10.3 (Panther) Update Advice
I installed 10.3 on several computers, ran into a few (minor) issues, read most of the postings at the Apple site and figured out a procedure to update savely. It seems to be essential to have a perfectly well running installation of 10.1 or 10.2 before you update! If you have additional precautions/ideas please copy the checklist to your reply and add what you think is necessary:
1. If you have an external firewire harddisc, check for firmware updates and apply them (e.g. LaCie: http://www.lacie.com/support/drivers ).
2. Backup your harddisc (Carbon Copy Cloner)!
3. Update all your haxies (e.g. ASM, TinkerTool) or uninstall them.
4. Deactivate StuffIt AVR (StuffItDeluxe only) and NortonAntiVirus and other background programs
5. Remove Startup-items unless you are sure they are Panther compatible
6. Restart and run fsck -y
7. Restart and repair permissions
8. Run DiskWarrior before you update.
9. Did I mention to BACKUP?!
10. Unplug your external firewire drive if you could not find a firmware update
11. Startup from the Panther CD and repair permissions again (most interestingly disc utility 10.3 finds more permission errors than 10.2).
12. Update (After all of these precautions it seems to be save to use simple update)
13. After restart repair permissions
14. Run Cocktail 3.0.1 Pilot (Caches, Logs and CRON)
15. Force update prebinding (Cocktail or System Optimizer X 4.0.6) and immediately afterwards
16. Shut-down, wait 2 minutes and restart (no idea why but this seems to help)
1. If you have an external firewire harddisc, check for firmware updates and apply them (e.g. LaCie: http://www.lacie.com/support/drivers ).
2. Backup your harddisc (Carbon Copy Cloner)!
3. Update all your haxies (e.g. ASM, TinkerTool) or uninstall them.
4. Deactivate StuffIt AVR (StuffItDeluxe only) and NortonAntiVirus and other background programs
5. Remove Startup-items unless you are sure they are Panther compatible
6. Restart and run fsck -y
7. Restart and repair permissions
8. Run DiskWarrior before you update.
9. Did I mention to BACKUP?!
10. Unplug your external firewire drive if you could not find a firmware update
11. Startup from the Panther CD and repair permissions again (most interestingly disc utility 10.3 finds more permission errors than 10.2).
12. Update (After all of these precautions it seems to be save to use simple update)
13. After restart repair permissions
14. Run Cocktail 3.0.1 Pilot (Caches, Logs and CRON)
15. Force update prebinding (Cocktail or System Optimizer X 4.0.6) and immediately afterwards
16. Shut-down, wait 2 minutes and restart (no idea why but this seems to help)
Comments
Your way seems a bit much. This is what I did:
1. Backup Data
2. Run Disk Utility to repair permissions
3. Check disk once boot off Panther CD
4. Run Disk Utility to repair permissions after Panther is installed
5. Enjoy
Thank You.
In order to get a smooth Panther update there are a few things you should consider. Let me try to give you some clues that might help.
Did you regularily maintain your system (CRON-scripts, fsck after force-shutdown, repair permissions after updates/installs, DiskWarrior, Drive10, ...)?
If yes, you are obviously a power-user and do not need advice.
If no, the following procedure might help to upgrade successfully (most programs mentioned are shareware and are available from http://www.versiontracker.com . You can use most of these for a limited time for free, but I do encourage you to pay the shareware fees so that the programers continue to develop their programs). If you already have serious trouble with your system 10.2.x you can either try the steps below to fix them or you should consider a clean-install, but DO NOT run the simple update (probably not even the archive and install since this keeps potentially corrupted preferences):
1. If you have an external firewire harddisc, check for firmware updates and apply them (e.g. LaCie: http://www.lacie.com/support/drivers ).
2. Backup your harddisc (Carbon Copy Cloner)!
3. Update all your haxies (e.g. ASM, TinkerTool) or uninstall them.
4. Deactivate StuffIt AVR (StuffItDeluxe only) and NortonAntiVirus and other background programs
5. Remove Startup-items unless you are sure they are Panther compatible
6. Restart and run fsck -y
7. Restart and repair permissions
8. Run DiskWarrior before you update.
9. Did I mention to BACKUP?!
10. Unplug your external firewire drive if you could not find a firmware update
11. Startup from the Panther CD and repair permissions again (most interestingly disc utility 10.3 finds more permission errors than 10.2).
12. Update (After all of these precautions it seems to be save to use simple update)
13. After restart repair permissions
14. Run Cocktail 3.3.1 Pilot (Caches, Logs and CRON)
15. Force update prebinding (Cocktail or System Optimizer X) and immediately afterwards
16. Shut-down, wait 2 minutes and restart (no idea why but this seems to help)
I already posted this checklist on another thread. It lead to some discussion, because some power-users said it is unnecessary trouble to go through. I agree with them to the degree, that some steps are unnecessary if you have a perfectly well running/maintained system.