# Official Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Thread & FAQ



## fryke (Aug 14, 2009)

*Mac OS X 10.6 Installation FAQ*

_Please read the FAQ carefully. If you have supplemental questions or have answers to other questions, add them in the thread and ask me to include them. (No PMs necessary!)_

*Does my Mac support Snow Leopard?*
This one is really simple to answer. Any intel Mac with at least 1 GB of RAM supports Snow Leopard. There are no workarounds and no exceptions.

*Which version do I need?*
It depends on what you have now. If you're running Tiger, you'll require the Mac Box Set (169 USD), if you're running Leopard, the Retail version of Snow Leopard (29 USD) will do. You can simply upgrade, or (via Disk Utility from the menubar within the installer) clean install. _(There are also more expensive family packs for up to 5 computers in the same household.)_

*Will my Mac run the full 64-bit experience?*
You shouldn't care. You really shouldn't. Anything but an Xserve will boot into the 32-bit kernel (and extensions) per default, and switching to the 64-bit kernel (and extensions) has no real user benefits, which is the reason that Apple didn't choose it as the default on supported machines. There are lists on the internet about which machines theoretically can boot into the 64-bit kernel, but best simply ignore those. Even with 32-bit kernel and extensions, a 64-bit processor (any intel Mac that's not a Core Solo or Core Duo, i.e. the Xeons and the Core2Duo processors) in Leopard and Snow Leopard can still run 64-bit software in its full glory.

*Will XY (PowerPC application) still work?*
Rosetta (Apple's PowerPC-to-intel translation engine) is included with Snow Leopard, but not installed per default. Should an application require it, a message appears telling you about it. The Mac will then get Rosetta through Software Update, install it and the application should run fine.

* Will YZ (any application) still work?*
There's a list on the internet that is continually expanded, showing you whether a specific app or tool is running okay on Snow Leopard. If the application in question is not on that list, best look up the developer of the software. There might be a newer version that works on Snow Leopard, or there might be information about whether (or when) an update will become available for compatibility with Snow Leopard.

*Is 10A432 really the Golden Master? It's buggy!*
It is the Golden Master, i.e. the final version, i.e. the very same thing as will be on the Snow Leopard discs. And it's not buggy at all. Some people consider the missing 64-bit kernel as the default a bug, but it's not. Some say Quicktime X is missing preferences, but since there's nothing to be set, there are no settings needed. So that isn't buggy either. As with all "final" software, there are always some bugs still to be found, and Apple will probably fix them with 10.6.1 in about a month, or with 10.6.2 a couple of weeks (or months) later. And Apple will continue to fix bugs until they take Snow Leopard off the shelves. And then they'll still release security updates through Software Update.

*I have a Quicktime 7 Pro license. What happens to it when I upgrade to 10.6?*
Nothing. You'll have both Quicktime X and Quicktime 7 Pro in Snow Leopard. Quicktime X is a nice free player which also allows you to trim and export. You'll still be able to use all the pro features of Quicktime 7 Pro for which you've paid for. However, there won't be anymore "Pro" version enhancements in the future, as it seems. Those days are gone...

*Should I wait for 10.6.1 before installing?*
Some people will say yes (or even wait for 10.6.2 or 10.6.3 or whatever is going to be the next version that will be released on DVD), some will say no. I haven't met a single real bug (only a translation glitch or two, but I've already forgotten about them again). But then again: Take _any_ user comment with a grain of salt. I haven't tested upgrading _your_ machine and software to Snow Leopard. I can only tell you about _my_ experience with the new operating system. If your current setup works just fine, it probably won't hurt to wait and see what other people say.

---

(The following is my original first post in this thread, I've added the FAQ later.)

---

There's a lot of information flying around about the latest seeded developer build 10A432. Many, many people are calling it the "GM build", which would mean it's the build that's going to be released on DVD.

Additionally, rumours pinpoint a release date around 2009-08-28 now, which would be _ahead_ of the anticipated September release. This part makes sense if 10A432 is indeed the GM build, because it contains iTunes 8.2.1, and iTunes 9 is expected to be released in early September. (Wouldn't make much sense to release Snow Leopard with iTunes 8 if it was released _after_ iTunes 9, now, would it...)

I'm currently using the build on my MacBook Air and am about to plunge into it on my iMac as well. The few seeds before this one felt as final as I needed them to get, but then I'm not the haxie-installing, oldest-software using guy out there, so my chances of getting burned by the new system are a tad more limited.

There seems to be much confusion about which machines will get full 64-bit support and which machines won't. Just so you know: None of my machines has full 64-bit support in Snow Leopard, i.e. they're running a 32-bit kernel and 32-bit extensions. They can still run 64-bit applications, though.

15" and 17" MacBook Pros are apparently running 64-bit two generations back, but even the newest 13" MacBook Pros have to make do with the 32-bit kernel. According to all my information, that's not _really_ something the general user should concern him-/herself with, but still, it sounds like there'll be a few "foul" cries and quite probably a massive-multiplayer-lawsuit from owners of the first generation Mac Pro, dubbed "64-bit workstation" by Apple, that won't run the 64-bit kernel and extensions.

Any more news, rumours, ideas, questions?


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## fryke (Aug 14, 2009)

I just installed BootCamp 3.0 on my Windows 7 partition, and have tested the HFS+ support for the first time. Reading some Quicktime files from both my system volume (Mac OS X) and an external HFS+ drive worked just fine. I'm still hesitating to _write_ stuff to Mac OS X drives in Windows, but I guess I'll try it sometime... On a memory stick or something, so I don't lose important files.


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## Captain Code (Aug 14, 2009)

That seems odd that a 64 bit Core 2 Duo laptop won't run the 64 bit kernel.  I wonder what the reason for that is.


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## macbri (Aug 14, 2009)

fryke said:


> Just so you know: None of my machines has full 64-bit support in Snow Leopard, i.e. they're running a 32-bit kernel and 32-bit extensions. They can still run 64-bit applications, though.



Hey Fryke -  Can you comment on what version of Python is included, and whether _*it*_ is 64-bit?


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## fryke (Aug 15, 2009)

Python 2.6.1, intel (64-Bit)


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## chevy (Aug 15, 2009)

I see that your MacBook nano is not yet running 10.6.


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## fryke (Aug 15, 2009)

Yes, and it won't be for a little while. I've gone back to using my MacBook Air for most of my writing purposes as of now. But I'm sure I'll get around to updating it nicely (or re-installing).

Btw.: I used "upgrade" as the method for all of my Macs. I always test this first, until serious problems arise, but none have so far. Interesting, I find. Performance, overall, is up, I think.


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## chevy (Aug 15, 2009)

Upgrade is reliable. Good news. I just ordered the upgrade DVD. We'll see when I receive it.


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## Doctor X (Aug 15, 2009)

--J.D.

P.S. I have normally waited about a year or two for "upgrades" just to see that the "bugs" get worked out.  Worked for *X* initially.  Also, I could get the OS cheaper--from reputable Mac Dealers--when I am an "OS behind."

But . . . now . . . I am tempted.  

So will it be faster?  I heard rumors--from a Mac Guru who is an idiot in many ways--that it will "sap your processor" and may even "let the terrorists win!"  Will it be better?  Will all of my 10.5.8 programs run on it?  Will it make me popular?  How is it on acne and halitosis?

And I have this rash. . . .
--J.D.


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## Doctor X (Aug 15, 2009)

chevy said:


> I just ordered the upgrade DVD.



How did you order it?

I put my name on the e-mail alert for when it is available.  Is that it?

--J.D.


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## fryke (Aug 16, 2009)

I guess he either meant through amazon or via the Apple up-to-date program for when you've bought a Mac recently. He's bought an MBP 13", so I guess it's the latter.

About whether to upgrade at 10.6.0 or 10.6.5 (or something):

I have Adobe CS3 and CS4 running fine, Office 2008 running fine. I haven't encountered a real incompatibility yet other than iStat menus, which probably will be updated once it's actually released.

But I _have_ to say: If you're planning on installing in a production environment and rely on that machine, you'll probably want to listen to problems in the first week of its release at least. I can only voice my experience on three machines so far (two of which handle very basic tasks that don't offer much incompatibility-issues, my MacBook Air is for TextEdit, my Mac mini is for running VLC, iTunes and Quicktime), and the experience has been only _good_. I've had Flash Player Plugin crash in Safari one time (and one time only!) and it didn't bring Safari down. Just showed me a message about it that I could click away. (Obviously, the Flash content on the page I was on did get removed from the layout and I had to reload the page.)

In my opinion, there is exactly _one_ straight way of going to Snow Leopard from Leopard that is safe:

*1.) Make sure you have an up-to-date Time Machine backup or clone (via CCC for example) of your 10.5.x installation.

2.) Disconnect the harddrive your backup is on.

3.) On the 10.5 desktop, pop in the 10.6 disk and start the installer. Choose upgrade if asked (it's the default, anyway) and customize it, so you can deselect stuff you don't really require. (And admire what they've done to the printer driver installation. It defaults to installing printers you've previously used and printers available on the network.)

4.) Start working on your upgraded Mac and look for _any_ problems. If problems crop up that seem like they stem from the upgrade process, you can now do a clean install and move stuff back from the backup later and safely, or you can try the upgrade process again by clean installing using your Time Machine or clone backup.*

For me, it's been the cleanest upgrade I've ever seen on a Mac OS X release. In the past, there have been a lot more incompatibilities with smaller utilities and larger applications. Granted, Apple themselves call Snow Leopard "Leopard Refined.", so it might seem like a "smaller" upgrade of some kind, but actually, they're just saying it's not about large user-seeable features. Under the hood, Snow Leopard is as big an upgrade as any of the past.


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## Doctor X (Aug 16, 2009)

No, that is helpful.

I mainly surf and write papers.  I am willing to wait, of course, for the responses.  It just seems that what I can glean from discussions HERE and on other pages that the responses to those testing it have been good.

--J.D.


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## chevy (Aug 16, 2009)

Here my friend: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?partNumber=MC204Z/A&authenticate=entitle

Or, for a smoother approach: http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/


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## fryke (Aug 16, 2009)

Of course you have to use your country's Apple site. The American store or uptodate page wouldn't work for Switzerland, for example. But for the uptodate-page you'd just add "/chde" or "/chfr" (for Switzerland) after "www.apple.com". -> http://www.apple.com/chde/macosx/uptodate/ for the Swiss German page for example.


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## chevy (Aug 16, 2009)

Back to 10.6, I hope it will help making the AppleTV green with this new technology:
http://www.apple.com/environment/energyefficiency/

i hate my AppleTV being a heater during the whole summer !


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## Doctor X (Aug 16, 2009)

Unfortunately, I bought my computer before 2009.






--J.D.


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## fryke (Aug 16, 2009)

I sold my AppleTV and put an older Mac mini (see sig) there. While I had certainly enjoyed the AppleTV for a while (and for its simplicity), the Mac mini does much of the same but more. Its sleep-mode seems to be much more efficient than the always-on, always-hot AppleTV. I believe the next _hardware_ version of the AppleTV will at least have a power button, so they can simply add a "shutdown" menu item. But of course a real sleep mode would basically be enough. (But really: This has _nothing_ to do with 10.6, chevy...)


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## chevy (Aug 16, 2009)

Unless the AppleTV next rev of the SW is moved to 10.6 (it is 10.4 today as far as I know). The 10.6 being much smaller than 10.5, it would make sense.


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## fryke (Aug 16, 2009)

I fear the current hardware simply doesn't support a deep-sleep mode. 10.4 already _had_ support for other machines to sleep correctly (like, for example, every intel Mac, but PPC notebooks as well), so it's not simply a system software issue. It's either a design decision (we don't _want_ AppleTV to ever go into a deep sleep state, because maybe it crashes or something) or a hardware problem. Since Apple is not currently making much money off of AppleTV, apparently, Apple hasn't updated the hardware much yet. (Only had the harddrive upgrade to 160 GB.)

Oh, and I doubt AppleTV contains PPC code in its version of 10.4, so I doubt moving to 10.6 codebase would make it _that_ much smaller (if it doesn't even grow bigger).


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 16, 2009)

fryke said:


> Btw.: I used "upgrade" as the method for all of my Macs. I always test this first, until serious problems arise, but none have so far. Interesting, I find. Performance, overall, is up, I think.



One of the touted features of Snow Leopard is the smaller footprint it uses on your hard drive -- there are reports that it can save you around 6GB.

When using an upgrade install, did you notice any space freed on your hard drive?  I would think that it would replace the universal binary versions of many Apple apps with Intel-only binaries, and that would definitely save space... just wondering if the upgrade install saves you the same amount of space that a clean install would (not that I'm hard up for space now that WD 1TB Elements drives are under $90 now and I've got 5 of them!).


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## fryke (Aug 16, 2009)

Before installing anything, Snow Leopard's installer does indeed remove the PPC code from all universal binaries it finds receipts from. It's a bit scary to look at the full logfile during installation, when you read "reaping Mac OS X" or something like that.  ... But yes, the installer does this touted feature. However, it's a tad difficult to say how much space actually was saved (unless the logfile states it, I haven't checked), because one MORE IMPORTANT Snow Leopard feature steps in, as soon as you're booted into it: Mac OS X now shows gigabytes instead of gibibytes, i.e. my 320 GB harddrive now shows up as a 320.07 GB harddrive, and not something like 287 GB or similar.


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## Satcomer (Aug 16, 2009)

fryke said:


> I sold my AppleTV and put an older Mac mini (see sig) there.



I saw a ScreenCastOnline using a Mac Mini and using the Plex application. It might be something you might would want to use.


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## Doctor X (Aug 16, 2009)

fryke said:


> Before installing anything, Snow Leopard's installer does indeed remove the PPC code from all universal binaries it finds. . . .



Will that kill my Palm Pilot?  
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





--J.D.

P.S. It appears the Palm Pilot is PPC based programs.  The Intel happily runs them.  If it only removes the PPC from binaries, I gather that will be fine.


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## fryke (Aug 17, 2009)

Only UBs with receipts. I gather Palm's Desktop app is neither a UB nor a package installer that delivers a receipt, no? I could be wrong about how Apple's installer handles this, but I think it'll be safe. Don't use Palm's Desktop app myself, though.


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## Doctor X (Aug 17, 2009)

"UBs with receipts."

Er . . . what is that? 



I mean, obviously, I can clone everything, upgrade, try it out, if things do not work, I can go back.

--J.D.


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## fryke (Aug 17, 2009)

UBs = Universal Binaries that contain both PPC and intel code. (So the installer can strip the app of its PPC code.)

Receipts = Small files or rather packages that contain a list of what was installed where. If you, say, install the OS, its receipt contains all the files and apps and drivers etc. and where they were put, along with their correct permission settings. (Disk Utility uses the receipt for repairing permissions.)


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## Doctor X (Aug 17, 2009)

Okay . . . so if I happen to have a PPC program--which my Intel Mac can read--under *Startup Items* it is listed as PPC--it will not be remov'd, expung'd, destroy'd?

You may have to type more slowly for me. . . .

--J.D.


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## fryke (Aug 17, 2009)

Your assumption is correct: I have to type more slowly for you.  ... No, I mean: You're correct, a PPC-only application won't be removed. At the upgrade process, check in "customize" that Rosetta is installed. (It's the interpreter for PPC apps.)


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## Doctor X (Aug 17, 2009)

Thanks!  Will do that!

So now all I have to do it hit the "pre-order" on Amazon and wait: 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




--J.D.


