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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > macOS > Snow Leopard - I have the disc but should I upgrade?

View Poll Results: Should I upgrade?
Poll Options:
Yes! Go for it - my computer is likely a new machine with 10.6 10 votes (47.62%)
Yes! It's worth upgrading but nothing special... still some small bugs! 6 votes (28.57%)
No! Play it safe and wait for 10.6.2 or possibly after. 5 votes (23.81%)
No! Send the disc back... Snow Leopard is Apple's Vista! 0 votes (0%)
Voters: 21. You may not vote on this poll
Snow Leopard - I have the disc but should I upgrade?
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jfriel
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Oct 17, 2009, 06:01 AM
 
Hay all,

Like most Mac users I've been looking forward to OS X Snow Leopard since it was first announced in 2008. Since then I've bought a 3.06 24 inch iMac with 4gb Ram and 512 Nvidia graphics card (2008 model).

I was strong enough to hold of buying Snow Leopard for the first few weeks and I'm glad I did because I read that lots of people had problems ranging from hard disk errors, data loss, the computer going slow, or freezing or just crashing altogether - some even Snow Leopard as Apple's Vista (Frightening!). On the other hand I've read posts from lots of happy customers stating their computer is and some going as far to say after the upgrade their computer feels like a new machine.

On Thursday afternoon I went out on a limb and bought Snow Leopard from Amazon. The postman woke me just a few moments ago and gave me my eagerly awaited parcel.

Now I'm sitting in my room and I can't decide what I should do. I was hoping you kind people will tell me your experience of Snow Leopard and advise if I should wait until 10.6.2 is released? I've got some work to do now so I'll come back this afternoon to make up my mind....

For information: I mainly use my computer for Microsoft Office, Safari, iTunes, Spotify, watching films, Photoshop, X-Plane, Civilisation 4 and downloading etc.... Please note though that I still use a few applications that were designed for the old PowerPC chip - ie. Photoshop CS (before CS2) and Microsoft 2004. Will these applications stop working?

I look forward to receiving your comments.

Regards

Jon
     
CharlesS
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Oct 17, 2009, 06:16 AM
 
1. The Guest Account thing is a real issue, but as long as you don’t set up a guest account, Snow Leopard is a lot less buggy than Leopard was.

2. Your PPC apps will continue to work in Snow Leopard. It’ll prompt you to download and install Rosetta the first time you attempt to run one of them, but after that it’ll be no different from Leopard.

3. Snow Leopard is nifty and you should definitely install it.

Ticking sound coming from a .pkg package? Don't let the .bom go off! Inspect it first with Pacifist. Macworld - five mice!
     
freudling
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Oct 17, 2009, 08:43 AM
 
Snow Leopard is faster than Leopard and generally has been less buggy for me. I don't ever want to go back to Leopard.

Upgrade is highly recommended. It's the solidness of Tiger with all the features of Leopard and a new found speed.
     
QSilver
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Oct 17, 2009, 12:37 PM
 
Voted for wait for 10.6.2 or later...I have SL but I'm holding off.
     
EndlessMac
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Oct 17, 2009, 06:59 PM
 
You could always clone your current hard drive to and external and then upgrade. If you end up having problems you should be able to go back with everything the way it was. Doing it this way should take the risk out of upgrading to Snow Leopard.
     
CharlesS
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Oct 17, 2009, 07:56 PM
 
What “risk”? Other than the guest account thing, the major bug-related changes I’ve noticed in Snow Leopard have been bugs that have been fixed — such as the buggy NVidia drivers in Leopard that used to cause the GPU to glitch out and do stuff like this.

Ticking sound coming from a .pkg package? Don't let the .bom go off! Inspect it first with Pacifist. Macworld - five mice!
     
EndlessMac
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Oct 17, 2009, 09:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by CharlesS View Post
What “risk”?
It's more of the perceived risk that causes people like jfriel to hesitate. Simply stating there is no risk doesn't exactly ease their minds. If you give them a backup plan then they will be more wiling to try it.
     
freudling
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Oct 17, 2009, 10:10 PM
 
EndlessMac:

I understand what you mean by "risk". Like I mentioned though, my advice to anyone is that you can't miss with Snow Leopard.

Best OS X yet.
     
