1. Confirm Hardware Compatibility
A good general rule of thumb with new major versions of OS X has been that they will support Macs made in the last four years. That was largely borne out with Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5), Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6), Lion (Mac OS X 10.7), and Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8), with a few exceptions. Like those operating systems, Mavericks, expected to release in the fall of 2013, supports many (but not every) Mac model made since 2008, so it betters the four year rule-of-thumb. Some models apparently didn’t make the cut because their on-board graphics hardware wasn’t up to the demands placed on it by Mavericks. But if your Mac could run Mountain Lion, it’s safe to upgrade to Mavericks.
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