Best Way to Install Mac OS X Tiger

May 3, 2005 6:18 PM

What's the best way to install Mac OS X Tiger? Best, in this case, meaning least painful.

In one hand, I have a box with an OS X Tiger Installation DVD. In my other hand, I have abject fear of screwing up my computer and being out of commission for several days while I fix it.

From reading about it, it looks like Archive and Install is the way to go. Is this true? I can't really figure out -what- it does, though. If someone who has done this could share their experience, I'd greatly appreciate it.

My worries: I have many many Stickies notes that are important. I have Mail.app messages, and many many applications set up. What does Archive and Install actually carry forward? If only the stuff in my home directory is preserved, this isn't enough. I have some directories in the root that should come over, should I move these in to my home directory?

What happens to applications, the dock, mail.app messages, Adium buddy lists, address book entries, safari and firefox bookmarks.

Put my mind at ease please! Should I wait until Best Buy is open again and purchase an external firewire disk to actually back up all these files first? I'm sure this would be a good idea anyway, but I'd like to avoid doing -extra- work if the fine folks at Apple already have me taken care of with Archive and Install. Is there any reason to consider a full Erase?

posted by odinsdream to computers & internet (15 comments total)

Apple's article about Archive & Install is here, if you want more detail.

All your user data including preferences is stored within your Home folder. If you are keeping anything at the root level of the hard drive other than the System (System, System Folder, Library, Users) and your Applications (Applications, Appications (Mac OS 9), move it into your Home folder. The easiest way to do this would be to just drag it to the desktop.

Archive & Install will take the whole contents of the current Panther/Jaguar System folder and back them up for you. It gives you the option of using your current Home folder with the NEW system (which would include all the Stickie notes, email, application preferences, buddy lists, bookmarks, etc.) or making a fresh one that just keeps key settings (like your internet connection info) and shunts your user data into another folder where you can pick & choose what you want to copy into the new system.

Backing up & recreating your setup from scratch with no crufty preference files or munged settings is always a nice ideal concept but Archive & Install is the next best thing. I haven't heard of any issues with it in Tiger (or in Panther) but of course YMMV and just by questioning it you have probably already summoned fate to come around and corrupt your hard drive ;)
posted by bcwinters at 6:32 PM on May 3, 2005

(Oh, BTW, that article is out of date since it's from Panther, but it does at least explain the concept right from the horse's mouth)
posted by bcwinters at 6:33 PM on May 3, 2005

The only problem with Archive & Install is that some frameworks are not copied.

right or wrong, I just did an upgrade. I run on the bleeding edge, and realistically, I shoudl have done no such thing.

I did the standard voodoo first (repaired permmissions, fsck and run the cron jobs.)

It's been working great.
posted by filmgeek at 6:37 PM on May 3, 2005

I did an upgrade -- without any fancy voodoo -- and had no trouble at all. What's the point of Apple bundling an upgrade installer if you don't use it?
posted by majick at 6:40 PM on May 3, 2005

What's the point in retaining the System folder? I have no real use for it that I know of. What about the fonts? I have to re-install those by pulling them out of the Previous System?

What do I see when I finish the upgrade, is my desktop still here with all my applications auto-starting as they used to? Will I need to re-install my applications?
posted by odinsdream at 6:45 PM on May 3, 2005

IMHO, the best way is to make a full, bootable backup using something like Carbon Copy Cloner, and then just use the Upgrade option. You can use an external firewire disk, a second internal drive or even a free partition on another computer. It's about a million times easier than any other way, especially if, like me, you've got a million different self-installed command-line tools and libraries. FWIW, I've never had a problem with just Upgrading, but I always backup beforehand anyway.
posted by boaz at 6:47 PM on May 3, 2005

Boaz is completely correct -- do not mess with your operating system unless you've got a backup. Additionally a backup on an external drive or another partition lets install a clean version of Tiger and use Migration Assistant to pull in your personal files, apps, etc. It's a bit cleaner than an 'archive & install' but seems to leave less cruft.
posted by nathan_teske at 6:56 PM on May 3, 2005

