[OS X TeX] Just Curious...

[Art Werschulz]

Hi all.

I'm running Mac OS X 10.9.5 (Mavericks) on a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac with 4 GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM.  This is a 24-inch Early 2008 iMac. My TeX working environment consists of Aquamacs, which is equipped with AUCTeX, along with Skim.  You might not be surprised to learn that on the Linux systems at work, my working environment consists of GNU Emacs, equipped with AUCTeX, along with xpdf.

And now, for something off-topic, about which some of you may have suggestions:

I had noticed a certain amount of sluggishness with Mac OS X 10.8.*, which has continued with Mavericks.  We're talking two minutes for me to log in (i.e, from the time I hit return on the login screen to the time that the iMac responds to mouse events).  The SPOD (spinning pizza of death) appears all over the place.

Possible explanations:

(1) This old hardware doesn't have enough juice to run Mavericks.
(2) Some malware is doing evil things.  (But the "top" program doesn't showanything obviously sinister.)
(3) Something else entirely.

Is the cure simply to say it's time to buy a new machine?
Would Yosemite improve things or worsen them?
Other thoughts?

Art Werschulz
agw at comcast.net