Compare, for example, your specs to my Macbook Air 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4Gb RAM and SSD, which supports ML and feels faster than my 2.93Ghz iMac with 8Gb on the same OS (or did until I put an SSD in the iMac). Put simply, your CPU and RAM can handle whatever you want to run just fine. So, I am finding my Mid-2009 MacBook Pro moving slower than molasses. I am aware that I need more memory and I am planning to purchase more memory in the very near future however, I was wondering if there was an OX operating system that works best for my Mac. It is impossible to talk about Mac-like operating systems without talking about the Elementary OS project.This is a Linux distribution that adopts some of the design philosophy that Apple employs into their work: simplicity, beauty, and features.
- Best Mac Os For 2011 Macbook Pro
- Best Mac Os For A1278 Macbook
- Latest Os For Macbook Pro
- Os For Macbook Air
It’s not difficult to bring an old Apple laptop up to standard, and the cost is considerably less than buying a new Mac. In an age where we’re far more likely to throw something out than repair or make do, shouldn’t we all be reusing old, perfectly functioning technology?
An old machine can still accomplish a lot – be it browsing the Web, using Facebook or even writing blog posts and coding websites. Make do, save money and put old things to new use.
Which Laptop Have You Got?
Finding out which model of MacBook you have is key to finding out just how crusty – or recent – it happens to be. You can do this by clicking the Apple logo in the top-left of the screen, selecting About This Mac then More Info. You can see the model you have listed at the top of this window, along with your operating system version and other technical specifications below it.
Depending on the age of your laptop, you may or may not be able to run Apple’s latest iteration of OS X, 10.9 “Mavericks” which was released as a free upgradeOS X Mavericks is Free: Here's How To Get It & Why You Want ItOS X Mavericks is Free: Here's How To Get It & Why You Want ItApple really outdid itself this time. The words 'software sells hardware' never rung more true, and now that OS X Mavericks is free to all, isn't it about time you got on-board?Read More. Compatible laptops include:
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- MacBook (late 2008 aluminium, or early 2009 or newer)
- MacBook Pro (mid/late 2007 or newer)
- MacBook Air (late 2008 or newer)
If your laptop is older than this, then you’re going to have to stop at the last supported version of OS X. If you happen to own an old PowerPC Mac (and it will say so, under the “Processor” field in About This Mac) then you will be stuck with OS X 10.5 “Leopard” as that is the last version built to support these old dinosaurs.
Users who find Intel chips inside will have more luck, but again will be limited by their hardware’s last supported version. EveryMac has a comprehensive guide to find out your Mac’s last supported version, which you can cross-reference with the model name and number you found under About This Mac.
Hardware Changes
It’s probably worth performing any work on your laptop’s internals before you start messing with the software, provided work needs to be done. You can use the About This Mac tool to find out your current hard drive size and installed RAM capacity, then decide whether this is good enough.
Consider upgrading RAM, particularly if your MacBook has space as it’s a cheap and effective upgrade with noticeable performance hikes. EveryMac provides an exhaustive list of maximum memory configurations – you should aim for 4GB if you’re hoping to run Mavericks smoothly. Hard drives provide another opportunity for upgrade – you can increase size, or even opt for a solid state hybrid drive – but the biggest performance leap comes from switching to a solid state drive (SSD).
SSDs provide serious speed at a cost – space. SSDs currently don’t hold anywhere near as much as traditional platters do, so the price per GB is noticeably higher. Consider ditching your MacBook’s optical drive in favour of an SSDHow To Swap Out Your Macbook's DVD Drive For An SSDHow To Swap Out Your Macbook's DVD Drive For An SSDIs your old Apple laptop starting to struggle? Is the boot time so long that you can actually go out and buy a coffee? If so, perhaps it's time to think about upgrading your main...Read More, and while you’re at it you could swap out the existing hard drive with a bigger replacement too. Don’t forget that hard drives do fail, and they take everything down with them when they go – so if yours is emitting strange noises, or being slower than usual, it might be a sign it’s on the way out.
Of course the only problem here is if you’re running a particularly old Mac; you’ll need that optical drive for upgrade purposes. A nice way around this is to use an external drive like Apple’s pricey SuperDrive, or a cheaper third-party one, or by creating a bootable Snow Leopard flash diskUpgrading Mac To Snow Leopard Using USB driveUpgrading Mac To Snow Leopard Using USB driveRead More using your original DVD before ditching your optical drive.
If you do find yourself with no way to install from your original disc, you could always download the .DMG using a torrent and burn that to USB instead – there’s nothing illegal in downloading software you already own.
Upgrading OS X
If your Mac is especially old, or has been allowed to grow old without many updates, you’ll probably find that you need to upgrade the operating system. This can take some time, particularly for older Macs that need to “ascend the ranks” and move from CD/DVD installs to using the Mac App Store.
Depending on the age of your Mac, this can be a bit of an ordeal. Users running 10.5 (Leopard) or earlier will actually need to buySnow Leopard (10.6) from Apple ($20.99), install from disc, then continue upgrading as far as they can using the methods outlined below.
If you have Snow Leopard installed (10.6) you can simply run a System Update to the latest version (10.6.8) which adds support for the Mac App Store. Then, once the Mac App Store is on your machine you can upgrade by downloading further versions. Before wasting your time downloading OS X Mavericks, double check your maximum supported version of OS X.
