I was thinking firing up the original Myst again...
Posted by: MPH | November 9, 2007 10:53 AM
Shouldn't that be: " performance-wise LEOPARD should purr on any Mac that meets the minimum requirements."
You wrote, "TIGER"!
Otherwise, apart from that 'tiny' mistake, it was a great post.... thanks!
.
Vista, eat your heart out.
Posted by: don Williams | November 9, 2007 11:17 AM
Yea, I think most Pc users think that a software upgrade that can actually speed up a machine is just too unbelievable. They find that more incredulous than if we told them a UFO Yeti kidnapped us the other day - but it's all true and for 99% of people, they can actually upgrade and after 30 minutes, just starting using the machine ... that's the Mac for you.
Posted by: jbelkin | November 9, 2007 2:24 PM
cripes a mighty... good story, until you said the OS is on an external drive.
thats like saying your new car is really fast, especially when its being towed.
Posted by: Anonymous | November 9, 2007 3:39 PM
"...performance-wise Tiger should purr on any Mac that meets the minimum requirements."
Probably should read "...performance-wise Leopard should purr on any Mac that meets the minimum requirements."
[fixed -- thanks to all for noticing - DZ]
Posted by: Patrick | November 9, 2007 4:07 PM
XP/Vista users make the jump!
Leopard is great.
Posted by: Lee Harris | November 19, 2007 10:49 AM