upgrading from OS8.6

[brianh]

I have a version b iMac w/96mb of ram. I am going to get a usb 30gig hd. How do I partition the new drive and can I start-up using the usb hd w/OSX installed on it?

Also, will I have to upgrade to OS 9 before using OS X?
I am not all that impressed w/9 but do like what I have seen in X.

I hope these ?'s aren't too stupid, this is first adventure into Macland.

[scruffy]

I really don't know about booting off usb devices. It sounds unlikely to me, since you would probably need to boot to get usb drivers running. I could be mistaken there

As of PB you do need to upgrade to OS 9 if you want to run classic Mac OS apps at the same time as OS X apps. If you ar willing to boot between the two, you don't need to upgrade. Somewhere around here it was suggested that Apple would likely include OS 9.1 with OS X when it ships, can't remember which discussion it was though.

I agree with you that OS 9 isn't really worth the bother. My feeling is that Apple only called it by its own version number so as to avoid skipping a number - if they hadn't announced a year or two ago that the big deal Unix MacOS would be called OS X, then "OS 9" would have been released as 8.7 or something. It's a Steve Jobs sort of thing to do, you must admit.

[zpincus]

I believe that you can only install OS X PB on an IDE internal HD in the master configuration. No "slave" drive, no SCSI, no firewire, no USB.
I assume that that will change as of X 1.0.

As far as upgrading to 9, having the classic environment is pretty nice. It doesn't work all that great, but it works well enough for now. That's a pretty good reason to upgrade, but if Apple will really be including 9.1 with X 1.0, there's a good fiscal reason to hold off.

In addition, scruffy is right in that 9 is mostly a maintenance release of 8.6, and 9.1 will be a maintenance release of 9. That said, however, 9.1 will be a very nice OS in its own right. It is the last Apple OS many systems will ever see, and it is going to be the most refined, worked over (if aging) OS that we'll see in a while. (While utterly cool, I don't think X will be totally refined until a 2.0 or XI or whatever comes out. I hope to be surprised, though.)

Anyway, 9.1 is said to be much faster than 9, and have a lot of nice little productivity features and the last of the rough edges sanded off. So in addition ot being a great OS to run classic from, all indications are that 9.1 will be a very good primary OS.

Zach

[brianh]

Thanks, for the replies. It sounds as though I might just wait until X is released in a few months. OS 8.6 has been working just fine for the last couple years. My only complaint with it is that I do have crashes but that will happens with IE (type 2 error).

Thanks again,
Brian