Mac help

[isihac]

I know very little about Macs, apart from their one-button mouse quirk, and am sure that amongst the multitude of computer geeks I know there is someone who has more clue than me on this.

We have an MacBook (appears to be this model) which I am in the process of copying needed data off in PC friendly formats. The problem is that after I have done

Comments

[burkesworks]

It isn't that difficult to alter the admin password IF you can borrow a copy of the OS disk. If you can't get hold of one I can certainly let you have a copy. Before you do so, check if the admin password is blank, or if it's something silly like "password"; in my experience I'm amazed how many are.

AFAIK it is possible to run Windows on one of these PowerBooks, and it is certain that Ubuntu will work, but then again it's possible to run a Ferrari on two-star petrol.

[isihac]

Sorry for the late reply, I've been putting off thinking about doing anything with it for sentimental reasons but that's plain daft.

Have tried various things for the admin password but none of those worked, so I'll have to do the OS disk recovery thing. Does it have to be the same version of the OS or will I be OK with a newer one? (Currently running Mac OS X 10.6.7.)

[isihac]

"The only way this will not work is if someone has installed the home-directory encryption stuff, and that's probably unlikely."

Hmm, he was a highly proficient geek (for his age) so that is a possible. If so, nuke it from orbit?

[happydisciple]

As another option, you can buy a copy of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard for £26. Networking it is generally pretty straightforward (depends on your home network arrangements, obviously). Various bits of software: there's a lot of free & open-source software available for the Mac. A lot of Linux apps (or equivalent) are availble for OS X, too.

[fba]

This.

Acquiring a Mac and not using OSX is incredibly perverse. The main reason for owning a Mac these days, given that the hardware is basically commodity PC parts, is the OS. It's a bit like Linux, if the Linux GUI was written by people that actually designed it rather than a bunch of arguing geeks in their spare time. Snow Leopard is so cheap you may as well just buy a copy!

[isihac]

Fair point. Just not got much brainspace free for working out new stuff but I suppose it's pretty straight forward.

Keep putting it off - was Dad's laptop and am being stupidly sentimental about changing anything.

[isihac]

I'm not familiar with OS X and despite looking round the options I can't find a way to connect it to the windows boxen. Only mention of networks seems to be the internet connection options.

I used to run a linux box and know my way around windows systems fine, but this one doesn't seem very intuitive.