It is obviously a good idea for some people to install early — the benefit is to them if there are no problems and to slower adopters if there are.
This is a case where the Kantian categorical imperative doesn't work: if no one updates early then there would be no benefits to updating later.
People who update later should be less smug about it — they are essentially parasitizing those who updated earlier than themselves.
Woah, you're thinking way too hard about this. Parasitizing? I Kant believe you call it that.
Of course someone has to go first. Every population has its uptake curve, there's always going to be an early adopter. It's more like quantum physics than philosophy.
The people that have less to lose are probably not going to be so cautious. However, if you're in the middle of a big project, probably should wait until the project is done first.
At any rate, at the very least, make a bootable clone of your system first, unplug it and have at the update, at least there's almost no risk, if it goes bad, boot from the backup. A program like SuperDuper can do that for you with a spare drive.
I just did the System Update and rocked on. In the past if updates had to do with a certain application that was running, like something from iLife or iWork, it would prompt me to quit the program. I assumed that I'd get a prompt if I needed to end any processes before continuing with an update. Thanks for the info. I won't make that mistake again.
I downloaded the combo update and reinstalled. iTunes runs fine again, and so do the other functions I complained of. The only problem is that the Spotlight icon at the top right corner has remained active, telling me that it is indexing my drive, for an inordinate period of time. Several minutes.
I'm running the "Verify Disk Permissions" again to make sure everything is good to go.
I just did the System Update and rocked on. In the past if updates had to do with a certain application that was running, like something from iLife or iWork, it would prompt me to quit the program. I assumed that I'd get a prompt if I needed to end any processes before continuing with an update. Thanks for the info. I won't make that mistake again.
I downloaded the combo update and reinstalled. iTunes runs fine again, and so do the other functions I complained of. The only problem is that the Spotlight icon at the top right corner has remained active, telling me that it is indexing my drive, for an inordinate period of time. Several minutes.
I'm running the "Verify Disk Permissions" again to make sure everything is good to go.
The indexing is fine. It's just indexing the new stuff.
I know I've backed up with Time Machine several times in the last week. When I went to install this update, it spent about an hour saying it was backing up my files. Now when I look in Time Machine, the latest available system restore is from freaking May. I can't even restore and try again.
This is why TimeMachine quite frankly in my opinion sucks.
Want the best method? Clone your boot drive, the whole frigging thing whenever you have a sound and and stable configuration. Carbon Copy Cloner is donationware and reliable.
Hard drives are cheap, so have two clones, one set back a month or the last OS update and one done every week or every two weeks.
Clones are "hold option" bootable, which makes it real easy to boot from and recover, repair and/or simply reverse clone.
Hard drive crashes one morning? Just boot from the clone and you can get online in the time it takes to boot. Can't do that with Time Machine and a OS X install disk alone.
Naturally clone your present configuration before a OS update and this mess would have been avoided, you control when to clone, thus you know when and what clone to use.
Backup your files to a USB drive or two daily and then your set.
Look in the Genius help section of AppleInsider for my cloning method.
Keep a very detailed and updated copy of all your product codes, related information and disks/websites and passwords in a safe and secure place to facilitate the speedy recovery in case you need to do a complete reinstall of OS X and apps from original sources (more secure).
You should do this regardless once a year just to clean out anything or something that may have invaded your system before a patch was issued via applicaitons (most likely method)
Use ClamXav, it does catch a rare thing once in a while.
Keep your hard drive less than 50% filled for best performance, it starts to degrade more than 50%.
Whenever you start using a brand new drive, always, always DiskUtility>Erase with Zero option a brand new drive. It maps off any bad sectors and improves reliability of data and OS.
This is why TimeMachine quite frankly in my opinion sucks.
Want the best method? Clone your boot drive, the whole frigging thing whenever you have a sound and and stable configuration. Carbon Copy Cloner is donationware and reliable.
Hard drives are cheap, so have two clones, one set back a month or the last OS update and one done every week or every two weeks.
Clones are "hold option" bootable, which makes it real easy to boot from and recover, repair and/or simply reverse clone.
Hard drive crashes one morning? Just boot from the clone and you can get online. Can't do that with Time Machine and a OS X install disk.
