Help newbie with Tiger clean install

[inlimbo]

yo!

Ive been a switcher for about 6 months now and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience thus far. I bought Tiger the other day and went for the upgrade option because I thought that would be easiest and given my inexperience with the mac platform. But things have been going a little bit weird since the install. Im running 10.4.2. My PB has frozen a couple of times (spinning beachball - had to force quit), help doesn't seem to be working - I try and do a search for "smart folders" and it just searches and searches and doesn't stop??!?

So I figure I should just do a clean install. But I have never done this before so im looking for some advice.

1) If I do the clean install I have read that I will have to re-install the iLife apps like iTunes etc... Is that true? Will they be on one of the CDs that came with my Powerbook?

2) I know I will have to backup my files - but there aren;t that many. I have about 200 MBs of word docs, pdfs and pictures that I can easily copy to a flash drive (I dont have an external drive). But my music is going to be a major pain in the a***! I could just re-rip them all, but its so time consuming. I don't have many third party apps. Just M$ word, excel, powerpoint; firefox, gee gmail notifier. Can easily be reinstalled.

3) What about drivers and stuff? I mean when you re-install windows you have to find all those bloody drivers disks for monitors, graphics cards, modems, etc... Same thing for my PB? I know I will have to install drivers for my printer but thats the only external piece of hardware (besides iPod and digital camera) that I have.

4) Will I have to download and install all those bloody updates (security, iPhoto etc...) again?

Any thing else I should know?

Thanks in advance
(a hesitant ) inlimbo...

 

[inlimbo]

Setting up admin and user accounts

Another related Q:

I only have one user account for OS X which is the admin account. I remeber reading in a thread here that you should always have an admin account and a user account. So u log into the user account but if u install something you would use the admin account - is that the reason? Is it necessary?

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

1) If I do the clean install I have read that I will have to re-install the iLife apps like iTunes etc... Is that true? Will they be on one of the CDs that came with my Powerbook?

2) I know I will have to backup my files - but there aren;t that many. I have about 200 MBs of word docs, pdfs and pictures that I can easily copy to a flash drive (I dont have an external drive). But my music is going to be a major pain in the a***! I could just re-rip them all, but its so time consuming. I don't have many third party apps. Just M$ word, excel, powerpoint; firefox, gee gmail notifier. Can easily be reinstalled.

3) What about drivers and stuff? I mean when you re-install windows you have to find all those bloody drivers disks for monitors, graphics cards, modems, etc... Same thing for my PB? I know I will have to install drivers for my printer but thats the only external piece of hardware (besides iPod and digital camera) that I have.

4) Will I have to download and install all those bloody updates (security, iPhoto etc...) again?

Any thing else I should know?

1) Yes, iLife must be reinstalled (not iTunes, though). And they will be on the CDs/DVD that came with your PowerBook. Just pop it in, when finished with the installation of Tiger and look for "Install additional applications" or similar...

2) With your music: You could just make one playlist with all your music and burn that onto a number of CD-Rs (or preferably DVD-Rs if you have a superdrive). Make sure that iTunes preferences -> Burning is set to burn to data disk. When you start burning iTunes will burn the first disk, then ask for another, and you just have to keep feeding it disks until it is finished. If you also back up your iTunes Library file then you should keep your play count, ratings, etc., too...

As for other apps. You just have o re-install... but if you make yourself a CD with all the installers you want to install, in advance, that shouldn't take too long...

3) Unless this is drivers you've installed, don't worry about it. Tiger comes with most of this pre-installed. Actually when you install Tiger it's a good tip to prevent it from installing all of those. You can save lots of space by customizing your Tiger installation, and uncheck all those Printer drivers and additional Languages you never will have any use for.

4) All updates (released since your disks came out) will have to be re-downloaded and installed. But it's not that bad, because most of them will only need the newest updater, e.g. with OS X system updaters you will only get one 10.4.2 and the newest security update (which is newer than the 10.4.2), all older updates will be included in these... still if you're only on dial-up this can be a pain... if so, try to find a friend with broadband...

Other things...? Enjoy your Mac and search/browse these forums for answers if you have problems or just wonder about something. Most things have been answered already...

I only have one user account for OS X which is the admin account. I remeber reading in a thread here that you should always have an admin account and a user account. So u log into the user account but if u install something you would use the admin account - is that the reason? Is it necessary?

I think this advice is mostly for Windows users. On a Mac an admin account is not the same as a root account. So you will still have to enter a password if you want to mess with the system or other users stuff. I use my (main) admin account as my everyday account. (Only have another account for testing purposes.)

 

[stevietheb]

I think this advice is mostly for Windows users. On a Mac an admin account is not the same as a root account. So you will still have to enter a password if you want to mess with the system or other users stuff. I use my (main) admin account as my everyday account. (Only have another account for testing purposes.)

I've wondered this too (though not enough to ever actually create a second acct).

 

[Soulstorm]

I don't see a reason o create another account. I am using Tiger with only 1 account and it runs fine...

 

[zforrester]

I've only ever had one account per user, so I wouldn't worry about that. You mentioned you were a switcher so you might appreciate my websiteMacTutorials.com. (Shameless self promotion, I know) It's specifically geared to newbies to make sure you set your new mac up properly, avoiding all the hangups that you're used to with windows.
RE: drivers: you will have to reinstall any drivers for Quicktime, like 3IVX or Divx, but those don't come preinstalled in any case.

Check out the site, and leave a comment letting me know what you think!
-Zach
MacTutorials.com

 

[mscnln]

I separate my admin and user account, just because it's not inconvenient at all running a normal user account (just have to authenticate to add/remove programs) and it adds another level of pretection to your computer. Also, I'm used to it from linux.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Try installing and running this before you go through the headache of a clean install. In my experience, they are never necessary in OSX.

 

[VanNess]

Before you run off to do a clean install...

I updated my eMac from Panther to Tiger using the normal update install option without problems.

Unlike previous version of OS X, Tiger needs to index your hard drive to use the Spotlight search feature, and it automatically starts doing this after you install (first boot into Tiger). Although the indexing process is intended to run in the background, and you can use the machine while it's indexing, the indexing process is still fairly CPU-intensive and slows down your machine. It wouldn't be a surprise if you got a beachball using an app while the indexing process is still doing it's thing. You can check the indexing status by clicking on the Spotlight menu at the upper right of your screen. If it's still indexing, you'll see a drop-down status box with a guesstimate of how much more time Spotlight intends to take to complete the index.

You might just try rebooting your machine and checking the spotlight menu to see if it's still indexing. If it is, just leave the machine alone and let it finish it's index. It will finish sooner if you let it have your CPU's full attention.

If your the only user of your machine, then the only reason I can think of to create another user is for troubleshooting purposes. If your start having problems with your regular admin user account, you can switch to a user account and see if the trouble persists. If it doesn't, then you know something is screwy somewhere with your regular admin account user programs/settings, et al., and not the OS itself.