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I prefer to do a format and clean install. That's just me, though.

1300rider wrote:

Currently a happy user of Tiger 10.4.10
Thinking about moving up to Leopard.
I've got a lot of 3rd party programs like Firefox , Opera , etc.
When Leopard first came out I heard that there were a lot of problems with 3rd party programs.
I've got backups for most of my software and can easily re download programs like Opera and Firefox.
Which would be better
...use the regular install that saves all of your old files and settings
...or do a clean install that erases all your old files.
This really the only thing that has kept me from upgrading...I don't want to go though some of the nightmares that some people have experienced when moving to Leopard.
1300rider

Honestly, I'd wait for at least 10.5.8.  I'd recommend Vista over Leopard.

I went the upgrade route with my mini, and the format & install route with my hackintosh; same result.  I generally prefer the format & install route, just for that "clean slate" feeling.  This is mostly intangible, but I know that some people have had problems with the upgrade install.

Last edited by Mr. T (2008-10-07 10:53 pm)

Perhaps Dan, I know I've had 2-3 crashes (3 if you include the lock up last week as a crash) in the last year, I've had certain apps (particularly if they are Third party Carbon apps) consistently hang but the OS only seems to hang on a few occasions where I've obviously maxed out my single gig of RAM. I did have a lot of unexpected behavior early on but only one incident as of late (if you don't count last weeks lock up) which I tracked down to a corrupted  energy saver preference.

General_K wrote:

I prefer to do a format and clean install. That's just me, though.

Yeah, zero everything out and start out nice and clean. Before doing so, back the stuff you want onto an external and then swap it back after the instal.

I just had to do it as Safari, Firefox, any web browser I used would take over ten seconds to load when it was and should be almost instantaneous. Here is how I did it: I did a clean instal and then ran ALL the updates. I then dragged my important files/music/movies over to my new instal. At this time I installed all my programs (Photoshop, Office, etc.).  I then ran Permissions, and after that, Diskwarrior 4.1 (lots of errors came up that were corrected).

Yeah, it is a pain in the ass but just pick a day you got nothing going on. My MacBook Pro has never ran better or faster since.

Clone your current install to your backup hard drive then install Leopard fresh and let Time Machine or Migration assistant (I forget which) to move all your stuff over.
Takes awhile but works perfectly, at least that did for me.

Daniel wrote:

Blandford Fly wrote:

When I start my computer I don't want to be faced with 36 pop ups reminding me that updates are available, or that my antivirus is out of date, or that 'Windows has found new hardware...'

And when I start mine, I'd rather it not be after a forced restart due to a kernel panic, which said restart required four attempts just to get past the login screen.  I also don't want to have to restart my whole computer (and then watch said restart stall) for a smurfing update to a goddamn movie player (QuickTime).

Which is why Leopard is far, far smurf than any OS ever released in the history of computing.

For the record, I have none of those problems.

I did have some UI glitches and freezes with 10.5 and 10.5.1 but... yeah. Your computer is Fail.

But seriously - have you considered how you're going to actually fix these problems? I mean, you upgraded before I did, and Leopard is almost a year old.

I had it ignore energy saver settings; when mail was running, when a P2P client was running, when an emulator is running, when I forget to turn on auto away on screen saver & people try to contact me while I'm away as a result, etc.

dvpierce wrote:

You got a new mac, and it still takes multiple attempts to reboot the thing?

When it KP's or I'm forced to reboot it due to Time Machine crashing my password-protected screensaver (rendering me incapable of getting out of the screensaver because the password dialog box won't come up), I usually have to reboot 3 or 4 times before it'll log in again, yes.  Otherwise I get, not without a sense of irony, a blue screen of nothingness.

Daniel wrote:

It's not my computer.  It happened on my G4 tower (which Leopard physically broke by ignoring my Energy Saver settings and running its hard drive into the dirt) and it's happening on my brand-new 24" iMac, too.  It's Leopard.

I am going to fix these problems by probably never buying another Mac.

Ya can't let your Mac sleep. You need to manually set things to spin down and power off.
That's the way I have had to run every version of OSX on my old G4.
Take a moment to make the right settings and OS.X will not eat your Mac.

With Leopard, I had sleep issues with my Mac Pro until 10.5.2 came out.

No issues to speak of since then. I love it.

Spinning down at periods of inactivity is supposed to prevent wear. Now admittedly if it's constantly spinning up  and down it will produce as much if not more wear but if you are away from the computer for and it spins down and stays spun down like it's supposed to the it actually produces far less wear them keeping them awake especially in areas of higher ambient temperature like say Florida.