Replacing old mac~next computer purchase

[MrJim]

I do love my old mac but it's heading toward 6 years old still running Leopard~I checked with local mac store and they said it was considered "vintage" [late 2006 intel core-duo "vintage"] and not worth upgrading...and all I was interested in was a larger HD & more RAM hoping to upgrade to Snow Leopard which is the highest I can go on this unit anyhow. I've thought about tackling the job myself, I've got into PCs and successfully replaced power supply and RAM upgrades but that's fairly idiot-proof compared to cracking open one of these sardine cans.

So I'm considering replacing with a PC running a Linux distro dual booting with Win7~~actually might get my oldest son a newer PC and use his older one (currently running XP) and run Linux/XP on that eventually even dropping XP as it dies out.

Biggest issue is cost of course though a refurbished mini usually runs around $519~did I say I love my mini?--[never let me down in all these years, the OS crashed once because of crap software I tried to use, restart holding "C" and all good]. The other two computers can easily take care of whatever "software" needs to be run; mine only needs to access net, email, and word processing~yup that's it.

So should I just get a new mini and be done with it or move on to linux world? The mac has certainly spoiled me regarding computers; should I expect continued success and another 6 years of good service from a new one? I do like exploring and using new linux distros; could dual boot a new mini with linux though I guess?:

Specs on current refurbished mini:

Refurbished Mac mini 2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
2GB memory

500GB hard drive

Thunderbolt port with support for up to 2560-by-1600 resolution
HDMI port with support for up to 1920-by-1200 resolution
Intel HD Graphics 3000

Refurbished Mac Computers - Refurbished Notebooks & Desktop Computers - Apple Store (U.S.)

Might not sound like "much" compared to a $600 desktop at the local computer store, but then it does run OS X...I dunno....

Just looking for some advice

 

[C-Man]

Build a custom PC and turn it into a Hackintosh.
Macs have the worst upgradability there is. x.x;

 

[Qyöt27]

I simply upgraded my parents' 2006 iMac from Tiger to Snow Leopard once they had a need for it, without doing any sort of hardware tweaking. Worked fine, at least until the screen broke. There was also a nice performance boost because it cleared out a lot of the cruft of needing to have PowerPC-supporting Universal binaries taking up space and had better support for the 64-bit hardware that pretty much all but the earliest Intel Macs use. I'm fairly sure it would be a nice boost over Leopard sans any hardware differences, although maybe not as dramatic as it would be compared to Tiger.

OSX is actually one of those rare cases where a newer version of the OS is at least somewhat likely to work better on a piece of hardware than the version of the OS it came with, so long as the hardware is still supported for upgrades. If it came with Tiger or Leopard, Snow Leopard will more than likely work better on that computer than either of the other two did.

My point of view is that if the computer still works, you may as well upgrade its components to the most it can take, because if you know how to take care of it, there's no telling how many more years of use you'll get, and therefore hardware upgrades within the constrictions placed on you by the motherboard are inherently worthwhile regardless of the computer's age. I mean, I'm posting this from an 11-year-old eMachines T1110 that's been upgraded multiple times over the years.

 

[MrJim]

I simply upgraded my parents' 2006 iMac from Tiger to Snow Leopard once they had a need for it, without doing any sort of hardware tweaking. Worked fine, at least until the screen broke. There was also a nice performance boost because it cleared out a lot of the cruft of needing to have PowerPC-supporting Universal binaries taking up space and had better support for the 64-bit hardware that pretty much all but the earliest Intel Macs use. I'm fairly sure it would be a nice boost over Leopard sans any hardware differences, although maybe not as dramatic as it would be compared to Tiger.

OSX is actually one of those rare cases where a newer version of the OS is at least somewhat likely to work better on a piece of hardware than the version of the OS it came with, so long as the hardware is still supported for upgrades. If it came with Tiger or Leopard, Snow Leopard will more than likely work better on that computer than either of the other two did.

My point of view is that if the computer still works, you may as well upgrade its components to the most it can take, because if you know how to take care of it, there's no telling how many more years of use you'll get, and therefore hardware upgrades within the constrictions placed on you by the motherboard are inherently worthwhile regardless of the computer's age. I mean, I'm posting this from an 11-year-old eMachines T1110 that's been upgraded multiple times over the years.

Well that's what I'm thinking, that the mini still has life in it if it just has a bit of upgrade. Maybe I'll try to put in the new components myself, they're inexpensive enough and there's plenty of clips on youtube on how to crack open one of these sardine cans. What do I have to lose really? I'm backed up on a my external HD + Carbonite so my stuff is secure and generally I've found hardware replacement is easier than it looks

 

[NiobiumTragedy]

My quick two cents: I wouldn't even consider getting anything with less than 8gigs of Ram anymore.

