Can you use OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in 2023? Nearly 15 years later...

[@Hyvelez]

One of the all time most beautiful operation systems out there, even today. I miss the classy feel of older Mac OS X versions.

[@dmug]

I didn't mind the later versions, where I feel like the UI took the biggest hit was Big Sur. It gives it more of a Googley design and the painfully uniformity of the icons Apple has been on for awhile seems like a UX negative. I liked having unique shapes to icons as it was yet another way to quickly identify them and establish personality.

[@Hyvelez]

Yes they lost it with Big Sur. It lacks contrast.@@dmug

[@adityavora7878]

i hate ventura so much :( its a pain to use and its an eyesore. settings is absolutely the worst

[@Hyvelez]

Yep, been holding off updating as long as I can. @@adityavora7878

[@Concurseiro2024]

The best one

[@amessman]

This is a great video, no stupid jokes, no fluff and wasted time, comprehensive results, thank you. I've been messing with my old Macs and this is greatly helpful.

[@dmug]

Thanks, I try to be entertaining but in a grownassman sort of way and I figure asking for likes and subscribers is pointless as I figure if my video is good enough, people know what to do. I make the sort of thing I’d want to see. You might enjoy the powermac g4 video I made as I cover a lot of issues I ran into, some of which I was able to solve

[@Lesydian]

I have several macs that came with Snow Leopard and still use it for Rosetta apps or games. Love the OS, but then I’m not expecting it to be modern in capability. It does what it did extremely well. Surprised it has almost modern web options, but that’s thanks to people who love the OS and are invested in keeping it usable beyond its years.

[@tamalchakraborty5346]

I wish they had one of the legacy macOS (OS X) security updates. Some people really want a stable OS, with existing features rather than power hungry updates. P.S. Awesome video. Please upload more.

[@dmug]

I do what I can for upload schedule, I actively lose money on this hobby :)

[@tamalchakraborty5346]

That's really sad. But I guess once you hit a certain number of followers and a support page, things would look better. Please, don't stop uploading.@@dmug

[@slob5041]

my favorite part is seeing it load and having the real apple website be completely blown

[@zizlog_sound]

⁠@@dmug, if make or lose money it’s considered business not hobby.

[@dmug]

@@zizlog_sound I feel like this a goofy semantics debate that will get epistemological really quick. I view it as a hobby and people assume I make money off it because of KZbin advertising. I do make money but thus far I’ve continuously spent more on it than made. The analogy is use is I view it like someone into arts and crafts, you can make beautiful quilts and sell them but the point isn’t to make money. It’s a nice bonus that enables you to continue the hobby. If I were to make like $1000 a month it’d go right back into the hobby(build a NAS, get retro hardware etc) but at that point it’d be self funding. Right now I make like a quarter of that.

[@eriksiers]

I have a 2007 iMac running Snow Leopard. The machine is supposedly able to run up to El Capitan, but since I also have a MacBook running Monterey, I've never felt the need to upgrade.

[@alienrefugee51]

I still have my SL 10.6.3 install disk that I purchased at the Apple store back in the day. It's definitely up there as one of Apple's best releases. Fast, lightweight and yea... that intro Welcome video is pretty cool.

[@dmug]

I think bought it somewhere at some point and probably just lost it or gave it away as it was pretty inexpensive. I didn't always "buy" macOS back in the day as I was poor college kid so I just "borrowed" it from the internet. These days I buy my software. In fact, I think the only macOS I bought during the PPC days was the OS X beta.

[@alienrefugee51]

@@dmugIndeed. SL was the only OS I ever purchased. When Mavericks came along and it was free, that's when I upgraded from SL. Thinking about it some more... Apple providing free OS's was good and bad. The bad being, it is what really enables them to move forward with their planned obsolesce business model.

[@paws315]

My favorite detail of Snow Leopard is that it was the last release without the Mac crap store. Didn't like the dumb store in the beginning, and to this day I still wish I could permanently uninstall it. 🤷

[@dmug]

@@paws315 I’m indifferent, it’s pretty easy for me to manager the few apps I bought through it like FCPX/Motion/Compressor/Logic and Pixelmator Pro, IA writer, Soulver and a few others. Most of the apps on it are trash but same can be said for every App Store: steam, iOS App Store and so on.

[@paws315]

@@dmug I prefer getting software direct from the developer, including the billing relationship so as much money as possible goes to the dev. I don't like being made to go through a centralized app store, and I particularly don't like that Apple implemented it as a persistent, unremovable process squandering RAM.

[@IKS-Exploration]

Snow leopard was so amazing fast and reliable 😊

[@dwaynestimpson5449]

I always love these trips down memory lane, the good ole days! Makes me want to install some older versions of macOS. My Mac Pro 5,1 still plugging along 13 years later!

[@WarriorsPhoto]

What version of Mac OS X is running on the Mac Pro? 😮

[@dwaynestimpson5449]

@@WarriorsPhoto Monterey via Open Core, I may do the Ventura update with OC soon, however currently it is running nice on Monterey.