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## Captain Code (Aug 19, 2009)

This might be the way to enable the 64 bit kernel

To try to boot x86_64 kernel on Macintosh,  edit this file:
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist
find there:
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string></string>
and change it to
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>arch=x86_64</string>

But it might break all your 32 bit drivers so don't expect it to be smooth after


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## chevy (Aug 19, 2009)

Satcomer said:


> I saw a ScreenCastOnline using a Mac Mini and using the Plex application. It might be something you might would want to use.



I bought this one... but it was not very good for the stability of my Mac. I stopped using it and re-installed several softwares (Mail, Office,...).


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## fryke (Aug 19, 2009)

Captain Code: That won't work on unsupported hardware AFAIK. It only changes default behaviour of _supported_ hardware, i.e. Core2Duo Santa Rosa platform or better. But I think anyone with 4 GB RAM or lower shouldn't care _anyway_. And you still get 64bit applications with 64bit processors, even if the kernel and extensions are run in 32bit. It simply isn't something worth bothering too much about. Sure, in one or two generations all the Macs will simply use 64bit kernels, extensions and apps, but that'll come automatically. Just trust Apple on this one.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 20, 2009)

True that -- there are a significant number of people saying, "But Apple SAID it would be 64-bit and my kernel isn't 64-bit in Snow Leopard!"

I wonder how many of those people are going to be detrimentally impacted by that fact, and how many of those are simply complaining about semantics, not even knowing what the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit is really.

_"You mean this Ferrari only has a top speed of 160mph?  But the advertisement said 170!"_
...as if there were a place in the USA where that speed could actually be attained... :/


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## fryke (Aug 20, 2009)

Please don't bring cars into this, or someone will say 32bit is like 4 cylinders and 64bit is like 8 cylinders and the discussion will be too far off within 2 or 3 comments!


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 20, 2009)

I was going to say two-wheel drive vs. four-wheel drive... or manual vs. automatic... or sunroof vs. moonroof...

Oh, fryke, you killed my buzz...   Hehe...

Seriously, I really believe that some of the "detractors" learning that Snow Leopard may not, in fact, run in full 64-bit glory are simply haggling over specs that have little-to-no bearing on their operating system in the first place.

We haven't heard any negative comments from Wolfram or Mathematica; arguably the most "64-bitted" of any of the applications offered on Mac OS X, so that leads me to believe that they're just complaining to complain.


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## fryke (Aug 20, 2009)

I've laser-engraved "64-bit workstation" on my MacBook Air.  (No, I haven't actually done that.)


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 20, 2009)

I figure since my MacBook will be running a 32-bit kernel but be able to run 64-bit apps that I'm going to laser-engrave it "48-bit workstation."  :O


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## fryke (Aug 21, 2009)

Actually, it'll be a 32-bit PLUS 64-bit workstation, so that's a 96-bit workstation then.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 21, 2009)

Oh, schnap!


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## chevy (Aug 24, 2009)

Ships August 28th, confirmed. http://www.apple.com/macosx/


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## Doctor X (Aug 24, 2009)

--J.D.


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## icemanjc (Aug 24, 2009)

Already ordered the "Upgrade." I find it rather annoying though that they do not provide a full installation disc that is not with Mac Box Set.


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## nixgeek (Aug 24, 2009)

I had e-mailed fryke about this, but I thought I would post it here as well.  I was thinking about preordering Snow Leopard for $29.  However, I notice that Apple is calling this offer an "upgrade" for Leopard users.  Now, I know the word "upgrade" has a tendency to be used VERY loosely when it comes to software, so I thought I would ask the following.  Is one *required* to have Leopard in order to take advantage of SL for the $29 offer?  Would I be able to purchase SL for $29 and install it on an Intel Mac with Tiger?  Could I do a full installation with it as opposed to just upgrading a previous version?

I know that Apple is recommending the Box Set for those without Leopard, but what if all I want is Snow Leopard without the iLife/iWork suite?

Thanks guys. 

EDIT: Just saw icemanjc's post which sort of answers my question.


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## icemanjc (Aug 24, 2009)

nixgeek said:


> I had e-mailed fryke about this, but I thought I would post it here as well.  I was thinking about preordering Snow Leopard for $29.  However, I notice that Apple is calling this offer an "upgrade" for Leopard users.  Now, I know the word "upgrade" has a tendency to be used VERY loosely when it comes to software, so I thought I would ask the following.  Is one *required* to have Leopard in order to take advantage of SL for the $29 offer?  Would I be able to purchase SL for $29 and install it on an Intel Mac with Tiger?  Could I do a full installation with it as opposed to just upgrading a previous version?



I too checked this upgrade option out thoroughly and just as I had figured, under System Requirement Mac OS 10.5 Leopard is listed.

What I don't understand is supposedly Snow Leopard was supposed to clear up a lot of the clutter in 10.5 that is caused by now useless PowerPC stuff. How do they plan to do this if they are just installing on top of something that is already cluttered...?


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## Doctor X (Aug 24, 2009)

I guess they . . . remove it? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 I think *Fryke* alluded to that, and I asked him if that would mean the removal of some PPC programs that work on Intel.

--J.D.


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## nixgeek (Aug 24, 2009)

icemanjc said:


> I too checked this upgrade option out thoroughly and just as I had figured, under System Requirement Mac OS 10.5 Leopard is listed.
> 
> What I don't understand is supposedly Snow Leopard was supposed to clear up a lot of the clutter in 10.5 that is caused by now useless PowerPC stuff. How do they plan to do this if they are just installing on top of something that is already cluttered...?



Well, the SL installation will probably do a clean up of older files and replace them with newer files, all the while removing excess PPC code.  I gather that it would still have the necessary files but would check for an existing Leopard installation.


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## fryke (Aug 25, 2009)

There are a lot of UB applications and extensions (and the kernel) in Leopard. They contain a PPC and an intel part. The new versions come only with the intel part. This certainly makes them smaller. I guess I've said it on the first page of this thread in answer to Doctor X, as he said.


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## chevy (Aug 25, 2009)

I am wondering if the name "UPGRADE" is not here for a completely different reason.

It may be to indicate that Apple does not sell full versions of the software without hardware ! It may prevent rights issues with companies who want to start hackintosh business.


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## fryke (Aug 25, 2009)

Well then they'll get the Mac Box Set instead which doesn't say upgrade. (And then they can even advertise selling their Hacks with iLife and iWork preinstalled...)


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## Satcomer (Aug 25, 2009)

Well we all know how your applications drive your computing life. So make sure your important applications are compatible read the site Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Compatibility List and contribute to it.


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## Doctor X (Aug 25, 2009)

"Internal Server Error"

--J.D.


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## fryke (Aug 26, 2009)

Just a little wrap-up on the day that it became clear that the final build of Mac OS X 10.6 is 10A432, the version that has last been tested by developers:

1.) You can either upgrade from Leopard (with the 29$ retail disc or the 9.95$ up-to-date disc) or Tiger (with the Mac Box Set) or clean install using Disk Utility when started from the disc. All of this only works on intel Macs, but works on _all_ intel Macs.

2.) Unless you've got an Xserve, your Mac will boot the 32-bit kernel per default. Some - but not all - newer machines allow booting the 64-bit kernel, but as a general rule: You shouldn't care. If you ask yourself whether the 64-bit kernel would do any good for you, it won't.

3.) Rosetta can be installed directly from the 10.6 installer, but if you forget to install it and have an application that requires it, Software Update will download and install Rosetta for you without rebooting. You just have to start the application again yourself after Software Update finishes installing Rosetta.

4.) Quicktime X has no preferences. There basically *are no settings*! You can, however, install Quicktime 7 from within the 10.6 installer. This application still has preferences and you can add your Quicktime 7 Pro code from within the Quicktime 7 Player and have its features in 10.6.

5.) Some reports claim that the 29$ "Upgrade Disc" actually is a full disc, meaning that you don't have to have Leopard installed at installation time, and it also won't ask you for your Leopard disc. However this disc, according to the reports, does _not_ allow you to upgrade from Tiger. So there _is_ a difference between the discs. The "Upgrade Disc" allows clean installs and updates from Leopard, the Mac Box set behaves just like Leopard Retail did and lets you upgrade from Tiger and Leopard and also allows for clean installs.


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## Doctor X (Aug 26, 2009)

I am assuming the MacBox set costs more?

Which it does.  Answered my own stupid question.

--J.D.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 26, 2009)

So... about number 5... I have Leopard installed, so I should be able to boot my Snow Leopard disk on Friday and perform a clean install.  No problem-o, that's what I was hoping for.

Let's say, somewhere down the line, that I wipe out my internal hard drive with a clean partition/format.  In order to install Snow Leopard again, I would have to first clean install Leopard, then clean install Snow Leopard, correct?

What I'm getting as is that I can't use the Snow Leopard upgrade disk to perform a clean install without first having Leopard on the drive... correct assumption?


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## Satcomer (Aug 26, 2009)

ElDiabloConCaca said:


> What I'm getting as is that I can't use the Snow Leopard upgrade disk to perform a clean install without first having Leopard on the drive... correct assumption?



That is why they are called "Upgrade Disks". This is why I am waiting for the full US $129  version this time around. I am saying this as a Beta tester (I think it safe to say now) there will be a lot of bell aching coming this Friday. 

Unless the program was written for 10.5 only you are 90% assured that the program will not run! That is almost across the board! Third party developers will have to be releasing like bandits come this weekend. That is why I am waiting this time and skipping the bleeding edge.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 26, 2009)

Satcomer said:


> That is why they are called "Upgrade Disks".


I understand this perfectly.  I was wondering this because Snow Leopard could have taken the direction of, say, Adobe in the sense that you needn't have Leopard installed to upgrade -- you can perform a clean installation, and at some point, you'd be asked to insert your Leopard DVD to verify that you are eligible to perform a clean install.



> This is why I am waiting for the full US $129  version this time around. I am saying this as a Beta tester (I think it safe to say now) there will be a lot of bell aching coming this Friday.


I think you're going to be waiting for a very long time.  I don't think there's going to be a $129 Snow Leopard-only version -- I think the Box Set is the full version, and Apple is transitioning to including iLife with OS X now.

Just a guess.



> Unless the program was written for 10.5 only you are 90% assured that the program will not run! That is almost across the board! Third party developers will have to be releasing like bandits come this weekend. That is why I am waiting this time and skipping the bleeding edge.


Why would this be?  Adobe CS4 runs fine under 10.4 and 10.5, and runs just fine under the developer seeds of 10.6 as well.

The latest version of Panic's Transmit runs on systems as far back as 10.3.9 and runs fine on 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6 as well.

10.6 is not a huge leap in architecture like 10.4 to 10.5 was.  Granted, there are many changes and improvements under the hood, but most developers will find that their programs that run under 10.5 will run under 10.6 as well.

Unless the developer is using 10.5-specific hacks or some underlying hooks into the system that have changed (which not many, but some, have), then their apps should be good to go.  A simple Google search for "10.6 compatibility list" yields many results and on each of those lists, the majority of apps listed are "OK" for 10.6.  That tells me that 90% of current apps WILL run under 10.6, not 90% of apps WON'T run as you state.


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## fryke (Aug 26, 2009)

Like I said: There are user reports that claim you *CAN* clean install the 29$ disk _without_ having Leopard installed on any machine. I know my previous post was long and numbered, but it contains most information on any frequently asked questions I've heard so far. I'll gladly edit the list later on, should newer information become available. 

Besides, even if those reports should turn out incorrect: Why would you wipe the harddrive *first*, instead of letting the Snow Leopard installation disc do it (and recognise that you already had SL installed)? 

---> I've added a FAQ to the first post in the thread. Please expand it and ask me to make changes if you find mistakes.


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## Satcomer (Aug 26, 2009)

ElDiabloConCaca said:


> 10.6 is not a huge leap in architecture like 10.4 to 10.5 was.  Granted, there are many changes and improvements under the hood, but most developers will find that their programs that run under 10.5 will run under 10.6 as well.



Well I found if the developer used another program besides XCode to make the program ( a lot of them do that) then they will have problems. I also think with Rosetta being an Optional install will trick up a lot of Users.


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 26, 2009)

What other development programs exist for making native Mac OS X programs?

The only one I can think of is CodeWarrior, which I believe only makes Carbon-based programs, which should still run fine under 10.6.

The only other IDEs I can think of are RealBasic, Eclipse/NetBeans (for Java-based apps), and command-line scripts/binaries, all of which are "cross-platform" capable and do not have many hooks into version-specific OS functions.

Can you give an example of a few programs that: 
a) ran fine under 10.4 or 10.5 and...
b) do not run fine under 10.6 and...
c) were developed outside of XCode?


----------



## Satcomer (Aug 26, 2009)

fryke said:


> Like I said: There are user reports that claim you *CAN* clean install the 29$ disk _without_ having Leopard installed on any machine. I know my previous post was long and numbered, but it contains most information on any frequently asked questions I've heard so far. I'll gladly edit the list later on, should newer information become available.
> 
> Besides, even if those reports should turn out incorrect: Why would you wipe the harddrive *first*, instead of letting the Snow Leopard installation disc do it (and recognise that you already had SL installed)?
> 
> ---> I've added a FAQ to the first post in the thread. Please expand it and ask me to make changes if you find mistakes.



Well as you may know that when people used the Leopard upgrade function a lot of people experienced networking wireless issues that full and archive & install people did not have.  Some major hacking to get it working correctly.  Everyone in the Mac User groups I was in that did either a Fresh or Archive Install had zero problems compared to the Upgraded versions. 

so this time around I am going to wait and let all the Mac users I know be my Beta tester before I jump in. Yes I will eventfully upgrade because the Beta was that good. People will be amazed on how much everything seems quicker and lighter. The new Finder IMHO is the creme of the crop and people once they learn the ins and pouts of the new Finder will be plenty surprised.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 26, 2009)

Satcomer said:


> Well as you may know that when people used the Leopard upgrade function...


I think you're missing the point...

Even though the $29 Snow Leopard disk is called an "Upgrade" disk does NOT mean that the only installation type it will allow you to do is an "Upgrade Install."

You can, indeed, perform a clean installation of Snow Leopard on your computer with the $29 "Upgrade" disk.

The disk is called an "Upgrade" disk, but that has nothing to do with the installation types you can perform with said disk.  You can use the "Upgrade" disk to perform a "Clean Install" of Snow Leopard (as long as Leopard is already on your machine -- Snow Leopard "Upgrade" disk will verify that you have Leopard, then wipe your drive clean, and perform a clean-install of Snow Leopard -- and, as fryke stated and restated, an existing Leopard installation may not even be required).


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## fryke (Aug 26, 2009)

Yes, Satcomer, I'm aware that people had trouble upgrading. With 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5... And some will have trouble with 10.6, too. What I meant was: You don't need to erase the harddrive some other way. You can do it from within the 10.6 installer (or rather, from the supplied Disk Utility). If you want a clean install, do a clean install. No problem.


----------



## chevy (Aug 26, 2009)

fryke said:


> Just a little wrap-up on the day that it became clear that the final build of Mac OS X 10.6 is 10A432, the version that has last been tested by developers:
> 
> 1.) You can either upgrade from Leopard (with the 29$ retail disc or the 9.95$ up-to-date disc) or Tiger (with the Mac Box Set) or clean install using Disk Utility when started from the disc. All of this only works on intel Macs, but works on _all_ intel Macs.
> 
> ...



Concerning 4, this means QT X is a *viewer*. And for the rest we are probably expected to use iMovie or other editing applications.


