Running Mac OS X Leopard Server on iMac

Question

Hi,
I am totally new in Apple World, Can I run Mac OS X Leopard Server on intel iMac?
Simon Zarate

Answer 1

This configuration works.
(For some cases of upgrades, you might need to use a documented upgrade path, where you slide Mac OS X Server files onto the iMac. Details are around; look for the meta-package path and related. Here are the [10.4 upgrade details|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302960], and I expect some similar technical notes might well exist for 10.5, and details are probably in the Mac OS X Server 10.5 upgrade manual, too.)
You may or may not need Mac OS X Server here.
I tend to try to partition user activity from server activity; servers and services tend to be mostly- or always-on, where client boxes come and go, power up or down, lack UPS, etc. Servers get dedicated storage and communications, UPS devices, etc. More cautious upgrades, etc. Server also means you don't have ready access to Time Machine and such; that you have to deal with backups yourself.
If you've never run a server, it's kind of the "deep end of the computing pool", too. There's a whole lot more to deal with, in terms of set-up, operations and other aspects of the platform. As nice as it is, the Mac OS X Server environment still requires management and upkeep.
If it's an internal project (and not exposed to the open internet), you could just load [MAMP|http://mamp.info] onto Mac OS X and move on to the next issue. MAMP provides MySQL, Apache and php.
I'd suggest that you get going with Mac OS X. Then decide if you need a server, and -- if you need always-on, look to something akin to Xserve box. (If you're unsure if you need a server, Occam's Razor says you're probably not ready for a server.)