[@WarriorsPhoto]

@@dwaynestimpson5449 I used Monterey till I bought a new MacBook. That's the only reason I up/downgraded. (:

[@armeniancrusader301]

@@dwaynestimpson5449It‘ll work fine on Monterey for many years to come so installing Ventura today isn‘t a requirement but just an option.

[@MacinMindSoftware]

I only just retired two Macs that ran 10.6.3 (2010 mini) and 10.6.8 (2006 Mac Pro) this year. The mini with 2GB ran a streaming radio station 24/7 for over 12 years. Very solid.

[@WarriorsPhoto]

Streaming radio station? What’s this?

[@MacinMindSoftware]

@@WarriorsPhoto Antioch OTR, which is now running on an M1 Mini

[@WarriorsPhoto]

@@MacinMindSoftware WOW! COOL! I bet that m1 mini is way smoother?

[@mavfan1]

@@WarriorsPhotono need for a question mark.

[@WarriorsPhoto]

@@mavfan1 Explain?

[@tipoomaster]

Wow Snow Leopard's UI still looks so much more homey now, where did all the color and depth go

[@Stopinvadingmyhardware]

We knew Steve was right back then. The man was very connected to those of us in the hacking community back then. He knew his stuff.

[@RWBHere]

Tim Cook is definitely not in the same league.

[@Stopinvadingmyhardware]

@@RWBHere Steve approved of him.

[@SamDSo]

the rich colors, the boldness of everything...take me back!

[@broccoli322]

Snow Leopard was my favorite. I updated my white MacBook back then. I still use the same wallpaper today on my MacBook Pro.

[@dmug]

I converted all the Snow Leopard desktops to 5k :) blog.greggant.com/posts/2021/09/24/mac-osx-snow-leopard-nature-desktop-backgrounds-in-5k.html

[@broccoli322]

Nice! Thanks for sharing 🤩@@dmug

[@ScottLahteine]

Snow Leopard was definitely the best OSX for a long time. I avoided upgrading to the followups for as long as I could. It’s possible to run several legacy versions of OSX using QEMU and Sheepshaver. I’m not sure if Snow Leopard 10.6.8 (or Sorbet Leopard) is fully supported right now, but it should be supported eventually. The advantage of emulation is that you can use those old Mac apps and games that don’t run anywhere else, but then switch out to use your modern browser. Of course not everything works perfectly under emulation, so it’s best if you can get an old Mac.

[@dmug]

You can VM snow leopard server edition on x86 hardware, QEMU is pretty brutal for anything beyond 10.2 the last time I tried. I couldn’t get 10.5 virtualize or emulated. Maybe that’s changed in the past year.

[@MrSamPhoenix]

Mac OS X 10.6.6 was incredible. The latest versions don’t get my soul dancing the same way Snow Leopard 🐆 did.

[@dmug]

Yeah, the redesign in Big Sur felt like Apple copying Google's aesthetic.

[@MrSamPhoenix]

@@dmug I felt the BS since Lion

[@edgarp66]

Man i remember the announcement of leopard. All the features! The time machine announcement! The mac vs pc era! What an exciting time for mac. Snow leopard just made it even better!

[@trumphy911]

I am still using it with MS Office for Mac 10 when I need to work in Excel, and it’s perfectly fine. Thanks for the web browser suggestions, I will be installing it on my Black iBook 2008.😊

[@dmug]

Yeah, InterWeb is surprisingly usable, I'll put links in the description of this video. Should be updated in a few minutes

[@dmug]

Alright, added the links, just FYI, GitHub doesn't play nice with older browsers so you'll probably need to use another computer to download Interweb. Just grab a thumb drive or use network sharing to get it on your computer.

[@trumphy911]

@@dmug thank you very much! 👍

[@xHOTxCHOCOxFUDGEx]

I miss my first MacBook, and I miss Snow Leopard. The moment I upgraded from Snow Leopard, I regretted it instantly, because I was no longer able to use Microsoft Word, which I needed in college. I was also not able to play my favorite Sims 2 game anymore. Instead, I was told I would’ve had to buy the game from the App Store, which I didn’t want to do. Now I just have an iPad…I wish my iPad had a built-in CD player and Snow Leopard… :(

[@songsan807]

Snow Leopard came with my MacBook 2008, which was my first macbook and I loved it like crazy. It blew everything out of the water. I still have the MacBook and use Parallel 6 on it and have Snow Leopard and Lion still. Would boot it up and play some older games. Such a great system. Thanks for the video.

[@taavi948]

Snow Leopard was released in 2009.

[@songsan807]

@@taavi948 yes you are right Snow Leopard was released in 2009, but I did not get my MacBook 2008 until end of 2009.

[@notNajimi]

Have you checked out the gog store for Mac compatible games? There’s a lot of games on there that work on older OS X out of the box

[@kirishima638]

I love the old OSX Aqua theming.

[@dmug]

They'd make so many people happy if it was an optional theme.

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

Big Cats: Roar!

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

The "Big Cat" names!

[@Mas0nAnimations]

The Aqua style is the most prettiest os style I've ever seen

[@notNajimi]

Same, I wish they didn’t change it in lion-mavericks, I like the larger window decorations and glassy blue scroll bars.

