Leopard is a virus. That you pay for.

November 15, 2007 9:20 AM

I tried to install Leopard on my macbook, which is less than a year old. I got a kernel error, so I ran FSCK twice until no errors were showing up. I still get the blinking question mark, twice, then a normal boot sequence. Is this a software problem caused by Leopard (a friend's machine had the same response), a failing hard drive, or something else?

I can image my machine with a firewire drive and do a clean install, but should I be worried about the integrity of my drive?

Also, I used to have a separate windows partition that I removed a long time ago. I wonder if that is what caused Leopard to freak out. Why is Leopard so mean to me? What did I do wrong? How can I make this relationship work?

Thanks.

posted by mecran01 to computers & internet (9 comments total)

I don't think Leopard always clean installs over Tiger. Especially in cases where the user is a secret Unix afficiando who talks about things like FSCK. I've noticed things with Leopard that reinforce my belief, like the fact that I haven't been able to get X11 apps to run since I installed it.

If you still want to upgrade now, I'd recommend a fresh hard drive with nothing on it. I don't think your existing drive is bad. It just has something on it that Apple didn't expect.
posted by TeatimeGrommit at 9:35 AM on November 15, 2007

Ah, thanks. The X11 issue alone is reason to not upgrade. I can't live without Gimp and Inkscape, thank you. I am troubleshooting right now to find out what is missing or not supposed to be there.
posted by mecran01 at 9:37 AM on November 15, 2007

Seconding the "just use a blank drive already" approach.

Apple's upgrade installers have had this problem since the eighties. A backup and fresh drive is always best.
posted by rokusan at 11:40 AM on November 15, 2007

I just recently had problems installing Leopard on a second machine at home using the same disc that worked fine on the first machine. The problem apparently was a tiny fingerprint smudge on the disc.

After getting it installed, it had for whatever reason deleted my user account. Getting it back involved booting into Single-User mode and using the oh-so-fun dscl command. Consult the manual page and google for more details if necessary.
posted by odinsdream at 1:20 PM on November 15, 2007

I've been very frustrated installing Leopard. I've installed it on four machines -- three had problems, and each problem was different. I've never had problems upgrading Mac OS before. Yes, it's probably not Apple's fault, but still. Come on. Where's that Mac user experience I'm so used to? I pay extra for it, and it's a shocker when I'm given flashbacks to my former PC life...
posted by jdroth at 2:16 PM on November 15, 2007

X11 is borked because they are using a new build of it (the new one after the x.org spin off, etc.)

Read more about it here:
http://vnoel.wordpress.com/2007/11/06/updated-x11-on-leopard/

Or just do an archive and install. it will save your home folder, and clear away everything else, and bring your account over also, in most cases.
posted by mrzarquon at 5:58 PM on November 15, 2007

Look, this is a major rehaul of much of the os. Don't blame apple if they can't guess what 99 things you may have done.

Plus, nobody should 'kick the tires' unless they have a backup of everything.
posted by filmgeek at 7:21 PM on November 15, 2007

Unfortunately, archive and install isn't an option if you don't have enough free space. This will vary depending on the size of your current installation, but for me it was about 6GB, which I didn't have.

Especially annoying was the fact that I did have that much free space before I started the process, but each time it failed I lost about 500MB of free space. By the time I was considering the Archive and Install, I had lost that free space, and my system was not in a bootable state.
posted by odinsdream at 8:27 AM on November 18, 2007

Update: I have Gimp running again (at least that's one X11 app) by following the directions here and then getting the latest Gimp (release candidate 3).
posted by TeatimeGrommit at 1:46 PM on November 18, 2007