[ShotgunEd]

Ok, our tiger family pack just arrived in the post but I'm debating over whether to install it on my iBook 500 with 384MB of RAM.

10.3.9 is running pretty smoothly on this machine, which is mainly for light use, Web/Mail/iTunes etc.

D'ya think that installing 10.4.2 is going to be a worthy upgrade or is it just going to hog my lowly 384MB of RAM?

I'm running amnesty to get some dashboard functionality but it hasn't quite become indispensable yet. Spotlight will be of *some* use, I don't need to search for things that frequently. Automator will be fun to play with but isn't a deal maker. Safari 2.0 will undoubtedly provide a speed boost and the RSS thing will be nice to play with my own RSS code.

Furthermore, I do like to play with new OS updates, being loosely involved in tech support at work.

Has anyone got an iBook 500 with not much RAM and can testify as to how well tiger runs?

Thanks muchly.

[willed]

I'm afraid I have 640MB (iBook 500/10GB) but on this set-up it runs really well. I went from 10.2.8 to 10.4 and the difference in speed was huge.

As for Spotlight, I thought I didn't use search that much, and I didn't used to as searching was cumbersome, slow and inaccurate in older OS versions. Now, with Spotlight, it is often quicker to press the key combo 'command-space' and type in the first few letters of the file/program than it is to go through the traditional short-cuts. I guess it won't be any slower than 10.3.9, so go for it, especially as you've bought the family licence already.

[Thinine]

I agree. I have your exact machine, ShotgunEd, and it runs fine. Mostly the same speed as Panther, but there are a few things that are even faster, like Safari.

[ShotgunEd]

thanks for the replies guys, now i just need to go home and hookup via firewire disk mode to install.

OT: I got my first play with tiger on my housemate's brand spanking new iMac G5 that was delivered yesterday. Its pretty impressive, both the OS and the computer. So tempted to get one myself.

[threestain]

I've bought Tiger, and want to install it - is it best to do an archive and install or upgrade? If I do an A&I, what do I need to back up? (apps are not in my home folder, so that probably?)

Cheers!

[OogaBooga]

The best way to do it, if you can, is just a clean install. The other install options can sometimes lead to hard-to-find bugs and weird OS screw-ups.

But you can always try an upgrade and see how that fares.

[threestain]

I've done an archive and install - and now its indexing like a man possessed - how long will this take? I would like to get on a bit now...

[threestain]

oh and is it normal-ish for the finder to be effed after install?

[Ji Eun]

manually back up and clean install. really. treat yourself to a virgin machine.

[ShotgunEd]

Thats always the way I'd go about an OS install. With OSes 7-9 it and some versions of previous OSXs I'd have installed on a separate partition and manually moved system preferences etc across to the new clean install. Since Jaguar, it really hasn't been necessary, moving stuff from a backup (aren't DVDR's handy?) is much easier.

I did use ditto in a terminal to backup stuff, now I use Carbon Copy Cloner which is a great app but does have slightly irritating limitations.

I'm gonna have to wait until I can plug this iBook into my dad's G4 MDD for backup and install across firewire (thanks apple for not selling a CD Version of Tiger).

[threestain]

Thing is I'm far too lazy to do a completely fresh install. I know I should do but hey its done now!

[Tick]

You may have issues with dashboard, you can disable it if you need to. See this link for help on that:

http://face.centosprime.com/macosxw/?p=201

[Thinine]

No one has issues with dashboard. It's completely unnecessary to disable it.