[@906]

you've earned yourself a sub. love this kind of content. 100 percent underrated channel.

[@dmug]

I definitely have more retro stuff coming. :)

[@carpediem673]

I keep an older iMac running Snow Leopard simply because I have a bunch of software that doesn't run on newer systems. It's a great OS. It boots fast and is very stable. I wouldn't feel safe doing anything online with it though.

[@TribbleBot]

I had a hackintosh running 10.6.8 on a Dell 1011 netbook soon after Snow Mountain was released (I bought my retail copy at Best Buy). A few years later, I was grudgingly forced to install Ubuntu after Apple dropped all its 32-bit app support. With upgrades of 2 GB and a terabyte hard drive it actually ran quite well.

[@iskandervaliullin5708]

Absolutely love your channel, Greg

[@dmug]

Thanks, I'm always unsure if I have too many tangents in a video as of late.

[@dmug]

This comment is out of date and was originally written when LTT drama spilled over into my channel’s comment section despite me having zero to do with it. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I wish I was you. Originally message below: Well.... so.... things are just exploding all around LTT/LMG, and more bombs probably will be dropped. In this video I have a gag about being mentioned on the WAN show. It’s disappointing as it was a thrill as a no name Apple focused channel be mentioned by one of the largest KZbinrs (who’s pc focused on top of that) and also see one of my Mac video thumbnails pop up in another. Both were complete surprises. This joke was more amusing before things got real. Thanks for understanding. --- I know every video I say "Check the description" but all the links are there for the browsers, tips, and even 5k versions of all the Snow Leopard desktops are there.

[@thesilentobserver93]

I still think the joke was amusing.

[@dmug]

​@@thesilentobserver93 The gag aged like fine milk which makes it too funny to me to remove from this video. The irony is pretty spot on that I'd celebrate being mentioned by a famous KZbinr only to have his company fall from grace after serious allegations of workplace harassment. (that part of it is less funny). On my LTT backpack review, I had a few clowns accusing me of getting paid by LTT or having a special relationship with them which is news to me. I guess I should be expecting a big fat LTT money check... I'm sure it'll be here any day now.

[@andrewgrant788]

For me LTT is a source of entertaining videos so I don’t much care about the current controversy. BTW Snow Leopard was pre-installed on my first Mac so I remember it fondly. Final comment would be why would you want to use wi-fi on a Desktop Mac, ethernet is so much better.

[@AjsTech1]

i wanna let you know you can use a amd radeon hd5800 fxf graphics card and can run snow leopard 1.6

[@sebastiangudino9377]

Wdym? They are still a SUPER big channel in the tech industry (So being features is something to be proud of). And the controversy is comming from a very diferent aspect of their business practices that does NOT affect negatively the fact that you got mentioned nor makes this video in any way dated. Its nice that you cleared things out, but you never had anything to clear dude.

[@miguimau]

I have Snow Leopard/ Sierra/ Catalina partitions in my 3.1 Mac .Pro and Snow Leopard is pretty fast and satisfying, unfortunately lack of browsers upgrades make it unusable.

[@dmug]

Have you tried the ones I mentioned in this video? I don't know if they were for _everything_ but in my limited testing, they were usable.

[@brightgdesigns]

Thanks for this! I have a MacBook in my kitchen running Snow Leopard. I literally ONLY use it to display my recipes via a web app. One by one Safari, Chrome, and Firefox refused to load the app. But it works great using Interweb! On with cooking Easter dinner!

[@JazzApe]

Just the other day, I restored my old (purchased new) late 2006 MBP by replacing the damaged lcd and upgrading the stock os to Snow Leopard as a fun nostalgia project. Thanks for taking the time to make and upload this. It's come in very handy to help make it a bit more than just a desk decoration to go with a 3rd gen ipod.

[@jonesing4fame922]

My SUPER HEROS! The Definitive Mac Upgrade Guide, the legacy Mac Pro 5,1, and Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard!

[@dmug]

The Definitive Mac Downgrade Guide for this vid :)

[@georgemoodier]

gotta mention sorbet leopard here, which adds on to snow leopard and makes the OS a lot more usable. also I’m unsure if this can apply to 10.6 but hitting cmd+shift+. (dot) can bring up hidden files without needing to enter any commands in the terminal. just so you know ;)

[@dmug]

Sorbet Leopard is based on10.5 and isn't 10.6, its mostly for PPC Macs The hot keys do not work in snow leopard, I tried. That short cut must have been added later as I use it frequently for dev stuff.

[@georgemoodier]

@@dmug ah, got it, thanks for the clarification about sorbet lol

[@dmug]

@@georgemoodier No problem. I think Action Retro has a video where he installs it. I kinda want to do a video on it but I don't have a PPC Mac 🙃

[@brendomiryr]

I remember arguing with my Mom in the Apple Store when I was 17 because she thought upgrading to Snow Leopard was a waste of my money. 😂

[@dmug]

Real life struggle.

