Best os for 2008 imac?

[slackerinabox]

My dad just picked up a 2013 imac but would like to use his old one just as a web/email machine. El capitan runs like a dog with the spinny wheel of frustration, what os should I step back to? Snow leopard?

 

[TheStu]

If you're willing to crack that sucker open, I'd recommend putting in an SSD and maxing the RAM before you revert back to an older OS. The older OS is the free option, obviously, but...

 

[slackerinabox]

If you're willing to crack that sucker open, I'd recommend putting in an SSD and maxing the RAM before you revert back to an older OS. The older OS is the free option, obviously, but...

I hear you, just kinda terrified of opening it again! Ram's maxed out. I think it's all that ios notification integration and spotlight fetching web results, the spinner's on like 30% of the time. Will consider it, I even have an ssd lying around.

 

[Eug]

I hear you, just kinda terrified of opening it again! Ram's maxed out. I think it's all that ios notification integration and spotlight fetching web results, the spinner's on like 30% of the time. Will consider it, I even have an ssd lying around.

Stick the SSD in a Firewire 800 enclosure, and the performance will be reasonable. Don't use a bus-powered one. For my 2010 iMac, I am using this one, with a DC power supply.

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MEPMU3F8K/

When I tried using it bus powered, I'd get occasional hangs - spinning beachball of death.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2442921

 

[swanysto]

At the very latest I would do snow leopard. Anything before that does not have App store from my recent experience. I made the mistake of rolling back my wife's 2009 macbook to factory, and it came with Leopard. Now, the only way to upgrade past that is to order a CD or take it in to apple if you have apple care(which I do not on a 7 year old laptop).

If I were going to do it, I would put Lion on there. It was the last OS that ran smooth on that laptop.

 

[Eug]

At the very latest I would do snow leopard. Anything before that does not have App store from my recent experience. I made the mistake of rolling back my wife's 2009 macbook to factory, and it came with Leopard. Now, the only way to upgrade past that is to order a CD or take it in to apple if you have apple care(which I do not on a 7 year old laptop).

If I were going to do it, I would put Lion on there. It was the last OS that ran smooth on that laptop.

I'm running El Capitan on my 2009 13" MacBook Pro. Runs perfectly fine... with an SSD.

 

[slackerinabox]

Stick the SSD in a Firewire 800 enclosure, and the performance will be reasonable. Don't use a bus-powered one. For my 2010 iMac, I am using this one, with a DC power supply.

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MEPMU3F8K/

When I tried using it bus powered, I'd get occasional hangs - spinning beachball of death.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2442921

Interesting - that might be an option! I'll let him know, this way he can still use his internal 1tb for pictures and videos.

 

[manly]

Is everyone ignoring the obvious? Mountain Lion is already discontinued, so you can't reasonably use OS X < 10.9 on the Web! On these OS versions, Chrome is already EOL, and Firefox will be discontinued next month.

That basically leaves Mavericks and Yosemite as your alternatives with security updates. I would argue that since Mavericks hits the chopping block this fall, you can eliminate that one now.

I would just retire the old machine. The new one runs rings around it; sounds like all he needs are to transfer his old data over, and an external HDD for media storage.

 

[slackerinabox]

Is everyone ignoring the obvious? Mountain Lion is already discontinued, so you can't reasonably use OS X < 10.9 on the Web! On these OS versions, Chrome is already EOL, and Firefox will be discontinued next month.

That basically leaves Mavericks and Yosemite as your alternatives with security updates. I would argue that since Mavericks hits the chopping block this fall, you can eliminate that one now.

I would just retire the old machine. The new one runs rings around it; sounds like all he needs are to transfer his old data over, and an external HDD for media storage.

Good point - maybe I'll just let it limp along, or brave the ssd upgrade. He'd really just like to make it a simple email/pay bills box for my mom, the big screen's easier to read for her. I think maybe just tweaking some of el capitan's more resource heavy features might help.