Is it time to make my mac linux?

[Deleted]

Another couple of easy fixes

Make sure you have enough spare hard drive space (at least 10% preferably more)
Repair your preferences (In disk Utility)
Keep your desktop clear of loads of files (some say this is a myth but it worked for me)
Avoid having too much stuff in your start up items
Use the Activity Monitor to see if anything is stealing RAM
Also clear your caches on the browser

There was a utility that helped you clear caches etc, it is free but I can't remember its name - I used to use cocktail but that is now $20 I think - you may be able get a demo.

Like my mac it is getting a bit old and you have to look after it!

[a1laserboy]

Dec 17, 2014 12:04:50 GMT @kopiert said:

Another couple of easy fixes

Make sure you have enough spare hard drive space (at least 10% preferably more)
Repair your preferences (In disk Utility)
Keep your desktop clear of loads of files (some say this is a myth but it worked for me)
Avoid having too much stuff in your start up items
Use the Activity Monitor to see if anything is stealing RAM
Also clear your caches on the browser

There was a utility that helped you clear caches etc, it is free but I can't remember its name - I used to use cocktail but that is now $20 I think - you may be able get a demo.

Like my mac it is getting a bit old and you have to look after it!

Repair preferences isn't quite right. Go to applications - utilities - disk utility, select your hdd, then Verify Disk, Repair disk (will very likely be needed). Then Verify Disk Permissions, Repair Disk Permissions. You might need to run through it a couple of times.

You don't need additional s/w to remove caches, simply do a little searching online. Adding another piece of software to do something 'automatically' can be dangerous as it could remove things you need, plus if it stays running to periodically clean up - you are adding yet another process to bog the machine down. 

Running Linux on a virtual box is a very inefficient way of doing things, it'll likely just be even worse than Mavericks. You still have all the stuff that is normally running then adding the virtual machine software plus the linux OS. 

As others have said, make sure you have enough RAM - click the apple top left of the screen, then about this mac. You'll get the model of the machine and how much ram there is. Go to Crucial and select your model. It's cheap and easy to max out the ram and will give you results. If I remember correctly, you remove a little panel at the bottom and the ram is right there.

Changing out your old HDD for a new SSD will give you a huge perceived performance boost, as will completely starting a fresh install of your OS But getting to the HDD means taking the thing apart. It is a fallacy that OSX doesn't suffer loss of performance over time, it's not as bad as windows, but it still happens. If you go the SSD and reinstall route, do you REALLY need Mavericks? Newer OSX will rune worse on an older machine, can you get away with going back to Lion or even Snow Leopard?

Chrome Browser is good, and as far as I've read, Firefox is back up to pretty much the same speed - but the damage has been done to it's reputation now. Obviously using an older OS won't give you the latest version of Safari, but no need to worry if you use another browser.

[Q]

And the other alternative (if you dont want Chrome) is Comodo Dragon it uses the Chrome engine but dispenses with some of the 'lesser needed' bloatware that comes with Chrome

[Deleted]

fixed guys

took out sophos. Did that disk verify stuff

Got rid of firefox and now on Chrome

Macbook fixed!

[Deleted]

Great News. Well done

Nick

[chrisjw]

My old xp notebook went "lady bumps upwards"............or rather, the hard drive did, so I run linux on it now from a usb stick.........



"Life...........is just a bowl of tricks!!!!!!"

[Deleted]

That sounds like my kind of laptop fix chrisjw - just curious how much memory does your USB stick have? Have seen like 128GB for under £25 on MSE

[chrisjw]

Dec 17, 2014 18:18:52 GMT @johanino said:

That sounds like my kind of laptop fix chrisjw - just curious how much memory does your USB stick have? Have seen like 128GB for under £25 on MSE

I think it was this one I bought @johanino...............



www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VERBATIM-8GB-USB-MEMORY-STICK-PEN-FLASH-DRIVE-CARD-PINSTRIPE-BLACK-FIRST-DEL-/161393759390?pt=UK_Computing_FlashDrives_SM&hash=item2593d1549e


"Life...........is just a bowl of tricks!!!!!!"

[chrisjw]

Dec 17, 2014 18:43:41 GMT chrisjw said:

Dec 17, 2014 18:18:52 GMT @johanino said:

That sounds like my kind of laptop fix chrisjw - just curious how much memory does your USB stick have? Have seen like 128GB for under £25 on MSE

I think it was this one I bought @johanino...............



www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VERBATIM-8GB-USB-MEMORY-STICK-PEN-FLASH-DRIVE-CARD-PINSTRIPE-BLACK-FIRST-DEL-/161393759390?pt=UK_Computing_FlashDrives_SM&hash=item2593d1549e

*As an afterthought, you can't save anything to your pc, as it loads the linux system every time you boot up from the stick.


"Life...........is just a bowl of tricks!!!!!!"

"Life...........is just a bowl of tricks!!!!!!"

[thatguy]

To be honest, if you want a good performance boost then ditch osx altogether. It's just crapware on top of a bsd base. Debian, and NOT bloatbuntu is the way to go.

[Deleted]

Dec 17, 2014 23:27:47 GMT thatguy said:

To be honest, if you want a good performance boost then ditch osx altogether. It's just crapware on top of a bsd base. Debian, and NOT bloatbuntu is the way to go.

That is way too technical thatguy LOL......and debian (when I last tried it which was at least 5 years ago) had an unfriendly GUI