Naturally clone your present configuration before a OS update and this mess would have been avoided, you control when to clone, thus you know when and what clone to use.
Backup your files to a USB drive or two daily and then your set.
Look in the Genius help section of AppleInsider for my cloning method.
I thought Time Machine could take care of a drive crash. Well, in a way. I thought you could just install a new drive, load the OS to that, then restore from Time Machine to get your system to the former settings.
I'll have to look into those cloning applications. Fortunately my system was able to be restored to normal using the method melgross posted from maxfixit.com, but I'll make sure to keep this stuff in mind for the future.
I figured I'd just update tonight since I wasn't doing anything else. In the future I'll ensure I create a clone of the boot drive and disconnect the peripherals before a system update. I think I am also going to download the updates separately rather than using System Update. Hopefully I'll avoid future issues by taking those steps.
Thanks again, guys. I really appreciate the assistance.
Had one issue with the update on my original Mac Pro - I lost a gig of RAM (fortunately only temporarily). There was only one reboot after the update and after I logged back in two of the original four 512MB DIMMs weren't showing up in System Profiler. They were the only two DIMMs in Riser B. The 1GB two third-party DIMMs and the two Apple 512MB DIMMs in Riser A were fine. I shut down and restarted manually and all six DIMMs were there again.
I just did the System Update and rocked on. In the past if updates had to do with a certain application that was running, like something from iLife or iWork, it would prompt me to quit the program. I assumed that I'd get a prompt if I needed to end any processes before continuing with an update. Thanks for the info. I won't make that mistake again.
I downloaded the combo update and reinstalled. iTunes runs fine again, and so do the other functions I complained of. The only problem is that the Spotlight icon at the top right corner has remained active, telling me that it is indexing my drive, for an inordinate period of time. Several minutes.
I'm running the "Verify Disk Permissions" again to make sure everything is good to go.
Just updated an early 17" MBP 2.16 CoreDuo... working perfectly.
I also want to stress the importance of using Melgross's and MacTripper's upgrade guide above. Works for me every time, and actually, I've never had anything ever go wrong with an update... ever.
Now going to do the upgrade to my early 2006 MacPro production station. I read a comment at Macworld that the nvidea drivers have also been upgraded. I also have been experiencing some crashes in Photoshop CS4 lately, although I do think it's more likely from a plugin not playing nice with the others(?) But who knows?
Looking forward to SL though. Gonna be interesting to see performance (gains hopefully) or if it even works with CS4.
did something dopey (in retrospect, seemed a valid idea at the time) and tried to command "kill" (using PIDs from command ps x) processes that were not crucial (mostly ARD VNC)?
after some ARD processes would not die (they must be set to restart on exit) tried "logout" from Apple menu. At this point the computer went into blue logout screen with spinning image (same as startup rotating lines under apple on a grey screen, but on blue -apple) for a long time? about 10 minutes so did something even more dopey and pressed power button until shutdown and it turned on normally.
logged in as root
ran 10.5.8 combo update
ran Flip4Mac update
restarted from Apple menu (restarted ONCE by itself [2 times total], this I've seen with every update in Tiger and Leopard, seems normal MO to me?)
logged in as root
checked permissions
logged out from root
logged in with Admin account 501 (took longer than normal)
manually told TM to "back up now" (took a long time "preparing", reported 2GB backup OK)
ran all my usual Apps
wrote this report
I feel everything snappy as ever (I keep a very neat system) and don't expect any problems. Only if I have any I'll post again with details?
Now going to do the upgrade to my early 2006 MacPro production station.
So once again... a total success and no problems. Before writing this, I did a few checks... and yes, everything appears to be "Snappier" ... also CS4 Suite working great... also a little faster(?), however, only time and production tells the true story.
NOTE: Before the update, as always I did a permission repair, and assorted Quicktime components (resources, frameworks, prefs, etc.) as well as iTunes permissions were wrong and changed. Suspicious or odd, is that when I repaired perms AFTER the update, the very same files were once again repaired, always with "...should be -rw-r--r--, they are lrw-r--r--."
Anybody with an answer to that? Definitely the problem with the poster "iokjhguj" or something like that.
