Lion and Time Machine

Whitehill

Registered
I have been using Time Machine for quite a while, up through 10.6.8, and it has saved my butt more than once. I want to upgrade to Lion. (I'll pause a moment for derogatory flaming and advice to abort mission.)

OK. The question. Do I just let Time Machine continue from where it was? Or do I erase the disk and start from scratch?
 
Let it continue from where it was. Time Machine will take care of the rest.

This provides multiple benefits:

1) All your previous data (photos, music, documents, etc.) that was backed up is still backed up, and you can restore documents from timeframes prior to upgrading to Lion.
2) Snow Leopard remains in Time Machine as well, meaning you can perform a full restore to Snow Leopard by simply booting from your OS X install CD/DVD and selecting a backup that is prior to the time you installed Lion.

I like Lion. I see no need to flame you for your decision, as I think it's a good one. It'll take a tiny bit of getting used to, but overall, I think it a better OS than Snow Leopard, and a natural evolution of OS X on the desktop. If you're a stodgy, bitter, old man who is stubborn and resistant to change, you'll hate it. If you're flexible and don't mind learning or re-learning some simple things, you'll like it.
 
If you're a stodgy, bitter, old man who is stubborn and resistant to change, you'll hate it.

How did you know?
 
This may not have anything to do with upgrading to Lion. Currently I have several directories in / named "* (from old Mac)" which showed up when I migrated to my current system three years ago.

Is it safe to get rid of these?
 
There's already a thread on this subject. But to provide one answer ...

Here's an example:
Code:
usr:
./		X11/		etc/		libexec/	sbin/
../		X11R6@		include/	llvm-gcc-4.2/	share/
NX/		bin/		lib/		local/		standalone/

usr (from old Mac):
./		X11/		bin/		libexec/	sbin/
../		X11R6@		include/	local/		share/
.DS_Store	X11R6 1/	lib/		netvault/	standalone/

Here's a typical difference:
Code:
# file usr*/bin/mail
usr (from old Mac)/bin/mail: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures
usr (from old Mac)/bin/mail (for architecture i386):	Mach-O executable i386
usr (from old Mac)/bin/mail (for architecture ppc7400):	Mach-O executable ppc
usr/bin/mail:                Mach-O universal binary with 3 architectures
usr/bin/mail (for architecture x86_64):	Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
usr/bin/mail (for architecture i386):	Mach-O executable i386
usr/bin/mail (for architecture ppc7400):	Mach-O executable ppc
 
If everything runs smoothly and you're sure that all your data that was migrated (Mail, contacts, preferences, applications, etc.) work as expected, then I'd say it's safe to delete those folders.

Disclaimer: Not responsible for system failure or nuclear fallout.
 
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