----------



## ihero06 (Aug 26, 2009)

Hi All,
My Mac Book Pro specification is as follows. Can I install Snow Leopard in my MBP?
Thanks!

Model Name: MacBook Pro 17"
Model Identifier: MacBookPro1,2
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 2.16 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 2 MB
Memory: 512 MB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP12.0061.B03
SMC Version: 1.5f10
Serial Number: W86400A0VTG
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled


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## chevy (Aug 26, 2009)

ihero06 said:


> Hi All,
> My Mac Book Pro specification is as follows. Can I install Snow Leopard in my MBP?
> Thanks!
> 
> ...



Yes !


----------



## ihero06 (Aug 26, 2009)

Thanks Chevy!
However, will I get the advantage of Snow Leopard OS compared to what I have now, if I install it in my MBP?


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 26, 2009)

Snow Leopard runs exactly the same on all Intel-based Macintosh computers.  You will have every feature available to you that every other Snow Leopard user has as well (without regard to hardware-dependent optimizations, like OpenCL, OpenGL, etc.).


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## Doctor X (Aug 26, 2009)

fryke said:


> You can do it from within the 10.6 installer (or rather, from the supplied Disk Utility). If you want a clean install, do a clean install. No problem.



But . . . that will destroy my data! 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





So . . . to explain it for the *Children*





:

1. Back Up Your Data--of course!
2. Disconnect Ex/Secondary Drive.
3. Clean Install 10.6--adding *Rosetta* if you need it.
4. Reconnect Ex/Secondary Drive--when it asks you if you have a previous account, click "yes!"
5. Pour Coffee--laugh at PC users.

Unless there is a simple "Update," but from what I have read, it seems a fresh new updated system is the way to go? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




--J.D.


----------



## Doctor X (Aug 26, 2009)

ihero06 said:


> Thanks Chevy!
> However, will I get the advantage of Snow Leopard OS compared to what I have now, if I install it in my MBP?



You might consider getting more RAM?  A number of people recommend OWC, I do not like them--they smell!  I recommend *Here*, but whichever, if you want a faster computer it will like the RAM.

--J.D.


----------



## Doctor X (Aug 26, 2009)

Oh and Amazon is advertising it for $24-25 only to add on a lot of shipping charges that put it over what Apple sells with free shipping.  
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




--J.D.


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## fryke (Aug 26, 2009)

Doctor X said:


> Unless there is a simple "Update," but from what I have read, it seems a fresh new updated system is the way to go?



If your backup is fine, there's no reason _not_ to try a simple upgrade. If something goes wrong, you can still do a clean install and get stuff back from the backup... I've essentially done three straight upgrades with no problems whatsoever. Incompatible apps, like iStat menus, have simply been disabled after the upgrade. I didn't even notice it at first and decided that I don't really need a CPU watcher, so I removed it completely.

Oh and ihero06? Please read the first post of the thread. It should explain nicely...


----------



## Doctor X (Aug 26, 2009)

fryke said:


> If your backup is fine, there's no reason _not_ to try a simple upgrade.



Basically, what I am going to do is clone the thing as I usually do, disconnect, update, and see what happens for a few days.  So long as "things work" fine, that should be okay.  Otherwise, I can always *Clean Install* then transfer from the Ex-HD.  If things are not so good, I can simply come back from the clone and wait for "whatever" is not working to be updated for 10.6.

To which I give the general suggestion to readers--particularly if they have a laptop--to get an Ex-HD.  It will save butts.

--J.D.


----------



## ihero06 (Aug 26, 2009)

Thanks for the comments.
I have been thinking about a memory upgrade for a while. My MPB is running slow now a days, especially when I run MS Office files.
Can you guys suggest what is the best 1GB RAM for my MBP?


----------



## BriceH (Aug 26, 2009)

Fryke, I can't quite figure out whether I should get the $29 or the $49 version. I often mess up things on my Mac or want to partition my drive and don't have enough space. When this happens, I either reinstall Mac OS X (I have Leopard) or format the hard drive and reinstall Mac OS X. Will I be able to do both those things with the $29 version? (I'm the only one who will be using it.) Thanks


----------



## fryke (Aug 27, 2009)

Yes, the 29$ version will be fine.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 27, 2009)

My Apple Store order still is displaying "Prepared for Shipment."  No tracking number available.

I certainly hope their system is just reporting old information... unless they intend on shipping it to me overnight/same day!

Aaaah!  The suspense!


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 27, 2009)

Ok, so 5 minutes after posting that, I get an email with a tracking number.

Looks like we're on-target for Friday.  Nice.


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## fryke (Aug 27, 2009)

Our store got a new batch of MacBooks (white) today, and they still contain 10.5.6. No upgrade discs inside. Horrible, I find. Apple's really not that nice to its resellers nowadays. :/ What are we supposed to do? Tell customers to register online for 9.95$ (well, 13 CHF)?? I find that odd behaviour.


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## Doctor X (Aug 27, 2009)

ElDiabloConCaca said:


> Ok, so 5 minutes after posting that, I get an email with a tracking number.
> 
> Looks like we're on-target for Friday.  Nice.



I do not have one yet. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




Granted, I did not go with Amazon.

--J.D.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 27, 2009)

Neither did I -- I had originally ordered it from Amazon, but their shipping costs put the total price above Apple's online store price, even with tax figured in.  So I canceled and went with the online Apple store.

It's shipping from Tennessee, so it looks like south Texas will finally get a little dose of "Snow" from the north after all these years... har har har!  Whoa... certainly is a bad joke day, isn't it?


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## Doctor X (Aug 27, 2009)

Mine is reading somewhere between September 1-5. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




Though I did what you did, but probably a few days or a week later.

--J.D.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 27, 2009)

From what I've heard, as long as you got your order in with Apple by Wednesday (yesterday), then you should be on-track for a Friday delivery.

That's what I've _heard_... I ordered much earlier than Wednesday.


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## Doctor X (Aug 27, 2009)

But I ordered it Tuesday!  
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




--J.D.


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## fryke (Aug 27, 2009)

I understand that everyone wants it the day it's released, but if it arrives Monday, you'll have more time reading the problem reports.


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## Doctor X (Aug 27, 2009)

--J.D.


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## Doctor X (Aug 27, 2009)

More seriously, I thought of starting an *Official Snow Leopard Problem Thread--"Coming Soon"* but figured . . . "Meh!"



--J.D.


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## fryke (Aug 27, 2009)

I think we'll keep it to this thread. I can update the FAQ with problems and - hopefully - workarounds & solutions. But I don't foresee many problems, really.


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## Doctor X (Aug 27, 2009)

fryke said:


> But I don't foresee many problems, really.



One of my favorite lines in response to that is "No Indians here, Col. Custer!"  Then, one day, in a lecture someone quoted a line from Custer's surgeon's diary three days before Little Bighorn:



> I shan't think we shall see an Indian at all this Summer.



Hopefully, I will not be able to use my next favorite line:  "Well, other than _that_ Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

--J.D.


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## Satcomer (Aug 27, 2009)

ElDiabloConCaca said:


> From what I've heard, as long as you got your order in with Apple by Wednesday (yesterday), then you should be on-track for a Friday delivery.
> 
> That's what I've _heard_... I ordered much earlier than Wednesday.



Will you be Beta tester and let me know how many programs are ready for it? Pretty please.


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## fryke (Aug 28, 2009)

Well, I'm sure there'll _be_ problems. Just: I don't forsee many.  I'm sure there'll be those who don't make backups and simply upgrade and maybe 1 in a 100 upgrade installs might go wrong (or something like that) so we're bound to hear about stuff like that.


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## jbarley (Aug 28, 2009)

For what it's worth....
Here is what I always do when it comes time to change (update-or upgrade) my Main OS.
1.) First make a total system clone of my existing system (for a safe restore in case of major problems)
2.)Do a clean install of the new system (Snow Leopard in this case)
3.)Install my copy of SuperDuper and make a total system clone of this new basic Snow Leopard install. (this now becomes my official Snow Leopard install disk, to be used for reinstalls should the need arise, and gets around having to have 10.5 installed before upgrading).
4.)Run migration assistant to import all my user data, settings and Apps.

There is usually a bit of tweaking necessary, but overall this method has served me well.

jb


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## Doctor X (Aug 28, 2009)

jbarley said:


> 3.)Install my copy of SuperDuper and make a total system clone of this new basic Snow Leopard install. (this now becomes my official Snow Leopard install disk, to be used for reinstalls should the need arise, and gets around having to have 10.5 installed before upgrading).



Beddy beddy interwesting. . . .

So, how do you do that?  Do you make a disk image of it?  Do you have a separate partition on an Ex-HD?  I have *SuperDuper!*.

--J.D.


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## fryke (Aug 28, 2009)

For clones to other volumes, I find Disk Utility is perfect. Block copying's really quick.


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## Doctor X (Aug 28, 2009)

Yeah, it is just that I have a 500 Gig Ex-HD I have partitioned--one to back up my Int-HD--and the other to hold [Goat porn.--Ed.] "stuff."  Any idea how "big" the total *Snow Leopard* is?

I mean I have my clone, *Leopard Install* and all of that . . . so the only way I could be frelled is if both drives die at the same time.

--J.D.


----------



## Randy Singer (Aug 28, 2009)

Some links to some very interesting articles about Snow Leopard, that should answer a lot of questions:

Apple's Sleek Upgrade
(first review of Snow Leopard)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/technology/personaltech/27pogue.html?_r=2&8dpc

Newsflash!  Apparently the $29 Snow Leopard disks will work just as well on Tiger as they will on Leopard.
http://gizmodo.com/5346546/mossberg-recommends-illegal-use-of-snow-leopard-install-disc

Why Snow Leopard is a big deal:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/27/ap...y-enterprise-snow-leopard.html?partner=alerts

OS X 10.6 Compatibility List
http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/

Prep you Mac for Snow Leopard
http://lifehacker.com/5345690/prep-your-mac-for-snow-leopard?skyline=true&s=i

6 Things You Need to Know About Mac OS X Snow Leopard
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/08/6-things-snow-leopard/

Snow Leopard System Requirements
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20090824160212867

The 7 best features in Mac OS X Snow Leopard
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137034/The_7_best_features_in_Mac_OS_X_Snow_Leopard
or
http://is.gd/2AD69

Markus Winter's 32- or 64-bit Kernel Startup Mode Selector makes it possible to select whether to start the Mac OS X 10.6 kernel in 32-bit or in 64-bit mode (for compatible Macs). It also displays how the kernel is currently set to boot and whether the Mac has a 32- or 64-bit CPU and 32- or 64-bit EFI. The accompanying web page has more details about 32 vs. 64 bit operation. Startup Mode Selector is available for Intel Macs only.
http://www.ahatfullofsky.comuv.com/English/Programs/SMS/SMS.html

Snow Leopard contains a malware blocker!
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/intego_spots_malware_blocker_in_snow_leopard/
http://www.macworld.com/article/142457/2009/08/snowleopard_malware.html

TUAW article:
Mac 201: Preparing your Mac for Snow Leopard  
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/08/17/mac-201-preparing-your-mac-for-snow-leopard/
or
http://tinyurl.com/px2fts

This MacFixIt article, has some interesting facts about installing that is
worth reading. (Apple has changed the installation process in rather significant ways.)
Preparing for 10.6 Snow Leopard: Installation procedure changes?
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20090813160052571

Knowing whether to install Rosetta or not seems to be a key issue. Note that the Rosetta program itself doesn't take up much space - only a couple of megabytes.

To view what kind (Universal or PowerPC) your favorite applications are, use the Apple System Profiler. Select "Applications" in the list and it shows
"kind". Sorting by Kind column makes it really easy.

Info on scanners and printers.
Last-minute user questions about Snow Leopard, part 1
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20090826081259872

Gauging Snow Leopard's speed boosts
http://www.macworld.com/article/142425/2009/08/snow_leopard_performance.html


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## Doctor X (Aug 28, 2009)

The compatibility list needs updating--some of the programs now work.  Of course, they added the patches . . . today! 

*Undercover* for example.

--J.D.


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## fryke (Aug 28, 2009)

It's a wiki, isn't it? Create an account and correct it.


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## Rhisiart (Aug 28, 2009)

Does iLife '09 come with Snow Leopard?


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## Doctor X (Aug 28, 2009)

No!  That is frightening!





--J.D.


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## Doctor X (Aug 28, 2009)

Onyx will not work currently--they are planning an update when Snow Leopard is available.

--J.D.


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## fryke (Aug 28, 2009)

Rhisiart said:


> Does iLife '09 come with Snow Leopard?



No. Just like with any version of Mac OS X before, iLife is a separate package. There's the Mac Box Set, of course, which contains iLife and iWork.


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## Rhisiart (Aug 28, 2009)

fryke said:


> No. Just like with any version of Mac OS X before, iLife is a separate package. There's the Mac Box Set, of course, which contains iLife and iWork.


Thanks. I didn't think so. Not at £25. iLife did come with Tiger though.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 28, 2009)

Rhisiart said:


> iLife did come with Tiger though.


What?  Not with my Tiger!


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## Rhisiart (Aug 28, 2009)

ElDiabloConCaca said:


> What?  Not with my Tiger!


Yes it did. The box contained the Tiger install DVD and two additional discs which included iLife (whatever version was current at that time).


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 28, 2009)

Ah, I'll have to dig out my Tiger box and take a look-see... I hadn't realized that, I suppose, since I purchased iLife '04 (I think?) to complement my Tiger.  Perhaps that was $79 wasted!


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## jbarley (Aug 28, 2009)

Doctor X said:


> Beddy beddy interwesting. . . .
> 
> So, how do you do that?  Do you make a disk image of it?  Do you have a separate partition on an Ex-HD?  I have *SuperDuper!*.
> 
> --J.D.


A separate partition would do, but I choose to use one of several surplus 2.5" drives I have (left over from HD upgrades), mounted in an external case...

http://tinyurl.com/lzdlyy

Then I just put the drive away for safe keeping.

jb


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## Rhisiart (Aug 28, 2009)

ElDiabloConCaca said:


> Ah, I'll have to dig out my Tiger box and take a look-see... I hadn't realized that, I suppose, since I purchased iLife '04 (I think?) to complement my Tiger.  Perhaps that was $79 wasted!


Stop searching! I think it was Leopard that came with a newly purchased Mac Mini that included iLife. 

The box included two additional discs that that you had to use to install Tiger before you could install Leopard. The iLIfe (not iWork) was included on the second disc.

Update: According to the BBC Snow Leopard includes iWork '09.


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## fryke (Aug 28, 2009)

Stop, stop, stop... Don't let those horses run wild. Before iLife became its own package, things were different. But *NO* version of Mac OS X ever came with iLife. (What sense would it make to count iLife as one of three parts of the Mac Box Set else?)

10.3 was Panther. No iLife included. 10.4 was Tiger, no iLife included. 10.5 was Leopard. No iLife included. (The Leopard Mac Box Set included iLife '09 and iWork '09.) 10.6 is Snow Leopard. No iLife (and no iWork) included. The Mac Box Set with Snow Leopard includes iLife '09 and iWork '09.

However: iLife is included with new Macs. (For a couple of years now already...) I thought this was general knowledge here on macosx.com...


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 28, 2009)

That's what I thought... iLife, in various versions, was included with new Mac purchases (which also include Mac OS X install/restore CDs/DVDs), but never with a retail version of OS X, though.


----------



## icemanjc (Aug 28, 2009)

I installed the "Upgrade" version of Snow Leopard and it works perfectly without leopard. I just reformatted right before and everything went fine. It takes up 5 GB and there is no iWork or iLife like anybody thought.


