Hi,

I'm just about to purchase a Mac Mini to use as my media center so I can access my itunes with an itouch as described in Soundproof's detailed thread.

Do you think I should go for a new machine with Leopard running or find a good used machine with Tiger installed?

I have read somewhere that Leopard has a small amount of work needed.

Cheers,

David.

Hi,

I am using my Mac mini for a year as a media center with Tiger, and I'm are very pleased with it. Last week I bought a new iMac (which is really a brilliant piece of technology, btw). The iMac was delivered with Leopard, so I decided to upgrade the Mini also.

The installation was no problem at all and in general Leopard is running stable on my mini. All applications run and I have not yet discovered bugs. However, the performance is markably worse as compared to Tiger. For example it takes much longer to start applications or to switch between apps. As - once the app is running - the performance is acceptable it's ok for my purpose as a media center, only playing media and not really working with large files.

The poor performance might be due to small memory (I only have 512 MB installled)

If I wanted to work on media files with my Mini I would not switch to Leopard unless having better hardware.

Francis

@francis

I'm quite certain it's your low RAM that is causing the slowdowns, Leopard does want space to move. I have 2GB in my computers, and have not noticed any slowdowns.
 

@soundproof

I agree and think I will have to expand my Mini's RAM. Do you think it's imperative to have 2 GB or will one GB be sufficient for my purpose?

The best way to improve the mac mini is :

- putting at least 1 gig of mem

- changing the hard disk for a 7200 rpm

Any mac mini (even first G4) can support Leopard, just search for Apple minimum config for Leopard. 

Have just found out that Airport Extreme will work with a PC not just a Mac. With this in mind would an itouch or iphone be able to access my itunes on my PC via the Airport Extreme? Would be great if this works because I wouldn't have to buy a Mac Mini. Has anyone ever tried this?

Cheers,

David.

David:

Have just found out that Airport Extreme will work with a PC not just a Mac. With this in mind would an itouch or iphone be able to access my itunes on my PC via the Airport Extreme? Would be great if this works because I wouldn't have to buy a Mac Mini. Has anyone ever tried this?

Cheers,

David.

Remote Buddy is Mac only, and you'll need to be able to run that to get that functionality with an iPod Touch.