Also, my drives were listed backwards in order of importance, rather than with the Macintosh HD (OS drive) being first as before. Now it's on the bottom of the list. After checking System Prefs, I chose the Mac HD as the start-up, and locked the panel (for now anyway). After a restart, now the drives are listed in alphabetical order. Not exactly as before since I have a drive named Mac Data... but I guess it doesn't matter(?)... or?
All of them rebooted twice. The only glitch was the white MB which at first prompted me that the update couldn't be verified. But a second update worked without problems.
I also did, because of what I saw here, a permission repair on all macs.
I see no advantage to updating early. This talk about parasites is silly.
If there are people who just HAVE to be first, we can't stop them. There are those who do it the wrong way too. We can't stop them either.
That doesn't meant that it's the right thing to do.
Have you updated already?
The term 'parasite' is something of a technical term in mathematical ecology ? it has the usual meaning but not the pejorative connotations. But the general point stands: if some don't go first no one can go second. Those who go second get to watch what happens to those who go first: in that sense they are parasitizing on them. That doesn't mean they are wrong.
But I agree with JeffDM: whether you go first or delay upgrading is a rational decision you should make depending on your current needs, whether you will risk an on-going project, etc.
And yes I upgraded, because I have a back up computer which I could turn to if things went pear-shaped. Mostly, however, I am risk-averse. My general point was just that everyone cannot be risk-averse.
Comments
It is obviously a good idea for some people to install early — the benefit is to them if there are no problems and to slower adopters if there are.
This is a case where the Kantian categorical imperative doesn't work: if no one updates early then there would be no benefits to updating later.
People who update later should be less smug about it — they are essentially parasitizing those who updated earlier than themselves.
I see no advantage to updating early. This talk about parasites is silly.
If there are people who just HAVE to be first, we can't stop them. There are those who do it the wrong way too. We can't stop them either.
That doesn't meant that it's the right thing to do.
Have you updated already?
Wow.
Not only is it snappier, but I now also have whiter teeth and my breath has a fresh minty taste!
Too bad it didn't give you a sense of humor.
It is obviously a good idea for some people to install early — the benefit is to them if there are no problems and to slower adopters if there are.
This is a case where the Kantian categorical imperative doesn't work: if no one updates early then there would be no benefits to updating later.
People who update later should be less smug about it — they are essentially parasitizing those who updated earlier than themselves.
Woah, you're thinking way too hard about this. Parasitizing? I Kant believe you call it that.
Of course someone has to go first. Every population has its uptake curve, there's always going to be an early adopter. It's more like quantum physics than philosophy.
The people that have less to lose are probably not going to be so cautious. However, if you're in the middle of a big project, probably should wait until the project is done first.
At any rate, at the very least, make a bootable clone of your system first, unplug it and have at the update, at least there's almost no risk, if it goes bad, boot from the backup. A program like SuperDuper can do that for you with a spare drive.
I wish I could help more. Good luck.
I just did the System Update and rocked on. In the past if updates had to do with a certain application that was running, like something from iLife or iWork, it would prompt me to quit the program. I assumed that I'd get a prompt if I needed to end any processes before continuing with an update. Thanks for the info. I won't make that mistake again.
I downloaded the combo update and reinstalled. iTunes runs fine again, and so do the other functions I complained of. The only problem is that the Spotlight icon at the top right corner has remained active, telling me that it is indexing my drive, for an inordinate period of time. Several minutes.
I'm running the "Verify Disk Permissions" again to make sure everything is good to go.
I just did the System Update and rocked on. In the past if updates had to do with a certain application that was running, like something from iLife or iWork, it would prompt me to quit the program. I assumed that I'd get a prompt if I needed to end any processes before continuing with an update. Thanks for the info. I won't make that mistake again.
I downloaded the combo update and reinstalled. iTunes runs fine again, and so do the other functions I complained of. The only problem is that the Spotlight icon at the top right corner has remained active, telling me that it is indexing my drive, for an inordinate period of time. Several minutes.
I'm running the "Verify Disk Permissions" again to make sure everything is good to go.
The indexing is fine. It's just indexing the new stuff.
I'm very happy things are working again.
