03-21-2009, 04:14 PM

Hey, there - I'm the happy owner of a pre-intel G5 that works just fine.

I recently went to the Mac store and was counseled to purchase a 3-pack of upgrades (iLife, iWork and Leopard). There is some neat stuff on iweb 09 that I particularly like.

However - I'm getting a bit gunshy - does anybody have advice/experience with this. I wouldn't be worried if I had an itel mac but I don't; I bought it just before the switch to intel.

What do you think? Will upgrading to Leopard make me regret it? Are there actually reasons NOT to upgrade?

03-21-2009, 04:25 PM

It just depends on what you want to do with it. I have a Mini with Tiger that works fine. I also have a Macbook with Leopard. For what I do, Tiger is more than ample. Is Leopard nice? Definately. Do I have to have it? Not really. I don't have any experience running it on a G5, but I haven't heard of any problems.

03-21-2009, 04:33 PM

Leopard lags a bit on my 1.33 GHz iBook G4, but would probably run very well on a G5. How fast is your machine, and how much RAM?

03-21-2009, 05:46 PM

Hey, there, kahilil88 - my machine is a 2 Ghz PowerPC G5 with a 1.5 GB DDR SDRAM... I'm not much of a techie; what do you think?

The thing I like about iLife 09 is that it provides a built in FTP publisher, instead of having to buy yet another FTP program... unless someone knows a good free one? I'm looking to have to buy Fetch Softworks (recommended by my hosting provider. Since I've already bought the upgrades, I guess I should use them.

My other question concerns backing up files - if I do a Leopard upgrade, do I need to worry about backing up my data?

m

03-21-2009, 10:42 PM

Author David Pogue advised many years ago on backing up there are only two types of computer users ~ they who have lost everything and those who are about to.

Yep backup, backup, backup, whatever system you use. Best way is with an external driv e connected to your G5 by Firewire as PPC's machines generally cannot boot from an external drive via USB, even USB 2.

Best way IMHO is with SuperDuper. the registered version takes about 15 minutes to do a complete system backup with Smart Backup.

Leopard will run just fine. it is fast and rock steady.

03-22-2009, 01:34 AM

Originally Posted by marsoup

my machine is a 2 Ghz PowerPC G5 with a 1.5 GB DDR SDRAM... I'm not much of a techie; what do you think?

The thing I like about iLife 09 is that it provides a built in FTP publisher, instead of having to buy yet another FTP program... unless someone knows a good free one? I'm looking to have to buy Fetch Softworks (recommended by my hosting provider. Since I've already bought the upgrades, I guess I should use them.

My other question concerns backing up files - if I do a Leopard upgrade, do I need to worry about backing up my data?

Your machine should have no problem running Leopard. The G5 systems were as good as Macs got before Apple switched to Intel CPUs.

I don't know anything about the iLife FTP program, but there are many free ones (Cyberduck is a good one).

I've never backed up data before upgrading. It's not very likely any problem will occur, unless it's a stormy day and there's a power surge, or the disc is horribly scratched and scuffed. Then again, backing up is still good practice since data loss is always sudden and unexpected.

03-22-2009, 12:52 PM

Thanks all - I'm doing backups now and plunging ahead! Thanks to everybody for taking the time to reply! :-)

03-23-2009, 06:37 AM

Once you get used to Leopard, there's no way you can go back to Tiger.

03-23-2009, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by Alexis

Once you get used to Leopard, there's no way you can go back to Tiger.

Why would one want to? Leopard is fast and rock steady.