Leopard Migration Plans
Apple October 26th, 2007My copy of Mac OSX Leopard left Sydney on route to Auckland, New Zealand as of last night. I’m not expecting it to turn up until Monday morning due to living at a rural delivery address in New Zealand, though if I could order Leopard again, I’d have it sent to a friends place in town and make the twenty minute journey in to pick it up this afternoon.
However, I can’t go back - so I have the weekend ahead of me to prepare for Leopard. If it turns up early, I’ll be equally thrilled (but a little under prepared).
I have a few steps I need to carry out over the weekend before Monday morning before I can pop open the CD tray on my Mac Pro and drop in the install DVD.
1. Move all personal data currently on 250GB boot disk to 500GB internal storage drive. Then copy essential files to my 250GB LaCie external drive for safekeeping should anything go horribly wrong.
This includes content in my home folder, and application support files for Safari and Mail - along with a bunch of applications I want moving to the new system.
2. Burn a DVD with full application support folder from the Library folder. This way if there’s any essential supporting files to any application I forgot to copy over and need, I’ll have easy access to them after wiping the system.
3. Insert the Leopard DVD and perform a clean install on the 250GB boot drive. Once installed, I’ll boot into Leopard and spent a little time sorting my files back into their original locations scattered over the 250GB/500GB internal drives. The LaCie drive will be wiped and set up for Time Machine use of my Documents/Pictures folders.
4. Install Microsoft Office 04, iLife 08, iWork 08, eyeTV Hybrid software, and Parallels/Vista for course work.
The final step is to start playing with Leopard, and expressing my opinionated views here, on Macguide, and with a few videos.
Update: After some thorough investigation and a few phone calls, I’ve decided to perform an Archive & Install.
Applications are carried over, preferences and user accounts retained, and the installation of the core OS is brand spanking new: the same as if it were an erase and install. The user folder remains untouched. This will be a much more simple route for migrating to the new OS. The hours saved will be better used playing with the OS.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:28 am
My plans are far less complex; but probably because I am a far less complex person :)
I’m going to back up all my data to 500GB external drive, like you for if anything goes wrong. And then I’m just going to install Leopard over my current files.
Why? Because my MacBook Pro isn’t that old so I hope it doesn’t matter to much if I don’t do a clean install
October 26th, 2007 at 8:36 am
I would do an upgrade, but I’d like to know Leopard will be running to its full potential. Also gives me a reason to do a thorough sort of my system.
October 26th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Its a lot more efficient to do a straight upgrade rather than doing a clean install.
Clean install is just waste of time.
October 26th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Why do you need Microsoft Office? You have the wonderful product called iWork :D
October 26th, 2007 at 9:41 am
I need to have it installed for total compatibility. As soon as my course is over in February, it will be uninstalled ;-)
October 26th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Tell me more about that course. Also, while I agree that normal upgrades are much more time efficient than a clean install, I have to say I just love sorting my files. Organization (when it comes to computers, at least) is such a wonderful thing…
October 26th, 2007 at 10:29 am
God forbid you use the migration or upgrade assistant.
Need a clean install?
Clean up your installation. Learn to use the system.
Your process is very much what a Windows user would do…
This is not the sort of guide that needs to be propagated.
October 26th, 2007 at 10:55 am
I don’t think you’ll need tominstall iLife08. It’s part of the os.
October 26th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Go ahead and download Office ‘08 beta… (It’s not *that* illegal, is it?)
You’ll get a performance boost and learn the new UI!
October 26th, 2007 at 11:26 am
It’s not part of the OS. iLife is a separate package. If you’re buying a new Mac, you’ll get both, for older Mac’s, you need to purchase both.
October 26th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Update: After some thorough investigation and a few phone calls, I’ve decided to perform an Archive & Install.
Applications are carried over, preferences and user accounts retained, and the installation of the core OS is brand spanking new: the same as if it were an erase and install. The user folder remains untouched. This will be a much more simple route for migrating to the new OS. The hours saved will be better used playing with the OS.
October 26th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Is this the same as doing an upgrade?
October 26th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
No. An upgrade overwrites system files. This moves old system files to an archive folder and installs the new OS on a clean base, leaving user files in-tact.