----------



## fryke (Aug 28, 2009)

you mean "as expected".  Do I really have to add "No, Snow Leopard Retail (Upgrade from Leopard) does not contain iWork or iLife..." to the FAQ?


----------



## Doctor X (Aug 28, 2009)

Or would you be telling people to get iLife?

--J.D.


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 28, 2009)

Hehe... or telling people to get aLife.

Oh, no he di'int!


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## fryke (Aug 28, 2009)

Sh*t, it's Friday night. 'kay guys, I'm going out for drinks now. No problem reports on Snow Leopard yet? Really??  Well, there's some stuff here on macfixit.com: http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20090828091917560 ... But I guess only half of it is really Snow Leopard's fault, and even if those are SL bugs, they depend on varying input like almost-non-functioning-Leopard-installs...  Either way: I'll be back in the morning, I guess.


----------



## Doctor X (Aug 28, 2009)

My apologies for punishing you all. . . .

--J.D.

P.S. Mine is still not shipped 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 but I think one of my favorite "hacks"--WindowShades X--may not work with it, and the developers do not exactly remain current.


----------



## rj713 (Aug 28, 2009)

Received and installed. Only glitch was the need to reinstall my printer software---everything else works so far. A check of get info before and after showed a gain of 14Gb in drive space. Ralph


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## Rhisiart (Aug 28, 2009)

fryke said:


> ...iLife is included with new Macs.... I thought this was general knowledge here on macosx.com...


My memory isn't what it was. I forgot that life came with a new Mac. Ho hum.


----------



## Doctor X (Aug 28, 2009)

From Soon-to-be-Inebriated *fryke* Linkypoo is the suggestion your check your list of Applications--from "About This Mac" to "System Profiler" to your Applications and check "Kind."  Methinks installing *Rosetta* _may_ help with some of the problems.

But how would I know . . . mine has not shipped yet. . . .

--J.D.


----------



## sgould (Aug 28, 2009)

Bought my SL upgrade on the way home tonight.  Installed on my MacBook as a trial.  It seems OK so far.  If it stays OK, I'll put it on my main machine.


----------



## jareddigby (Aug 28, 2009)

I have Snow Leopard it won't install it starts installing and stops it the middle says install failed:-(


----------



## Doctor X (Aug 28, 2009)

And you are installing it on a Timex Sinclair computer?

--J.D.


----------



## jareddigby (Aug 28, 2009)

Doctor X said:


> And you are installing it on a Timex Sinclair computer?
> 
> --J.D.


Huh


----------



## Doctor X (Aug 28, 2009)

jareddigby said:


> Huh



Precisely.

--J.D.


----------



## Jesse714 (Aug 28, 2009)

Well, What part is failing? It always says what file couldnt be installed or found
Is this a brand new upgrade disc from apple?
Or is it a copied/pirated disc (which would explain everything)


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## Doctor X (Aug 29, 2009)

. . . and like what Mac is it?

--J.D.


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## midijeep (Aug 29, 2009)

*Upgrading to Apple's Snow Leopard OS: What you need to know*

_With a spiffy new installer, the Mac OS X upgrade process is quicker and easier than ever_

Ryan Faas


August 26, 2009 (Computerworld) In building Snow Leopard, the latest version of Mac OS X (version 10.6), Apple focused more on under-the-hood improvements to boost speed and stability than on adding new features. That contrasts with its predecessor, Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5), which added more than 300 new features when it was released two years ago.

In Snow Leopard, Apple focused on making the OS run faster using technologies like Grand Central Dispatch (which allows a Mac with a multi-core processor to more effectively distribute work among cores) and OpenCL (which allows a Mac's graphics processors to be used for general computing tasks whenever possible), and making all the core system applications and most core components 64-bit.

But before you can appreciate Snow Leopard's performance, user interface refinements, and technology tweaks, you have to get it installed. Here's what you need to know about the upgrade process -- which in itself illustrates both UI improvements and under-the-hood advances over past versions of Mac OS X.
Can you run Snow Leopard?

The most important question to answer before upgrading to Snow Leopard is whether your Mac can handle it. First, you'll need an Intel-based Mac. (Not sure what you have? Click the Apple menu and choose About This Mac. If your processor is a PowerPC, you're out of luck; if it's from Intel, you're good to go.)

Any Intel Mac will run Snow Leopard, provided it has at least 1GB of RAM (though 2GB or more will deliver better performance) and 5GB of hard drive space. You'll also need a DVD drive for installation. (MacBook Air owners can use a DVD drive in another computer, provided they turn on CD/DVD sharing.)

It's worth noting that not all Intel Macs can make use of 64-bit processing. That's because not all Intel Macs have 64-bit processors.

The first Intel Macs shipped with either an Intel Core Duo or Core Solo chip, both of them 32-bit processors. Apple switched to the Core 2 Duo processor, which is 64-bit, across most of its product lines pretty quickly. You can check your processor model using About This Mac.








With an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of RAM, this iMac -- still running Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" -- can take advantage of Snow Leopard's 64-bit processing.

This doesn't mean that early Intel Macs won't see improvements with Snow Leopard -- they will -- but they may not see as big a performance boost as newer Macs.

Any Mac users still running Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4) can upgrade directly to Snow Leopard, skipping its predecessor, by purchasing Apple's Mac Box Set, which includes Snow Leopard and the latest versions of iLife and iWork for $169. This ensures that your Mac will be able to run all the Apple tools as well as Snow Leopard.

*Important: Before you upgrade, back up*

Before you even think about installing the new operating system, be sure to perform a full backup of your system.

With Snow Leopard, Apple has made the installation process cleaner and more reliable than ever; the installer can even finish an installation properly if your Mac is unexpectedly powered off during the process. Nevertheless, a good backup is always prudent. If you've been using Time Machine in Leopard, you've probably got one already.
In-place upgrade vs. clean install

With a major OS release, there's always the question of whether to perform a simple upgrade (where your files, applications, and system configuration files are left in place) or a clean install (where the target drive is backed up and erased before installation).

In the past, I, like many power users, advocated for a clean install -- it can help avoid conflicts between older applications and the new OS or any damaged configuration files. It can be a good troubleshooting step if you can't find the source of ongoing problems or if you have damaged system files. But the snazzy new installer for Snow Leopard (more on that in a minute) detects potential issues, making a simple in-place upgrade not only sufficient, but the better and easier way to go.

The main advantage to a clean install is from a personal housekeeping perspective. Since most computers over time collect files that are no longer needed -- anything from old to-do lists to applications you installed but never use -- a clean install forces you to take a look at what's on your computer and do some spring cleaning. Given that it means copying files, erasing the disk, restoring and organizing your files, and resetting all of your preferences and system settings, a full-fledged clean installation it isn't worth the hassle. Just find some time to go through your hard drive and clean it out.

If you do perform a clean install, you'll need to boot your computer using the Install DVD by restarting the computer while holding down the C key. Then use Disk Utility (located in the Utilities menu in the menu bar after you've booted from the Install DVD) to select your hard drive and erase it. Quit Disk Utility to return to the installer and proceed with your installation as outlined below. Be forewarned: Starting up from the installation disc and erasing your hard drive for a clean install will make the entire installation process take longer.

Longtime Mac users are probably familiar with the old "Erase and Install" (which erased the contents of the hard drive before installing the new OS) and "Archive and Install" (which retained a copy of all system files for later retrieval) options for installing Mac OS X. Although you can still erase your hard drive for a clean install using the steps outlined above, these two options are no longer part of the actual installation process.

*Meet the Mac's new installer*

When you put the Snow Leopard Install DVD in your Mac, the Finder window that opens looks pretty much like that of any Mac OS X installation disc (the obvious exception being the Snow Leopard icon).
Snow Leopard installer in Finder





Click on the Install Mac OS X icon to begin the Snow Leopard installation.

But the second you double-click the installer, you'll notice something's different. Instead of being asked to restart your Mac and boot from the Install disc, you'll see a screen with two options: Utilities and Continue. That's because you don't need to boot from the DVD to install Snow Leopard (though you can do so later down the road if your Mac has problems or if you want to erase your hard drive before selling your computer, for instance).





With Snow Leopard, you don't have to reboot your computer from the installation disc; just click Continue.

The reason your Mac doesn't need to boot from the Install DVD is because one of the first things the installer does is copy all the files you'll need for installation to your hard drive. This has a few important benefits. First, it saves you time because you don't have to wait for your Mac to boot from the DVD (which often takes a few minutes or longer), and the installation itself goes more quickly because the files are being installed from your hard drive.

It also means that when the Mac checks the integrity of the files to be installed (which used to mean verifying the integrity of the DVD, a process that took so long most people opted to cancel it), it does so after the files have been copied to your hard drive, speeding up the process but also making integrity checks a built-in part of the installation (since you can't skip them).

The Snow Leopard installer has a couple of other tricks up its sleeve. Before installation, it scans your Mac for any applications or other tools that extend Mac OS X (like third-party System Preferences panes or device drivers) that are known to cause problems with Snow Leopard. The installer doesn't delete them, but it does move them out of any system folders or directories to ensure a smooth installation.

The installer also has a safe redo feature. If something interrupts the process (say you unplug your iMac by mistake), that's not a problem for Snow Leopard. With the installation files actually on your Mac's hard drive and the fact that every part of the install is written to a log file, the installer can simply pick up where it left off when your Mac is restarted.

Now, back to that initial installation screen: The Utilities option lets you restart and boot the computer from the Install DVD (the same as if you held down the C key during a restart) in case you want to erase or repair your hard drive, or restore it from a Time Machine backup. If you're doing a simple upgrade to Snow Leopard, click the Continue button.

*Streamlined installation*

In addition to skipping the initial restart used in earlier installations, Apple has pared down the number of clicks it takes to install Snow Leopard. After you click Continue, the installer automatically selects your startup drive (the one that your Mac booted from). Many people only have one internal hard drive or partition, but if you have multiple drives or partitions, you can choose another drive; just click the Show All Disks button and make your selection.





The installer automatically chooses to install Snow Leopard on your startup drive. But you can click Show All Disks...





...to see this screen, which lets you choose which drive to install Snow Leopard on.

Unless you want to customize the installation (more on that in a moment), click the Install button now. You'll be asked to confirm that you want to proceed and asked to provide your admin username and password. After that, take a break; there's no more user interaction required. (The computer will restart itself during the installation process without any input from you.)

The whole installation process typically takes 30 to 40 minutes, although it varies depending on your hardware and your installation choices -- I've seen some installations finish in notably shorter and longer time spans.

When you come back, your Mac will be running Snow Leopard. When you first log in using the new OS, the Setup Assistant plays the standard Mac OS X welcome video. If you've done an upgrade rather than a clean install, there is nothing to set up and you can close the Setup Assistant window after the movie plays. If you did a clean install, you'll need to provide registration details, and then the Setup Assistant will guide you through the basic setup and configuration steps. You're on your way.
*
Customizing the installation*

Of course, you can customize the installation if you want to. Before clicking the Install button, click the Customize button to see the screen shown farther down the page.

As with previous Mac OS X installers, you can opt out of language translation packs and additional fonts for languages that don't use the Roman alphabet (like Cyrillic, Chinese, or Arabic) to save a bit of hard-drive space.

You can also choose which printer drivers to install, though this really isn't needed: The installer automatically looks for printers connected to your Mac or on your local network and installs only the drivers for those printers, saving a lot of space in the process. If you later connect a different printer, Snow Leopard will automatically download the appropriate driver when it's connected without any action on your part -- the complete plug-and-play dream, finally realized.

If you want to run applications that use the Unix X11 interface, you can choose to install X11. It's selected by default; if you don't want, deselect it.

Another option is to install Rosetta, the software emulator that Apple created so Intel Macs could run software designed to run on PowerPC-based Macs. For most people, leaving Rosetta out (that's the default) should be fine. Apple began the transition to Intel processors more than three and half years ago, so unless you have an app that hasn't been updated since sometime in 2006 you really don't need Rosetta.

You also have the option of installing QuickTime 7. Snow Leopard features a new version of QuickTime (the system files and applications that support multimedia playback) called QuickTime X. QuickTime X offers much improved performance, a very clean, minimalist interface, and new video streaming capabilities. Some older media formats might still require the older version of QuickTime, which is why Apple offers it, but most people won't need it.





Snow Leopard's customized installation options.

Once you've made all your customization selections, click the Install button and proceed as outlined above.

*After the installation*

After finishing the installation, you're ready to start exploring Snow Leopard. A few of the things you'll notice immediately:

    * Better overall performance, even in basic tasks like navigating the Finder, which has been rewritten
    * An improved implementation of Stacks that allows you to browse hierarchies of folders from within a stack
    * Preview icons in the Finder that actually do live previews, meaning you can click through pages of a document or play a video file in its icon
    * QuickTime X's interface and ability to record and trim video using your iSight camera
    * Smarter text selection and annotation features in Preview, Apple's tool for viewing and working with PDFs, which also now sports the ability to directly scan documents and create PDFs of them

Over the next few days, Computerworld will have more on Snow Leopard, including details about the differences between 64-bit and 32-bit computing and our performance tests comparing Leopard to Snow Leopard on various Mac models.


----------



## Doctor X (Aug 29, 2009)

--J.D.


----------



## Ferdinand (Aug 30, 2009)

I read fryke's FAQ, but I still don't get how Quicktime works.

I have a Quicktime 7 Pro license, so I'll have to select "Install Quicktime 7" at installation.

Will this install QT 7 "instead" of Quicktime X? Or will I have both on my HD?

Fryke also wrote that there isn't a pro version anymore. Does this mean that all pro features have been unlocked in Quicktime X? Or does it only mean that it doesn't offer any pro features anymore?


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 30, 2009)

You will have both.  Quicktime X will be in your Applications folder, and Quicktime 7 will be in your Applications/Utilities folder.

Quicktime X removed the distinction between the regular Quicktime and the paid, "Pro" version.  There's just Quicktime X now, no more paid version.  Quicktime X has most of the features that Quicktime 7 "Pro" had -- video export, trim, cut, copy, paste, etc.

So it's a balance between the regular and the "Pro" version -- you can still export video, but you can't export multiple streams at the same time.  There are other subtle differences, but basically, Apple has merged the regular and "Pro" features from Quicktime 7 in Quicktime X, so there is no more paid, "Pro" version.


----------



## Doctor X (Aug 30, 2009)

That was my understanding.  Should I ever get my disk-- still has not sent it 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




--I will install *QT 7* and see what the difference is.  I can always "Uninstall" it.

However, I think he says that some files may only play on *QT 7*? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




--J.D.


----------



## chevy (Aug 30, 2009)

Small glitch identified after update (all options to default): other users (not the admin account) had their default input source changed to U.S.


----------



## chevy (Aug 30, 2009)

I was surprised that I had to update my password at restart. But everything looks fine.


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## fryke (Aug 30, 2009)

If you had QT7Pro, it'll get installed for you automatically. Only if you haven't installed it or are doing a clean install, you have to install it manually. You'll have both QT7 and QTX on your harddrive. What I'm saying is that Apple's stopped developping QT7Pro. In the future, there'll be QTX development only, QT7 stays at the current version/feature set. Currently, QTX does not have all the features QT7 Pro had, so there's still an option to have it around. I'd say 10.7 will get rid of QT7. But that's just an assumption.


----------



## bowjest (Aug 30, 2009)

fryke said:


> I guess he either meant through amazon or via the Apple up-to-date program for when you've bought a Mac recently. He's bought an MBP 13", so I guess it's the latter.
> 
> About whether to upgrade at 10.6.0 or 10.6.5 (or something):
> 
> ...