There are a good number of MacBook models, particularly the Core2Duo and plastic unibody models from 2006, 2007 and 2008, that only support 10.7.5 (Lion). The problem is, you won’t find Lion available in the Mac App Store any more – instead you’ll need to order it from here for $20. Once payment has been made, you can upgrade using a code which you can redeem on the Mac App Store.
Each newer version of OS X will run a little slower than the last, and this is particularly true when considering older hardware. Even if you can only upgrade as far as 10.7 you will see some benefit, particularly as support for 10.6 is waning fast – many developers are choosing to go “10.7 and later”, and even Apple dropped support for Safari with the release of 10.6.
Finally
There are a few other things you can choose to do with your old MacBook, particularly if you don’t really want to use it as a Mac. You could always switch operating systems, depending on the age of your Mac a nice lightweight Linux distribution13 Lightweight Linux Distributions to Give Your Old PC a New Lease of Life13 Lightweight Linux Distributions to Give Your Old PC a New Lease of LifeThese flavors of Linux are light on CPU and RAM, meaninig they run great on older and weaker devices!Read More might just give it a new lease of life. You might even want to install an old version of Windows, something Boot Camp will help with on Leopard (10.5) and later.
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Optionally – you could sell it. Macs tend to hold some value, and you might be surprised by the interest generated on eBay.
Image credits: MacBook 13″ (Juuro), MacBook vs. MacBook (David Basanta), Chipmunk Checking Email (Stephen Coles)
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Why not also mention the Mac PowerPC computers? Since kids are using them, plus there are Linux PowerPC Distros available for them, too. Sure Apple may not put out new stuff for them and there are less Linux Distros than there used to be, but MintPPC, Lubuntu 13.10 and perhaps others work quite well for daily tasks.
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Why would you go through the insane process of installing Snow Leopard and then upgrading all the way to Mavericks? Mavericks is a free OS now. Get your hands on it and do a clean install on your machine. Know some one running Mavericks? Clone his install with Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper and restore to your machine. There are also ways to use your friends machine to download Mavericks and make an install disk or USB. Anything is better then the multi step stupidity of installing Snow Leopard and updating all those versions. That's something I would expect from Windows.
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My experience with OS X has been that, for the most part, OS upgrades have made things faster, not slower.Also, you might want to take out the part about torrenting OS X. That's a legal gray area--not to mention the danger of downloading malware when trying to find these torrents.
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'Each newer version of OS X will run a little slower than the last, and this is particularly true when considering older hardware. '
That does not make sense to me - why SLOWER - or is this simply a mistake and you meant FASTER?-
The size and intricacy of systems grows as time goes by.
Running a newer system on an older machine, with lesser processors, memory, etc., will slow things down, provided the system will run at all. -
Each subsequent OS for Mac or Windows is more feature-rich and thus slower. They are built to take advantage of advancing hardware, not make older hardware run more efficiently. Just how it is. All software follows this trend. That is why minimum specs always increase, never decrease.The reason to upgrade is not to improve performance but to keep up with available updates/applications. For example the Mac AppStore and many newer versions of browsers will not run at all on pre-Snow Leopard OSX.
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Each new version adds features which require more processor performance and memory. As such, newer iteration of the OS usually run slower than previous iterations on a given system. For example, I have an old plastic MacBook that came with 10.4. When I upgraded it to 10.7, with it hundreds of new features, the older machine went from speedy to sluggish. By increasing the memory from 1.5GB to 4GB, the speed increased substantially, as the newer operating system not only requires more processor power, but more memory as well.
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Because with older hardware newer software is designed to take advantage of improved hardware that the computer doesn't have.
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Actually he's right every new version of OSX gets slower and needs more ressources, i personally had to double my RAM and change my HDD for an SSD on my i7 MBP to run Mavericks as smooth as i used to run Lion. and i don't even see the logic in it
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Typo at the Beggining, '10.5 Snow Leopard' 10.5 is Leopard.
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*BEGINNING
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If you try to start up your Mac from a hard disk, network volume, or Time Machine backup that contains an incompatible version or build of macOS, you might experience one or more of these symptoms:
- Your Mac doesn't finish starting up, or displays a prohibitory symbol at startup.
- You see a message that you're using an unsupported or incorrect version of the Mac operating system.
- Your Mac doesn't respond to your trackpad, mouse, or keyboard.
- Apps unexpectedly quit.
- Your Mac doesn't sleep or wake.
- You don't hear any sound from your Mac.
- The fans in your Mac are louder, because they're spinning faster.
- The image on your display appears to shrink, has black bars around it, or appears tinted.
- You can't use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
Which Mac operating systems are compatible?
The version of macOS that came with your Mac is the earliest version compatible with that Mac. To find out whether your Mac is compatible with a later version of macOS, check the system requirements:
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If your Mac won't start up from a compatible version of macOS, it might require a specific build of that version. To get the correct build:
- Use macOS Recovery to reinstall macOS from the affected Mac.
- Or upgrade to a later version of macOS.
Learn more
Os For Macbook Air
- To restore a Time Machine backup that was created on a different Mac, use Migration Assistant.