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Just treated myself to a PC upgrade of Intel i7 (6 core goodness) and 16GB RAM with a new 90 GB SSD - oh my the speed!

Running Debian XFCE (my own custom distro) for which the new hardware is a complete overkill but us boys need our toys now and again

The sweetspot for PC's at the moment would be an Intel i5 2500K CPU and 8GB RAM - combine that with a 90GB or 120GB SSD for Linux/Win 7 system partition and a 1-2 TB SATA hard drive and this would be good for several years to come. Maybe not the cheapest way to do it but good never came cheap - except for Linux and Open Source

A shot of my the beast which I upgraded a couple of days ago,

 

[MrJim]

Just treated myself to a PC upgrade of Intel i7 (6 core goodness) and 16GB RAM with a new 90 GB SSD - oh my the speed!

Running Debian XFCE (my own custom distro) for which the new hardware is a complete overkill but us boys need our toys now and again

The sweetspot for PC's at the moment would be an Intel i5 2500K CPU and 8GB RAM - combine that with a 90GB or 120GB SSD for Linux/Win 7 system partition and a 1-2 TB SATA hard drive and this would be good for several years to come. Maybe not the cheapest way to do it but good never came cheap - except for Linux and Open Source

A shot of my the beast which I upgraded a couple of days ago,

wow that's more computer than I'd ever be able to use in my entire life

 

[C-Man]

wow that's more computer than I'd ever be able to use in my entire life

I said the same thing when I got my first 486.

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Didn't Bill Gates say, "640K is more memory than anyone will ever need." He got it wrong so many times I really wonder how he got to where he did...

 

[rossignol]

Save money and get a PC. There is a mac operating system now for the PC or use Unix. If you use Unix I wouldn't partition your drive with Windows. Windows takes up so much space and will mess up your comp. If you have programs you want to run and they can't be run on Unix, use virtual Windows to run them.

Personally I'm a Ubuntu user and fell in love with it when it made an old comp of mine run so fast compared to Windows as well as the security it has similar to Mac. Windows has always at some point messed up my comp to a point of no return.

 

[MrJim]

Save money and get a PC. There is a mac operating system now for the PC or use Unix. If you use Unix I wouldn't partition your drive with Windows. Windows takes up so much space and will mess up your comp. If you have programs you want to run and they can't be run on Unix, use virtual Windows to run them.

Personally I'm a Ubuntu user and fell in love with it when it made an old comp of mine run so fast compared to Windows as well as the security it has similar to Mac. Windows has always at some point messed up my comp to a point of no return.

? I've heard of "Hackintoshes" but not this..

 

[Qyöt27]

? I've heard of "Hackintoshes" but not this..

That's because it is a Hackintosh, or at the very least, an Intel Mac. Apple doesn't sell an operating system for use on hardware configurations other than its own.

 

[MrJim]

That's because it is a Hackintosh, or at the very least, an Intel Mac. Apple doesn't sell an operating system for use on hardware configurations other than its own.

Right, which is a very different thing than "a mac operating system now for the PC"...more like a PC modified to run a mac operating system.

 

[Qyöt27]

I mentioned the Intel Mac precisely because of that. The whole '[IBM-compatible] PCs use Intel, Macs use PowerPC (or Motorola)' thing. To a lot of users that remember when the hardware in a Mac was actually different, the x86 version of OS X would be 'for a PC'.

Of course, it's odd to bring that up, what with the publicized Intel switch being a whole six years ago (even longer if you go by releases of Darwin). It's pretty much common knowledge by now that aside from tablets and netbooks (and the Raspberry Pi) that use ARM processors, everyone uses Intel.

 

[MrJim]

I mentioned the Intel Mac precisely because of that. The whole '[IBM-compatible] PCs use Intel, Macs use PowerPC (or Motorola)' thing. To a lot of users that remember when the hardware in a Mac was actually different, the x86 version of OS X would be 'for a PC'.

Of course, it's odd to bring that up, what with the publicized Intel switch being a whole six years ago (even longer if you go by releases of Darwin). It's pretty much common knowledge by now that aside from tablets and netbooks (and the Raspberry Pi) that use ARM processors, everyone uses Intel.

My mac was an intel duo-core running Tiger~~think I came into macs at the perfect time

 

[WalksWithChrist]

My mac was an intel duo-core running Tiger~~think I came into macs at the perfect time

You did! I got mine not long before that...one of the very last running a Motorola CPU.