Snow Leopard and/or Lion on Older Macs?

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Snow Leopard and/or Lion on Older Macs?

My house is where Macs go to die if they're very good, apparently. I have 5 of them, all still working. However, I need to know how far I can go with the G4 and the older G3 PowerBooks.

If I buy a copy of Lion for the newer MacBook Pro, which I bought Snow Leopard for, can I install Snow Leopard on the G4? Please note, I DID purchase this separately, so I think I may have the install disks. Also, does anyone know how to purchase antiquated OSs? I have a copy of OS X itself, which should never have been allowed to escape, but I hesitate installing it on the G3 as I had to uninstall it on the iMac to get the iMac to work any more. But if there's a slightly better version that the G3s will take, I'd be willing to purchase 2 copies (or a household copy if that's necessary). I KNOW you can't run Snow Leopard on a second-generation iMac.

Help?

Love my Mac!, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Jul 28, 2011 11:05 AM

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Answer 1

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varjak paw

Level 10

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Jul 28, 2011 2:44 PM in response to Evangelyne

No. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and 10.7 Lion will work only on Intel-based Macs. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is the last version of Mac OS X that will run on a PowerPC-based Mac (867MHz G4 or better). Mac OS X 10.4 is the last version that will run on any G3-based Mac (Macs with built-in FireWire only).

As to where to purchase older versions of Mac OS X, you'll have to look to places such as eBay. Note that you must purchase retail copies of the installer. The grey system disks that came with another Mac will not work and aren't legal for you to use.

Regards.

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Answer 2

Evangelyne Author

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Jul 28, 2011 2:54 PM in response to varjak paw

I thank you and the Macintosh Mortuary thanks you. :-D

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