[@RirtyDascal]

I wish the reflective dock shelf would come back. Looks fancy compared to the blurred background of the dock we have now.

[@pankobza]

Last thirty seconds was incredible -wow!

[@StevenPantoleon]

I used the Maxthon 4 browser on Snow Leopard in 2018 with only 1GB RAM and it worked very well.However security standards changed the following year and Maxthon 4 went into the sunset.Firefox 48 was the highest I could go on 10.6.8 Arctic Fox did well.I was able to easily install it.However,in Spring 2022,Comcast stopped supporting Snow Leopard and i upgraded my mid 2007 I-Mac to 10.11.6.This lasted for 7 months when the GPU failed.Then I ordered late 2014 Mac Mini 8GB RAM/500 GB storage from Amazon refurbished for $326 with Catalina OS 10.15.7.

[@slob5041]

watching your video on my imac made me do a double take walking in. It was suddenly back in time 10 years and the os looked way better.

[@transitengineer]

Thank you, for this excellent video about using OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in the year 2023. For the early Mac's in my collection with an Intel processor, I always keep them on Snow Leopard. In my opinion it is simply the best operating system between OS X 10.4 Tiger and OS X 10.13 High Sierra. In addition, with its support for Rosetta 1, you are able run all of your vintage OS X Power PC programs like Apple Works and IBM's Via Voice (smile...smile).

[@burrocakes8048]

I typically dualboot lion and El Cap on my early intel Mac boxes but SL is a great OS and I’d have zero issues running it.

[@transitengineer]

@@burrocakes8048 Thank you, for replying to my post. If Apple, Inc. had continued support for Rosetta 1, through Mountain Lion then, I would be right with you. Perhaps they learned because, I think Rosetta 2, has been supported in several of Apple's newer operating systems (smile...smile).

[@catalystguitarguy]

My 2008 Mac Pro is running MacOS Big Sur and has a Vega 64 in it. Has the maxed out dual quad cores, and 32GB of ddr2 and boots from a small NVMe M.2 in one of the PCIe slots with another sata M.2 on the same card. I abandoned snow leopard many years ago. Running windows 10 with parallels for a while then strictly windows only for a while before tweaking and getting a modern MacOS version working. Keeping this old tower running now has mainly been for repairing or accessing old FireWire 400 or 800 macs for Friend’s and family. I still occasionally hop on to use logic or GarageBand. But I mainly use a PC these days and have a MacOS Ventura hackintosh install on a PCIe card I can pop in if I need to use some Mac only program.

[@dmug]

The Mac Pro 2008 served me well for a decade. When I sold off my two 5,1s and GPUs, I couldn't bring myself to sell as it wouldn't have fetched much money. It's the only computer that has a little sentimental value to me.

[@catalystguitarguy]

@@dmug One of the things I like about it is it served as a great bridge generation between the 1,1/2,1 that only had 2 firewire 400 and the 4,1/5,1 that only had 2 firewire 800 because it had 1 port of each. I've probably recovered several dozens of the Mac Pros (1,1-5,1) from heading to a scrapper and turning them into cheap little starter studio PCs or inexpensive NAS. I should probably pick up one of each model to keep as a collection in my workshop I still have a few 5770s on the shelf in my closet.

[@marco340]

I loved snow leopard back in the day, it was perfect

[@BensDumbHandle]

What I absolutely miss most about Snow Leopard is the UI. The metallic windows, skeuomorphic icons, oval buttons and blue scroll bars just screamed "fun to use" to me, my favorite element actually being those scroll bars which I love so much for some reason. Unfortunately I never got to use this OS personally on my own Mac as my first MacBook Pro came with Lion, but it at least retained most of the UI elements. I honestly believe Apple should add in these old UIs as optional themes, or at least allow themes to be created and applied by users. It's a relatively simple addition and something that I believe would make a lot of people happy. In an age where UIs are becoming more and more flat and (frustratingly) simplistic, it would be really nice to have the option to go back to a more elegant design. I understand that we may not be able to go back to the classic icons, but if we can just get those old windows, buttons and scroll bars, I'd be perfectly content.

[@Etienne_H]

the real throwback here is being able to edit system files freely. Been a minute...

[@dmug]

Too true, you can’t even make cosmetic changes like changing system icons without having to disable SIP. Having a non-rideable system certainly is more secure, but it does take away from some of the charm of customization.

[@becerrafilms]

I got a similar Mac Pro setup with Snow Leopard, but with Final Cut Studio 3 & Logic Studio 2, Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium, Avid Media Composer 6, Pro Tools 10, Apple Shake 4.1, and Ableton Live 8 Standard installed. I barely use most of it, but it’s good to have it for when I get bored of my 14” MacBook Pro. Maybe one of these days I’ll make a video showcasing my Mac Pro and it’s software…

[@dmug]

Shake, now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. I dunno what I’d do with a total retro box like that, the only retro machine I have for any real use is my MacBook Air 2015 for my Numark NS7s

[@becerrafilms]

@@dmug Yeah my Mac Pro is admittedly kind of redundant considering what else I have in my Mac collection. But one of these days I’d like to sit down and learn Shake though, as I hope to use it for future videos!

