A retrospective look at Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Post by Ant
http://morrick.me/archives/9220

Snow Leopard was very stable but so was Tiger, if you're going the retro
route I never saw an advantage of Snow Leopard over Tiger as long as you
have a machine that can still run Tiger. With Tiger you have the
advantage of the regularly updated TenFourFox and its better security
than Firefox 45.9 on Snow Leopard. Unfortunately the developer of
TenFourFox doesn't develop for anything past Leopard and the Power Mac
but he must have a good reason.

I do have Snow Leopard on the hard drive of my 2009 iMac (which it
shipped with) but always boot it up in El Capitan on an external SSD,
that seemed like the most stable solution.

Lewis

2021-03-08 19:00:53 UTC

Post by Ant
http://morrick.me/archives/9220

Nope, the reason is he wants to write for PowerPC.

There are MANY reasons to prefer Snow Leopard over Tiger, but both of
them as so ancient no one should be using either,

--
'What good is a candle at noonday?' --Sourcery

super70s

2021-03-10 13:52:26 UTC

Post by Ant
http://morrick.me/archives/9220

Nope, the reason is he wants to write for PowerPC.
There are MANY reasons to prefer Snow Leopard over Tiger,

Like what, some video conferencing app? Even the OP says that's become
outdated on Snow Leopard now.

Post by Lewis
but both of them as so ancient no one should be using either,

If you can be productive on Snow Leopard or Tiger with apps that won't
run on newer systems that's a reason to use them, there's no law that
says you can't use them and newer systems also.

Lewis

2021-03-10 17:04:54 UTC

Post by Lewis
but both of them as so ancient no one should be using either,

If you can be productive on Snow Leopard or Tiger with apps that won't
run on newer systems that's a reason to use them, there's no law that
says you can't use them and newer systems also.

I did not say there was a law, but no rational person shuld be using an
OS that old and that far out of support. It is foolish, and it is
dangerous to you and to others if you connect machines with known remote
exploits to the Internet.

But you be you.

--
'Sometimes there has to be a civil war, and sometimes, afterwards,
it's best to pretend something didn't happen. Sometimes people
have to do a job, and then they have to be forgotten.' --Men at
Arms

super70s

2021-03-10 23:57:34 UTC

Post by Lewis
but both of them as so ancient no one should be using either,

If you can be productive on Snow Leopard or Tiger with apps that won't
run on newer systems that's a reason to use them, there's no law that
says you can't use them and newer systems also.

"Foolish" and "dangerous", lol. TenFourFox gets thousands of downloads
with every update which are very common so many others also like to live
dangerously I guess.

Wolffan

2021-03-11 14:21:57 UTC

Post by Lewis
but both of them as so ancient no one should be using either,

If you can be productive on Snow Leopard or Tiger with apps that won't
run on newer systems that's a reason to use them, there's no law that
says you can't use them and newer systems also.

"Foolish" and "dangerous", lol. TenFourFox gets thousands of downloads
with every update which are very common so many others also like to live
dangerously I guess.

There just aren’t that many exploits out there for old versions of OS X.
And lots of newer stuff will not run on PPC CPUs, they gotta have Intel. And
if you segment your LAN you can, if necessary, temporarily let a system see
outside the building and then lock it back down... and, frankly, being able
to use certain older, but expensive when new, and not supported beyond
Leopard, hardware is worth the risk. No doubt when the last of certain
devices, mostly printers, finally dies or when getting toner for them becomes
too much of a hassle perhaps I’ll retire to old machines. Maybe. Or perhaps
I’ll use ‘em to play Marathon. Or Harpoon. Or both.

JF Mezei

2021-03-11 19:46:46 UTC

I am in the process of upgrading my Snow Leopard Xserve.

I am essentually transitioning it to a vanilla Unix environment. This
means building much of the server apps and middleware from open source
such as OpenSSL that is current (the OS-X version on Snow Leopard is no
longer supported by many remote sites), rebuilding middleware such as
PHP, Postfix and Apache. (and to do that, you need to rebuild Perl, and
small items like get-config (sp?) which are used to build the packages.
I now need to look into libxms2 because the PHP build complains about it
missing, but may be an option to specify where it is.

Since this is a server, the client apps are not important. And when
Apple purposefully disabled the client server management apps (actually
deleted them during upgrades on other machines), I've learned to manage
the machine at command line.

Ironically, moving all the server software to /user/local via open
source builds is a pre-requisite to ever upgrading OS-X since upgrading
past Snow Leopard removes much of the server stuff which then needs to
be re-installed. However, when the xserve dies, my next server will be
Linux since Apple does not want to be in the server business and is
making it increasingly harder and hardwer to bring in apps from outside
its little app store designed for client, not server

Scott Alfter

2021-03-11 22:46:06 UTC

However, when the xserve dies, my next server will be Linux since Apple
does not want to be in the server business and is making it increasingly
harder and hardwer to bring in apps from outside its little app store
designed for client, not server

Why not throw Linux on the Xserve? I dug up my G4 Mac mini a while back
and, after replacing the hard drive (with an SSD) and DVD burner and loading
Tiger back on part of the SSD, I used the rest of the space to bring up
Gentoo Linux. It wasn't much more difficult than installing on x86
hardware, other than that you're compiling everything on a processor that's
maybe about as fast as a Raspberry Pi 2. That way, your software is as
up-to-date as anyone else's, even though you are running on older hardware
(and my sig should make clear I have no issues with older hardware :-) ).

