[Autumn]

I know "Tiger" is just around the corner. But I got a really good deal on Panther. So I'll use it for couple of months before I get 10.4
I'm quite new to Mac and wondering how could I keep all my hard drive info. and just upgrade the OS. Thanks in advance!

[bergy]

Hi ..

Just do an Archive and Install retaining user settings ..

Details here ..

X-lab: Advice on Archive & Install
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/archiveinstall.html

Short story ..

Archive&Install: Prior to install ... Download and run this App ... Onyx
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11582
Go to the "Automation" pane ... choose "Clear all" and "Complete Optimization" leave other settings at default and execute. Disconnect peripherals except keyboard and mouse. Close all other applications. Make sure screen saver and sleep are off.

Installing

1. Insert the Panther Install CD 1, wait for it to show on the desktop, then restart while holding down the c-key
2. Once you are booted go to the menu and select disk utility
3. Repair the disk
4. Quit disk utility and proceed with the installation
5. Under "options" select "Archive&Install" and check the box "keep user and network data".
6. Install Panther
7. Repair Permissions again from Disk Utility ... restart
8. Install Combo Update ..
Apple - 10.3.8 Combo Updater
(Click on File Size 99.2 mb to Download)
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...1038combo.html
9. Restart and repair permisssions
10. Go to the Apple menu and select "Software Update"
11. Install all missing updates and restart.
13. Repair permissions

[CharlesS]

An Archive and Install is a good idea, but regardless of how you install it, you'll keep all your settings and files as long as you don't reformat the drive.

[TETENAL]

You are making this way too complicated. Just install over 10.2 and be done with it.

[bergy]

It's not complicated at all ..

Apple has a lot more to say than you do about it ..

From Apple - Archive and Install
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
You are making this way too complicated. Just install over 10.2 and be done with it.

After going back and reading his list... uh, yeah. Particularly, repairing permissions 27,394,657 times is completely unnecessary and a waste of time.

For my view on this issue, go here.

Here's a more reasonable list, if you really need a list:

1. Boot from the CD

2. If you want, you can do an Archive and Install. This results in a completely clean installation, but if you don't do this, and just do a regular install, you should be fine if you haven't been having problems. I'm pretty sure the Installer automatically scans the disk, so you don't need to run Disk Utility.

3. There is no step 3.

4. Boot from the hard disk and run Software Update. This will get the combo updater automatically, so you don't have to download and install that separately (i.e. don't waste time!) as well as everything else you need.

5. If you really need a voodoo ritual to perform, you can run Repair Permissions at this point, although I wouldn't, since it is largely a waste of time. Running Repair Permissions at any point earlier to this is sheer futility.

In summary, the only things you really need to do are:

1. Install the OS.

2. Run Software Update.

Everything else is extraneous, unless you're having certain particular problems.

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by bergy:
It's not complicated at all ..

Apple has a lot more to say than you do about it ..

I know that article. Just because Apple explains how Archive & Install works doesn't mean they suggest it to do all the time. A regular update install over the old system is the normal thing to do.

For Autumn this means he can just pop in his Panther CD, click OK and it will update to Panther and all his files on disk are kept.

[bergy]

Other than the repair permissions controversy .. which I'm well aware of ... there's not much difference in your list ...

The "complete waste of time" suggestions might take a couple of minutes ... if you're so busy how do you find the time to rant about know nothings who repair permissions?

The benefits of an archive and install over an upgrade are well known however ...

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
After going back and reading his list... uh, yeah. Particularly, repairing permissions 27,394,657 times is completely unnecessary and a waste of time.

This should be in a sticky somewhere. Repairing permissions is so overrated as troubleshooting technique. That is not to say when permissions are incorrect, you won't have problems, far from it.

Also, we should have a sticky for how to reinstall an OS, or how to perform an upgrade. I think it would save a lot of newbies, and some greybeards time searching or creating new posts.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by bergy:
The "complete waste of time" suggestions might take a couple of minutes ... if you're so busy how do you find the time to rant about know nothings who repair permissions?

Read what he wrote again. It is a complete waste of time to continually keep repairing permissions.

CharlesS wasn't ranting, just providing good advice.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
I know that article. Just because Apple explains how Archive & Install works doesn't mean they suggest it to do all the time. A regular update install over the old system is the normal thing to do.

While this is true, at least Archive and Install provides some benefit over a regular install. For example, it archives your old system, so if you wanted to go back to Jaguar for whatever reason, you'd be able to by restoring the old system. And if there were any corrupted files before (there usually aren't in OS X, unlike OS 9 where the system could get buggered very easily), then A&I will definitely get rid of them. So at least there's something that Archive and Install does, unlike repairing permissions before every software update when Software Update runs as root, and doesn't $@#&ing care what the permissions are!