[@dmug]

@@becerrafilms if you get to it, I’d like to see the video. I used Combustion back a similar time frame as Shake which had node based compositing. I believe autodesk folded it Maya since it too had node based compositing but also the whole 3D suite so you could do much more advanced modeling

[@djmaximum1745]

I've used 10.6 Snow Leopard on my 2011 Macbook Pro until 2018, when I upgraded to a 2014 MacMini, it came with MacOS 10.12 Sierra, but I upgraded to 10.13 High Sierra 2 days later. I'm still using it to this day with FireFox ESR 115.4.0. Safari 13.1.2 still works kinda ok with most sites, but I'm now starting to see some rendering issues with some sites like Basic HTML Gmail. the reason why I used Snow Leoperd for so long was because I could still run PowerPC apps with Rosetta 1. I still have that old Macbook Pro, but it hardly gets used anymore because the battery expanded to the point where it ruined the speakers and trackpad. I finally retired my Macbook Pro in July of 2023 after my PowerMac G4 QuickSilver running 10.4 Tiger died of a power supply failure.

[@sinjinhawke]

Those browsers did better on HTML5 then Safari does in Mac OS 10.13.6.

[@dmug]

That’s interesting but also tracks since 10.13 is from 2017 and these browsers have shims and polyfills that were added in 2022. Safari though is all native so what it supports would be faster in 10.13 for the things it supports. The big changes in the past 5 years is not having use transpilers for ESNext some better CSS support, I think grids weren’t beyond experimental in 2017 safari if they were supported, and some better js APIs.

[@MrCooper83]

I did the same about 6 months ago. (Mine is a 2010, 5.1 version) It really works! Amazing.

[@needleontherecord]

I just installed Snow Leopard on a 2009 Mac Mini and it runs like a champ. The Mac Mini cost me $50 second hand and I can run Nightly for modern web browsing.

[@Conzales]

It sure is the best version of all time. Design and reliability wise all Apple products were just that around Steves passing.

[@samshort365]

While I haven't used Macs consistently since the colour Macs I have a soft spot for the brushed metal look of 10.3, if I recall correctly, and then snow leopard to the extent that my main computer ran Macbuntu 10 which had a SL theme, dock and all.

[@dmug]

That'd a good video idea, running MacBuntu

[@samshort365]

@@dmug I haven't tried it, but it should be a good way of upgrading old Macs so they still look like the real deal.

[@zipperdeedooha]

Still running SL remotely as a server as just one specific app with dongle is required. Works fine on geriatric early Mac Mini Duo but after watching this have a spare tower so will see what if any better performance there might be. V informative so thanks.

[@pierpig7058]

Very cool, I have a MacBook 13 2007 2gb ram only, I'm still loving it, I had to install a lightweight Linux distro along with Snow Leopard in dual boot to do video editing. Do you have any advice for free video editing applications that can run on Snow Leopard on my limited hardware?

[@dmug]

I don’t think there were any besides iMovie, otherwise it’s sailing the high seas for old software like Final Cut Pro, you may find it on eBay legally though.

[@pierpig7058]

@@dmug thanks for your honest reply, I understand the limit, better keep editing videos with open source, Final Cut and 2Gb ram are not a good combination 😂

[@dmug]

@@pierpig7058 the only other option really would be to get Linux installed and hope Blackmagic davinci resolve runs ok with the free version. Video editing is not super ram intensive but 2 GB is really pushing it.

[@pierpig7058]

@@dmug Actually I use Kdmlive, Da Vinci resolve has higher system requirements unfortunately.

[@josemedeiros007]

Good video Greg, I found it very interesting. Apple use to sell the OS X 10.6.3 DVD for $19.99.

[@dmug]

Oh wow, not even $29? Was that after Lion?

[@josemedeiros007]

@@dmug I am not sure, If I recall correctly Lion was only available as a download for $19.99 or as a USB thumb drive that they shipped to you.

[@dmug]

@@josemedeiros007 The articles I found said $29 and also there's steve jobs clip of the price but I was wondering if they lowered the price later. Apple used to actually lower prices. The 30 inch Cinema Display was $3300 at launch and by the time Apple stopped selling it was $1799.

[@josemedeiros007]

@@dmug That's probably what happened, now OS X 10.7 is a free download, I helped a friend with his 2006 Mac Pro and it would not let him do a OS X Lion install using the Recovery Partition because it said it was not in his purchase history, so he bought it on a Friday for $19.99 and had to wait several days for Apple to process the order.

[@Shol2thaVa]

Would be interesting to see a comparison between editing a video on the older system Vs. a current system. What has changed between then and now? What does "today" have over "yesterday" and does "yesterday" have anything "today" doesn't?

[@dmug]

If I can find my old gpu that isn’t trash I could do a comparison against my Mac Pro 7,1 or M1 Max, but I already know how it’ll go because of the ingest process of FCP7 vs FCPX and I’m someone who prefers FCPX’s elastic time line. Might be of interest though of nostalgia. Final Cut Pro 7 for a few years was the superior product as Final Cut Pro X launched with so many missing features. I’ll put in my script idea list.