Simon
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Oct 17, 2009, 11:10 PM
 
Also, the clone costs next to nothing. Disks are cheap and Disk Utility's block copy cloning is very fast. You get additional/redundant backup security (assuming you're already using TM or something similar) for almost nothing. And if anything in SL turns out to not work for you, you'll be back in no time. Lots of pros, hardly any cost.
     
angelmb
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Oct 18, 2009, 04:47 AM
 
Main issue might be your printer, if you have any. You can check out the online database to see if your printer is currently supported and, if so, to what degree.
     
ghporter
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Oct 18, 2009, 10:11 AM
 
I've updated my 20" iMac and my 2006 MBP without much fuss. I had some font issues, but they were due to Microsoft Office, and they were pretty easy to clear up (and I learned a lot about managing fonts at the same time). The only reason I haven't updated my wife's pre-unibody MacBook is that I haven't had the time.

I should not that Snow Leopard seems to have fixed the issue my iMac had with taking up to a couple minutes to be able to access the network (wired or wireless). Now, it's more like a few seconds.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
CharlesS
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Oct 18, 2009, 02:43 PM
 
One thing to note is that even if you don’t clone your old system first, Leopard still supports Archive and Install, so in the unlikely event that you would want to go back to Leopard for some reason, you can do it easily and painlessly via an A&I.

Ticking sound coming from a .pkg package? Don't let the .bom go off! Inspect it first with Pacifist. Macworld - five mice!
     
pra9ab0y
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Oct 18, 2009, 07:55 PM
 
Same issue here. What to do. I only have 1 system that is my whole income! I have the disc but not installed it yet.

I have all of the pro software ranging from Adobe to FInal Cut, all legit and knocking around on disks to re-install if I upgrade.

Is it worth wiping the mac and doing a clean install or will an upgrade allow me to use all of my currently installed apps. Currently on 10.5.8

I noticed when going from 10.4 to 10.5 I tried to upgrade but had so many issues I ended up having to do a clean install and start over, thats kinda what's holding me back!
     
Cold Warrior
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Oct 18, 2009, 08:24 PM
 
If that's your livelihood then you need to upgrade in a very protected way -- use an external drive, clone your drive to it, then upgrade that one. Now you can boot your Mac from it and test out all of your programs, peripherals and workflows. If nothing works the way it should and there aren't any workarounds or fixes, then you can easily return to booting from your internal drive that is running 10.5.8.
     
tntracy
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Oct 18, 2009, 08:51 PM
 
FWIW, I upgraded my MBP (2.16 GHz Core Duo, 2 GB RAM) the day SL was released, and have had zero problems. I also experienced a definite, although not dramatic, performance boost...

Tom
     
pra9ab0y
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Oct 19, 2009, 08:29 AM
 
So most would say its worth it but ensure everything is backed up before doing so "just in case"?
     
Simon
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Oct 19, 2009, 10:50 AM
 
It appears that's the consensus. SL seems to be a stable and well performing upgrade. Having an extra backup costs only little, but gives you extra flexibility and security.
     
Chuckit
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Oct 19, 2009, 11:51 AM
 
Originally Posted by pra9ab0y View Post
So most would say its worth it but ensure everything is backed up before doing so "just in case"?
Make sure everything is backed up — period. Whether or not you plan to install Snow Leopard. Without a backup, no data on any computer is ever safe. Asking whether you should back up before installing Snow Leopard is like having your daughter dangling by a thin old rope over a busy freeway and wondering if you should take her down before you repave.
Chuck
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pra9ab0y
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Oct 19, 2009, 06:02 PM
 
Sorry! I meant as in program updates and all that blah! I don't particularly want to wipe my system completely if the update goes wrong.

Of course I have everything backed up! Not that stupid not too! Actually trying to set up a raid as I type to sort my backup life out!
     
CharlesS
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Oct 19, 2009, 08:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by pra9ab0y View Post
Sorry! I meant as in program updates and all that blah! I don't particularly want to wipe my system completely if the update goes wrong.
You don’t have to. That’s what Archive and Install is for.

