Posts Tagged → g5
The trouble with Apple Macs…
Usually my posts are all about solutions. Sadly, this one is about an unresolved problem.
I work at an Edinburgh-based charity, AdvoCard. In one of our offices we have 10 PowerPC Apple Mac G5s. They all run OS X 10.3 at the moment. This is a problem because I cannot purchase an upgrade. 10.6 (Snow Leopard) is all that Apple sells at the moment, which is not compatible with PowerPC Macs – same with all retail outlets. It is, literally, a closed shop.
It’s a problem in day-to-day usage because, without an upgrade to OS X, I cannot update Firefox beyond version 2. This causes issues accessing many websites, notably Google docs. Internet Explorer and Safari are in the same boat (if not worse). Another issue is that MS Office (on OS X 10.3) cannot install the converter to read docx formatted documents (from Office 2007 onward). Pretty much any new software I want to install demands at least version 10.4 of OS x.
My only option (aside from spending a stupid amount of money on hardware which AdvoCard cannot afford), seems to be to install Ubuntu, or Debian, or Yellow Dog Linux. Believe it or not (given my track record of Linux usage), I’m loathed to do this, due to the training and migration implications. It’s certainly do-able but, frankly, I have bigger fish to fry than training everyone in AdvoCard how to use Gnome or KDE. I’m not an IT manager, and we certainly don’t have the cash to employ one.
Answers on a postcard please…
