Leopard on a G5 PPC

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Level 1

13 points

Leopard on a G5 PPC

I have an older G5 PPC iMac that has been a dedicated workhorse and still performs quite well. I have thought about upgrading from 10.4 to 10.5 , however, all I find in Apples store is 10.6 upgrade sets. Is just plane Leopard still available and should I expect improved performance from the upgrade?

iMAC and Macbook, Mac OS X (10.4.11), MacBook OS 10.6.4 with 4Gb ram

Posted on Jan 29, 2011 6:42 AM

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Answer 1

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MGW

Level 7

27,041 points

Jan 29, 2011 7:16 AM in response to bskip

You can look for Leopard on line, just make sure that you get a retail copy with a black face and a big X on it. Do not buy any grey discs, they are machine specific and won't work. You should notice a definite improvement in your speed and performace with Leopard. Once you have installed it, use the [10.5.8.combo updater|http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/macosx1058co mboupdate.html] to get maximum advantage from the OS. It won't be cheap ( http://www.amazon.com/Mac-OS-Version-10-5-6-Leopard/dp/B000FK88JK) but I think it will be worth it.

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Answer 2

Jan 30, 2011 5:55 PM in response to bskip

Leopard is fine. I upgraded more just for ongoing compatibility.

It did NOT speed up my machine.

Snow Leopard would be a better upgrade, but it doesn't run under PPC. Leopard may let you get a newer Safari, but that's not saying much.

If you haven't maxed the RAM to 2GB, get over to Crucial.com and do so immediately. THAT definitely helped.

So did changing to a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Green drive. (Green=less power use, variable spin speed. Black=faster, but always spinning and significantly noisier. Blue=in between).

If you do upgrade, take out your existing hard drive to an external case, put in a new big drive, load the system freshly onto that, copy what you need. If the internal crashes, you can always swap the external back in to get running. It's not too hard to switch the drives.

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Answer 3

Limnos

Level 10

411,121 points

Jan 30, 2011 6:06 PM in response to head_unit

So did changing to a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Green drive. (Green=less power use, variable spin speed. Black=faster, but always spinning and significantly noisier. Blue=in between).

I'm not the top expert in drives but have been reading about them recently. I recall somebody saying the green ones are not recommended as boot drives because of the variable speed. The black ones are supposed to be the top performers and also come with the longest warranty. I have a blue drive which I use for archiving and backup. Anyway, I suggest the OP do some research to figure out which best meets their need.

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Answer 4

Feb 7, 2011 10:22 AM in response to bskip

Hi All, not sure if you are still talking about this question but I have a related thought. As you can see I have a iMac G5 PPC running 10.4.11. Does anyone know if I can run 10.6 on my machine and if I can, will Adobe CS2 applications still work? And what the costs could be?

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Answer 5

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Feb 7, 2011 10:48 AM in response to On A iMac G5

No and no!

Our G5 iMacs cannot run Snow Leopard 10.6 as this only runs on an Intel Mac.

But you can safely upgrade to Leopard 10.5 - if you can find it. My CS2 actually prefers it! 🙂

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Answer 6

Feb 7, 2011 1:49 PM in response to Klaus1

Okay. Thanks Klaus1. And so then if I find 10.5, will it run iTunes 10.whatever the new one is? I am also trying to update my iPhone 3GS but my iTunes is too old. I am trying to solve a slew of items since I can't quite make the purchase of a new iMac just yet.

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Answer 7

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Feb 7, 2011 2:17 PM in response to On A iMac G5

Yes, on Leopard it will run iTunes 10.

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Answer 8

Feb 7, 2011 3:43 PM in response to Klaus1

Great! Thanks for your help.

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Answer 9

emyulick

Level 1

8 points

Jul 21, 2011 2:32 PM in response to bskip

Klaus1 is not entirely correct.

CS2 is a PPC-native suite. Intel macs may or may not run it... It depends on which way the wind is blowing (only half-kidding).

You have to install Rosetta and CS2 will run with rosetta in ppc emulation mode in the background. I just got a new G5 intel with 12gb ram and 1tb hard drive, running os 10.6.8 and rosetta, and I've had some success, although my Indesign CS2, which ran okay initially except for printing, is now rebelling. Photoshop and Illustrator run fairly well and I have been able to print directly from those applications.

Work around for some issues:

Make sure you save your files frequently. If you are even remotely thinking about printing, save-save-save.

If you program hangs up on you or crashes after you've hit "print", restart the program and export the file as a pdf (this is where I'm seeing some new hiccups). Up until yesterday, this worked fine, and we have others in our building using this technique with InDesign and Photoshop CS2 with good success printing the pdf from acrobat.

Good luck!

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Answer 10

Jul 22, 2011 12:23 PM in response to emyulick

emyulick wrote:

Klaus1 is not entirely correct.

CS2 is a PPC-native suite. Intel macs may or may not run it... It depends on which way the wind is blowing (only half-kidding).

You have to install Rosetta and CS2 will run with rosetta in ppc emulation mode in the background. I just got a new G5 intel with 12gb ram and 1tb hard drive, running os 10.6.8 and rosetta, and I've had some success, although my Indesign CS2, which ran okay initially except for printing, is now rebelling. Photoshop and Illustrator run fairly well and I have been able to print directly from those applications.

Yes, but the OP has a PPC Mac not an Intel Mac, so this isn't relevant.

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