[@carlsagan3145]

Great mountain photos! Mt. Hood, right? Just hiked up to Eliot Glacier a few months ago. My legs are still a little sore...

[@dmug]

Yeah, that’s hood in the background from mirror lake (also hood can kinda be seen with the shots of the snow leopard case). Since I’m an avid hiker, decided to try and fold in more outdoors. My MacBook 12” video was shot on hood and my ltt backpack has me hiking up hood too.

[@freetobe3]

I have two 8,1 MBP. One is early and the other late 2011. Both run SL perfectly. I remember just a few years ago I could run a mildly out of date browser and with a few tweaks improve usability with gestures and workspaces and it was like a fresh new operating system. It's saddening to see such a great system die. I think Mavericks will be next, it was the last of the Aqua UI, had amazing improvements and felt like the refined work set by Lion and Mountain Lion, at least browsing is still working well, I hope, in 2017 I used it for the last time and felt like the very beginnings to an end. Been on Linux since 2016 and my daily system since.

[@wilcandou]

August 2023 and works fine... Thank you!

[@bxvideony]

Nice . Great video going download the browser mentioned in this video 😊

[@dmug]

Just FYI, github hates all the browsers mentioned or any browsers for 10.6, I had to download Interweb on another computer. Links in the description.

[@bxvideony]

​​​@@dmug I like experimenting so I downloaded the apps that's easy to install. I installed on a old MacBook 2008 , with snow leopard. Interweb and Firefox legacy (when downloaded name changes to nightly app) works well but speed is not great for youtube but the videos does play with no problems. I want to try the other apps just out of curiosity but it's the apps that require extra steps so I'm watching your video again and checking the web for help before trying. Would any of these apps be good for El Capitan for 2006 macpro?

[@Trotamundos09]

Thanks for the useful video. Now able to surf the net with an iMac frozen in time with Snow Leopard 10.6!

[@MinecraftCheating]

old mac os support gets ditched much quicker. you can still use windows 7 and it works perfectly fine.

[@rawcactusjuice6285]

I miss the rounded buttons and the Aqua blue interface, especially the scroll bars.

[@Okkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk9]

1:01 i paid 23 bucks for my 120gb ssd with windows installed and it is pure gold

[@quantanglement]

Question: if you had a (fairly modern) mac running something like 10.15 - and erased the hardrive to get any previous stuff off it How would you install another OS? There would be no browser to get online to download. I do have a snow leopard disk. Could you install that on the mac then download a more up to date OS? ps great vid BTW!

[@velociraptor5962]

Maybe I should buy a mac mini and run this, just so I can run my Adobe Creative Suite 32bit programs I spent a fortune on

[@dmug]

I've gone Post-Adobe for years now both professionally and personally. Pixelmator Pro / Final Cut Pro / Motion / Compressor / Affinity Illustrator is what I use for everything you see in my videos. There's no equal to Photoshop or After Effects but close enough is good enough.

[@velociraptor5962]

@@dmug yes, absolutely to all that. But there is really no substitute for Audition though...

[@dmug]

@@velociraptor5962 Interesting, I never liked that app, I either want a simple two track recorder like Sound Studio or I want something more robust like Cubase but I haven't used it in many years, and I think now it's more of a podcasting tool. I wish adobe would have continued Sound Edit 16 as that was such a brain dead easy app to use and did multi-track.

[@lovemadeinjapan]

I still have it running for Freehand, but my favourite is Mojave, as it basically runs most Intel apps yet still looks Snow-Leopard minimalist.

[@peporgan]

Great video. I agree that Interweb is the best browser, but Spiderweb can often handle video better. Snow Leopard's main limitation is probably that you can't use GPUs newer than 2011. The best Macs for performance would be the 2011 MacBook Pros with thunderbolt, or the 5,1 2010 Mac Pro.

[@dmug]

Good to know about spiderweb, really tried to locate my HD4870 for this vid but testing KZbin I didn’t notice any real difference for 1080p. Perhaps had i tried 1440p it might have revealed more.

[@peporgan]

@@dmug fair enough, but for pure testing purposes it's not worth exploring too far. 1440p is more of a surplus, Snow Leopard would need modern work app support like Zoom to be a real player.

[@cellularmitosis2]

Fantastic quality on this channe

[@WarriorsPhoto]

I love the shameless plugs 🔌! You earned it sir. Now to see an old Mac Pro and 10.6 was cool 😎 🎊 🎉! That was a great version of Mac OS X. However as we all know life moves on. Or maybe tech moves on but people stay on old OS’s. 😂 😢😅

[@dmug]

I figured I'd get it out of my system in goofy montage since it's probably been over a year and half since I've said my channel name in my video.... well, until some other KZbinr mentions me. I've never ever asked for a like or subscribe so I figured why not embrace it for once? My bio is mostly me trashing on my YT channel.

[@WarriorsPhoto]

@@dmug Is this a business 🧑‍💼 or hobby?