_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

JF Mezei

2021-03-12 03:07:46 UTC

Post by Scott Alfter
Why not throw Linux on the Xserve?

Because that would disrupt service as I boot one or the other. Also, the
Xserve is a dead end as it requires proprietary disks Apple no longer
sells. (the SATA interface may be SATA but lacks negotiation so you
can't put modern drives of identical capacity.

So when I have a new server, I can transfer service by service as
progress in configuring the new server.

Lewis

2021-03-12 03:27:50 UTC

Post by Scott Alfter

[Apple] is making it increasingly harder and hardwer to bring in apps
from outside its little app store designed for client, not server

Complete and utter horse shit.

Post by Scott Alfter
Why not throw Linux on the Xserve?

Linux is a reasonable choice for old hardware.

Post by Scott Alfter
It wasn't much more difficult than installing on x86 hardware, other
than that you're compiling everything on a processor that's maybe
about as fast as a Raspberry Pi 2

I'm not sure any Mac mini was ever quite that slow.

--
Demons have existed on the Discworld for at least as long as the
gods, who in many ways they closely resemble. The difference is
basically the same as between terrorists and freedom fighters.

Scott Alfter

2021-03-12 16:39:58 UTC

Post by Scott Alfter
It wasn't much more difficult than installing on x86 hardware, other
than that you're compiling everything on a processor that's maybe
about as fast as a Raspberry Pi 2

I'm not sure any Mac mini was ever quite that slow.

1.5 GHz, 32-bit, single core, maxed out at 1 GB RAM. About the only
opportunity for a speedup was replacing the spinning rust with an M.2 SATA
SSD (inside an adapter that converts it to a 2.5" PATA device).
Subjectively, building code on it (which Gentoo does a lot :) ) seems about
as fast as building the same code on my Raspberry Pis. Objectively, I don't
have benchmarks that can confirm or deny the assertion, though.

_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

Wolffan

2021-03-11 14:14:53 UTC

Post by Lewis
but both of them as so ancient no one should be using either,

If you can be productive on Snow Leopard or Tiger with apps that won't
run on newer systems that's a reason to use them, there's no law that
says you can't use them and newer systems also.

I did not say there was a law, but no rational person shuld be using an
OS that old and that far out of support.

Hmm. Looks at beige G3, still working, running Jaguar (I put Panther on it
once. Bad idea. Put Jag back.) in 768 MB RAM, 20 GB UltraSCSI and 5 GB SATA
internal HDD, working floppy drive, working DVD burner, maxed out internal
video driving a 20” CRT (yes, a CRT...) and Classic is still up. It also
has a USB 2/FireWire combo card. And certain old hardware is connected via FW
to that G3. It’s irrational to want to run old, but still working, and
expensive when new 20+ years ago hardware? Tell me more about the universe
you live in. What colour is the sky there?

And, oh, there are also two eMacs which were maxed RAM, maxed HDD, and
running Leopard (can’t run Snow Leo) also operational, feeding various
devices... and in use when I want to play the Greatest Tactical Game Of All
Time, Harpoon. Long Live the Glorious Red Banner Northern Fleet, Yankee
Imperialist carrier battle groups come within Backfire range at their peril!

Post by Lewis
It is foolish,

nope.

Post by Lewis
and it is
dangerous to you and to others if you connect machines with known remote
exploits to the Internet.

Who said that they’re on a LAN segment which can see outside the building?

Post by Lewis
But you be you.

You made a number of unsupported, and unsupportable, statements, and several
unwarranted assumptions.

Dr Eberhard W Lisse

2021-03-12 06:20:59 UTC

ProductName: Mac OS X Server
ProductVersion: 10.5.8
BuildVersion: 9L34
8:18 up 337 days, 19:47, 1 user, load averages: 0.00 0.00 0.00

el

Post by Wolffan

Post by Lewis
but both of them as so ancient no one should be using either,

If you can be productive on Snow Leopard or Tiger with apps that won't
run on newer systems that's a reason to use them, there's no law that
says you can't use them and newer systems also.

I did not say there was a law, but no rational person shuld be using an
OS that old and that far out of support.

Hmm. Looks at beige G3, still working, running Jaguar (I put Panther on it
once. Bad idea. Put Jag back.) in 768 MB RAM, 20 GB UltraSCSI and 5 GB SATA
internal HDD, working floppy drive, working DVD burner, maxed out internal
video driving a 20” CRT (yes, a CRT...) and Classic is still up. It also
has a USB 2/FireWire combo card. And certain old hardware is connected via FW
to that G3. It’s irrational to want to run old, but still working, and
expensive when new 20+ years ago hardware? Tell me more about the universe
you live in. What colour is the sky there?
And, oh, there are also two eMacs which were maxed RAM, maxed HDD, and
running Leopard (can’t run Snow Leo) also operational, feeding various
devices... and in use when I want to play the Greatest Tactical Game Of All
Time, Harpoon. Long Live the Glorious Red Banner Northern Fleet, Yankee
Imperialist carrier battle groups come within Backfire range at their peril!

Post by Lewis
It is foolish,

nope.

Post by Lewis
and it is
dangerous to you and to others if you connect machines with known remote
exploits to the Internet.

Who said that they’re on a LAN segment which can see outside the building?

Post by Lewis
But you be you.

You made a number of unsupported, and unsupportable, statements, and several
unwarranted assumptions.

Stephen Thomas Cole

2023-12-22 16:36:39 UTC