Fryke, I'm a low-level Mac user, so please excuse what might be an obvious question for a more seasoned user, but, if I carry out the upgrade and find I have problems, can I not just restore my full system backup from my external Time Machine drive or do I have to do a clean install and then restore from my Time Machine backup?

I've only just set up Time Machine yesterday using a terabyte external drive, so not really sure how straightforward a restore is.

Thanks!


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## fryke (Aug 30, 2009)

You _can_ try to restore from the Time Machine backup, but essentially, you're then trying to upgrade Leo to SnowLeo _again_, which at first try would have ended badly in your example. That's why I'd then move to clean installing (maybe after the second try...) and only bringing back what's really required from the backup.

In point 4 I said "or you can try the upgrade process again by clean installing using your Time Machine or clone backup.", that's exactly what you meant by restoring from Time Machine, right? Unless you mean actually going back to 10.5.x, which I wouldn't really recommend.


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## bowjest (Aug 30, 2009)

Fryke,

Thanks. Yeah, I mean if I upgrade and find that things aren't working out, can I just restore my system to pre-upgrade status (10.5) via the full Time Machine backup I have carried out just before trying the upgrade or would I have to carry out a clean install of 10.5 using my originally supplied disk from when I bought my Mac and then restore my most recent, pre-upgrade Time Machine backup.

It sounds like I would have to do just that, but I just wanted to clarify things. I like the way my system runs now (except that post a couple of recent system downloads it starts up much slower now). I'd hate to find that post upgrade apps stop working or other problems appear meaning I'd need to downgrade again, but it would suck more if I had to carry out a clean install of 10.5 and then restore from Time Machine.


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## Rhisiart (Aug 31, 2009)

I have ordered Snow Leopard, but it hasn't arrived yet. I like the idea of a new OS that makes the Mac leaner. I'm not sure I'll see a big difference in speed (not that I need one anyway), but I think Apple have been wise to bring this OS out (and have priced it reasonably).

Interesting that Windows 7 is simply a slimmed down, and hopefully improved, version of Vista.

I am going to install Snow Leopard without a doing clean install. I am interested to see how many of my current software programmes are compatible. I suspect I'll need to do a clean install at some stage though (maybe when 10.6.1 is released), unless I I have no choice but to do it sooner.

I am particularly interested to see whether Adobe Photoshop CS3 will work (see earlier postings).


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## Satcomer (Aug 31, 2009)

I am now in the same boat. I just ordered Snow Leopard an probably install it on another drive in my Mac Pro (in my signature) using the Fresh install method and then using Migration Assistant.


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## gphillipk (Sep 1, 2009)

I've ordered a MB Pro 13"; it will most probably have 10.5.7 or .8 when I get it. Which would be the better - upgrade or fresh install (i.e. before moving over my data and installing any apps.) to 10.6? I think upgrade will be fine since there wont be any broken apps. or plists to contend with...?


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## ora (Sep 1, 2009)

I will probably backup 10.5 to time machine, wipe drive then install afresh for 10.6 disk using the time machine backup as a source - much like satcomer but in one step not two.


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## fryke (Sep 1, 2009)

gphilipk: I'd install the upgrade the _first_ time you're starting the machine. Simply turn the machine on, put the disc in immediately and press the "c" key so it starts from that disc. Upgrading will preserve iLife. If you clean install, you have to install iLife afterwards from the original installation discs.


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## Doctor X (Sep 1, 2009)

Apparently, if you like *Window Shades*--and I do--it does not work with the upgrade.  Unfortunately the makers of the product have little regard for their customers so who knows if it will ever work again.  Was a favorite feature of *OS 9*.

--J.D.


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## chevy (Sep 1, 2009)

That's the Bible of X: John Syracusa's review of X on Ars Technica


----------



## chevy (Sep 1, 2009)

Hopefully Shapeshifter can be launched again now that (according to Syracusa) the usage of resource fork is unified again.


----------



## fryke (Sep 1, 2009)

Just wanted to add the link to Siracusa's (sic!) review as well... 23 pages of in-depth glory. If you meet someone online who claims SL is only a service pack, point him to the review of 10.6. (I think the review earns being linked to twice on the same page...)


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## chevy (Sep 1, 2009)

fryke said:


> Just wanted to add the link to Siracusa's (sic!) review as well... 23 pages of in-depth glory. If you meet someone online who claims SL is only a service pack, point him to the review of 10.6. (I think the review earns being linked to twice on the same page...)



Maybe that's just because I like Syrah...

Let's say it a *major* service pack...


----------



## midijeep (Sep 2, 2009)

*Mac OS X v10.6: Printer and scanner software*

Last Modified: August 28, 2009
 Article: HT3669

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3669


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 2, 2009)

It is finally shipping! 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





--J.D.


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 2, 2009)

But the estimated arrival date is another nine days. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




--J.D.


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## mdnky (Sep 3, 2009)

Holy Cow Batman

Installed fine and they weren't kidding about that speed increase.  It's definitely noticeable, for me at least.  I was debating installing a 128GB or 256GB Crucial SSD drive, but now I'm not so sure--might cause shock or something if it got any faster.


----------



## fryke (Sep 3, 2009)

Hm. I think it can never be too fast. And a speed increase fades away after time. Not that it really turns slower, but for example: I've noticed how much faster my iPhone 3GS is when I first upgraded from the 3G, but nowadays, I don't find it that fast. It still _is_ though, when I compare to a 3G directly... 

So... I'm thinkin' about getting an SSD to replace my iMac's main harddrive. (The machine has to be opened in our service center soon, anyway, to clean the display glass from the inside...) But they're still quite expensive in 3.5" format. I only find 64 GB drives as well. I'd need at least a 128 GB, better a 256 GB drive...


----------



## mdnky (Sep 3, 2009)

fryke said:


> Hm. I think it can never be too fast. And a speed increase fades away after time...
> 
> So... I'm thinkin' about getting an SSD to replace my iMac's main harddrive. (The machine has to be opened in our service center soon, anyway, to clean the display glass from the inside...) But they're still quite expensive in 3.5" format. I only find 64 GB drives as well. I'd need at least a 128 GB, better a 256 GB drive...



Agreed, but this upgrade made a very noticeable difference.  Kudos to Apple's engineers/developers on this.

Never seen a 3.5" SSD, but I haven't looked for them either.  Most people are running the 2.5" models in the desktops using a carrier.  You have to remember the SSD part negates any difference in size that a normal HD suffers from.  If you do get one, make sure it uses the Indilinx Bearfoot controller and not the JMicron junk.  Crucial and OCZ seem to be the best bang for the buck.  Both have been tested and certified for use in Macs (probably not an issue anyways, but it's nice to know they've been checked.)

I just bought a Seagate 500GB 7200RPM 2.5" drive for now.  Eventually (6-8 months, after the next price drop) I'll buy the 256MB SSD from Crucial and move the 500GB to where my DVD drive is for file storage.  Never use the thing, so it makes sense.  If Apple gets rid of the SD card slot from the 15" pros and brings back the ExpressCard slot, then I'll just buy a new one.  They already brought back the anti-glare screen, so the ExpressCard is the only thing holding me back right now.

Anyone with a SSD install Snow Leopard yet?  Did the optimizations for SSD drives help much?


----------



## chevy (Sep 5, 2009)

I'm now using sleep with wake-up on Ethernet for my iMac and I still use AppleTV to listen to music. It creates an issue: when the AppleTV selects (using Genius) a song that is not on its harddisk, it may take more than 30s to recover the song from the iMac.

The idea of wake on Ethernet is good, but far too slow, therefore the AppleTV should anticipate and upload songs from the Genius list  *in advance* !


----------



## fryke (Sep 5, 2009)

I think the AppleTV should be rethought as a whole. If you only have one Mac, it's okay to have your media server on that Mac. But as soon as you have two Macs and one AppleTV, it would make sooooooooooooo much more sense to have the AppleTV be your iTunes server, managed from either of your Macs (or even better: both!). You could hook a very large harddrive to the AppleTV's USB port (or give a new version an FW800 port even). It also makes much more sense to free up space on your Macs' harddrives than on the AppleTV's drive(s). But with that, we're getting off-topic.

Either way: Of course AppleTV should be able to "see ahead" and start getting files in advance when streaming from a computer that may or may not fall asleep.


----------



## chevy (Sep 6, 2009)

fryke said:


> I think the AppleTV should be rethought as a whole. If you only have one Mac, it's okay to have your media server on that Mac. But as soon as you have two Macs and one AppleTV, it would make sooooooooooooo much more sense to have the AppleTV be your iTunes server, managed from either of your Macs (or even better: both!). You could hook a very large harddrive to the AppleTV's USB port (or give a new version an FW800 port even). It also makes much more sense to free up space on your Macs' harddrives than on the AppleTV's drive(s). But with that, we're getting off-topic.
> 
> Either way: Of course AppleTV should be able to "see ahead" and start getting files in advance when streaming from a computer that may or may not fall asleep.



100% agree !!! AppleTV should be to the media what TimeCapsule is to the network. And X.6 can do that with its much better management of sleep modes (computers keep synchronizing when asleep).


----------



## DICKSTER (Sep 7, 2009)

09-05-09 installed snow leoperd on my mac pro work station/10g ram. I had prepared for it by running disk utility/disk warrior and making sure time machine backups of leopard were on a seperate HD. Also had done a lot of updating 3rd party applications. It went very smooth; just some tweaks like "Mail". I am very pleased with it so far and the speed is very very nice. The first sl update will be out this week I heard from somewhere and this should further refine SL. It really went quite well !!!!!
Dickster---------------------


----------



## chevy (Sep 7, 2009)

Update on 999 with new "Beatles" features ? iTunes X ?


----------



## icemanjc (Sep 8, 2009)

Just thought I'd mention that since I have installed Snow Leopard on my laptop, it has crashed twice (giving me the "please shut down your computer" box with the power symbol) and in the about 1 and half years that i've had the laptop it has never crashed once.


----------



## Rhisiart (Sep 8, 2009)

I have installed SL over L (i.e. not a clean install) and I don't recommend it. I would add that I was quite happy to do this, so I am not disappointed.

My Mac Mini (see specs below) has slowed down ++. I can't remember seeing the spinning pizza so much. Perhaps 1 GB of RAM is bare bones for this OS, or more likely a clean install is only the sensible option.

Photoshop CS3 comes with an error message on start up (see attachment), but otherwise works fine (so far that is). VisualHub is perfectly functional if you don't mind the 'Applescript error' message when quitting.

My only minor gripe is Apple's fiddling with eye candy. There doesn't seem to be any consistent theme (i.e. black Stacks).


----------



## icemanjc (Sep 9, 2009)

Adding to the detail of my crashing problem, here's what showed up for the fourth time.



Interval Since Last Panic Report:  42949 sec
Panics Since Last Report:          2
Anonymous UUID:                    96568003-8498-45FE-9785-45571E71BF19

Wed Sep  9 09:13:00 2009
panic(cpu 1 caller 0xefaaec): AppleIntelGMAX3100FB GPU parser error. EIR 0x1 ESR 0x1 Instruction Error IPEIR 0 IPEHR 0xff20513e BBADDR 0 INSTDONE 0xffe5fafd INSTPS 0xb8c32 INSTPM 0x10
Backtrace (CPU 1), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x2f9c3e28 : 0x21acfa (0x5ce650 0x2f9c3e5c 0x223156 0x0) 
0x2f9c3e78 : 0xefaaec (0xf02bc0 0x548f0a0 0xf02bb0 0x1) 
0x2f9c3f08 : 0x548049 (0x5506800 0x54ec880 0x1 0x29b50a) 
0x2f9c3f58 : 0x54707a (0x54ec880 0x863ec0 0x5dd9044 0x5dd901c) 
0x2f9c3f88 : 0x5474d4 (0x55d89c0 0x55d89c0 0x0 0xffffffff) 
0x2f9c3fc8 : 0x29c68c (0x55d89c0 0x0 0x0 0x564e0a4) 
      Kernel Extensions in backtrace (with dependencies):
         com.apple.driver.AppleIntelGMAX3100FB(6.0.0)@0xeef000->0xf05fff
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.3.0)@0x91e000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.6)@0x932000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.0)@0xbdc000
            dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleSMC(3.0.1d2)@0x922000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task

Mac OS version:
10A432

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 10.0.0: Fri Jul 31 22:47:34 PDT 2009; root:xnu-1456.1.25~1/RELEASE_I386
System model name: MacBook4,1 (Mac-F22788A9)

System uptime in nanoseconds: 1069162487723
unloaded kexts:
com.apple.driver.AppleFileSystemDriver	2.0 (addr 0xc96000, size 0x12288) - last unloaded 148730711430
loaded kexts:
com.apple.filesystems.afpfs	9.5 - last loaded 905187142569
com.apple.nke.asp_tcp	5.0
com.apple.filesystems.autofs	2.1.0
com.apple.driver.AppleHDA	1.7.4a1
com.apple.driver.AppleBacklight	170.0.2
com.apple.driver.AppleHWSensor	1.9.2d0
com.apple.driver.SMCMotionSensor	3.0.0d4
com.apple.driver.ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin	3.4.0a20
com.apple.driver.AppleIRController	161
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelPenrynProfile	17
com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X	7.0.0
com.apple.driver.AudioIPCDriver	1.1.0
com.apple.driver.AppleLPC	1.4.6
com.apple.driver.AppleUpstreamUserClient	3.0.5
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelGMAX3100	6.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelGMAX3100FB	6.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTrackpad	1.8.0b4
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTCKeyEventDriver	1.8.0b4
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTCKeyboard	1.8.0b4
com.apple.iokit.SCSITaskUserClient	2.5.0
com.apple.BootCache	31
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib	1.0.0d1
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage	1.5.0
com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort	2.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelPIIXATA	2.5.0
com.apple.driver.AppleFWOHCI	4.3.4
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHub	3.7.8
com.apple.driver.AppleHPET	1.4
com.apple.iokit.AppleYukon2	3.1.14b1
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBEHCI	3.7.5
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBUHCI	3.7.5
com.apple.driver.AppleSmartBatteryManager	160.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM	1.3.0
com.apple.driver.AppleRTC	1.3
com.apple.driver.AirPortBrcm43xx	410.91.20
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIButtons	1.3
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBIOS	1.4
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIEC	1.3
com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC	1.4
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagementClient	90.0.0
com.apple.security.sandbox	0
com.apple.security.quarantine	0
com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall	2.0.11
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement	90.0.0
com.apple.driver.DspFuncLib	1.7.4a1
com.apple.driver.AppleProfileReadCounterAction	17
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireIP	2.0.3
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily	3.4.0a20
com.apple.driver.AppleProfileTimestampAction	10
com.apple.driver.AppleProfileThreadInfoAction	14
com.apple.driver.AppleProfileRegisterStateAction	10
com.apple.driver.AppleProfileKEventAction	10
com.apple.driver.AppleProfileCallstackAction	20
com.apple.iokit.IOSurface	73.0
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager	2.2f18
com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily	10.0.2
com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily	1.7.0fc16
com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib	1.3
com.apple.iokit.AppleProfileFamily	40
com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController	1.7.4a1
com.apple.iokit.IOHDAFamily	1.7.4a1
com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport	2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleSMC	3.0.1d2
com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily	2.0
com.apple.driver.CSRUSBBluetoothHCIController	2.2f18
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBBluetoothHCIController	2.2f18
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily	2.2f18
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMergeNub	3.7.5
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver	3.7.5
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBComposite	3.7.5
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIMultimediaCommandsDevice	2.5.0
com.apple.iokit.IOBDStorageFamily	1.6
com.apple.iokit.IODVDStorageFamily	1.6
com.apple.iokit.IOCDStorageFamily	1.6
com.apple.driver.XsanFilter	402.1
com.apple.iokit.IOATAPIProtocolTransport	2.5.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIArchitectureModelFamily	2.5.0
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily	2.0.0
com.apple.iokit.IOATAFamily	2.5.0
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireFamily	4.1.7
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBUserClient	3.7.5
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily	3.7.8
com.apple.driver.AppleEFIRuntime	1.3.0
com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family	300.20
com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily	1.8
com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily	1.6.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSMBusFamily	1.1
com.apple.kext.AppleMatch	1.0.0d1
com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet	6
com.apple.driver.DiskImages	281
com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily	1.6
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform	1.3
com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily	2.6
com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily	1.3.0
Model: MacBook4,1, BootROM MB41.00C1.B00, 2 processors, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.1 GHz, 2 GB, SMC 1.31f0
Graphics: Intel GMA X3100, GMA X3100, Built-In, 144 MB
Memory Module: global_name
AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0x88), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.10.91.19)
Bluetooth: Version 2.2.0f18, 2 service, 1 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: AirPort, AirPort, en1
Serial ATA Device: WDC WD2500BEVS-00UST0, 232.89 GB
Parallel ATA Device: MATSHITACD-RW  CW-8221
USB Device: Built-in iSight, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x8501, 0xfd400000
USB Device: Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x0229, 0x5d200000
USB Device: IR Receiver, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x8242, 0x5d100000
USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x8205, 0x1a100000


----------



## fryke (Sep 9, 2009)

So it's a graphics drivers thing... Could be hardware, could be software. Try a clean install for a while. If it happens there as well, it's hardware.


