Mac Pro - Leopard to Lion

[Quilica]

If you've seen my posts here then you know I have been resurrecting my 2006 Mac Pro desktop. It is running Leopard and I found the Lion installer on board which I thought I had. What are the advantages of installing Lion with Leopard already working? And, will the Myst games work with Lion? I was so amazed at the lack of problems with the Mac Pro sitting without being started up for 5 years that I am cautiously approaching doing anything to it. If Lion is fine I will install it using a clean install. Most of the apps aren't worth much now and the clutter of 80 GB on that small hard drive would be great to remove. Again, with caution. I still have the CD's with which I installed those apps all those years ago so I am losing nothing with a clean install.

I've ben reading any number of Apple posts back to 2012 concerning the two os's comparisons. As I am not any type of guru with Mac it is confusing but the one thing that stood out was that Lion ended Rosetta and many were unhappy with that. It seems it also eliminated the PPC compatibility which to me means little unless I apply that to what are now outdated apps. However, this is why I am asking here. I do want to use some old games that I have from 2006-2014. What else I use tha old Mac for I've not yet decided. For now I'm just glad to see that the care I took with it has paid off. Thanks for any advice, thoughts, considerations.

 

[krs]

I would probably stop at SnowLeopard unless you really need Lion to run some new app you like.
SnowLeopard was not only what Apple called a "clean-up" release but it's also the last Apple release that could run PowerPC applications without going through third-part emulators.

I used Snow Leopard for the longest time and was very happy with it - never ran Lion for any length of time, jumped from Snow Leopard to ElCapitan, but that is not an option for you.

 

[ferrarr]

To find out if the apps will work with newer OS versions, you will need to research the apps, and their specific versions. Sometimes apps updates or even upgrades are free, but each developer is different.

You can check here, Application Compatibility Table — RoaringApps and select the different options for comparison.

 

[Slydude]

Good thinking gents. I read this a bit ago and hadn't started working on an answer yet.

 

[Quilica]

The version running on that Mac right now is 10.6.8. I am in the process of taking care to delete only those apps which are unnecessary or that I remember were trials for one reason or another. Things like Photoshop I am leaving alone. As I researched concerning Lion I realized that many of the original folks who upgraded from SL regretted it. I am just going to take my time and get rid of only those items that are trivial. It is a wonder that I got this far with as little as I understand.

 

[chscag]

Keep in mind that upgrading to Lion will remove "Rosetta" which is necessary to run PPC apps on your Mac. Snow Leopard was the last version of macOS to support PPC apps. In my opinion, Lion was a bust.

 

[Quilica]

I'm starting to think the same thing. I do believe I'll just leave well enough alone for now. I am considering replacing the CPU's in the near future. But, for now, just get used to what it does again. Thanks for all the input. It was quite beneficial.

 

[Quilica]

One Final Question

If I wanted to take the hard drive back to empty but for the OS how would I do that? In other words, start fresh with only the OS and its apps on it.

 

[pigoo3]

Thread moved to better area (macOS - Operating System).

- Nick

 

[ferrarr]

You would need to use the DVD's that came with it, or the Snow Leopard DVD.

 

[Rod]

You would need to use the DVD's that came with it, or the Snow Leopard DVD.

Which you would have to buy.


Sent from my iPhone using Mac-Forums

 

[krs]

Which you would have to buy.

Pretty cheap at $14.00 including shipping
Apple X Snow Leopard 10.6.3 Mac OS X OSX 10.6 factory reset Install DVD | eBay

 

[toMACsh]

Tile says Leopard, later post says 10.6.8 which is Snow Leopard. No one seems to have stated that explicitly, though the dialog assumes SL.

Also, Lion was "cleaned up" with the release of Mountain Lion. So why "upgrade" to an acknowledged buggy OS?