How Many Steps to Upgrade to Mountain Lion?

yomark

Registered
I'm currently running OS X 10.4.11 on a Mac Mini, and would like to upgrade as far as is feasible. Things are starting to break down and go unsupported, like iTunes, Flickr and Firefox. Do I have to purchase and install ALL the intervening OS's? Also: I'm running Adobe CS(1), will it remain compatible? About the only other thing I REALLY want to do is install Manga Studio EX, which requires 10.5 minimum, but I defeinatley want to address the Firefox issue.

What do you reccommend?
 
Providing your mini meets the hardware specs for ML, you can go to the Apple online Store and purchase SL 10.6.
Once installed you can then download and install ML from the Apple App Store.
 
Which mini do you have? - look under your Apple menu for the processor that you have.
Also, the amount of memory that you have installed will help, too.

If you have a mini that is running 10.4.11, then I would expect that you cannot upgrade to the current Mountain Lion.
If you have a G4 processor, then you will be limited to 10.5.8 (Leopard)
If you have an intel processor (Core Solo, Core 2 Duo, etc) currently running Tiger, then you will be limited to Lion, at the most.
I would recommend that an older Intel processor may be a good upgrade to Snow Leopard. You don't need Leopard first. You can order Snow Leopard from Apple Online. http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard
If you can go beyond Snow Leopard, you will need that for an upgrade to Lion. You'll also find that it is cheaper through the Apple Store, rather than purchase through some other retailer, such as ebay, etc. - and definitely cheaper than buying Leopard somewhere.

Adobe CS will likely not work, even if you just upgrade to 10.5
Adobe has a document online that shows a listing of the various versions of Adobe software that are not supported by Leopard and newer.
http://www.adobe.com/support/products/pdfs/leopardsupport.pdf

FireFox has most recent update has dropped support for Leopard, so again, Snow Leopard may be a good goal - assuming that you have an intel processor, and not a PPC G4.

The Manga Studio will be OK if you can upgrade to anything newer than what you have now.
 
Which mini do you have? - look under your Apple menu for the processor that you have.
Also, the amount of memory that you have installed will help, too.

If you have a mini that is running 10.4.11, then I would expect that you cannot upgrade to the current Mountain Lion.
If you have a G4 processor, then you will be limited to 10.5.8 (Leopard)
If you have an intel processor (Core Solo, Core 2 Duo, etc) currently running Tiger, then you will be limited to Lion, at the most.
I would recommend that an older Intel processor may be a good upgrade to Snow Leopard. You don't need Leopard first. You can order Snow Leopard from Apple Online. http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard
If you can go beyond Snow Leopard, you will need that for an upgrade to Lion. You'll also find that it is cheaper through the Apple Store, rather than purchase through some other retailer, such as ebay, etc. - and definitely cheaper than buying Leopard somewhere.

Adobe CS will likely not work, even if you just upgrade to 10.5
Adobe has a document online that shows a listing of the various versions of Adobe software that are not supported by Leopard and newer.
http://www.adobe.com/support/products/pdfs/leopardsupport.pdf

FireFox has most recent update has dropped support for Leopard, so again, Snow Leopard may be a good goal - assuming that you have an intel processor, and not a PPC G4.

The Manga Studio will be OK if you can upgrade to anything newer than what you have now.
It's nice that you agree with what I posted.
 
Mostly.
Not completely.
I was inaccurate on one point. A mini that supports Tiger _won't_ support Mountain Lion.
It will either be a PPC, (not higher than Leopard), or an early intel that will only go to Lion.
We'll have to wait to find out if the OP can tell us which mini they have.
 
Thank you so much for the information.

These are my hardware specs:

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: Mac mini
Model Identifier: Macmini1,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 1.83 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 2 MB
Memory: 512 MB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz

Boot ROM Version: MM11.0055.B08
SMC Version: 1.3f4

So, do I understand you to mean that I can leap-frog to Snow-Leopard, THEN only as far as Lion? But: on the other hand, do really want to? I'm NOT in a position to buy another version of Photoshop, and I definitely need to be able to continue to run it.

The other current concern that I forgot to mention before was, though I updated iTunes up a couple of versions recently (to 8.0.2), I can no longer access any internet radio stations with it, though I had saved a connection from my previous set-up, and it and only it still works.
 
Thanks for the other info!
Yes, your limit will be Lion.
However, you will need to upgrade your RAM, as Lion has a minimum of 2GB - which also happens to be your maximum RAM.
My suggestion? Upgrade to 2GB, and then upgrade to Snow Leopard. That should give you the best working system, and keep your system relatively current, at least for perhaps a couple of years. Snow Leopard has a minimum of 1GB, so you'll still need to upgrade your RAM.
I suspect that one fatality will be your Photoshop CS (1), you would need to go up to at least CS3 to get that to work again.
Or, you could go after alternates that give you Photoshop-like capabilities, such as Gimp.
 
Thanks again. But it's begining to sound like a "no-go" proposition, as upgrading RAM is kinda expensive, too, isn't it?

Also: any thoughts or comments about the iTunes internet radio problem?
 
Thanks again. But it's begining to sound like a "no-go" proposition, as upgrading RAM is kinda expensive, too, isn't it?

Also: any thoughts or comments about the iTunes internet radio problem?
OWC has this special on right now...
Two of those would be great and the price would be hard to beat.
 
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