October 26th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
When my Leopard arrives, I’ll be tucking it in to a drawer in my desk. I’ll probably install it in a couple weeks, once all of the early adopters have experienced all the bugs and they have been fixed.
October 26th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
That’s for this informative preparation. I was so ecstatic with just having Leopard in my hands that I almost overlooked the fact that some backup are necessary just to be on the cautious side.
October 26th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
So if I do an A&I is it safe to delete the old system files in the archive folder that is created?
October 26th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
I believe so, they are just kept to include files you “might” need later… Like the ./Library folder (not ~Library), etc. ./Applications (System applications folder - not user apps folder.) More info here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120
October 26th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Ok great, thanks.
One thing I forgot to mention about Leopard: Apple finally stepped up and offered it to Canadians at the same price as it is for Americans. (Maybe it was like this in the past but I cannot recall) Since the CDN dollar is up, it only makes sense to do so, and only seems fair. Hopefully they step up and offer the same prices on all products.
October 26th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
This will be the first time I’ve updated my mac to a upgraded OS (I used to be a windows user). From the sounds of it, I just need to put the DVD in and it does everything else for me.
I with you Glenn on the shipping. Fedex in my area is pretty poor (packages are always a day late), I wish it came UPS.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Guys! Why do you don´t trust Apple anymore, If you have a Tiger machine then why not doing just an update‽
I mean, of course, backing up you most important files is a must but then? Apple things just work, so, If Steve says that an update is what a Tiger user must do, I will follow his instructions…
If, for any reason, update is not your choice then clean install.
October 27th, 2007 at 12:58 am
My copy arrived via UPS first thing this morning. I went for the standard upgrade and everything seems to be working perfectly.
One of the first things I did was to remove Desktop Manager and have a fiddle around with Spaces. As a Linux user I can’t live without this feature, so it’s very welcome to have it built into the OS. I’ve as yet been unable to run Time Machine. I have about 600GB of files spread over a pair of 500GB drives, but my external backup drive (a LaCie Porsche thing) isn’t quite big enough. Must buy a bigger one…
October 27th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Good idea with the archive & install, I’ve heard that it works the best when installing Leopard.
Good luck Glenn!
Cheers,
Aaron
October 28th, 2007 at 5:56 am
My wife and I went to the local Apple store to pick our up. There were lines of a few hundred people in Denver, CO at the Park Meadows location - crazy. I didn’t expect to be waiting in a long line, even when showing up 30 minutes early.
You are going to enjoy the new OS, it is awesome, the features all deliver (I haven’t tested time machine yet due to lack of external drive right now). Microsoft could learn a few things from Apple, Vista is a complete failure in my opinion (and a lot of other’s too).
Anyway, I did a full format and install while my wife did the upgrade. Both resulted in perfectly working installations. The wife upgraded on a PowerPC mini, 1.25Ghz 1GB RAM, while I installed on a black Macbook Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz, 2GB RAM. The PowerPC took about 2 - 2.5 hours, the Macbook took between 1 and 1.5 hours.
Enjoy…
October 28th, 2007 at 8:33 am
They also offered iLife and iWork ‘08 for $79 (the same as the US) and the Canadian dollar wasn’t up this high back then. Apple is like the only company that is being fair to the Canadian dollar. Thanks Apple.
October 29th, 2007 at 5:44 am
I agree Chris
Glenn I always wait for the second(10.5.1) up date from apple before update my computers. It gives them a chance to work out the hick-ups. As well as third party apps to catch up with the OS I love apple don’t get me wrong but with every new OS there’s always some hick-ups. Just a few examples:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306857
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306853
October 29th, 2007 at 9:02 am
You guys are lucky, I’ve got to wait until tuesday to get mine delivered, as TNT mucked up the delivery, and Apple very kindly sent me another copy free of charge, except this time with UPS.
And delivery is bad enough. If someones not at home at the time to sign for it, I have to wait another 2 days for it to be re-delivered. So by the time I get it, it would have been out a week. Oh well,
Nice work Glenn, you’re a real genius at only 15.
November 1st, 2007 at 8:38 am
That shouldn’t really be a problem; can’t your neighbors sign for it?