I know I've backed up with Time Machine several times in the last week. When I went to install this update, it spent about an hour saying it was backing up my files. Now when I look in Time Machine, the latest available system restore is from freaking May. I can't even restore and try again.
This is why TimeMachine quite frankly in my opinion sucks.
Want the best method? Clone your boot drive, the whole frigging thing whenever you have a sound and and stable configuration. Carbon Copy Cloner is donationware and reliable.
Hard drives are cheap, so have two clones, one set back a month or the last OS update and one done every week or every two weeks.
Clones are "hold option" bootable, which makes it real easy to boot from and recover, repair and/or simply reverse clone.
Hard drive crashes one morning? Just boot from the clone and you can get online in the time it takes to boot. Can't do that with Time Machine and a OS X install disk alone.
Naturally clone your present configuration before a OS update and this mess would have been avoided, you control when to clone, thus you know when and what clone to use.
Backup your files to a USB drive or two daily and then your set.
Look in the Genius help section of AppleInsider for my cloning method.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?t=32364
Keep a very detailed and updated copy of all your product codes, related information and disks/websites and passwords in a safe and secure place to facilitate the speedy recovery in case you need to do a complete reinstall of OS X and apps from original sources (more secure).
You should do this regardless once a year just to clean out anything or something that may have invaded your system before a patch was issued via applicaitons (most likely method)
Use ClamXav, it does catch a rare thing once in a while.
Keep your hard drive less than 50% filled for best performance, it starts to degrade more than 50%.
Whenever you start using a brand new drive, always, always DiskUtility>Erase with Zero option a brand new drive. It maps off any bad sectors and improves reliability of data and OS.
This is why TimeMachine quite frankly in my opinion sucks.
Want the best method? Clone your boot drive, the whole frigging thing whenever you have a sound and and stable configuration. Carbon Copy Cloner is donationware and reliable.
Hard drives are cheap, so have two clones, one set back a month or the last OS update and one done every week or every two weeks.
Clones are "hold option" bootable, which makes it real easy to boot from and recover, repair and/or simply reverse clone.
Hard drive crashes one morning? Just boot from the clone and you can get online. Can't do that with Time Machine and a OS X install disk.
Naturally clone your present configuration before a OS update and this mess would have been avoided, you control when to clone, thus you know when and what clone to use.
Backup your files to a USB drive or two daily and then your set.
Look in the Genius help section of AppleInsider for my cloning method.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?t=32364
I thought Time Machine could take care of a drive crash. Well, in a way. I thought you could just install a new drive, load the OS to that, then restore from Time Machine to get your system to the former settings.
I'll have to look into those cloning applications. Fortunately my system was able to be restored to normal using the method melgross posted from maxfixit.com, but I'll make sure to keep this stuff in mind for the future.
I figured I'd just update tonight since I wasn't doing anything else. In the future I'll ensure I create a clone of the boot drive and disconnect the peripherals before a system update. I think I am also going to download the updates separately rather than using System Update. Hopefully I'll avoid future issues by taking those steps.
Thanks again, guys. I really appreciate the assistance.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2637/...00643042_o.jpg
Gonna do some repair permissions.
No Time Machine issues so far. Was able to browse a frequently changed directory.
Out of curiosity, just why did you think updating so soon was a good idea?
And how did you do it?
Well SOMEONE has to update as soon as it comes out.
If we all wait then it will never be tried and you would never install it!!
Think about it...
i see no advantage to updating early. This talk about parasites is silly.
If there are people who just have to be first, we can't stop them. There are those who do it the wrong way too. We can't stop them either.
That doesn't meant that it's the right thing to do.
Have you updated already?
someone has to be first!!!!
I just did the System Update and rocked on. In the past if updates had to do with a certain application that was running, like something from iLife or iWork, it would prompt me to quit the program. I assumed that I'd get a prompt if I needed to end any processes before continuing with an update. Thanks for the info. I won't make that mistake again.
I downloaded the combo update and reinstalled. iTunes runs fine again, and so do the other functions I complained of. The only problem is that the Spotlight icon at the top right corner has remained active, telling me that it is indexing my drive, for an inordinate period of time. Several minutes.
I'm running the "Verify Disk Permissions" again to make sure everything is good to go.
Verify does nothing, you need to use Repair!