Ticking sound coming from a .pkg package? Don't let the .bom go off! Inspect it first with Pacifist. Macworld - five mice!
     
jay3ld
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Oct 19, 2009, 10:16 PM
 
I have had little issues with my copy of snow leopard. I have heard of the issues, but none of these have affected me.
The only thing that bothers me is a issue in some software I compile (php) and it has a bug that apple caused preventing it from installing correctly (It is apples fault and apple did fix it in their sources I heard).
I understand the 64 bit, but I wish Apple would get iTunes and a few other components it runs to have 64 bit support. It is just nice to see very few applications actually still using 32 bit on my system nowdays
You shouldn't make fun of nerds... you'll be working for one some day.
     
JKT
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Oct 20, 2009, 03:24 PM
 
If you use your Apple Remote for anything other than Front Row and other Apple apps, don't update. EyeTV and VLC exhibit odd behaviour with the remote when running full screen and its stopping me from upgrading another Mac and making me regret upgrading this one.

EyeTV Lounge • View topic - Apple Remote Issue with 10.6
     
pra9ab0y
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Oct 20, 2009, 05:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by CharlesS View Post
You don’t have to. That’s what Archive and Install is for.
Last time I tried that it broke completely going from 10.4 to 10.5! Hence the whole spending a whole day re-installing everything and being speculative about it now!!

How much will I notice a speed difference on an early 2008 macbook pro?
     
TheoCryst
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Oct 20, 2009, 07:53 PM
 
Doooo it. All the cool kids are doing it. I've been running it since the day before launch day, and it's a sexy sexy beast. I can't speak for Adobe, but Microsoft just extended support for Office 2004, so it should be just fine.

Plus, it's MOAR FASTER! I noticed a real difference on my late '08 Unibody MBP, and am getting ready to finally upgrade my work machine.

Any ramblings are entirely my own, and do not represent those of my employers, coworkers, friends, or species
     
ghporter
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Oct 20, 2009, 09:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by pra9ab0y View Post
How much will I notice a speed difference on an early 2008 macbook pro?
Everything is noticeably "snappier" on my 2006 MBP, though I didn't think to benchmark anything for a before/after comparison. I did notice that I needed to calibrate my (original) battery again, but that may have nothing at all to do with the OS.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
osiris
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Oct 21, 2009, 02:50 PM
 
I'd do the upgrade. I installed SL on a Xeon dual quad - this machine with this OS is the fastest I've ever experienced. I'm quite pleased.

I did notice that SL consumes more memory, after about two weeks of uptime my 8GB of RAM is down to 1GB. Logging out or doing a sudo periodic d/w/m does nothing to reclaim it. Rebooting does, of course.
"Faster, faster! 'Till the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." - HST
     
Simon
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Oct 21, 2009, 03:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by osiris View Post
I did notice that SL consumes more memory, after about two weeks of uptime my 8GB of RAM is down to 1GB. Logging out or doing a sudo periodic d/w/m does nothing to reclaim it. Rebooting does, of course.
What do mean by 1GB? Free RAM? Free RAM is wasted RAM. Ideally you'd want no free RAM at all.
     
osiris
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Oct 21, 2009, 03:53 PM
 
Originally Posted by Simon View Post
What do mean by 1GB? Free RAM? Free RAM is wasted RAM. Ideally you'd want no free RAM at all.
If you're editing a large photoshop doc with many layers (or any other RAM hungry app) you want that free RAM available to you, otherwise the system has to free up the memory by paging.
"Faster, faster! 'Till the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." - HST
     
Simon
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Oct 22, 2009, 12:23 PM
 
Yes, but there you go. What you're after is minimizing paging, not maximizing free RAM. Once you're PS document been loaded into RAM there might not be any free RAM left, but that's actually a good thing in this case.
     
pra9ab0y
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Oct 24, 2009, 07:46 AM
 
Going to do it this afternoon! Got everything backed up. All the software discs ready just in case! Wish me luck... lol
     
pra9ab0y
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Oct 24, 2009, 05:43 PM
 
Done it. Caused problems! All my programs now have the open for the first time dialouge. And my plugins for photoshop such as the nik filters have got the command text instead of the user text.

For example instead of saying preview it says @commonCtrl.PreviewControlPanel.Preview.Label so my filters box now doesn't fit in my screen!
     
CharlesS
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Oct 25, 2009, 02:47 AM
 
Make a new user account, and see if the same thing happens there. If not, it’s just a home folder issue (which is what would be my guess).

Ticking sound coming from a .pkg package? Don't let the .bom go off! Inspect it first with Pacifist. Macworld - five mice!
     
   
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