----------



## icemanjc (Sep 9, 2009)

That's the weird thing for me, it was a clean install. No mods or anything, it just crashed a day or two after a clean install.


----------



## fryke (Sep 9, 2009)

Well, but if it was a clean install, there's not much harm in trying it again, no? Maybe something wasn't installed properly and will be installed correctly this time... It's still something to try before going about the hardware, I guess...


----------



## icemanjc (Sep 9, 2009)

Alright, well I'll go about that and hopefully it will fix whatever the problem is or maybe the 10.6.1 update will fix it. It's just a bit frustrating having to install four software suites and many more programs again.


----------



## icemanjc (Sep 9, 2009)

Handbrake also crashes on startup.

EDIT: Damnit, everything is crashing now. I'm gonna have to reformat I guess.


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 9, 2009)

It has arrived! 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





*Starts Backing Things Up*

--J.D.


----------



## fryke (Sep 10, 2009)

Yay!


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 10, 2009)

So far . . . so good . . . need to check applications.  My old *Palm* works.  Need to check printer . . . one hack does not work . . . have to re-enter a code . . . insect porn seems fine. . . .

--J.D.


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 10, 2009)

*Firefox* seems to think I am double posting. . . .

Need to update *Safari*. . . . 

. . . sudden loss of appetite and feeling of impending doom . . . and there is this rash. . . .

"You can't use this version of" . . . oh, old icon. 



--J.D.

P.S. Hmmm, resetting *Safari* down to 32-bit allows you to continue to run add-ons like *Safari-Stand* with *Safari-block*.  In both versions--32 and 64-bit--some mail in hotmail comes out as "weird"--it does not do this in *Firefox*.

P.P.S. I miss my *Window Shades*.

P.P.P.S. However, cleared a good 10 [*CENSORED*--Ed.]+ Gigs of space!

P.P.P.P.S. Fires up printer, *Word*, insect porn. . . .

P.P.P.P.P.S. Printer is continually pausing--despite having the apparent driver.  *Safari* has interesting problems with fonts--even after cleaning up Font Book--and Office will not update.

Tried fixing the printer problem by uploading the other drivers--could not see which is which--FAIL.  Re-downloaded the original driver--from 2008--_voila_!


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Sep 10, 2009)

10.6.1 is apparently out in Software Update, but as usual, I would highly recommend waiting for the Combo update to be posted... there's always problems with the Delta updaters.

Bwahaha!  I couldn't resist...


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 10, 2009)

I did too! 

Notice it loaded a bunch of HP Drivers. . . . 

--J.D.


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 10, 2009)

. . . and after update, both QT lost MPEG-2 support.  Oh, you can buy it again, I suppose.  Fortunately I saved the program, and I am re-installing it, but it is taking forever.

And Apple is being useless.

--J.D.


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 11, 2009)

*How to Fix MPEG-2 in Snow Leopard*

This is, to my searches, a common problem on OTHER SITES [Boo.  Hiss.--Ed.].  I, long ago, purchased the *MPEG-2* components for QT-6 and QT-7 so I was pissed at the thought I would have to re-purchase it.  To answer my questions, Apple--still trying to overcome M$'s lead in "worst customer service" demanded I have Apple Care.

Yup.

But there is a solution.

*1. If You Have the MPEG-2* 

A. Reinstall: Seems simple enough.  If you purchased this for QT-7 in the past you can try re-installing it.  You will have to restart.  It may work, because the components will be where they should be.  My problem is the Installer never, ever "finished."  So I tried the next.  This may have worked with *Restart* if I tried it.

B. Grab Component: Assuming you backed up everything BEFORE your upgrade and you have that still--in anticipation of problems--simply go to your back up, and go to:

_System_ &#8594; _Library_ &#8594; _QuickTime_

Find this component shown:






sticketh it in the same folder for your 10.6 *System*, *Restart* and _voila_!  I noticed the same thing existed after my potentially "failed" installs, so that might have worked.

*2. If You Have Final Cut Pro*: According to searches you can take the component from the FCP disk and place it in the folder as above.  I do not have FCP and cannot confirm, but other posters seemed happy.

Hope this helps!   After this both *QT-7* and *QT X* played the MPEG-2.

--J.D.


----------



## fryke (Sep 11, 2009)

10.6.1 installed, updated fine.


----------



## Satcomer (Sep 11, 2009)

Well just received Snow Leopard. I am preceding installing it while I backup both my Mac Pro & Mac Book Pro first before installing. Wish me luck.


----------



## Rhisiart (Sep 12, 2009)

When I got Snow Leopard I simply installed it over my existing Leopard OS. This left me with 52 GB of disc space left.

I then did a complete clean install of Leopard and re-installed all the previous Apple and 3rd party apps. I now have 60 GB free (and it all seems to be running better).


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 12, 2009)

"*You can't use this version of the application DVD Player with this version of Mac OS X.*"






"You have DVD Player 5.0.3."

Yeah . . . yeah, I know.  "VLC."  But . . . still . . . it is the PRINCIPLE of the thing!!1!!

--J.D.


----------



## fryke (Sep 12, 2009)

Huh? Can you describe the problem more clearly? Did you somehow move the DVD Player app before upgrading/updating? I've never encountered this problem.


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 12, 2009)

That is exactly what happens.  I do not _believe_ I moved the DVD Player app prior to upgrade, because I know if you subdivide your *Applications* folder, updates do not always know "where" to go--and will just put a new one in *Applications* rather than the sub-folder.

What is the *DVD Player* you have?

--J.D.


----------



## fryke (Sep 12, 2009)

5.2


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 12, 2009)

Discovered the problem.  The 5.0.3 had a later modification date of August while the 5.2 has one in July . . . but the creation date for 5.0.3 is obviously much earlier.  I must have substituted the earlier one when I reorganized my folders.





Why I got another external HD.  I merely reinstalled 10.6 to the clone, grabbed 5.2, exchanged, now to see if it all works!

And indeed it does!  Now to update the clone. . . .

--J.D.


----------



## clem12 (Sep 17, 2009)

icemanjc said:


> Adding to the detail of my crashing problem, here's what showed up for the fourth time.
> 
> Interval Since Last Panic Report:  42949 sec
> Panics Since Last Report:          2
> ...



I'm getting the exact same error with a fresh install of Snow Leopard. 

I'm using it right now, with only the AC adapter plugged in, but it exhibits all the symptoms of RSS when the battery is attached. It was A-OK when using Leopard.

Anyone have any advice?


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 18, 2009)

*Safari Stand*, *Greasekit* and now--yay!--*SafariBlock* have been updated to handle 64 bit!11! 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





--J.D.


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 21, 2009)

*Onyx* has now been updated!!!111 [!--Ed.] 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	







--J.D.


----------



## icemanjc (Sep 21, 2009)

But it's beta!


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 21, 2009)

I will try it out later tonight--after the scheduled "back-up."

--J.D.


----------



## icemanjc (Sep 21, 2009)

Now I wish Handbrake would work in 10.6, it keeps on crashing even in the 10.6.1 update.


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 22, 2009)

Seems to work fine.

Nothing has blown up. . . .

--J.D.


----------



## fryke (Sep 22, 2009)

Yep, been using handbrake as well. Maybe get rid of its preferences file?


----------



## Doctor X (Sep 22, 2009)

Actually, I meant the *Onyx*, but *HandBrake* seems to work as well.

--J.D.


----------



## icemanjc (Sep 22, 2009)

fryke said:


> Yep, been using handbrake as well. Maybe get rid of its preferences file?



Well after restarting, it was fine. However, it does seem to crash easily in certain circumstances.


----------



## johncloninger (Sep 29, 2009)

I followed your answer yesterday about Printer Utility.  It now works for my CX8400, but I still cannot get it on the Photo 1280.  I installed Rosetta twice, but cannot find it on my hard disk.  What can I do now?


----------



## webexplorer (Oct 2, 2009)

I searched your website, and I couldn't find what I'm looking for.

I have two computers: iMac Leopard and a non-Intel G5 desktop Tiger 10.4.11.

I plan to buy an "Apple Mac Box Set Family with Snow Leopard Upgrade" (MC210Z/A)   for my iMac.  

Will I able to install iLife '09 and iWork '09 on my *G5 desktop* without Snow Leopard Upgrade installation on the DVD*?*

My G5 has an old iWork '08 in the hard disk.


----------



## Doctor X (Oct 2, 2009)

I would not think so if it is an Intel specific upgrade, but I will let a Guru weigh in.  

--J.D.


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 2, 2009)

iLife and iWork '09 seem to be Universal Binaries, meaning they will work both on PowerPC and Intel Macintoshes.

Here are the system requirements for iLife '09:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB966Z/A/iLife-09?mco=MzA3MDc5Mg

...and for iWork '09:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB942/iWork-09

Both list PowerPC-based Macintosh computers as compatible, with some restrictions (processor speed, etc.).


----------



## lighthart2000 (Oct 9, 2009)

Folks,
i am trying to find out if anyone here (or wherever you can point me) is at all concerned about Apple's complete failure to address the 32bit EFI "issue" on the Mac Pro.  I'll get to the "why do you need that" later.  What I want to know (and yes I have already written to Jobs and got a response from Wiley Hodges [OSX Product Marketing Director]) is why Apple has hobbled my flagship product (Mac Pro, Quad Xeon, 8 gig memory) with a 32bit EFI.  Imagine my surprise when SL came out and I don't have 64bit kernel support!

Now why do I need it?  I use almost all the apps listed in the following performance review, and hence am missing out on some serious performance increases!  http://macperformanceguide.com/SnowLeopard-Performance.html

Apple's response has been nil.  No, we don't know when, if at all, we will deign to address this.  I am seriously rethinking my $7000+ investment in Apple hardware/software and my Apple evangelism (I go back to the Apple ][)

Oh, and yes, I am aware of the Chameleon workaround, but really question why I need to go this route.  If some folks out on the 'net can do this, why can't Apple?

Would love to hear from any other Mac Pro 1.1 users!

Regards,
A former Apple evangelist


----------



## lighthart2000 (Oct 9, 2009)

All,
I have done a SL clean install on my MBP and find a big difference in performance (no benchmarks tho) over the upgrade.  Interested to hear if anyone else has seen the same.

-ML


----------



## lighthart2000 (Oct 9, 2009)

All,
I am looking for a third party app to migrate my apps back from a restore, with *all* of the registration info intact (unlike migration assistant, which I don't think did *any* of my apps, accept Apple)

Regards,
-ml


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 9, 2009)

Different applications store their registration/serial number information in different places.  There is no "standard" way to store registration information -- Adobe does it via files located in an "Application Support" folder.  Software from the company Panic stores registration information in an obfuscated way inside of application preference (plist) files.  Microsoft does it with a combination of hidden files, preference files, and proprietary data files, all located in different places on your hard drive.  Yet other pieces of software store their registration information inside the application bundle itself.

Ask 5 different software developers where the best place to store registration information would be, and I'd be willing to bet that you get 5 completely different answers.

What you're asking for would be a significant and huge, nearly impossible task, as there's really no telling _how_ or _where_ an application stores its registration information.  I'm sure a database could be built that would address this, but then again, that's a significant and huge undertaking, the least of which would be first compiling a database of _every, single application ever written for Mac OS X_.  That, in and of itself, would not be a worthwhile task for anyone, methinks.

I think your best bet would be to simply pull out your registration and serial number information from wherever you store it, and enter those serial numbers again when the application asks for it.

While this doesn't address your current dilemma, it may help with this same problem in the future: there are more than a couple applications available for Mac OS X that are specifically written to store your serial numbers for various pieces of software.  This requires you to enter the application and the registration information into that helper application, but then pulling that information out again when you need it (like you do now) is easy and painless.


----------



## Doctor X (Oct 9, 2009)

I have that application . . . it is a screenshot of the registration information all stored in a file on a different hard drive and burned to a DVD.



--J.D.


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 9, 2009)

lighthart2000 said:


> What I want to know ... is why Apple has hobbled my flagship product (Mac Pro, Quad Xeon, 8 gig memory) with a 32bit EFI.  Imagine my surprise when SL came out and I don't have 64bit kernel support!
> 
> I use almost all the apps listed in the following performance review, and hence am missing out on some serious performance increases!



Even though your kernel runs in 32-bit mode, applications (if so written) will run in all of 64-bit glory.

That means that those applications will run exactly the same whether you boot into a 32-bit kernel or a 64-bit kernel.

You are not missing out on any kind of real or perceived "performance boost" by running a 32-bit kernel.  Any 64-bit applications will run in 64-bit space, with all the same 64-bit performance increases, the same as they would on a computer that boots into a 64-bit kernel.

Just FYI, the only Apple computer that boots into a 64-bit kernel is the XServe.

To sum it up, you're not missing out on anything.  You can address all your RAM in your computer, and OS X doesn't run any faster in 64-bit mode than it does in 32-bit mode.

The amount of "bits" of a kernel has extremely little to do with "speed."


----------



## Doctor X (Oct 9, 2009)

. . . yeah but mine goes to 11. . . .

--J.D.


----------



## lighthart2000 (Oct 13, 2009)

ElDiabloConCaca said:


> Even though your kernel runs in 32-bit mode, applications (if so written) will run in all of 64-bit glory.
> 
> That means that those applications will run exactly the same whether you boot into a 32-bit kernel or a 64-bit kernel.
> 
> ...



El,
Can you explain why the performance review shows an increase in performance between 32bit SL and 64Bit SL in the apps that I use almost every day?  (Real world stuff) I'm sure bigger and more files would broaden the gap:







And holding down the 6&4 when booting will give you the 64bit kernel.. on those platforms that support it -- which the later model mac Pros do!