I also want to stress the importance of using Melgross's and MacTripper's upgrade guide above. Works for me every time, and actually, I've never had anything ever go wrong with an update... ever.
Now going to do the upgrade to my early 2006 MacPro production station. I read a comment at Macworld that the nvidea drivers have also been upgraded. I also have been experiencing some crashes in Photoshop CS4 lately, although I do think it's more likely from a plugin not playing nice with the others(?) But who knows?
Looking forward to SL though. Gonna be interesting to see performance (gains hopefully) or if it even works with CS4.
This site is not known for it's English usage and grammatical correctness to say the least.
That's for sure.
The word *it's* means IT IS or IT HAS. The word you want is "its."
- restarted into single-user mode
- ran fsck -fy
- restarted in safe-boot mode
- logged in as root
- checked permissions
- did something dopey (in retrospect, seemed a valid idea at the time) and tried to command "kill" (using PIDs from command ps x) processes that were not crucial (mostly ARD VNC)?
- after some ARD processes would not die (they must be set to restart on exit) tried "logout" from Apple menu. At this point the computer went into blue logout screen with spinning image (same as startup rotating lines under apple on a grey screen, but on blue -apple) for a long time? about 10 minutes so did something even more dopey and pressed power button until shutdown and it turned on normally.
- logged in as root
- ran 10.5.8 combo update
- ran Flip4Mac update
- restarted from Apple menu (restarted ONCE by itself [2 times total], this I've seen with every update in Tiger and Leopard, seems normal MO to me?)
- logged in as root
- checked permissions
- logged out from root
- logged in with Admin account 501 (took longer than normal)
- manually told TM to "back up now" (took a long time "preparing", reported 2GB backup OK)
- ran all my usual Apps
- wrote this report
I feel everything snappy as ever (I keep a very neat system) and don't expect any problems. Only if I have any I'll post again with details?Now going to do the upgrade to my early 2006 MacPro production station.
So once again... a total success and no problems. Before writing this, I did a few checks... and yes, everything appears to be "Snappier"
NOTE: Before the update, as always I did a permission repair, and assorted Quicktime components (resources, frameworks, prefs, etc.) as well as iTunes permissions were wrong and changed. Suspicious or odd, is that when I repaired perms AFTER the update, the very same files were once again repaired, always with "...should be -rw-r--r--, they are lrw-r--r--."
Anybody with an answer to that? Definitely the problem with the poster "iokjhguj" or something like that.
Also, my drives were listed backwards in order of importance, rather than with the Macintosh HD (OS drive) being first as before. Now it's on the bottom of the list. After checking System Prefs, I chose the Mac HD as the start-up, and locked the panel (for now anyway). After a restart, now the drives are listed in alphabetical order. Not exactly as before since I have a drive named Mac Data... but I guess it doesn't matter(?)... or?
- 2 iMac 20"
- 1 MacBook white (C2D)
- 1 MacBook Pro (pre-unibody 17" C2D 2.5 Ghz)
- 1 iMac 24"
- 1 MacMini
- 2 MacPro G5 (PPC)
All of them rebooted twice. The only glitch was the white MB which at first prompted me that the update couldn't be verified. But a second update worked without problems.
I also did, because of what I saw here, a permission repair on all macs.
I see no advantage to updating early. This talk about parasites is silly.
If there are people who just HAVE to be first, we can't stop them. There are those who do it the wrong way too. We can't stop them either.
That doesn't meant that it's the right thing to do.
Have you updated already?
The term 'parasite' is something of a technical term in mathematical ecology ? it has the usual meaning but not the pejorative connotations. But the general point stands: if some don't go first no one can go second. Those who go second get to watch what happens to those who go first: in that sense they are parasitizing on them. That doesn't mean they are wrong.
But I agree with JeffDM: whether you go first or delay upgrading is a rational decision you should make depending on your current needs, whether you will risk an on-going project, etc.
And yes I upgraded, because I have a back up computer which I could turn to if things went pear-shaped. Mostly, however, I am risk-averse. My general point was just that everyone cannot be risk-averse.
Too bad it didn't give you a sense of humor.
Careful, the admins here ban you for a week for insults. This isn't Digg.