[@dmug]

@@WarriorsPhoto Totally a hobby, I've managed to spend a lot more than I've ever made on KZbin. At some point I might start a patreon or something to buy a better camera, and fund some video ideas.

[@WarriorsPhoto]

@@dmug Got it! As a fellow KZbin performer. You’ve got what it takes to make dollars 💵 and a lot of 💰 on this platform. Be well.

[@dmug]

@@WarriorsPhoto I really appreciate the kind words. I have a career so it'd take quite a bit to push me out of it to pursue KZbin full time. Where I'd like this to be is it basically makes enough that it can fund itself (buy old computers for content, the necessary hardware upgrades like a NAS with a nice amount of storage, new camera, and list goes on and on) and maybe beer money. I have a long ways to go for that, as I make $200 a month from KZbin.

[@debluetailfly]

I had a 2006 MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard. The computer kept having main logic boards going bad, and all I could get were more used ones with limited life spans. Got a 2012 ½ MacBook Pro and running Mojave on it. The older computer was at least 10 times more useful. I had a lot of GREAT 3rd party software that i used with it, that is not compatible with Mojave. If I 'upgraded' (really downgraded) to an even newer system, I would lose the ability to use even more software that is important to me!!!! I wish I could go back to Snow Leopard and get the software back that I used to have. There is nothing to replace it with. Apple has made it so 3rd party developers can't make software compatible with the new systems. A lot of 3rd party developers just had to close shop!!! And us consumers lose!!! I don't really find the new systems useful for much of anything other than watching KZbin and sending emails. Can't do much real work with them!

[@NEVIXIA]

You can run OSX Snow Leopard on a tablet and phone now using the UTM app or similar.

[@cesarbattistini]

I remember how it was SO stable. And came right after a very troubled release.

[@kadonpatel]

I almost panicked when I saw that snow leopard was released 15 years ago.

[@pigknickers2975]

Ran 10..6.8 till 2017. Can't believe that now.

[@slob5041]

your story is really interesting about flash because he did end up being 10000% right but it took a lot of work. I remember apple getting so much shit about it on the ipad because people felt there was no excuse.

[@dmug]

They did but also a lot of people (self included) hated flash, I felt like it was divisive but not unpopular

[@farmerbob339]

I bought my version of SL was when only the Server version was available. Then again once the regular version came out. And I've got 32Gb RAM in my 2008 7,1.

[@Vlamat67]

I use Snow Leopard on 4 iMac and 1 MacPro 2.1.....is accompanied by an SSD it is soft and fluid .... just don't expect 4K video ;)

[@japekto2138]

Yes, it works. I already installed it on the original 2006 Intel Mac Mini back when Snow Leo first came out. It also has Office 2008.

[@svetlanavasic]

How is works?

[@jvf6257]

I still mastering albums in my Snow leopard with Soundblade HD 2.0 and a Lynx AES card with amazing audio plugins, ppl think that the higher they going in like 192 KHZ even this computer will be able to do it, own a Mac mini M2 Pro 16 m, had to say it’s an other world sound hype but when I need to master something with a raw texture more organic Snow leopard do the job

[@audialsavant2658]

Having to setup Audio DAW Systems for clients (like legacy ProTools 10 HD) make me visit the SL arena about once every 6 months; many Old cheesgraters literally run run audio sessions from Fri thru Sunday without the need for a reboot and without any memory-leak issues, Snow Leopard is lean (as mentioned in your video) and has dozens of less spy agents including icloud stuff running in the background, the last note is that if already have the old SL combo updates and patches already downloaded and need to apply them to a new install, change the date back or they will not install, this will save the need to update via Apple's servers which will eventually be turned off for SL.

[@dmug]

Yeah, there are combined update DMGs of snow leopard floating around like archive.org/details/osx-10.6.7-dvd

[@KevinMarchese]

It really was an amazing experience, whatever happened to OSX server? I guess it’s kinda irrelevant at this point but it was nice

[@ejonesss]

apple could have given flash touch support via a translation layer. it would be like an onscreen keyboard being interfaced into the usb driver so it emulates the keyboard . now flash is only on very obscure sites that refuse to upgrade because flash did have good content security but not user security and malware ridden sites. what about chrome?

[@marktheturtle_21]

The snow leopard is my all-time favorite wallpaper.

[@breakinggames6356]

Os x 10.6 I remeber is a really good stable os without all the crazy features and a 3d lively ui instead of the souless ui

[@mavfan1]

I had a white plastic MacBook with Leopard then Snow Leopard. I have zero desire to go back to that!!!!

[@OldFordTaurus]

I have a 17 inch 2006 imac 1.83 ghz core 2 duo running snow leopard. I used it to play KZbin videos for background noise while I was working until 2022. I used the latest supported version of chrome. It wasn't the quickest but it would play the videos. Only sometimes it would work playing them full-screen. I would get occasional messages to upgrade my browser but it would browse the internet doing whatever I needed. I tried running the sims 2 and 3 on it and they were not playable.

[@svetlanavasic]

Ok, how is possible downl Chrome browser from os 10.7?

