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Who here is still using an "old" iMac?

As a business owner, I am in charge of maintaining 50 Imac 2006 computers that were donated to the local Boys and Girls Club in Hopkinsville, KY. They are perfect for the kids and has allowed the club to save money on AV protection. With LibreOffice and internet access, the kids who go to the club really don't need anything else.

Now the next project is to set up 30 iPads for the new Teen Center at the club.
 
My late 2007 iMac (the first alu, Core 2 Extreme 2.8GHz, 6GB RAM and ATI HD 2600 Pro) was too slow for my use (Photoshop) and the screen was aging (becoming yellowish), so I replace it by a 27" iMac.

But my 2007 is now at my mother in law home, and she's very very happy with it! And it saves me time: I don't lose one hour per week-end to delete search bars and adwares from her browsers or system (Windows Vista...).

If a day the HDD dies, I will replace it by a SSD :)
 
All the iMacs I mentioned in this thread back in 2015 we no longer have. However I still use a pair of 2009 Mac minis for various odd jobs.
 
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I have a 2014 27 inch with SSD and it’s still good although I don’t have a new machine to benchmark it with.. but I do have a 2008 24 inch and it feels unusable with the hard drive.. I think I’ll just keep it in hopes Sotheby’s want it in 40 years time lol
 
My daughter is a teacher and uses my 2011 27 inch iMac in her classroom. She shows movies to the kids through an attached TV and browses the web using Firefox. I think she also uses an old iWorks suite for word processing. It's running High Sierra. She says it's perfect!
 
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Even though I do have newer iMacs I still use my 27 inch 2011 iMac at home. Running Monterey using OCLP. Still has the original video card, even though these cards are known to fail. HD upgraded to an SSD and have increased RAM to 32GB. Runs like a champ with virtually no issues.
 
I have 2009 and 2010 iMacs but they are sitting on the basement floor. My desktop has a 2014 iMac 27 (i7, 500 GB SSD, 4 GB video) and an M1 Mac mini and I use the systems cooperatively. I usually avoid using the 2009 and 2010 iMacs in the summer because they generate a lot of heat in a space which doesn't have AC or heat. They are actually helpful in the winter to warm up the room.

I'm giving some thought to selling them or given one away and selling the other.
 
Still using a 20" early 2009 running El Capitan for personal stuff. And a recently acquired 2013 27" i7 for business use.
 
Still using my late 2012 21” iMac as my primary computer. It’s really starting to show it’s age now. The 1TB Fusion Drive has served me well but it’s definitely the bottleneck now along with the CPU.

Having said that, OneDrive should’t be thrashing the CPU like it does. I can’t understand how the app requires so much horsepower just to sync my files!
 
2010 Mac Mini still used as a streaming/media server connected to a once-smart-but-now-dumb TV in the lounge, running High Sierra. In the gap between selling my 2011 iMac in March and acquiring my Mac Studio in April I also used it as my main computer in my home studio.
 
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Corefile said:
I run Linux Mint on a 2011 iMac and it really is speedy.
Click to expand...
As Catalina has reached EOL, I am looking for a Linux Desktop for my late 2013 iMac, upgraded with a 256GB SSD. OSX still runs great for my private usage, though.
My questions:
did you run into any problems when installing Linux Mint on your 2011 iMac ?
which instructions did you follow ?
Since I do a lot of Audio editing, do speaker and microphone work as well?
Do you use AirPlay on Linux ?
 
lnx said:
As Catalina has reached EOL, I am looking for a Linux Desktop for my late 2013 iMac, upgraded with a 256GB SSD. OSX still runs great for my private usage, though.
My questions:
did you run into any problems when installing Linux Mint on your 2011 iMac ?
which instructions did you follow ?
Since I do a lot of Audio editing, do speaker and microphone work as well?
Do you use AirPlay on Linux ?
Click to expand...
Zero problems as all I did was create a Mint boot USB key and launch it. Everything worked out of the box with no fuss. The internal speakers work great. Not sure about microphone as I never used it. The only thing I did was install the mbpfan repo so I can control the HD fan as I don't have a thermal cable. So it's super quiet. I don't use AirPlay so couldn't comment.
 
The 2009 and 2010 iMacs are close to the same hardware. No USB 3. Actually, the 2011 doesn't have USB 3 either, but it's more different hardware.

Anyhow, I upgraded our 2010 Core i7-87027" iMac with SSD, and it runs great. Only High Sierra, but Chrome is still fully supported on High Sierra, so it works well for the kids. (All their online school work is through Chrome.)

Actually, that iMac is faster than the 2014 i5-4278 Mac mini I was using as my main work machine until just last month. The 2014 Mac mini supports Monterey though.
 
EugW said:
The 2009 and 2010 iMacs are close to the same hardware. No USB 3. Actually, the 2011 doesn't have USB 3 either, but it's more different hardware.
Click to expand...

The vast majority of 2009s I see are Core 2 Duos while I see most 2010s as i5 or i7. Huge difference in performance. As such, you're usually limied to 16 GB of RAM on the 2009s.
 
pshufd said:
The vast majority of 2009s I see are Core 2 Duos while I see most 2010s as i5 or i7. Huge difference in performance. As such, you're usually limied to 16 GB of RAM on the 2009s.
Click to expand...
I owned a 2009 Core i7 iMac. Supported up to 32 GB RAM. But then it was replaced under warranty with a 2010, which is why I own a 2010 now.

The weird part was my 2009 was 8 GB RAM with 4 x 2 GB, with two of those sticks being aftermarket, and yet they replaced it with a brand new 2010 iMac with 8 GB RAM with 2 x 4 GB leaving 2 slots open. And by brand new, I mean complete with the retail box, new mouse, and new keyboard, meaning I had two of each after that. They also gave me my old 2 TB hard drive back from the original 2009. And they refunded the balance of the extra AppleCare I had on it.
 
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Corefile said:
Zero problems as all I did was create a Mint boot USB key and launch it. Everything worked out of the box with no fuss. The internal speakers work great. Not sure about microphone as I never used it. The only thing I did was install the mbpfan repo so I can control the HD fan as I don't have a thermal cable. So it's super quiet. I don't use AirPlay so couldn't comment.
Click to expand...
sounds good, thank you!
so you did not replace OSX, but rather run Mint from your USB stick, correct ?
 
lnx said:
sounds good, thank you!
so you did not replace OSX, but rather run Mint from your USB stick, correct ?
Click to expand...
I booted from the Mint USB stick then installed Mint to the internal SSD so it co-existed with OS X. Then let it auto-boot to Mint in three seconds.
 
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