leonardolellis

Q: Is it (still) worth to update to Lion?

I'm an user of Snow Leopard on an iMac 8,1 (Early 2008 model; Core 2 Duo 2,4GHz; 4 GB 800 MHz DDR SDRAM; 100GB free disk space). In general, it just work very well for me. It's stable and have no noticeable performance issues for my diary needs.


My concern is about features that I cannot update anymore. The only option I have to update in Brazil is Lion or Yosemite (Mountain Lion and Mavericks seems no longer available to an "official" download).

 

I'm worried that Yosemite ruin my peace and make my iMac run slow (as you see, it's a little bit old). The support to Lion is also ended, although I can get some newers updates than I'm running.


Is it still worth update to Lion or maybe I have performance issues? Is my worry about Yosemite silly?


Thank you,

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Early2008; Core2Duo 2,4GHz; 4GB RAM

Posted on Jul 11, 2015 2:58 PM

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Q: Is it (still) worth to update to Lion?

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  • by Carolyn Samit,

    Carolyn Samit Carolyn Samit Jul 11, 2015 3:02 PM in response to leonardolellis
    Level 10 (122,225 points)
    Apple Music
    Jul 11, 2015 3:02 PM in response to leonardolellis

    It's not really worth it to upgrade to v10.7 Lion as that's an oudated OS X.

     

    The problem running v10.6.8 Snow Leoaprd is that Apple stopped providing security updates several years ago.

     

    Make sure your Mac meets Yosemite requirements >  How to install OS X Yosemite on your Mac - Apple Support

     

    Very important to read this user tip prior to upgrading from Snow Leoaprd > Upgrading to 10.7 and above, don't forget Rosetta! | Apple Support Communities


  • by MichelPM,

    MichelPM MichelPM Jul 12, 2015 6:21 AM in response to leonardolellis
    Level 6 (13,852 points)
    iPad
    Jul 12, 2015 6:21 AM in response to leonardolellis

    Check the Apple website in your country.

    On the U.S, website OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is still available as a $20 download.

    Apple issues within 3 days a special download code to be able to download OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store.

    You can, also, try to call Apple at 1-800-MYAPPLE and ask for the sales department to ask if you can pay for a download code to be able to download and install OS X 10.8  Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store.

     

    Before embarking on a major OS upgrade, it would be wise, advisable and very prudent if you have a good,working backup of your current system to an external connected and Mac formatted Flash drive OR externally connected USB, Thunderbolt or FireWire 800, Mac formatted hard drive. Then, use either OS X Time Machine app to backup your entire system to the external drive OR purchase, install and use a data cloning app, like CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper, to make an exact and bootable copy (clone) of your entire Mac's internal hard drive. This step is really needed in case something goes wrong with the install of the new OS or you simply do not like the new OS, you have a very easy way/procedure to return your Mac to its former working state.


    Then, determine if your Mac meets ALL minimum system install requirements.


    To install OS X  10.8 Mountain Lion or OS X 10.10 Yosemite (currently available free upgrade) you need one of these Macs:


    OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion purchased emailed download code here.


    http://store.apple.com/us/product/D6377Z/A/os-x-mountain-lion


    Apple will send you an email for the special download code for the Mac App Store within three days of purchasing the download code.


    iMac (Mid-2007 or later)

    MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)

    MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later),

    MacBook Pro (15-inch or 17-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later)

    MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)

    Mac mini (Early 2009 or later)

    Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)

    Xserve (Early 2009)

    Your Mac also needs:

    OS X Mountain Lion, Lion, or Snow Leopard v10.6.8 already installed

    2 GB or more of memory (I strongly advise, at least, 4 GBs of RAM or more)

    8 GB or more of available space


    Next,

    If you run any older Mac software from the earlier PowerPC Macs, then none of this software will work with the newer OS X versions (10.7 and onward). OS X Snow Leopard had a magical and invisible PowerPC emulation application, called Rosetta, that worked seamlessly in the background that still allowed older PowerPC coded software to still operate in a Intel CPU Mac.

    The use of Rosetta ended with OS X Snow Leopard as the Rosetta application was licensed to Apple, from a software company called Transitive, which got bought out, I believe, by IBM and Appe  could no longer secure their rights to continue to use Rosetta in later versions of OS X.

     

    So, you would need to check to see if you have software on your Mac that maybe older than, say, 2006 or older.

     

    Also, check for app compatibilty  here.

     

    http://roaringapps.com/


    If you have any commercial antivirus installed and/or hard drive cleaning apps installed on your Mac, like MacKeeper, CleanMyMac, TuneUpMyMac, MacCleanse, etc. now would be a good time to completely uninstall these apps by doing a Google search to learn how to properly uninstall these types of apps.

    These types of apps will only cause your Mac issues later after the install of the new OS X version and you will have to completely uninstall these types of apps later.

    Once you have determined all of this, you should be able to find the latest versions of OS X by clicking on the Mac App Store icon in the OS X Dock and then login to the Mac App Store using your Apple ID and password and if you purchased a download code, input that code.

    You can then begin the download and installation process of installing the newer versions of OS X from the Mac App Store.


    Good Luck!

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Jul 12, 2015 7:59 AM in response to leonardolellis
    Level 9 (71,583 points)
    iTunes
    Jul 12, 2015 7:59 AM in response to leonardolellis

    One option is to create a new partition (~30- 50 GB), install the new OS, and ‘test drive’ it. If you like/don’t like it it, you can then remove the partition. Do a backup before you do anything. By doing this, if you don’t like it you won’t have to go though the revert process.

     

    Check to make sure your applications are compatible.


    Application Compatibility

     

    Applications Compatibility (2)

     

    Open Disk Utility, select your hard drive (step 1), then the Partition tab (step 2), and select the partition. Using the /// at the bottom move it up (step 3) until the size box decrease by about 50 GB. Select the newly created space and hit the + button (step 4). Name it something and select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format (step 5). Then hit the Apply button(step 6). Download the installer from the App Store and when it starts, point it at the new partition. You might want to make a copy of the installer outside the Applications folder to avoid having to re-download it in the future. Once installed, go to System Preferences/Startup Disk, select the new partition and reboot. Test away.

     

    I have the same computer and Yosemite runs okay on it. I did upgrade to 6GB of RAM, which helped.