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 13, 2009)

Your linked graph shows a ~3% performance increase.

Which tests show a 30% increase in performance?

And what is "performance?"  Speed?  Memory footprint?  A single Photoshop filter?

And are these tests testing Mac OS X booted into a 32-bit kernel vs. a 64-bit kernel, or _Lightroom booted into 32-bit mode vs. 64-bit mode_ (because it's possible to run a 64-bit Lightroom in a 32-bit kernel)?


----------



## lighthart2000 (Oct 14, 2009)

ElDiabloConCaca said:


> Your linked graph shows a ~3% performance increase.
> 
> Which tests show a 30% increase in performance?
> 
> ...



El,
I have to admit the 30% increase is between *Leopard* (32bit kernel and app) and the 64bit kernel and app in *SL*.  As you pointed out there is only about a 3-5% between the 32bit and 64bit *kernels*.  And the graph is showing both 32bit and 64bit apps(green and blue respectively) and SL 32 & 64bit.  Notice this is only loading 128 files (a very small catalog in LR), most of my imports would be on the order of 2-3000.  My assumption is that the gap would widen as this would "stress" the kernel more.  And performance as I would perceive it is all of the above.. how fast I can load images, how fast I can batch change, how long a given filter takes to apply... my guess is the kernel would only come into play in the load (as I'm given to understand the kernel will get involved in any i/o intensive operation disk -> graphics card/memory -> back to disk).

Thanks for your input!  I guess I am still rankled by the "perception" of being hobbled, even if its only 3-5%.  Again remember the newer Mac Pros are 64bit kernel capable.. I am really thinking about my early adopter status...


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 14, 2009)

One of the reasons that all Apple "consumer" machines (barring the XServe) boot into a 32-bit kernel is that all kernel-level drivers must be of the same architecture and bit-width as the kernel.

OS X is UNIX, and UNIX has a _ton_ of drivers (especially with a microkernel like OS X uses), and if you boot into a 64-bit kernel, then all those drivers must also be 64-bit.  For the consumer use of OS X, not all kernel-level drivers (or "kexts") have been ported/recompiled as 64-bit drivers, so in order for Apple to offer the most compatibility, they defaulted to a 32-bit kernel.

I understand the concern, though -- even if it seems artificial.  If the computer can do 64-bits, then it should do 64-bits... the only problem is that the drivers for said 64-bit computer may not all be 64-bit.

Still, applications can and will run in 64-bit space if and when they can.  Mathematica, Maple, etc., all run in 64-bit glory and get the same 64-bit performance increases whether the _kernel_ is booted in 32-bit or 64-bit mode -- there is absolutely no difference in the behavior and speed of the app itself.


----------



## lighthart2000 (Oct 14, 2009)

Ok, now we are getting to some meat (smile).  I have been through the issue on Windows with 32 and 64 bit drivers and applications.  One of the reasons this (all) is key is that I believe 64bit is slowly "coming into it's own" and now we are "feeling the pinch" as both platforms struggle with implementation.  I have an AMD 64bit that I have both 32 and 64 bit Windows (xp, vista, and windows 7 loaded).  64bit app support is lagging in the windows world, so Apple is "in parity".

I guess what I am saying is in my excitement I bought into the "marketing hype" of SL as a "true" 64bit platform, when in *complete* technical reality we (consumers) are not "there yet".  We are "sorta there" with the 64bit apps running in 32bit kernel... and I understand what you are saying relative to the kexts.... another reason it took so long for Windoz 64 to come out in all it's dubious glory was the drivers.

So now with Windows 7 launching in all its 64bit goodness, was Apples response SL?  And will that be enough?  Time will tell.  I look forward to the next OS X release with full 64bit support (and yes.. on my Mac Pro 1,1).


----------



## lighthart2000 (Oct 14, 2009)

Oh I didn't see any response to my last query?  Anyone see a significant "snappiness" increase in SL clean install over the upgrade?  I did both and the SL clean install on my MBP feels much "snappier" (seems to boot faster, windows open faster, just all around "faster") And sorry.. no "benchmarks" to prove this...
(I did install a 500gig 7200 rpm HD in my MBP but I really don' think that is the reason).


----------



## jeno (Nov 21, 2009)

I try to downgrade a MacPro to Leopard but when I insert the Leopard disc (10.5.4). The machine won't boot up.

Any idea?

Thanks~


----------



## Randy Singer (Nov 22, 2009)

jeno said:


> I try to downgrade a MacPro to Leopard but when I insert the Leopard disc (10.5.4). The machine won't boot up.



Are you trying to downgrade your Macintosh to an earlier version of OS X than the version it came with?  Generally, you can't do that.


----------



## jeno (Nov 22, 2009)

Yup, It is a Macpro with 10.6 pre-installed. I can re-image the machine using CCC back to Leopard and now I want to try re-install fresh using the Leopard disc but it won't start up.


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Nov 22, 2009)

You can't install a version of OS X on a Mac that is earlier than the version of OS X that shipped with the computer (with some exceptions, see below).

If your computer shipped with 10.5.8, you cannot install 10.5.7, 10.5.6, 10.5.5, etc. on it.

If you computer shipped with 10.6, then 10.6 is the lowest you'll be able to go.

As you've found out using CCC, you can get a version of OS X that is earlier than the version that shipped with the machine onto it, but it requires imaging and cloning.  You can't boot from the Leopard DVD and do the same.


----------



## jeno (Nov 22, 2009)

Hello ElDiabloConCaca,

Thanks for the clarification. I've using CCC to downgrade all this while and haven't encounter any problem. Do you (or anybody else) have any concern regarding this? Obviously the OS is not mean not be run on the machine and obviously it does not have all the updated driver and ROM information. I'm not sure if by setting up a machine up this way will it still take the full advantage and release the full performance of the machine? how stable can this be?

Cheers,
Jeno


----------



## webexplorer (Nov 22, 2009)

Excuse me, what CCC stands for?


----------



## jeno (Nov 22, 2009)

Carbon Copy Cloner, You can also use SuperDuper! which did the similar job


----------



## dgxnhgcm (Dec 2, 2009)

You shouldn't care. You really shouldn't. Anything but an Xserve will boot into the 32-bit kernel (and extensions) per default, and switching to the 64-bit kernel (and extensions) has no real user benefits, which is the reason that Apple didn't choose it as the default on supported machines. There are lists on the internet about which machines theoretically can boot into the 64-bit kernel, but best simply ignore those. Even with 32-bit kernel and extensions, a 64-bit processor (any intel Mac that's not a Core Solo or Core Duo, i.e. the Xeons and the Core2Duo processors) in Leopard and Snow Leopard can still run 64-bit software in its full glory.


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Dec 3, 2009)

> ...and *switching to the 64-bit kernel (and extensions) has no real user benefits, which is the reason that Apple didn't choose it as the default on supported machines.*


This is not the reason that Apple chose to make consumer Macs boot into a 32-bit kernel.

The reason is that a 64-bit kernel requires all kernel extensions to be 64-bit kernel extensions, and a good amount of kernel extensions required for smooth Mac OS X client operation are but 32-bit at the moment.  If Apple made OS X boot into the 64-bit kernel by default, then a lot of functionality of OS X would be lost until a lot of kernel extensions could be recompiled as 64-bit kernel extensions.

The XServe, on the other hand, has to support far less kernel extensions on average because it's typically not a consumer machine where a lot of 3rd-party and after-market kernel extensions need to be installed, not to mention that most server-flavor applications are already 64-bit and any kernel extensions they require are 64-bit.

Performance has nothing to do with why Apple made consumer machines boot into a 32-bit kernel by default.  A 64-bit kernel will increase performance somewhat, albeit a lot less than what people really think.

It is true that a 32-bit kernel can run 64-bit applications without a problem, and it is true that the majority of people making a fuss about their Macs not booting into a 64-bit kernel don't really even know what benefits that would have for them -- they just think, "Hey, 64-bits is better (faster) than 32-bits, and Apple is artificially crippling my machine!" when in actuality, if given a double-blind test of a 32-bit kernel machine and a 64-bit kernel machine, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference without being explicitly told which is which.


----------



## anatrud (Dec 16, 2009)

I've noticed quite a few questions about people thinking that they might have a virus on OS X. 
_________________


----------



## Randy Singer (Dec 16, 2009)

anatrud said:


> I've noticed quite a few questions about people thinking that they might have a virus on OS X.



The Mac's market share has about doubled in the last few years.  According to Apple, about half of those new users are previous Windows users.  That means that there are now millions of Mac users who until fairly recently only knew how to use a Windows PC, and who are basically Mac newbies.

On a Windows computer, if you are having problems, it is natural to assume that the problems may be due to a virus, since viruses are so common on Windows.

Mac users who are former Windows users, when they have a problem with their Mac, often fall back on their Windows experience and jump to the conclusion that they have a virus.  This is almost never appropriate.

When you have an odd problem with your Macintosh, you should assume that it is *not* due to a virus.  You should first expect it to be due to something fairly innocuous, and easy to fix, like a corrupted preferences file, or an application that isn't compatible with the version of the OS that you are running, or something of that nature.

You might find this troubleshooting guide helpful:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2004011205473937
Note the conspicuous absence of any suggestions to run anti-virus software.


----------



## Doctor X (Dec 16, 2009)

It is funny, hunting down Phishing sites last night, I had one try to load a 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




.  It was caught by an anti-virus program . . . but . . . what would have happened?

I would have a file sitting on my desktop doing . . . nothing.  It cannot run on a Mac.

I think there is a bit of understandable paranoia 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 born by the fact that PC users around us have _thousands_ of viruses to worry about with the usual horror stories.  "Are we missing something."

No.  

--J.D.


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## onwhat (Dec 21, 2009)

If you have a .bashrc or .bash_profile in your home directory try moving them aside by naming them something else and see if that helps when you open a new terminal
___________________________


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## swept (Dec 29, 2009)

Hi all,

I have OS 10.6.2 and 3 Lacie ext drives. Drives #1 is a d2 quad 1TB connFW800
and works well with SnLeo. Drive #2 is a d2 extreme 500GB connFW 400 and does not show up in DU but does show as unknown in SysProfiler. Drive #3 is small 250 GB conn via router for ip/printer  storeage connUSB also does not show up in DU but does show as unknown in SysProfiler. Drive #2 is most IMPORTANT! I need to get this data off the drive(s) it has 2-250's in RAID. This is very important data. Can someone help? Is this caused by SnLeo?

Thanks
Ron


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## icemanjc (Dec 29, 2009)

Well.... Right before you upgraded to Snow Leopard, did they work?


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## swept (Dec 30, 2009)

Yes they al worked, but now only the d2 1TB does. My goal is to retrieve the files. I am willing to loose the functionality of the other drives as long as I get my files.

Thanks
ron


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## vivakaikai (Jan 1, 2010)

If you just need the files, the quick (maybe not as quick as you like) fix to me without troubleshooting what minute difference in snow leopard could have kicked off the chain of events that has led to this dilemma, would be to either go back to leopard, put the info on a bu firewire disk. Then go back to snow leopard and reconfigure drives. Although we will all be dying to know why they didn't work.


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## swept (Jan 2, 2010)

I do not use the time machine, so I probably can not do that. I guess I need to take it in to get the files extracted.

Thanks
ron


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## vivakaikai (Jan 2, 2010)

you can try mac data recovery software, but it's around $129, pricey


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## leuca (Jan 19, 2010)

Select a Destination shows my main disk iMacHD and Time Machine Backups both marked with the yellow triangle warning:

Security Update 2010-001 can't be installed on this disk. This volume does not meet the requirements for this update.

It would be useful if the message indicated _what the requirements are!_


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## leuca (Jan 20, 2010)

Snow Leopard has been performing OK until yesterday when literally everything slows down with the "spinning wheel of procrastination" on almost any action at all.

I have done a complete maintenance with Onyx and restarted, with no effect.

Examples of slowness:

Copying a 42MB file to Applications took around 8 minutes; for a long time just a few KB was showing as copied, then a while later a few more KB, then a jump to a few 10s of MB, and so on.

Typing slows down. (has delay while wheel spins)

A simple click in a Finder window spins too.

Simply placing the cursor on some apps spins too.

I am now scanning slowly with ClamXav, but I don't expect to see a result.

Help!!!


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## leuca (Jan 20, 2010)

This may not mean much, but I have noticed some daemons which I don't recall seeing previously:

rpc.lockd
rpc.quotad
rpc.statd

I have no idea why Remote Procedure Call infrastructure should be executing at all.

Might this indicate an intruder?


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Jan 20, 2010)

First thing I'd do is boot from the Mac OS X Install/Restore CD/DVD and verify that your boot drive isn't damaged (i.e., run Disk Utility's "Repair Disk" while booted from the CD/DVD).


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## leuca (Jan 21, 2010)

Thanks for your suggestion. You may not be aware that Onyx can do this and much more. Indeed Disk Utility has been able to be used to repair permissions in a running system for some several versions of Mac OS X. In any case I booted from the install disk and, as expected, there were none to be repaired.

Curiously, at present, the symptoms have disappeared. I will report further should trouble occur again.


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## leuca (Jan 21, 2010)

Well, after an hour or so, the problem has returned. Perhaps some kind of resource leak?


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## fryke (Jan 21, 2010)

While Disk Utility _does_ repair permissions on a live system, you'll still need to reboot to actually see whether that solved the problem, because some permissions that might have been corrupted before the repairing will only become effectively "clean" after reboot.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Jan 21, 2010)

Also, I am not referring to repairing _permissions_... I am referring to repairing the disk, as in a disk integrity check (the _other_ set of check/repair buttons in Disk Utility).

To do that successfully and without spurious and inaccurate error messages, you must be booted from a medium other than the boot drive you wish to repair; as in booting from the install/restore CD/DVD.


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## leuca (Jan 22, 2010)

Thank you for reminding me of the repair of permissions vs repair of disk. Both show all clear.

As I painfully type this with the pin-wheel spinning and long delays in echoing typing, here are a selection of symptoms, which occur more often than not.

Delay after clicking account at login
Pin-wheel (pw) before password cursor appears
Copying file takes an inordinate amount of time
Clicking in Finder window spins pw
Starting app results in long delay and pw
Scrolling results in long delay and pw
Browser pw symptoms occur in Safari, Firefox, and Chrome

Relevant system info:
Mac OS X Version 10.6.2
2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Intel ICH7-M-AHC1 / WDC WD2500JS-40TGB0


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## leuca (Jan 22, 2010)

More information:
I start with first app being Terminal. It takes a long time to login.
Here are some results from the top command

xxx:~me$ top -s 10

Processes: 85 total, 2 running, 83 sleeping, 282 threads                            08:59:54
Load Avg: 0.00, 0.05, 0.05  CPU usage: 2.18% user, 3.43% sys, 94.37% idle
SharedLibs: 8260K resident, 4900K data, 0B linkedit.
MemRegions: 7639 total, 186M resident, 21M private, 110M shared.
PhysMem: 195M wired, 335M active, 165M inactive, 695M used, 2376M free.
VM: 178G vsize, 1037M framework vsize, 39299(11) pageins, 0(0) pageouts.
Networks: packets: 3449/543K in, 3648/598K out. Disks: 15948/490M read, 5605/102M written.

The vsize at 178G seems inordinately large. Any comments?


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## nancy86 (Jan 27, 2010)

Gud info bro, Thanx.


