Whew! Nearly an entire day of pre-Snow Leopard install Mac maintenance.

[Moondog]

Updated more software than I remember owning. Including the really obscure photographic stuff (and this is all still stuff - no video). Verified the boot disks. Checked, verified, and corrected permissions. Purged the caches, logs, the cookies (oh no!), histories, etc, etc.

The problem with Macs, from this old Windows guy's point of view, is that you really don't have to do regular maintenance and the crap just piles up. Add to that the fact that you can seamlessly migrate one computer to a new one with nothing more pretentious than a firewire cable and the crap accumulates, and then crawls into dark out of the way places and breeds with other crap.

I hadn't done serious disk maintenance for three computers' worth of shit, or five years' worth of accumulated detritus. I recovered nearly 100 gigs worth of space, giving up absolutely nothing for it. And I still haven't purged the non-current CS3 or Lightroom 1 stuff. Ran out of gas before I got to that. Well. Anyway, it's done. Snow Leopard install tomorrow.

[targetpractice]

1. I always start from scratch with a clean install...

I've been building Macs for so long, I've got it down to a science. Does the $29 Snow Leopard only permit upgrades by checking for an existing Leopard installation first?

Be that as it may, I'm so sad because I can't install Snow Leopard on my Power Mac Dual 2.5GHz G5... It's still a fast machine, but alas. I'll suppose I'll need to buy whatever Apple tells me to. ;-)

[Moondog]

2. Interesting question.

I keep hearing that people have been able to install the $29 version on top of Tiger installs, notwithstanding the literature which say that this iteration is for Leopard installs only, and you have to pony up bigger bucks for Tiger and earlier. This implies that the $29 version is a full package, but I don't know if it can be spoofed to replace a Leopard install. What is for certain is that it requires later the Intel chips.

I really would prefer to start with a clean install, but I'm feeling lazy. I'm lusting over a dual quad core tower unit, and when (probably not if) I do that, I will definitely do a completely clean build. Even if it takes a day or two, I feel that it would be worth it.

[gmoney]

3. Any clue what all these "SUID file ___ has been modifies and will not be repaired." mean?

[Moondog]

4. Apple's support site

at http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448 lists those SUID file messages as "Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions messages that you can safely ignore".

What are they? I don't have a clue. But the literature basically says blow them off.

[gmoney]

5. Yeah, I think I'd seen that before...

it's like "why not find a way to fix them, or at least tell me they can be ignored, or go ahead and ignore them for me?"

Really irks me that there's been no appreciable upgrade to DiskUtility in umpteen years, and that Apple doesn't seem interested in addressing malware or viruses or anything. Having a small market share will only protect us for so long...

[Moondog]

6. I'm wondering whether this, uh, quirk, continues into Snow Leopard.

Pretty lame, but it doesn't seem to hurt anything.

[av8rdave]

7. Just installed today...no issues that I know of so far

[pokerfan]

8. Snow Leopard!!!

[Deja Q]

9. How'd the install go?

I just started installing it as I did the needed cleanup on Sunday... Took a couple hours (mostly unattended, with repairing permissions and all)

On the notebook first as the guinea pig...

[Moondog]

10. No problems.

Did the basic install, which took about 45 minutes. Then I loaded all the options, which took another 30-40 minutes. Then I loaded the developer stuff which took about 10-15 minutes. Rebooted, searched for updates, found none, and I was off to the races. No issues.

On the basic install it runs for about 15 minutes, give or take, and then it reboots into the new interface. And then it grinds away for another half hour or so.

The basic install, which you can add to with the options all in one swell foop, proceeds without intervention. Turn it on and walk away. That said, I've heard of a couple of folks who have had the DVD eject right after the reboot that happens at ~ 15 minutes, followed by a boot up into 10.5.8 or whatever. There are various culprits, apparently. One of which is a Wacom Bamboo. I use a Wacom Intuos 3 and had no issues.

Sooo, I'd say if you have a lot of stuff hanging off the computer you're updating, disconnect it, reboot, and try again. If all else fails, supposedly, holding down "c" while booting will have the whole process run off the boot disk for a nice clean install.

[Deja Q]

11. Thanks for the info!

I have a Intuos 2 and Huey Pro. And an external firewire400 CD-ROM drive. We'll see how they work... :)


The Macbook Pro also just got done... WOW!!!!!!!!

Much much much faster!! I love the enhancements to the UI too.

If anything, Silk and Windowblinds no longer work (new OS version), but this is great!

Once I get done with backing up the iMac, off to upgrade it... I'll miss Windowblinds and Silk, but the tradeoff is worth it. I will have to check my logitech keyboard driver too...

[Moondog]

12. You just reminded me.

I use an Eye-One Display 2 (same company, I think, as the people who do the Huey). The applet that loads whatever profile you use after calibrating your screen requires Rosetta. Be sure to load it (under the options thingie). Failing that, when it goes to load, you'll get a screen asking if you want to load it. If you've already taken out the DVD, supposedly, it will download Rosetta off the net - just to make it easier. :D

[Deja Q]

13. Just got done with the iMac -- you know what?

This is the FIRST EVER TIME I've been able to upgrade an OS without a single G.D. hiccup. With Windows, one was guaranteed hiccups, so we always reformatted anew. Vista made such upgrades more difficult and Win7 continues that tradition, except they fixed the bug everybody exploited in Vista to do upgrade installs. (installing over itself, by not putting in a key the first time around, lol.)

So,











FUCK MICROSOFT AND THEIR AMATEURISH, GROSSLY OVERPRICED PIG-SLOP.
(no offense to pigs or the slop they live in.)