Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

loringdm · Jan 4, 2008, 03:01 PM

I have a powerbook G4 1.67mhz. Still believe it is the best PB/mac ever made. Still has enough power, with an attached 7200rpm FW800 HD, to run PS2 and Adobe Lightroom without a problem, albiet perhaps not as fast as the new intel-books.

I am very happy with 10.4x but I feel like I should upgrade to 10.5. So here are my questions:

(1) Is there any point of upgrading right now, in light of (i) how young the new OS is and (ii) the fact that I am using a G4 processor?

(2) My greatest upgrade concern is that certain programs I depend on will not work properly. Those include: Adobe PS2, Adobe Lightroom, Microsoft Word, Camino browser.

Any thoughts/opinions appreciated!

David

tripletaker · Jan 4, 2008, 09:57 PM

Originally Posted by loringdm

(2) My greatest upgrade concern is that certain programs I depend on will not work properly. Those include: Adobe PS2, Adobe Lightroom, Microsoft Word, Camino browser.

I have a PB 1.67 Ghz and Adobe PS2, Lightroom and Word have all worked perfectly normal. I don't use Camino, so I can't speak on that. I've noticed an increase in performance but then again it could just be the excitement of the new Leopard. All together, I think everything works fine and adds some innovative features.

Cold Warrior · Jan 4, 2008, 10:01 PM

Word and Camino work in Leopard just as well as in 10.4.

Tip: run Leopard from your external drive, that way you can test it with your own work/home uses before installing it on your PowerBook. If it checks out, archive-install Leopard on the PB.

Chuckit · Jan 5, 2008, 01:45 PM

I'm moving this to Mac OS X, since this is more about Leopard than the PowerBook itself.

As for me, I have the same generation of PowerBook, and I don't regret upgrading to Leopard. So far, the only program it messed up for me is World of Warcraft, which is obviously not very essential (and there was an upgrade immediately anyway).

El Maestro · Jan 5, 2008, 08:24 PM

I upgraded a 17" G4 1.67 and it works well. I actually find the memory management to be better. Out of the apps you listed, I use Camino and Word (2004) without a problem, including quick looking into .doc files.

The only negative with this model running Leopard is that when I connect to my 30" Cinema Display, my menubar is not translucent. I got the best graphics card available for the time, but I guess Leopard's heavier dependence on the GPU pushes the computer to its limits graphically. Still, I don't notice any slowdowns or anything and am happy with the upgrade so far.

I agree with your sentiments, it's by far the best computer I've ever owned; it's also the one that switched me to a Mac!

bishopazrael · Jan 6, 2008, 05:27 PM

For what it's worth... test your setup first. I'll give you the same advice I'd give a paying customer.

Wait.

If there's no NEED for you to upgrade, don't. A good example is Vista. I just looked up through my customer records. I made it a point to notate that I advised on vista upgrades and whether or not they did or didn't, and then any subsequent problems.

235 customers were advised on vista upgrades from XP. My standard line was the same as I gave to you... if you don't NEED to, don't.

Out of 235, 120 upgraded. Out of those that upgraded, 74 said they needed to upgrade, the rest said they just wanted to. Out of those 120, all of them have had subsequent follow up calls to resolve Vista related problems. So I've got about half of my customers who heeded my advice and stayed with XP, and out of those, I've only seen 28 on problems not related to the OS. Once I fix a computer, usually it stays fixed. So take it for what its worth. I've advised some of my mac clients on leopard. Ten of them upgraded and I've seen 9 of them for OS related problems. I think we can all agree that Leopard wasn't the smoking ball of fire it should have been. Just do yourself a favor and wait until it hits at least 10.5.3 if you're just upgrading for the hell of it. You've got a stable system that works perfectly right now. Don't mess with it until you need to.

Cold Warrior · Jan 6, 2008, 05:31 PM

I'll add a contrasting view. I didn't need to upgrade to Leopard, but I wanted to. I researched here and elsewhere to avoid more-common pitfalls (e.g., upgrade-install), backed up my data, then made the leap (archive-install). No issues. For me, Leopard is a step up, and I'm glad I upgraded, even though it wasn't a requirement.

bishopazrael · Jan 6, 2008, 05:54 PM

Yeah... there are guys who just want to upgrade, and I'll be the first to say as a geek theres nothing wrong with WANTING to upgrade vs. NEEDING to upgrade. If you want to, thats fine. But like Cold said... just do your research and back everything up, then go for it. Leopard does have some really nifty features, but I kinda think I'd like to go back to tiger, but thats just me. In the end, do what you want, just be safe. And please, backups are like guns and condoms. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

loringdm · Jan 7, 2008, 12:38 PM

Thanks for all the responses.

The "geek" in me wants to upgrade, but I do not need to and, honestly, will likely wait until the next major release (or if I buy a new laptop 6 months from now). I used a buddy's MBP with 10.5 this weekend. It is a nice OS with subtle changes, but most of the major changes I don't care about, and it does not feel revolutionary -- at least not the GUI. I'm sure the underlying architecture of the system is much much better, but I can't imagine a G4 processor and the corresponding graphic chip taking advantage of it.

kilechki · 09:05 AM

After 2 months of use on a 1.5 Ghz PB G4 (1GB RAM) and with 10.5 installed on a 7200 RPM drive, I'd say: don't do it.

You'll enjoy Leopard for a few days before having it behave windows-like and fall on its knees each time you "work". For me, having safari with <10 tabs, Mail.app, Finder, Adium, iTunes and QuickTime opened at the same time means that I won't be able to switch smoothly from one app to another. That a weird delay will occur before anything happens when I type, click, move something. It's to the point that the mouse cursor can move 2 or 3 seconds after I took the mouse in hand.

This is on a clean 10.5 install with only Flip4Mac, Perlan and Flash installed. No other plugins. No tweaks. No Spaces activated. Time Machine enabled on an external drive.

This is the first time since 0S 9 that I've been so mad at my Mac. It's just thrashing the disk all the time, app opening takes minutes. iPhoto, iTunes and Safari are resource hog.
I don't have the courage to go back to 10.4, though, so you could say I'm not so desperate. That's true in a way. But using 10.5 on a G4 is like taking the train in Bolivia: you can do it, it will lead you somewhere eventually. But forget comfort or previsibility.
Just minutes before typing this, I had Activity Monitor opened to understand how everything could be so slow. Safari was using 50% of CPU with just one window, a paused YouTube video. iTunes was using 10% doing nothing. And then the Mac just froze. No Panic: just freezed, I had to reboot it.

I haven't been using Photoshop since 10.5 but seeing how iPhoto 8 behaves, I'll be pessimistic. Word is also very slow. The whole iWork suite is far away from being intensively usable.

If you feel good with 10.4, stay with it. Anyway, you won't be able to use Spaces or most of the new stuff in Leopard. Coverflow is way too slow to be more usable than icon view. Spotlight is a disaster.

Hopefully I'll manage to go Intel in 2008...

Chuckit · Jan 9, 2008, 12:28 PM

I have the exact same setup as Kilechki without any of the problems he's describing. I think something on his system is borked, though we could both use more RAM in general.

peeb · Jan 9, 2008, 12:50 PM

I love the upgrade on the same machine you have. Time Machine alone is worth it for me, plus the slight speed boost.