DU MACers: ever changed an OS?

[annagull]

I'm about to upgrade from our G-4 Mac cube with OS 9 to the Panther. Did a disk sweep, checked out upgrades, yet I am terrified of losing Photoshop that I have on OS 9. I know you need to allocate disk space for both, but I am so afraid of losing it. Have you ever done this before? Any tips? (btw, checked out Apple support, no answers).

[Awsi Dooger]

1. Dozens of times

From 7.5 to Jaguar 10.2.8. Still have not made the jump to Panther.

Get this, I bought David Pogue's lauded book, Mac OS X: The Missing Manual; Panther Edition from Amazon a month ago. Just opened it, and the installation chapter is missing along with one other! I have a defective copy and will have to check on that tomorrow.

Sounds like you don't have a second or backup disk, annagull. Ouch. That would protect Photoshop and everything else. I have Excel files on dozens of jaz and zip disks, plus three hard drives.

The recommended method for 9 and X on the same drive is to partition -- dividing its surface into two or more parts, with different icons on the desktop and two different names. Unfortunately, partitioning requires erasing the disk, apparently out of the question here.

I would download and run the latest updater to OS 9, 9.2.2, if you don't have that update already. Then run the Panther installer, CHOOSING THE CLEAN INSTALL OPTION. That allows you to install without erasing the hard drive first. That was a feature in old Classic installers, but eliminated early in OS X. Jaguar has it, so I'm sure Panther follows suit.

[Awsi Dooger]

2. Just checked my Jaguar manual

Which shoud be similar to the Panther process. It seems to indicate that choosing clean install is not necessary, since there is no previous version of OS X on your disk.

One space saving tip that I forgot: when you arrive at the Easy Install screen, it's wise to click Customize and check out all the superfluous garbage that OS X insists on installing. There are Asian Fonts, Japanese Fonts, Localized Files for every conceivable language and printer drivers for virtually every model. You can literally save MBs of space by sensibly utilizing the custom install.

Oh, and good luck. Photoshop should survive nicely and you'll be amazed at the stability of X over 9.

[annagull]

4. Heard that about the language fonts

wasn't sure if I could strike them, but sounds possible. As you know, gotta watch that memory space. You rock, AwsieDooger! :-)

[annagull]

3. Wow 7.5-- You are a tried and true Mac-head!

Thanks for the info. I ran an update, and all the info I can gather says to run a clean install. I'm just hoping I can save photoshop, I can't afford a new one. Thanks again for your help.

[Awsi Dooger]

5. Yeah, and I still have 7.5 on an ancient Powerbook 140b

That's the only OS that thing can run, with about 8 MB Ram. I'd eBay it except the shipping charges would exceed the bid!

Plus I'm sure I still have the dozen or so installation floppies for 7.5, plus old installation floppies for passe programs like Speed Doubler, Ram Doubler, etc.

You can't go wrong with a Clean Install. Just make sure to avoid anything that wants you to erase the disk!

Oh, and OS X differs greatly from 9 in that it's Unix based with the ability to set up different users, essentially different computer setups for different people. I think that option comes at Setup Assistant > Administrator Account. If you're the only user you can set up only one account and even create one with no password at all.

One annoyance of X if you opt to include a password: the OS will ask you to include it whenever installing additional software, etc. It happens more often than you can imagine.