[@50-50_Grind]

Tried surfing to KZbin with the Interweb browser (64 bit) on a Macbook 3.1 (late 2007, 2 GB ram) ... reaction time was very slow but it did play the video at 144p in the end.

[@dmug]

Yeah, I have a 2007 black MacBook and even with later OSes it struggles with KZbin, I think I have 4 gb of ram in it. I was able to do 360p.

[@czos9239]

Back when apple actually cared about the server side of things. Was admin for the pr dept using one of these.

[@95Comics]

Awesome video thank you so much for this! I’ve been using a 2008 iMac as my every day driver for a long time now but I have Linux mint installed in it and it works great. I never have any problems nobody can believe how fast it is and how responsive it runs all the latest software but it’s Linux not macOS. Using inter-web. Is it possible to use snow leopard or whatever the last supported macOS is as my every day system or would you recommend staying with a modern Linux os?

[@dmug]

I would not want to run Snow Leopard as my daily driver, too little support, so many security vulnerabilities, also I'd check on the OpenCore legacy patcher (OCLP)'s support for your computer, if it supports it Monterey tends to run rather well on unsupported hardware. I had my Mac Pro 2008 running Monterey and it felt pretty damn zippy but again, it is a dual 4-core CPU Mac Pro 2008 with 8 GB of RAM and an SSD with GeForce 760 GPU. While not impressive, it's a lot higher speced than most computers of that era.

[@aeiplanner]

Most of the information on the internet is about installing latest OS's on legacy hardware. I've yet to find any good info on the opposite. For example, I'd love to know what most current hardware can support something like a Snow Leopard or a Mountain Lion OS?

[@dmug]

This is an easy one to answer: It's because you can't run old OS Xs on newer hardware. The last gen 10.6 Macs supported were 2010 as they shipped with Snow Leopard. To run the OS on newer hardware, it'd require driver support which Apple does not bring to the old hardware. Also, with the frequent architecture changes to the OS, porting over drivers between OS versions is a monumental task, see OpenCore. It isn't unfeasible but the desire to run an older operating system to no benefit on newer hardware means there's been zero effort.

[@mrmcguru163]

if you go to 10.7 you can get a version of chrome thats still being updated and is up to 117

[@dmug]

Good to know, at some point I will revisit Mavericks, but not for awhile. Should be easy mode if I can just run chromium

[@mrmcguru163]

@@dmug lol yeah mavricks has some patches to make weather to work

[@rrcoster]

Video playback id try in VLC as i still daily drive Mac Pro 2012 with outdated Mojave

[@rothn2]

Snow Leopard definitely looked the best, worked the best, and had my favorite features

[@mintybudgie]

you could try chromium legacy which gets chromium 100-115??? on macs using 10.5 - 10.9

[@dmug]

Pretty sure modern Chormium legacy is 10.7+ and last chromium supported browsers are for 10.6 are 2016. If there’s one I missed do link it.

[@mintybudgie]

@@dmug ah, my mistake anyways good content keep it up

[@Robospidera1]

I still have a copy of snow leopard I bought when I was younger in 2009

[@jgzero18]

I still have that black cloth; it came with my late 2007 black MacBook

[@grtitann7425]

Talking about open standards, you should look into all the proprietary tech that Ngreedia loves to push and surprisingly, nobody seems to have a problem with that.

[@TescoMealDeal571]

The reason why Articfox has a different KZbin video player MIGHT be because it's based on Pale Moon, which itself is based on a older Firefox version.

[@dmug]

Hmm that’s interesting, I remember the html5 player plugins for safari some time ago. Didn’t consider it was a conscience choice to force a different UI. I should have done inspect element, and looked deeper

[@DanielAquinoSanchez-u1q]

I miss Snow leopard , I have a 2018 Mac running Sonoma , is there a way to downgrade to snow leopard.

[@rickkarrer8370]

Great video, and I’d love to see a gaming on Snow Leopard.

[@thesilentobserver93]

Snow Leapord is 15 years old? When did this happen? Why wasn't I informed? 😭

[@rickkarrer8370]

There is a good portion of the video where I’m saying out loud “Don’t waste your time on Firefox, you want Interweb” lol

[@dmug]

Yeah, I eventually got there. I

[@BilisNegra]

Modern internet experience on Snow Leopard sounds pretty cool. And it is, but let's not forget it's contemporary to Windows 7, and not many people are amazed that you can use a completely modern version of a mainstream web browser there (Firefox will be supported for another year until Sept 2024).

[@dmug]

Sure but the difference is support: Microsoft is legendary at this point for it's long tail support. Windows 7's support lasted until 2020, whereas Snow Leopard was dropped in 2016 (unusually long support for Apple) and Apple's willingness to force new standards on macOS.

[@BilisNegra]

@@dmug Well that's all true, maybe I should have stopped and thought for a while more.

[@dmug]

@@BilisNegra Nah, it's valid point that it isn't impressive for Windows and it is for macOS to run a modern browser on a 14 year old operating system. It says quite a bit about each company's attitude towards legacy support.

[@who_cares848]

My sister has an imac running 10.4, still works fine

[@svetlanavasic]

How?