I am not a Mac guy but was asked to look at a computer.
Neighbor kid picked up an older Mac Pro at a garage sale.
He asked me if it could be used for anything.
It has a Quad Core Intel Xeon @ 2.66 MHz.
16 GB RAM.
Has OS X 10.6.8 installed on a 2 TB hard drive.
About a 2009 model.
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UPDATE:
I installed an SSD.
I was able to install the latest version (21) of Linux Mint.
Runs great.
Thanks to all for your information.
One happy neighbor kid.

PC



Any suggestions? Is there a version of Linux that will work or just send it to the recycle center?

PC

This message has been edited. Last edited by: PCWyoming,

I am currently using a 2009 model 27 inch iMac just as a regular home computer to browse the internet, etc. Works great. Something like what you have is more powerful than what I have and can probably still do some simple photo and video editing, etc. if they do not mind waiting some. You can probably upgrade the Mac OSX to something a little more upgraded and modern. The highest for my iMac is 10.12.6 God Bless !!!

I also have an old 2010 iMac. I plan to use it in the garage/shop for streaming music, and to look up manuals and tutorials online when working on the cars.

These older products will not support the latest Mac OS X. To some users, this is of no consequence. What it means, though, is that your older computer and your iPhone and your iPad may not have synchronicity. For example, on my older MacBook Pro, the music app does not have the same functionality or playlists that are on my current Mac mini and iPad and iPhone. I can live with that.

A quad-core Intel Xeon processor is a high grade processor. I would use this Mac Pro for all sorts of processor intensive tasks, such as Photoshop.

The other issue with older Macs can be the hard drive. One of mine came with a strange hybrid one-piece unit with both a small SSD and a standard spinner. If it has only a spinner, you will face lots of “wait wait wait” aggravation, and be tempted to upgrade to a real SSD. IF you don’t know much about Macs, this can be troublesome to do. I enjoy resurrecting older Mac products, so this doesn’t bother me.

I would recommend keeping it, and finding a real use for it. A garage computer to watch YouTube instructional videos?

This might be helpful. Looks like there could be some hardware changes to make this successful.

Assuming you are talking about the Mac Pro circa 2012 (big silver rectangular chassis, MacPro 5,1) and not the later smoke stack model (cylindrical black chassis MacPro 6,1). This page provides a survey of various older MacPro models back through 2009.

These are solid machines. A client of mine is still using one as their office server, still running snow leopard which is the latest MacOS that supports the fiber channel card that connects the even-older XServe RAID array. Not hurting for speed/RAM/etc. Another one at the same client provides a fancy lobby display with four 30" monitors each on their own video card arranged in a window pane-like setup where they look like a single huge monitor (the bezels look like mullions). Very versatile and powerful machines.

Not optimal for desktop/personal use as they are too outdated for current software releases, but not obsolete yet.

I have a 2009 Mac Pro. At the time, it was stellar. Maxed memory and running test vm clusters, picking apart and making new Active Directory schemas. Dual booted for a gaming rig.

Now… it holds things. There’s not really software support. Not current browser support. No real MacOS support. Not even Homebrew really supports it. That’s a bit of an issue, as that means no security patch support. I ssh over to it from the new MacBook Pro to find things, maybe runi iperf when Home network seems to be having an off day.