As a Mac newbie I just read dozens and dozens of posts re: my question. My head is smoking and I am getting even more confused. My eMac is a 1.25ghz w/DVD, 512mhz of which I know little. However, I have been looking at a lot of shareware software and found most only runs on Tiger or above. This is why I like to upgrade the OS. This being an old machine, which BTW only has less than 100 hours total time on it, but don't want to throw good money after bad. Meaning, I don't want to spend a couple hundred dollars for a new OS. I was told I cannot go to 10.5 since this would cause the Mac to crawl. Have not been able to find out WHY. I would like to make friends with Macintosh but if it gets to complicated I buy a new PC box and install Linux. Hope someone can provide me with the help I'm looking for without getting to technical. Thanks