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## leuca (Jan 28, 2010)

The system became totally unresponsive - beachballs everywhere, even immediately on restart. I decided to try backing up, and used Carbon Copy Cloner, attempting to clone the whole hard drive to an external USB-connected drive. This eventually hung. On reboot I was able to see that at least my own account had been saved.

The solution seemed obvious -- wipe the HD and re-install. I booted from the Snow Leopard disk, and using Disk Utility,  I first tried a repair disk. This showed the usual... S.M.A.R.T. staus OK, etc., but the repair never finished (given several hours). (NB, at this stage I was using a Bluetooth mouse). Next thing was to erase and format the drive. Coming back to the machine after several hours, I had a black screen. The mouse would not wake it. I repeated the last step with a USB mouse, and finally found two messages form DU -- erase failed, format failed -- or words to that effect.

I conclude from this that the HD has gone bad. (So much for S.M.A.R.T.!) Why did the system become unresponsive? Surely some part of Mac OS must detect catastrophic disk failure and at least display something informative. Is it feasible that if there are bad blocks inside the page/swap file, 64-bit addressing becomes confused?

I'm off to buy a new drive.


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## Doctor X (Jan 31, 2010)

Look on the bright side:  you backed up your data.

In my experience, ONCE I had--back in OS 9 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 a hard drive sort of slowly fail.  It died died after I backed everything up and started trying to fix it.  Otherwise, my HDs have simply died.  Dead.  Gone.

--J.D.


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## leuca (Jan 31, 2010)

I am surprised that Mac OS doesn't give a warning when disk access is failing. Indeed the S.M.A.R.T status is shown as OK.

The lesson seems to be that when pin-wheels are shwoing up almost everywhere it is time to back up your disk. BTW, I recommend Carbon Copy Cloner for this purpose:

http://www.bombich.com/ccc_features.html


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## Doctor X (Jan 31, 2010)

In this day and age where Ex-HDs are inexpensive the time to back up is as often as you can afford to lose data.  In other words, if you do not get "new" stuff frequently, you can do it as often as you like.

However, with programs you can make _bootable_ clones every day.  It takes me about 15 to "smart" update my ~200 Gigs of "stuff"--where "smart" is it simply updates what is new.

Back in the day, where "back up" meant fishing around for DVDs, CDs, and, floppy disks! people could be understandably lazy.  However, there really is not much of an excuse now.

The other benefit is when you frell your volume messing about, start looking for your repair disks, and other programs, you can just boot off your clone and clean your Main HD!  Much easier!  

--J.D.


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## leuca (Jan 31, 2010)

I agree with you, Dr X.

The beauty of CCC is that it keeps an up-to-date bootable clone. I schedule mine for once-a-day at 3:00 AM. From now on I will manually clone after any significant amount of change.

If you are extremely cautious, you should make two clones on a daily, weekly, or monthly cycle and move one of the (external) drives off-site. You need to determine the frequency of recycling off-site clone disks. Clearly there is the cost factor as well but, for the wisely paranoid, the price of large disks is falling rapidly. Portable disks should be to some extent ruggedized.


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## Doctor X (Jan 31, 2010)

The one I use is *SuperDuper!*.  Do not know if it is better than *CCC* or if there is any difference.  I got it a long time ago because *Time Machine* would not--back then--make a bootable clone.  When you have a laptop, not having that is useless.

Now people can get too paranoid.  Probably every day to every other day is more than enough.  That depends on what one does.  If I am working on big files like photos, or writing a paper, I am going to update it--send a copy--to my Ex-HD more frequently just to avoid problems.

It is funny, but my worship of Ex-HD came from a problem I had before I came HERE.  After said back up I described--which was inspired by a PC friend who had to repair a mess and who tossed a rock at me when I asked the "did you back up your data" question--I developed what turned out to be a problem with a memory chip.

THIS can be hard to diagnose . . . can cause all sorts of problems . . . blah . . . blah.  The thing is, after about the forth time of recreating everything from the DISKS I did my back up on, I finally figured out that  .. . gee . . . for about $100 I could have just hooked up the Ex-HD and got everything back!

We live and learn.

--J.D.


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## bjb257 (Feb 19, 2010)

I upgraded to snow leopard and now my HP All-in-One printer isn't working properly, can't scan...any suggestions?


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## icemanjc (Feb 20, 2010)

What model is this HP printer?


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## Doctor X (Mar 29, 2010)

New *10.6.3* Update is out!  







--J.D.


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## rubaiyat (Apr 22, 2010)

Does anyone know exactly why Apple has released a v1.1 of the Combo 10.6.3 update?

This is rather unusual.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Apr 22, 2010)

Because therre exists a very specific problem when updating directly from 10.6.0 to 10.6.3 using the original and updated Combo updaters.

If you updated to 10.6.3 from 10.6.2 or 10.6.1 then you can disregard everything as it doesn't apply to you.


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## icemanjc (Apr 22, 2010)

ElDiabloConCaca said:


> Because therre exists a very specific problem when updating directly from 10.6.0 to 10.6.3 using the original and updated Combo updaters.
> 
> If you updated to 10.6.3 from 10.6.2 or 10.6.1 then you can disregard everything as it doesn't apply to you.



Just out of curiosity, what is the problem that occurs?


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Apr 22, 2010)

I dunno.


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## r0b0 (May 7, 2010)

Hi guys,

I fear I have wrecked someone's computer!
I am a professor in a third world University - no one has Macs. Except me, my wife and one student. The student was given a iBook (G3 I believe). He asked me to install Snow Leopard on it. You will know of course this does not work. However, I tried not knowing that it is not Intel and therefore SL will not work.

HELP!

I tried to do it via a firewire (iBook has no DVD player). It didn't work. Window told me that I needed to partition the disk (GUID). Which I did. His HD is wiped, Snow Leopard is not installed and now when switched on he gets the flashing blue folder/question mark.

If you can, please help!
Kind regards,
Robert.


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## djackmac (May 7, 2010)

r0b0 said:


> I fear I have wrecked someone's computer!



Probably didn't break anything, but if they had data on there they were attached to, they are going to be upset. You are going to have to find some 10.4 or older retail installers. Hopefully they have the original installers so you can at least get them to where they were before minus their data.


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## r0b0 (May 7, 2010)

Thanks! Yes, they have all their data backed up. Sorry for a stupid question: do I simply get 10.4 or older put it in the tray and then try to boot? Any leads on where I might get my hands on 10.4. Someone told me that because it's old it is available free online somewhere...not having much look pursuing that avenue.

Many thanks!
R.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (May 7, 2010)

No Apple operating systems besides the ancient System 7.6 and previous (won't even run on the G3 iBook) are free.  You cannot legally obtain Mac OS X (any version) for free, unless someone simply gives it to you (which entails a legal license transfer -- downloading off the internet does NOT meet this requirement).

Yes, simply pop the 10.4 installer CD/DVD into the drive and the machine should boot from it.  You can help it along by holding the 'c' key as the computer boots, then it's a matter of clicking through a few dialogs to install Mac OS X.

If you have trouble with the installer failing to recognize the hard drive, it could be due to the GUID partition scheme you applied -- in this case, simply open Disk Utility when booted from the CD/DVD, and reformat the drive with APM or "Apple Partition Map" partition scheme, then try the install again.

Looks like you're going to be spending more than $100 on a set of 10.4 install disks:

http://lowendmac.com/deals/best-mac-os-x-tiger-prices.html

...they can be had on eBay for much less, but be warned: be very wary of what you get.  If you receive gray-colored disks, more than likely, they're system-specific disks that will not be able to be used with the iBook G3.  You want retail disks, which you'll have to specifically ask the seller if they are or not.


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## r0b0 (May 9, 2010)

Thanks! Someone has bought me 10.4 CDs and are sending them from the US. I already tried to repartition (away from GUID) but I get the message "partition failed could not unmount disk". 

Any ideas how I can get around that? 

Thanks for all your help,
Robert.


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## TitanShadow (May 9, 2010)

Try using the terminal or disk utiliy from the install disk to manually unmount and/or repartition the disk before running the installer.  From the terminal try using the umount command with sudo.  Though disk utility would be a lot easier.

To use the terminal to unmount, you need to first find out what device in the dev tree represents the hard disk itself, this is not where it is mounted to but where the computer goes to access the raw disk data before it is turned to something you can use.

Type...

$sudo df

You'll see something like this...
Filesystem    512-blocks      Used Available Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2  1249591904 690415768 558664136    56%    /
devfs                233       233         0   100%    /dev
map -hosts             0         0         0   100%    /net
map auto_home          0         0         0   100%    /home

Find an entry that looks like the top one /dev/disk0s2.  It may or may not be the same as this, but you'll notice the block numbers are huge compared to other entries, that will be your hard disk.

Then you use the command...
$sudo umount /dev/disk0s2

That should force the drive to unmount.  If it doesn't, you can try adding the -f option so it would be...
$sudo umount -f /dev/disk0s2

Remember replcae /dev/disk0s2 with whatever your drive is.

I would try the terminal commands after using Disk Utility though.


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## r0b0 (May 9, 2010)

Okay. I haven't yet tried sudo. I am connecting to the iBook via a firewire from my MacBook Pro. From there I access the iBook HD the disk utility and then try to partition the disk (it was partitioned originally into 9 - should i return it to 9 or is 1 fine?) that is when I get the 'can't unmount' message.

Is there a way, via Disk Utility, to unmount without partitioning? 
I just wanted to check in the event that I can avoid the more complicated sudo route.

Many thanks,
Robert.


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## TitanShadow (May 9, 2010)

I don't see any reason for 9 partitions.  One should be just fine.  And yes, there is a way to tell Disk Utility to unmount the disk, should be in the right clicking context menu or in one of the menus in the menu bar.  I don't have my Mac in front of me right now so I can't check.


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## r0b0 (May 9, 2010)

Thanks. I found the right clip command for 'unmount'. I got the following message: "Unmount Failed. The disk 'Macintosh HD II' could not be unmounted. Make sure that all applications and files are closed on this disk."

Thanks for your patience and kindness on this one!
R.


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## TitanShadow (May 12, 2010)

Sounds like you need to force it to dismount from the command line.


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## r0b0 (May 22, 2010)

Thanks so much for all this.

I'm now trying via Terminal and after the $sudo df I'm getting:

$sudo df
Filesystem     512-blocks      Used Available Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2    311909984 284418576  26979408    92%    /
devfs                 233       233         0   100%    /dev
map -hosts              0         0         0   100%    /net
map auto_home           0         0         0   100%    /home
/dev/disk2s2     18969056  12481280   6487776    66%    /Volumes/Macintosh HD II
/dev/disk1s3      5782920   5733016     49904   100%    /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD
/dev/disk3s0s2      28812     28808         4   100%    /Volumes/Mobile Partner
localhost:~ robertheaney$ 

I'm assuming what I need, therefore, is '/dev/disk0s2 '

Is that right?

Sincerely,
Robert.


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## r0b0 (May 22, 2010)

Okay, this is what I'm getting when I try:

localhost:~ robertheaney$ $sudo unmount/dev/disk0s2
-bash: unmount/dev/disk0s2: No such file or directory
localhost:~ robertheaney$ $sudo unmount /dev/disk0s2
-bash: unmount: command not found
localhost:~ robertheaney$ $sudo unmount -f /dev/disk0s2
-bash: unmount: command not found
localhost:~ robertheaney$

Any advice for what I should try next?


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## r0b0 (May 22, 2010)

Tried again without the space and I get a 'permission denied' message. Help!

localhost:~ robertheaney$ $sudounmount /dev/disk0s2
-bash: /dev/disk0s2: Permission denied
localhost:~ robertheaney$


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## TitanShadow (May 22, 2010)

The command is umount. So...

sudo umount /dev/disk0s2

Also, what is Macintosh HD II is it an external hard disk? And when you are doing this you ARE booted from the DVD correct?


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## r0b0 (May 22, 2010)

Thanks. 

I can't boot from the DVD because the iBook does not have a DVD Player.

So, I'm contacted to the iBook from my MacBook Pro via a Firewire.
I switch on the iBook holding down 't'.

(When I switch on the iBook ordinarily I get the flashing blue folder/question mark icon).

The Macintosh HD II is what the iBook hard drive is called in Finder.

Should I still try unmounting via terminal when I'm connected like this?

Sincerely,
Robert.


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## TitanShadow (May 22, 2010)

In that case you'll have to make sure iTunes installs in 'Target Disk' mode (I believe) and that is the drive you want to unmount and do stuff to.

Target Disk Mode is definitely want you want to use.


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## jameister (Sep 12, 2010)

On a similar Tip.  I have a macbook pro A1229 santa clara model but the CD/DVD drive doesnt work.  I also have a G5 PPC.  My question is... Can I use my G5 to install Snow Leopard on the macbook pro via target mode ?


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## webexplorer (Sep 12, 2010)

I think the answer is probably yes as long as your G5 desktop contains an Intel chip.  If not, then it is out of luck.  I am not sure how long it takes to finish the job between two intel computers.  

This is kind of crazy to me.  Please consider to replace the CD/DVD drive without a hassle or avoid to waste your time.


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## jameister (Sep 12, 2010)

webexplorer said:


> I think the answer is probably yes as long as your G5 desktop contains an Intel chip.  If not, then it is out of luck.  I am not sure how long it takes to finish the job between two intel computers.
> 
> This is kind of crazy to me.  Please consider to replace the CD/DVD drive without a hassle or avoid to waste your time.



I've already installed Leopard via Target Disk Mode to MBP, this worked fine, although took a while, not crazy really when your short of cash to buy a replacement CD/DVD drive, you kinda work with what you got 

So I the answer is no as I have a PPC, I guess I'll have to wait....


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## webexplorer (Sep 12, 2010)

Mine is PPC, too.  I heard that there will be new iMac this fall.  I didn't pay attention of what are the new features in it.  I'm just tired of everything.  I am not crazy if it is a 3-D computer or hologram.  Oh well.


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## fryke (Sep 14, 2010)

The new iMacs are already out. No more iMac product updates this year.


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## Doctor X (Nov 10, 2010)

The day I update my signature to *10.6.4*--having forgotten to do that--Apple releases *10.6.5*. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





For some reason, it does not seem to be available as a *Combo-Update*.

--J.D.


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## fryke (Nov 10, 2010)

Well: Update your system AND your signature now!  ... There was a time when I simply put 10.4.x instead of 10.4.6 or 10.4.7 I believe. If rumours come true, we'll see 10.6.6 in very early 2011 (for the Mac App Store), so I wouldn't wait too long with updating your sig.


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## Doctor X (Nov 10, 2010)

--J.D.


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## peterandrew (Dec 29, 2010)

Yah..I think the answer is  yes as long as your  desktop contains an Intel chip.  I am not sure how long it takes to finish the job between two intel computers.


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## icedawg (Dec 4, 2011)

i have os x version 10.6 and i deleted system preferences now when i try to open it, it says corupt or damaged and just not opening, please i need help


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## Giaguara (Dec 11, 2011)

Icedawg, you can either copy (using a USB drive or iChat or whatever works for you) a copy of the SAME update of Mac OS X 10.6.x System Preferences and place it in your /Applications folder.

Or if you can't find a copy easily that way, or if there were some added items that weren't present in your system, install Mac OS X combo update on your system. Pick the latest 10.6.x combo update; that should restore System Preferences.


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## tedjdesign (Jan 18, 2012)

Will my CS3 suite continue to work correctly if I upgrade my iMac to run OSX Lion or Snow Leopard?


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## Doctor X (Jan 19, 2012)

*Yes*.

Make sure you update to the most recent version of Snow Leopard.

--J.D.


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