# Is it time to update OSX? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 2, 2015, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-update-osx/719084 "2015-05-02T09:23:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-update-osx/719084/21 "2015-05-03T11:54:21Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > Open Office/Libreoffice is a sad, sad joke compared to Microsoft Office. Maybe, but it’ll at least serve as a stopgap measure before I decide whether (and how) to get a compatible version of Office. I don’t foresee being too inconvenienced by it in the near term. > [@AHunter3](#): > > I’m sticking with 10.6.8 myself until I absolutely can’t. I have 10.10 and 10.9 in virtual machines which gives me flexibility and options. Virtual machines! I’d forgotten about that option! Oh, well, I have my Time Machine backup ready to go just in case. But so far, now that I’ve got the trackpad and stuff adjusted the way I’m used to, I don’t see anything major that’s pissing me off yet. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-update-osx/719084/22 "2015-05-03T12:13:50Z")
Specifics on the things I didn’t like: - PPC apps stopped working. For me, this included some old games, GraphicsConverter, and the version I had of NeoOffice. The games, of course, I can do without, though I would still be playing them if I could. Everything I did with GraphicsConverter I could do with GIMP, if I wanted to get another bachelor’s degree in how to use it. NeoOffice had a new version available, but it’s not completely free any more. I bit the bullet and paid $10 for it. - I do some occasional programming for fun, so I had the command-line development tools installed. The other day, I tried to compile something for the first time since upgrading, and discovered that I don’t have GCC any more. No problem, there’s an automatic upgrader for that (that I shouldn’t have needed to use at all, but whatever)… except that it doesn’t work. The auto-upgrader only works for the latest version of the tools, which require Yosemite, not Mavericks. I had to do some real digging to find a place I could install the tools from, and it wasn’t anywhere on [apple.com](http://apple.com) . - It changed my desktop background for no particular reason. The original place I had that image got corrupted somewhere along the line (I’m sure I could dig it up from a backup, if it were important enough to spend a half-day looking through my backups), so that image existed only in whatever location OSX stores desktop images… which doesn’t exist any more. - I was able to fix the scroll bars going the wrong direction, but the buttons on the scroll bars are apparently lost and gone forever. Those weren’t useful very often, but when they were, they were very useful indeed. I can find no setting to bring them back. ---
**Author:** ![iljitsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/77aa72/32.png) [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-update-osx/719084/23 "2015-05-03T12:22:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > - PPC apps stopped working. For me, this included some old games, GraphicsConverter Yeah, that bothered me, too, when I went from 10.6 to 10.7. However, it wasn’t long until I stopped missing it. I mostly used GraphicConverter for cropping and converting images from PNG to JPEG etc, which Preview also does. I also have Pixelmator, which is a low-rent Photoshop, but I don’t use it much as the overlap between what I need and what I’m able to figure out how to do is not very big. Or you can just buy a newer version of GraphicConverter. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-update-osx/719084/24 "2015-05-03T14:53:04Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > - I was able to fix the scroll bars going the wrong direction, but the buttons on the scroll bars are apparently lost and gone forever. System Preferences/General/Show scroll bars Always ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-update-osx/719084/25 "2015-05-03T15:51:24Z")
Why would GraphicConverter stop working 😕 It’s an Intel app. I assume Thorsten Lemke hasn’t stopped updating it, he’s been maintaining it steadily since the System 6 days. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-update-osx/719084/26 "2015-05-03T15:55:53Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Why would GraphicConverter stop working 😕 > > It’s an Intel app. I assume Thorsten Lemke hasn’t stopped updating it, he’s been maintaining it steadily since the System 6 days. It wasn’t an intel app when these guys started using it. ---
**Author:** ![iljitsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/77aa72/32.png) [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-update-osx/719084/27 "2015-05-03T16:02:14Z")
For me, it came preinstalled on the PowerBook I bought in 2003, back in the PowerPC era. ---
**Author:** ![DrumBum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e79b87/32.png) [@DrumBum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrumBum)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-update-osx/719084/28 "2015-05-04T16:01:48Z")
I did the update ( Yosemite ) a few months ago and I am generally please with the results. I did take a really long time because it had to transfer/convert all the pictures and albums in iPhoto ( now called something else ) but I like the new flat font. I tried the suggestion by **Kenm** but I still like the old scroll bars better. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-update-osx/719084/29 "2015-05-04T16:10:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Kenm** : > > System Preferences/General/Show scroll bars Always Yup, that’s checked, and as a result, I always see scroll bars. I do not, however, see the arrow buttons on the scroll bars. And I mostly used GraphicConverter for basic paint capabilities (the sort of thing you’d use MS Paint for, on Windows). I’m sure there has to be a similarly simple and easy-to-use tool for Mac, but I’ve yet to find it. Yeah, I could just buy a new version of GraphicConverter, but while I can (grudgingly) justify that for NeoOffice, I can’t justify it for something I use just for fun, and I shouldn’t have had to in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-update-osx/719084/30 "2015-05-04T18:23:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Yup, that’s checked, and as a result, I always see scroll bars. I do not, however, see the arrow buttons on the scroll bars. > > And I mostly used GraphicConverter for basic paint capabilities (the sort of thing you’d use MS Paint for, on Windows). I’m sure there has to be a similarly simple and easy-to-use tool for Mac, but I’ve yet to find it. Yeah, I could just buy a new version of GraphicConverter, but while I can (grudgingly) justify that for NeoOffice, I can’t justify it for something I use just for fun, and I shouldn’t have had to in the first place. [http://paintbrush.sourceforge.net](http://paintbrush.sourceforge.net) > **[Inkscape - Draw Freely. | Inkscape](https://inkscape.org/)** > > Inkscape is professional vector graphics software which runs on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows desktop computers. > **[GIMP](https://www.gimp.org)** > > GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program: The Free and Open Source Image Editor [https://krita.org/download/krita-desktop/](https://krita.org/download/krita-desktop/) ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-update-osx/719084/31 "2015-05-04T18:54:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Yup, that’s checked, and as a result, I always see scroll bars. I do not, however, see the arrow buttons on the scroll bars. I forgot all about the arrows. The scroll wheel probably did them in. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-update-osx/719084.md?page=1)