05-08-2008, 08:14 PM
I have Leopard on my Macbook, and Tiger on my G5. Haven't found a pressing need to update the G5 to Leopard yet. And I usually tend to stay on the leading edge as far as updates go.
The only advantage I've found personally for Leopard is the VNC capabilities that are built into iChat. My sister's mother-in-law got an iMac recently, and within minutes of setting up iChat, I was able to connect to her machine. One of my other sisters got a macbook last week. She hasn't used a Mac since the Performa 52xx days (probably System 7). It'll be comforting for her to know that she can always setup an iChat with me and have me show her things from 1,000 miles away.
Drawbacks to Leopard. In order to continue to use Parallels, I have to update to version 3, which I haven't done yet. So I have to use Bootcamp instead. Not a big deal, but I also have a Ubuntu virtual machine that I can't access until I update. Even bigger deal for me is that the ability to use a smart card reader to access my work email has gone away under Leopard. With Tiger, it was built in to the OS, and just worked. Leopard broke it. Some people have had success getting it to work, but most people haven't. Apple knows about the issue, but hasn't fixed it yet. To get around it, I upgraded the hard drive, and took the old one and put it in an external case and installed Tiger on it. When I need to check my work email from home, I hook up the external and boot from it. Yeah, it's a pain, but it works.
When Leopard was first announced, I thought I would love Time Machine and Spaces. Haven't used either feature yet, other than trying out Spaces to see exactly how it works. SuperDuper is still my backup method of choice.
I know I will eventually update the G5, but not until I'm absolutely sure that all the apps I use will work. It's really not high on my priority list though. Tiger does everything I need it to on the G5.
The only advantage I've found personally for Leopard is the VNC capabilities that are built into iChat. My sister's mother-in-law got an iMac recently, and within minutes of setting up iChat, I was able to connect to her machine. One of my other sisters got a macbook last week. She hasn't used a Mac since the Performa 52xx days (probably System 7). It'll be comforting for her to know that she can always setup an iChat with me and have me show her things from 1,000 miles away.
Drawbacks to Leopard. In order to continue to use Parallels, I have to update to version 3, which I haven't done yet. So I have to use Bootcamp instead. Not a big deal, but I also have a Ubuntu virtual machine that I can't access until I update. Even bigger deal for me is that the ability to use a smart card reader to access my work email has gone away under Leopard. With Tiger, it was built in to the OS, and just worked. Leopard broke it. Some people have had success getting it to work, but most people haven't. Apple knows about the issue, but hasn't fixed it yet. To get around it, I upgraded the hard drive, and took the old one and put it in an external case and installed Tiger on it. When I need to check my work email from home, I hook up the external and boot from it. Yeah, it's a pain, but it works.
When Leopard was first announced, I thought I would love Time Machine and Spaces. Haven't used either feature yet, other than trying out Spaces to see exactly how it works. SuperDuper is still my backup method of choice.
I know I will eventually update the G5, but not until I'm absolutely sure that all the apps I use will work. It's really not high on my priority list though. Tiger does everything I need it to on the G5.