upgrade to lion?

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Im still using snow leopard. thought about getting lion for 20 bucks. since Ive not updated the OS in a long time I was worried about security. from that viewpoint, is it worth 20 bucks to get lion or should I not even bother?

thoughts?
 
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Even better you can download Mavericks for the huge cost of nothing!

Personally have found Mavericks very fast and rock steady. Handles memory in a different way to previous operating systems. One word of warning ~ Snow Leopard is the last operating system to run PowerPC applications. From Lion onwards Intel only.

Suggest backing up to an external drive, into App Store and download Mavericks. Personally like to make a bootable USB thumb drive prior to running the Installer, format and clean install from there.
 
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I can go from snow lep to mavericks for free? how is that possible?
 
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looks like a free download? wow. did not know that. I'm like 3 major OS versions behind, I cant believe they are offering this for free. :) free works for me. Im downloading it now.
 
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looks like a free download? wow. did not know that. I'm like 3 major OS versions behind, I cant believe they are offering this for free. :) free works for me. Im downloading it now.

Before you install Mavericks, I recommend that you do this...

Open System Profiler
(in the /Applications/Utilities folder; or in:
Apple menu --> About This Mac --> More Info)
click on the disclose triangle next to Software, choose Applications, then click on the Kind column to sort by kind.

An application that has a Kind of “Universal” or “Intel” will most likely run fine in Lion and later. Any application that has a Kind of “Classic” or “PowerPC” won't run under Lion or later.

If you would like to generate a text file that lists all of the PowerPC applications on your hard drive, complete with the path to get to each of these applications, copy and paste this line into the Terminal application (in your ~/Applications/Utlities folder), hit return, and then be patient and let it run for a few minutes before opening the text file that will be generated on the desktop.

system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType | grep -A4 PowerPC > ~/Desktop/Applications_Report.txt

You may find that a significant portion of your software will break if you upgrade your OS. That software might be expensive to replace with upgraded copies or alternates.

You can find comprehensive information about which application versions run in which versions of OS X here:
RoaringApps - Application compatibility and feature support for OS X and iOS

If you use Eudora or AppleWorks you should really think twice about upgrading your OS. You would be leaving them forever behind.
 
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thanks for the help. I ditched eudora and appleworks a few yrs ago. Im unable to open parallels 9, not sure whats up with that yet. need to google it I guess. also the little program that is used to update office 11 was incompatible. old game I like Return to castle wolfenstein also wont work.
 

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Yes...upgrading all the way from 10.6 to 10.9 in one shot is bound to create some incompatibilities. Unless you're a lot like me...and primarily use your computer for internet and e-mail.

Upgrading past 10.6 is especially sensitive. Since if you use older "PowerPC" coded apps (that would have run great on older OS versions like 10.5, 10.4, etc.)...10.6 has a app. called "Rosetta" which allowed those "PowerPC" apps to run.

But once someone upgrades to 10.7 an beyond...no more "Rosetta"...and thus no more "PowerPC" app. compatibility.

- Nick
 
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I'm going to miss my wolfenstein game. but I'll probably partition my external HD... and keep snow lep on one, and mavericks on the other... I can boot from that drive if I really need to use an older game or app.

it is a big OS leap. I would have never bought mavericks, but when I learned mavericks was free, I thought may as well go for it. :)

I rarely upgrade programs that often... I like to let everyone else work the bugs out first. lol
 

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I'm going to miss my wolfenstein game. but I'll probably partition my external HD... and keep snow lep on one, and mavericks on the other... I can boot from that drive if I really need to use an older game or app.

Great idea...many folks don't think of this.:)

Believe it or not...I have a 1 terabyte drive that has 5 partitions on it. One partition for each OS version (10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, and 10.9). I have a lot of different age Mac's...and it's nice to have a single drive that I can use to externally boot many of them from if necessary.

- Nick
 
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most people I know dont even backup their computers PC or mac. I was like that for years, but finally wised up. backups are so easy on the mac theirs no excuse not to have one.
 

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Backups are certainly a great idea. Apple (via Time Machine) and other developer's (Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper, etc.) make backing up so easy.

Plus hard drives really are relatively cheap (cost/gig).:)

- Nick
 
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agreed. I liked time machine on snow lep, but I saw no point in having it backup every hour (TM did not have many choices for tweaking it) so I've been using CCC.... which works fine for me.
 

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I don't believe it works with versions of OS X newer than Snow Leopard. I had it installed when I ran Snow Leopard and it worked OK. A bit jerky, but it worked. Upon upgrading to Lion it would no longer work. I'll give it another try as the file appears to be newer. I'll let you know if it works....

Edit: Does not work without the original Castle Wolf game - PC or Mac version. It draws from those files. I don't have time right now to dig out my original PC version from my old collections but I may try to get it working later on tomorrow or Monday. There was another open source version that did not need those files and that's the one I ran before. However, that version will not work with anything later than Snow Leopard.
 

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Great idea...many folks don't think of this.:)

Believe it or not...I have a 1 terabyte drive that has 5 partitions on it. One partition for each OS version (10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, and 10.9). I have a lot of different age Mac's...and it's nice to have a single drive that I can use to externally boot many of them from if necessary.

- Nick

Glad to know I am not the only one that did this. The most I have had going at one time is three OS versions though. I have them on different drives now rather than different partitions. I tried to re-create this recently with one partition for SL and one for Mavericks but haven't been able to generate a "bootable" Mavericks clone.
 

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Glad to know I am not the only one that did this. The most I have had going at one time is three OS versions though. I have them on different drives now rather than different partitions.

Maybe we are both part "BoyScout" ("Be Prepared")!;);)

I tried to re-create this recently with one partition for SL and one for Mavericks but haven't been able to generate a "bootable" Mavericks clone.

It's been a while since I did it...but if I remember correctly...it wasn't much different to do than any other OS version. Here's a link with the procedure:

How To Install OS X Mavericks On An External Drive - Apple Gazette

- Nick
 

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Maybe we are both part "BoyScout" ("Be Prepared")!;);)



It's been a while since I did it...but if I remember correctly...it wasn't much different to do than any other OS version. Here's a link with the procedure:

How To Install OS X Mavericks On An External Drive - Apple Gazette

- Nick
IIRC that's basically what i did. Also tried cloning using the usual tools. Nothing produced a "bootable" clone. At the time I was trying to set this up because Tech Tool Pro was reporting bad blocks on my internal drive.

I will be trying this again when I have a bit more time.
 
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return to castle wolfenstein works on snow lep. I've been playing it for years. if you want vintage wolf. check out

Wolfenstein: The New Order

click on wolfenstein 3d in the upper right. :)
 

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