## Why Mac OS X Snow Leopard? ##

Written on: February 3, 2025
Last Updated: April 12, 2025


### It Started With A Web Page ###

Recently, I started bouncing through Wiby[0], a search
engine designed around the /Old Web/ or /Smol Web/ or
/Retro Web/, depending on who you ask. Wiby has a
"Surprise Me" feature that sends you to a random site in
their listing, and I encountered a page with a link to a
page, which had another link... Really, just an
old-school dive down a rabbit hole, and during that time,
I came across a website called Koshka's Kingdom[1].

Now, with a lot of the content on this site, if you choose
to go to it, you will probably disagree or get angry about
some of their views. I really don't agree with most of
what is written there, //and me talking about it is in no
way an endorsement//. But one of their articles
re-inspired me to start working on this page for my own
site. That article is titled "I'm Going Back to
Windows 98"[2].

I do share in a few of their views in this article. I hate
that Windows 10 and 11 have effectively become glorified
spyware, I hate that forced updates regularly break my
system, my eyes strain with modern flat design paradigms,
and I very much dislike how much of modern software
requires an internet connection--sometimes a constant
connection--just to function. As someone who likes
regularly going completely offline to actually focus on
what I'm doing, modern operating systems really don't
serve me well.


### Snep ###

That's why my daily driver laptop is a 2009 MacBook Pro
running /Snow Leopard/ (Mac OS X 10.6.8). It allows me to
do what I need to do, without getting in my way or
stressing me out, and lets me be offline without endlessly
complaining. I can even install the OS and all of my
software without a network connection, unlike modern
Windows, MacOS, or even modern Linux with its heavy
reliance on network package managers. I just keep the
installers or apps on one of the external backup drives I
use, and there's no issues whatsoever for me.


Mind you, this is for my personal use case. I'm not saying
everyone should do this, but for me, Snow Leopard just
works as a daily driver OS. I can:

* Write in /Pages '09/ and /Scrivener/
* Keep notes in /VoodooPad/ and /Yojimbo/
* Work on web stuff with /Espresso/
* Post to my Dreamwidth blog with /MarsEdit/
* Work with text and code in /BBEdit/ and /XCode/
* Get my RSS feeds and email (safely) via /NetNewsWire/
 and /Thunderbird/
* Read newsgroups with /Unison/
* Jump onto XMPP and IRC with /Adium/ and /LimeChat/
* Listen to my music with /iTunes/, and tracker files with
 /XimpleMOD/
* Play old console games with various emulators, and DOS
 games with /Boxer/
* Run VMs with /Parallels Desktop/ for Windows-only stuff
* Run old Mac software and systems with various emulators

And so much more. These are just things I do on a daily
basis, not counting the other stuff I have installed for
occasional use.

And /yes/, I do use a web browser. In fact, I have two
that I like, both forks of forks based on older Firefox:
Arctic Fox[3] and InterWeb[4]. The latter is what I use
the most just because of compatibility, but Arctic Fox is
the one I prefer just for all the tools and add-ons I use
with it. And they're still maintained and updated, much
like many "Unified XUL Platform"[5] projects. Do they work
with all modern websites and code? Not really, but they
work with what sites I use regularly, and that's all that
matters to me.


### What If You Can't Use a Mac? ###

All that said, the thought of being unable to find a
proper Mac for old OS X has crossed my mind a few times,
and to be honest, I know it'll probably happen eventually.
However, that's some time out in the future. /Buuuuut.../

If that were to happen, I think I'd move to Windows XP,
Vista, or even Windows 7. Oddly enough, while 7 has access
to a lot more applications, I'd be happier in Vista
because I like its UI paradigms more, and happiest on XP
because of both the Luna design language itself, and
because it sits in an era with some of my favorite
software on the Windows platform. In fact, a good chunk of
what I would use on my Mac is on Windows XP, or at least
has extremely close alternatives.

I also have VMs of Vista and XP on my MacBook Pro, which I
use quite often for gaming. I keep old application
installers and disk images in my archive drives, so I'd be
able to just slap everything together, drop my files onto
the drive, and get back to work in a few hours. No
internet required, even.

I go into this more elsewhere, though.[6]


### But Why Not Linux!?/Just Use Linux! ###

I answer that elsewhere.[7]


### A Happy User Experience ###

In the end, being happy with using my computer takes
priority over what other people think I should be doing.
If I'm not happy, I'm not going to use it. I'm going to
grow to resent it, and that's just not healthy for me,
or anyone for that matter.

|~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~|

[0]: https://wiby.org/
[1]: https://koshka.love/index.html
[2]: https://koshka.love/babel/party-like-its-1998.html
[3]: https://github.com/rmottola/Arctic-Fox
[4]: https://github.com/Jazzzny/interweb55-snowleopard
[5]: https://thereisonlyxul.org/
[6]: gopher://gopher.prismdragon.net/0/writings/whywin.txt
[7]: gopher://gopher.prismdragon.net/0/writings/whynotlinux.txt

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