Leap to Leopard? What happened last time?

[Walter Biscardi]

[CoryTV] “but I figure since they’re both Apple, they’ve probably extensively tested it in Leopard”

Don’t bet on it. They may have tested it extensively but if recent history is a guide, it’s tested on very select systems using very select workflows. Your mileage may vary.

[CoryTV] “but I’m wondering what your experiences were when the Tiger update came out.. And is there an offical “Apple pro apps” standard practices/guidelines for OS upgrades?”

The only really recommended practice for an OS upgrade is to complete erase your System Drive and start over.

Wipe the drive clean

Install the new OS

Run Software Update

Install the Studio Package

Run Software Update

Install your other software

Run their updates

And so on until everything is installed. This creates the least amount of problems and gives you the best possible running system.

Of course it’s up to you to research all of your software, plug-ins, hardware, etc… to ensure that all of it will work with Leopard.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Cory Caplan]

I know there’s not that many apple fanboys here like there are in other places, but seriously? Wipe the drive?? I’m floored at how often Mac users recommend/require clean OS installs compared to my experience on windows systems.. I’m not saying I never did it, but my current AVID is running on a 3 year old heavily used (many, many apps, games, etc etc) PC and doing fine..

Then again, to be fair, I didn’t exactly use the vista upgrade discs, either… 🙂 (Don’t have any earthly idea if avid is even qualified on vista at all…)

[Walter Biscardi]

[CoryTV] “but seriously? Wipe the drive??”

Yes, you go back about a year and see all the recommendations for people moving up to Tiger. Wipe the drive and start over.

This is what I have done for every OS 10 upgrade and so far, so good. What will happen is after Leopard comes out you will see a rash of posts on this very forum from people who can’t get “such and such to work” or “my system isn’t working correctly” and most, if not all, of these problems will be eradicated by wiping the drive.

It’s your choice, you don’t have to. you’re asking for recommendations. I gave you mine. I will allocate two days for my system to be down for installation, updates and testing. What you want to do is totally up to you.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Shane Ross]

DOn’t upgrade your work machine to the new OS. You really won’t gain anything. If your system is working…leave it alone. If you have time (like a week to a month) to run it on a FCP system that is NOT needed for work, you can test and test to see how stable things are. But experience shows…and you can look at the history of past posts when Tiger came out, that upgrading the OS on your edit systems does cause problems.

And while a complete wipe and install ISN’T required, we always say that because it is better safe than sorry.

You have to treat your work machines like kings…baby them.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Cory Caplan]

Thank you so much for your help. Genuinely. I wasn’t meaning to spit on your recommendation, but it probably came out that way. After the past year with Mac OS as my primary system (as opposed to a decade of ocassional mac use) I’ve really been feeling frustration with the mac hype lately (iPhone user as well, f@#$# 3rd party apps, blah blah blah)

The truth of the matter is that my mac is no more stable than any recent vintage XP edting system I’ve used, and frankly FCStudio 2 has been a total abomination when it comes to stability. Motion crashes if I breathe wrong, — and combine the (absurd) slow render of motion stuff in the FCP timeline and the losing-render files for no good reason bug and my head wants to explode….

I just find it frustrating that my FCP system made by Apple– hardware, O/S and software is no more stable than any PC editing system I’ve been on in several years. But the pricepoint is really great. I guess you get what you pay for.

It would be easier to fully leave the ‘reality distorion field’ if there weren’t so many punks so steadfastly stuck inside it writing the ubiquitous “I don’t have any problems, you must be doing something wrong” or “It’s DESIGNED to be that way, you’re not thinking about it right” emails…

FCS has a way of knocking down that distortion field however.

Thanks so much (everyone) for your help and advice!
🙂

Cory

[Chris Borjis]

If I do upgrade it will be on a “SPARE” drive and on a friday morning with no bookings that day so I have the weekend to test everything.

I would venture to guess that time machine will have to be disabled for optimum performance in FCP and likely ProTools.

[Paul Dickin]

[CoryTV] “if there weren’t so many punks so steadfastly stuck inside it writing the ubiquitous “I don’t have any problems”
Hi
Us ancient punks are cautious guys with our work systems, and we tend to do things ‘the way it worked in the past’.
So any big software advance warrants a clean install. And I’m even more cautious than Walter, because I don’t put my trust Software Update – I download the standalone or combo updaters, and manually get my system up to date, and furthermore I archive all the updaters in case they are needed later 😉

Last edit-system downtime for me was August 2006, for a couple of hours whilst I reinstalled the OS X Combo updater to cure a one-off USB mouse freeze. Its been going six days a week since then, sure a few crashes, but zero ‘issues’. For the last few weeks I’ve had 21 sata/FW800 individually-partitioned drives mounted for a huge DV archive project. Even my best old SCSI Mac never achieved that 🙂

But my opinion probably isn’t of value to most, because I’m waiting to update to FCS 2 until Leopard is out. I mean FCP 5 never worked effortlessly with OS X 10.3.9 – it needed 10.4.+ to fly.

Leopard was supposed to ship at about the time FCP 6 was released. That seems kind of significant to me.

[Arnie Schlissel]

[walter biscardi] “Wipe the drive clean

Install the new OS”

Personally, I run a complete backup of my system drive before I do any upgrades, either Mac OS or any major apps. That way, you can always go back to your last known working status without having to jump through hoops.

Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog

[David Roth weiss]

[Arniepix] “Personally, I run a complete backup of my system drive before I do any upgrades, either Mac OS or any major apps. That way, you can always go back to your last known working status without having to jump through hoops.”

Bingo!!! Arnie wins the gold star for Friday Oct. 12…

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[David Roth weiss]

[CoryTV] “It would be easier to fully leave the ‘reality distorion field’ if there weren’t so many punks so steadfastly stuck inside it writing the ubiquitous “I don’t have any problems, you must be doing something wrong””

Cory,

Sorry, but statements like the above only serve to draw attention to yourself in a negative way. I can assure you, there are many very experienced professionals using FCP here on the Cow and elsewhere who aren’t punks and who have no allegeance whatsoever to Apple, but who either know how to troubleshoot problems or who know how configure systems that just don’t have them in the first place.

Its pretty clear to me that either you must be doing something wrong or you simply wound-up with a lemon. Neither case should present an insurmountable problem to a professional, as there is nothing that can’t be fixed. If you can’t fix the problems you’re having, I would suggest you hire a competent professional to help you rather than whining and labling better troubleshooters as “punks.”

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.