[jon l. dawson]

I'd like to add my vote that there be a sticky about repairing permissions. It's complete voodoo, absolutely unnecessary-especially when you are dealing with Apple installers and Apple updaters, and I wish every post where someone needs help, no matter what it is, you didn't have someone telling them to repair permissions.

Unless you can't access a file or an application is exhibiting a symptom of not being able to access a file, repairing permissions isn't going to help.

Some many of you have these obsessive compulsive 'PC-health' rituals and I really suggest you get help with that. How long until we start seeing suggestions that someone repair permissions and restart and repeat six times to be *sure* that they're really repaired and not just faking it?

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
While this is true, at least Archive and Install provides some benefit over a regular install.

Right, but I don't think it's right to scare new users with a 15 points list on how to update the system. A regular upgrade install is fine for most cases. When you think you messed a lot with your current system or think it runs flakey, than an Archive & Install is a good idea. Usually however I wouldn't expect any problems from upgrade installs (and that's what I always did � one can always do an Archive & Install if a problem arises).

This list with several times repairing permissions, and always doing an Archive & Install and downloading combo-updates only to install stuff a second time that's already on your disk is ridiculous.

You know, sometimes I believe some users even brake their system by overzealotious maintenance.

[jon l. dawson]

I think this is the funniest part:

6. Install Panther
7. Repair Permissions again from Disk Utility ... restart

Yes, fix the permissions before you even restart after doing the install. I don't even know what to say. If you can't trust Apple's own installer to set the permissions right, why do you trust the fix permissions script that they made?

[bergy]

Ha ... ha .. ha ..

You are all so brilliant ...perhaps you would like to read that link to the x lab and take it up with Dr. Smoke seeing as how you are on such a mission to "educate" us plebes ..

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
Right, but I don't think it's right to scare new users with a 15 points list on how to update the system. A regular upgrade install is fine for most cases. When you think you messed a lot with your current system or think it runs flakey, than an Archive & Install is a good idea. Usually however I wouldn't expect any problems from upgrade installs (and that's what I always did � one can always do an Archive & Install if a problem arises).

And on that point, I agree with you completely. It all goes back to the "Apple's Not That Stupid" principle:

If an Archive and Install were always necessary, the Installer would always do it by default.

If repairing permissions before and after every Software Update were necessary, Software Update would do it automatically.

If scanning the disk with Disk Utility before installing the OS were necessary, the Installer would do it automatically. Oh wait, it does.

If running prebinding (i.e. the Onyx step) before installing an update were necessary, the Installer would do it automatically.

If running prebinding after installing an update were necessary, the Installer would do it automatically. Oh wait, it does.

If it were necessary to run Repair Permissions five times, then it would just run five times when you clicked it once!

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by bergy:
Ha ... ha .. ha ..

You are all so brilliant ...perhaps you would like to read that link to the x lab and take it up with Dr. Smoke seeing as how you are on such a mission to "educate" us plebes ..

Well, there's something to be said for actually knowing what you're talking about rather than just trusting some crap you read on some web site and spouting it all the time without really understanding what permissions are for, what Repair Permissions actually does, what prebinding (Onyx) actually does, or how the Installer works, and then telling everyone to follow your misguided routine. The blind leading the blind.

Just who is "Dr. Smoke" anyway? And why should i trust him? Isn't basing your maintenance steps on actual knowledge a better idea?

It's a cargo cult. It's a voodoo ritual, that has no basis in reality.

The problem with the Mac community today is that many of us are OS 9 veterans. While that's not a bad thing (I'm an OS 9 veteran as well), the fact that OS X is new, based on UNIX, and potentially confusing under the hood has caused many not to research and try to learn the new system and its rules, but rather just to stay in the OS 9 mindset and come up with OS 9-like solutions without really understanding the new architecture. The result is not-so-helpful advice that's not really applicable anymore. For example:

1. In OS 9, the System file got corrupted all the time, due to everyone having write access to it and the fact that the thing tended to get modified quite often for whatever reason (don't believe me? Check the modification date on an OS 9 System file - it's probably later than the date you installed it). Part of this was due to the way it tended to store keyboard layouts and even system sounds in the System file! You could use the "Record" feature in OS 9's SimpleSound app or in the Sound control panel and record a new beep sound, and it would store it in the System file. You could also double-click the System file in the Finder to see what was inside it and it would bump the System file's modification date, even though you were just viewing! And there were a thousand other things that could cause the System file or some other important file in the System Folder to be modified, and hence things could get corrupted. Thus, doing a clean install was always a good idea in the classic Mac OS. However, in OS X, the permissions cause the system to be locked down much more tightly, and in general the installer will just delete existing files and overwrite them with clean, new ones instead of patching files (you know, to avoid BALEETING the beep sounds the user might have stored in the System file). So, this really is a different situation, although if you're thinking OS 9, then naturally you will advise everyone to always do an archive install. If you've got a corrupted system, you want to Archive and Install. If you're making a master system that you're going to image to a whole bunch of computers and which needs to be pristine, then yeah, you want an Archive and Install. But in the general case, it's not that important. It doesn't hurt either, though, and I do like it because I can revert to the old system if the new one isn't working out, so I won't necessarily say not to do it. But saying that you must always do it is over the top.

2. In OS 9, the Desktop file was getting written quite often as well, and it also became corrupted quite often, causing weird Finder problems such as icons not showing up correctly or documents not launching with the right application. Therefore, in OS 9, rebuilding the Desktop every so often wasn't a bad idea. So, users got used to rebuilding the desktop every so often, and in OS X, they naturally figured they needed to find a similar magical periodic troubleshooting step to run once a month or so. My guess to why Repair Permissions got checked is that it comes with the OS, it's easy to do, newbies have no idea what it does (not being familiar with permissions), and Repair Permissions sounds kind of similar to Rebuild Desktop since it's got two words, the first of which starts with "Re".

3. In the early OS X days, Bill Bumgarner wrote an app called "XOptimize", with the complete source code available. The app ran the update_prebinding process as root, as an example of how to execute tasks as root using the Security Framework. It wasn't intended to get run regularly by normal users (you can read about it here), but the community picked it up since the name "XOptimize" made it sound like it was fixing some magical thing in your system, and like rebuilding the Desktop, it was an easy one-click process that did its magic and then quit. Plus, it turned out that running the prebinding was at least marginally useful in 10.1 (although 10.2 made it completely unnecessary unless you had severely messed-up prebinding, in which case you'd know it because no apps would launch). So, prebinding became part of the voodoo ritual to run every so often and before you do anything important to the system (because updating the prebinding on binaries that you're just going to move out of the way and replace with brand new ones in an Archive and Install anyway makes so much sense!). I'll have to admit that I contributed to this problem by making updating the prebinding a prominent feature in Pacifist. It seemed like a good idea at the time - people liked to do it, and I had a prebinding function already because it's an Installer feature, so why not make it accessible? It made a selling point. But it contributed to the cargo cultism, and it's going to be in a much less prominent place in the next version.

The problem is that all these "maintenance steps" are not based on knowledge of OS X at all. They are based on knowledge of OS 9, and in some cases, on complete misinformation. This is why I object to these long 47,394-step procedures constantly being trumpeted by people without really understanding what the steps in their procedures actually do.

In summary, forget the old OS 9 troubleshooting steps. Embrace the stability and hassle-free nature of OS X which requires much less voodoo to run smoothly. We didn't go through all this transition for nothing!

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by jon l. dawson:
I think this is the funniest part:



Yes, fix the permissions before you even restart after doing the install. I don't even know what to say. If you can't trust Apple's own installer to set the permissions right, why do you trust the fix permissions script that they made?

Well, obviously he doesn't trust the fix permissions script that they made. That's why he has to run it so many times, just to be sure!!!

[bergy]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by CharlesS:
[B]Well, there's something to be said for actually knowing what you're talking about rather than just trusting some crap you read on some web site and spouting it all the time without really understanding what permissions are for, what Repair Permissions actually does, what prebinding (Onyx) actually does, or how the Installer works, and then telling everyone to follow your misguided routine. The blind leading the blind.
Just who is "Dr. Smoke" anyway? And why should i trust him? Isn't basing your maintenance steps on actual knowledge a better idea? (End Quote)

I admit I messed up on repairing the permissions before restart ... okay I'm chastened ..

No I don't actually "understand" what and how everything works ... just a fairly average user who tries to read things and act accordingly ...

If you read that link to the x-lab you'll find out quickly who Dr. Smoke is

As far as the permissions thing goes ... where do you think users get these ideas ...
Here's just a few places ...

Upgrading to Panther
http://www.macfixit.com/staticpages/...31110092240810

Macworlds Prevent Mac Disasters
(Scroll down to Repair Permissions)
http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/feat...ters/index.php

Apple Forums Permission Repair
http://discussions.info.apple.com/[email protected]

I'm not trying to state a case for or against .. just that there seem to be differing opinions amongst the experts and people get confused.