Old Intel Core Solo Mini—best OS, buying options?

[celadon]

Hello everyone, my first post here and I need some wisdom from you guys!

I bought an old Intel Core Solo Mac mini with only 512 MB of RAM and I'm wondering what OS to install on it and how that will work. I think its HD is wiped (I'm waiting for it to arrive), so I'll have to install something on it.

I'd just go with Snow Leopard, but since this has only 512 MB of RAM, I guess that's out. Upgrading the RAM myself is also out, since I'm not competent enough to do the upgrade and I don't want to pay someone else to do it.

That leaves me with Tiger (which these Minis shipped with) and Leopard. Either will work for me, but Leopard would be preferable.

I have the upgrade disk for Leopard, which I believe supports Intel, but it's the upgrade and requires "proof" of Tiger to install. I believe that if you have an external drive with Tiger on it, or a copy of the Tiger DVD, that will "qualify" you for the Leopard upgrade? Am I remembering correctly?

I am pretty sure I have an old firewire drive with Tiger on it somewhere (it's a PPC-based installation), and I also have a (PPC only) copy of Tiger on DVD. Would these allow my Leopard upgrade to install, or do I need to go some other route?

Thank you for any suggestions or advice you can give me!

 

[Florals]

I wouldn't necessarily rule out performing a RAM upgrade yourself. My first experience of taking a computer apart was installing 2GB of RAM into my 2006 Core Duo Mac Mini; it was nowhere near as hard as it looked and it's still running fine on Snow Leopard. There are so many detailed guides and videos out there that if you do your research you'd really have no trouble at all with it.

 

[Intell]

The Leopard upgrade disc will work without having Tiger installed on the drive. You cannot use a PowerPC Tiger disc on an Intell Mac.

 

[celadon]

Thanks for your input and advice!

I've been researching and mulling it over, and I realized that my old commercial copy of Tiger (which I bought in 2006) should work on the Intel Mini! I checked WeLoveMacs and Wikipedia and the April 2006 release of OS 10.4 works for Intel, and that's what I've got. So I'll just install that on this Mini (assuming I am right and it works) and all is well! Yay!

Florals, thanks for your encouragement about upgrading the RAM, but I looked at the instructional video on Otherworld Computing and I don't think so! LOL! I am very inept at upgrading. I shake like a leaf with nervousness when upgrading RAM on a G4 PowerMac (and I know that should be very easy!). The older Minis are waaaaaay beyond my comfort zone!

 

[ElectronGuru]

Bummer, the core solo mini is the perfect platform for a C2D processor upgrade, which you can pick up from eBay for $50. Combined with an SSD, it's like getting a $500 mac for $250!