Ask HN: What to do with an old iMac 1GB with Snow Leopard? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What to do with an old iMac 1GB with Snow Leopard?

4 pointsdaitangio3 comments

Hi everybody! I have sitting on my desk an old iMac with Snow Leopard, Core2Duo and 1GB of RAM.

MacPorts does not work anymore (I fear some problem with SSL certs). It is unsable to surf the web but still work pretty well with its outdated iLife suite.

I have a gcc 4.x and the developer toolkit.

X11 Server works but it seems pretty slow to do run it as a remote display

The simplest application could be as a static http server, but seems a bit too much power hungry for this.

Another ideas is to recompile some embedded software like sqlite3 and use it as a "server database via ssh"... some other nice ideas?

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I have a 2009 MacBook Pro that was running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. I had already upgraded it to 8GB and a 256GB SSD, but the software problems (SSL, web browsers) were becoming intolerable. I had tried to upgrade it in the past without success.

Then I read where you can install El Capitan on these systems and it will do a microcode upgrade. There's a free download on Apple's site (sorry, don't have the URL handy). I downloaded it, ran it, but it still wouldn't install right.

But the u-code upgrade did allow me to install Mavericks on it whereas before that wouldn't work. So it's a reasonable system for someone to use again and I have it listed on eBay. Probably won't get much for it, and it's a lot of trouble to take pictures, fiddle with eBay listings, etc., but at least it will get used and not just thrown in the trash. I hate throwing away a system that's usable. I'd give it to someone I knew who could use it but everyone I asked already has a computer.

> bit too much power hungry

It would be too much power hungry for everything. You will have a better experience with any VPS you can buy on the cost of the power bill of that iMac and you will also get a modern OS for free.

It is too old and too slow even if you upgrade the RAM and change the disk to SSD.

OpenBSD

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