is the mac 10.4.11 very obsolete?

Hi, what exactly is it you need to use it for, Yiger is quite old but works just fine for me here. 🙂

Until you personally run into any essential software that requires a higer OS, there is no need to upgrade whatsoever.

I'm running a Power Mac machine with dual, independent bootable drives in Tiger and Leopard, and I find myself permanently booted into the Tiger 10.4.11 volume. I find it snappier than Leopard on my G5 Quad.

As a quick example, Repairing Permissions under Leopard takes forever under Leopard compared to Tiger.

Any software I might consider that does not run under this scheme will also inevitably require a Mac-Intel, like my humble little MacBook.

2.5 GHz Power Mac (PPC) G5Quad; 16GB RAM; mutant, flashed 550MHz nVidia GeForce 7800GTX, 1,700MHz 512MB VRAM; Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 and Leopard 10.5.8 boot drives; dual 22" CRT monitors; USB wireless n available but connected to the Internet via wired Ethernet; FW flatbed scanner; 2 SCSI scanners (one tabloid-size transparency scanner and a film scanner); lots of internal & external HDs.

Also, if you ever run Classic (Mac OS 9.2), remember that Classic emulation is not available under Leopard.

is the mac 10.4.11 very obsolete?

I would say that Panther 10.3 is basically obsolete, but Tiger 10.4 is becomming obsolete.

Mac OSs become obsolete when browsers/videos have problems working, when you must get a new Mac, when you need a new app, and when you must get a new printer.

On my G4 MDD desktop, I mostly run using Tiger because I also use some OS 9 apps in classic mode. I sometimes use Leopard 10.6, especially when I need to sync my iPad 2. On my G4 laptop, I use Tiger because I also use some OS 9 apps in classic mode.

There is at least one high-level helper in Apple Support Communities that doesn't use OS X - he still uses OS 9.x.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

There is at least one high-level helper in Apple Support Communities that doesn't use OS X - he still uses OS 9.x.

I think he had to go to OSx to be able to help here though! 😉 😟

(Little x was a mistake, yet appropriate! )😀

Texas Mac Man wrote:

…I sometimes use Leopard 10.6…

Typo? 😀

Spots before his eyes perhaps???

Anything that isnt current is obsolete. As soon as apple releases another title support for the previous stops. Then again if you asked me UNIX is obsolete. And thats what OS X runs off of lol.

Lion 10.7 is where everyone running OS X should be for continued support.

But if your asking if you could get by with out updating. I'd say yes. But out-dated-OS's have increased security risks and lack of support and software. It's best to bring it up to the latest version your machine is capable of running.

Nothing is ever obsolete if it continues to do the job you need it to do. In my opinion, if people are still using 10-year-old Windows XP, then 6-year old Tiger is far from obsolete, especially if you have the 10.4.11 update from 2007 installed (http://support.apple.com/downloads/#10.4.11), which makes it only 4 years old.

Safari 4.1.3 (Download), Firefox 3.6.24 (Download) and TenFourFox (Download) are currently three of the the most up-to-date and most-used browsers available for 10.4, with the latter two still being updated as of November 2011. All three of these browsers were released within the last year and are quite capable, so the internet will continue to work on 10.4 systems (at least for now).

However, Adobe Flash 10 (http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/installers/archive/fp_10.1.102. 64_and_9.0.289.0_archive.zip) is the last version that will ever run on Tiger, Leopard, and PowerPC (PPC) Macs in general. Looking at how many websites rely on Flash to deliver content, I think that when Flash 10 becomes deprecated (as 8 has and 9 has for the most part--can't use either on YouTube), it will be a key turning point for these operating systems, at least if you intend on using them online.

I agree. Older OS's will work perfectly fine as long as it does what you intend it to do. But to save a headache I recommend upgrading. Windows XP at 10 years old cannot be compared to Tiger at 6 years old. Windows does a release maybe once every 5 years depending. Ubuntu does a release every 6 months. And Mac OS X does a release every 2 years depending. Therfore the chances of having a date Mac are more significant than a dated windows machine. The difference is Mac uses unix which is less demanding and simplified so older versions should stay compatible much longer. The biggest threat to a dated machine is security. Mac OS X is not virus free it has more viruses than Linux has available. And that number is doubling. As Mac OS X becomes more popular the amount of viruses increase. In order to further protect yourself the security updates are always with the latest OS. Mac OS X isn't expensive. Advance it to the latest version your machine can handle.

ksull72487 wrote:

Mac OS X is not virus free it has more viruses than Linux has available. And that number is doubling. As Mac OS X becomes more popular the amount of viruses increase.

Um…you are so wrong it's not even funny. There are no viruses for Mac OS X; if you can find one, tell us what it is, because it just doesn't exist. If you double 0, you still get 0. And your whole "security through obscurity" belief is a complete myth. Mac sales are increasing, and yet we still have no viruses; so it stands to reason that being dwarfed by Windows PC sales all those years had nothing to do with security on the Mac.