Along with many other Mac users (reportedly more than 100K strong), I spent much of last month, counting the hours before the release of Mac OS X 10.2, a.k.a. Jaguar. Despite the hype surrounding the update — mostly over its many new consumer applications designated as a part of the company’s “digital lifestyle” — Apple outfitted the upgrade with several features of interest to professional content creators and longtime Mac users.
Certainly, content pros will appreciate the improved support for hardware-based acceleration on some graphics cards on some Macs. Jaguar also raises the base level of connectivity with Windows networks, a welcome and practical feature for working with clients. And finally, the Mac Finder actually finds things. Go figure.
I offer some first impressions of Jaguar as well as a couple of installation tips for those of you on OS X 10.1 but in no hurry to upgrade (perhaps the best course for any upgrade, whether system software or application).
For those of you still running a flavor of OS 9 (the majority of readers I’d wager), I will also revisit my previous recommendations on switching from Mac OS 9 to OS X.
Is this finally the time for Mac content creators waiting on the sidelines to make the move to OS X? Or is it still wait-and-see time? Let me take you through the process and then you can decide.
Installation Shortcuts
As one would hope, Jaguar’s installer supplies a familiar, logical, and easy interface to a complex task. Even better, it worked perfectly. The OS now ships on a pair of discs, up from the single disc of upgrades past.
Yet, there are things you can do that speed up the installation and raise your confidence in the process:
First off, before heading into any system software upgrade (Mac, Windows, or whatever) make sure you back up your data and then repeat the backup to a different storage device. As I’ve mentioned in past columns, a single copy of a digital file is worrisome and easily avoided with simple and regular backup routines.
In addition, make sure to back up all the files that could be important to your business, such as your e-mail files and attachments, browser history file, and address book. I spoke with an unfortunate person the other day who lost several years worth of e-mail correspondence and his entire contact database as the result of a DSL technical support snafu. He said he had backed up “his work,” which meant the actual documents he’d created. But he’d never considered backing up his Outlook files.
The Unix underpinning of OS X makes an informal backup easy since your data files and preferences are stored in the user’s Home directory. However, be aware that Classic applications can store files in other places on the drive, such as the OS 9 documents folder. I used Dantz Development’s Retrospect Backup for a machine-wide backup and then dragged my most critical files to another FireWire hard drive for a last-minute copy.
Apple provides several options for installing the update. The default install keeps everything as it is and swaps any changed files in and out of the system. However, hidden away in the installer are settings to completely erase the drive and start over from scratch, and a middle path, the so-called “clean install” that creates a new set of system files, but maintains your User preferences and network settings.
Most of us will do best with this clean install, since it’s a quicker installation and provides a fresh start to the updated system while still avoiding the Setup Assistant. The setting can be found by clicking the Options button in Select a Destination pane, which then presents three options: Upgrade (the standard install), Archive and Install (the clean one), and Erase and Install (you get the picture). The clean installation moves all the old system files to a new folder for later removal, once you make sure everything seems to be correct.
Persons responsible for upgrading many Macs reported to me that machines with the clean install option appeared to run slightly faster than those with the default installation. Still, that observation could be due to a computerized version of the placebo effect.
I also suggest folks take a look in the Customize button in the screen titled Easy Install. OS X is designed as a multi-user international operating system, so its default installation comes with a great dollop of localized versions, just in case you have a foreign visitor who wants to use your Mac. The Customize button presents a long list of packages for localized systems and additional fonts that can total many hundred of megabytes each. You may want to prune them; however, don’t click wildly here — make sure that the BSD Subsystem box is checked before continuing. (BSD or Berkeley Standard Distribution is the Unix underpinnings of Darwin, the Unix used by OS X. This package is needed by a number of programs and services you may want to use.)
My now customized and “optionized” installation took about 40 minutes, which I understand is about half that of a standard installation.
This article was last modified on January 18, 2023
This article was first published on September 5, 2002
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