Carbon Copy Cloner looks great! Thanks boaz (and everyone else), I'll pick up a firewire disk tomorrow, back up the whole system, test that it's bootable and that I can access all the important stuff, then I'll install the new OS.
posted by odinsdream at 7:14 PM on May 3, 2005

The "Archive & Install" seemed like a good idea. The problem I had was that quite a bit of things aren't copied over. Any custom Preference Panes, for one, since they're in Library even if the app is in Applications. And I lost a bunch of drivers. I had to re-install a bunch of stuff that I wasn't expecting.
posted by smackfu at 8:00 PM on May 3, 2005

This may be stupid and redunant for most people, but I always forget that I can use my iPod for backup. Having that around makes me actually back things up once in a while because it's so damn easy. If I were truly industrious, I'd make an automator thing to do it for me. For my Tiger upgrade, I just copied my home directory over to the iPod, grabbed the .mbox files for Mail, and figured that was good enough. No setup, and no extra expense.
posted by heresiarch at 8:09 PM on May 3, 2005

I'm gonna piggyback a question on here since the initial Asker's already gotten an answer...

I installed Tiger after doing a full backup to another drive. I like the new Mail and wanted to import all my old mail (from Mail). I asked in the blue and Clyde told me how to get my old Rules and Mailbox structure... but where is the actual mail itself? I was pretty surprised to find all the mailboxes intact and all empty. Any solutions?

Also, will doing whatever the solution is screwup the mail that I've gotten since getting tiger? (ie, overwrite it or anything?).

In short, how can I merge the mail I have in Mail 2.0 with my old mail from Mail 1.0?

Thanks!
posted by dobbs at 8:13 PM on May 3, 2005

For my money, SuperDuper! is by far the best backup program right now for OS X. It's actually quite similar to CCC, but the User Manual is first rate if you're interested in learning more and the program is really easy to use.

I agree with what others are saying here - it is really important to have a good backup you can go to if something goes wrong. The best way to do that, currently - and if the money it takes isn't a problem - is to use software to make a full, bootable backup onto an external firewire drive.

That's what I did, and with that backup in place, I went ahead and did a straight upgrade installation of Tiger. It went flawlessly, and all mail, applications, and everything else was just where I left it. It's a good thing to consult Macintouch or another good Mac news site to find out if any programs you use regularly have been updated for Tiger as well.

A lot of people swear by Archive and Install, and it is a pretty good and very safe way to do things, but if you DO have a full backup, I would try the even easier upgrade route first and see how that goes. If there is something wrong, you always have the backup to rely on.

(I've always used upgrade for every new version of OS X and it has always been great)
posted by mikel at 8:16 PM on May 3, 2005

You should really have a firewire drive for full backups. I'm not sure how big your hard drive is, but I know you can get a perfectly nice LaCie 80GB drive for about $100US.

And believe me, you'll wish you had backed up the first time your hard drive dies.
posted by bshort at 8:38 PM on May 3, 2005

This is mostly for nerds, but things that broke for me in the upgrade:

Perl (header files missing, download latest Perl sources and reinstall, easy)

/etc/hosts and /etc/httpd/httpd.conf are overwritten

Compiling libraries becomes a pain in the ass as gcc refuses to acknowledge the new System framework. I've not worked this one out yet, but a few people seem to be experiencing it.

kqueue does not appear to play ball, still working on this.

Oh, and get ready for an hour of disk chuntering and heavy CPU load after upgrading.. god bless mdimport.
posted by wackybrit at 5:26 PM on May 4, 2005

Well, I went out and picked up a Western Digital 80GB (with the 8mb cache) and an el-plastico firewire/usb drive enclosure. Bonus: I can stick my dual-layer DVD burner in there, too, if I'm so inclined later.

Anyway, I'm running a full bootable backup right now with Carbon Copy Cloner. I'll try out the Upgrade option during the installation first. Thanks everyone for the advice!
posted by odinsdream at 5:48 PM on May 4, 2005