How does migrate work?

[California King]

I'm planning on getting a iMac soon and was wondering if I should use Migrate to move my stuff over from my current Macbook, or would it be easier to just move all my stuff over to an external HDD and then transfer it over to the new Mac?

Here's all I want to transfer over to the new Mac:
-Firefox bookmarks
-School documents (PDFs, docs, excel, etc)
-Applications
-Music, Movies, Pictures (all DRM free)

I saw Migrate when I did a clean install of Leopard, but didn't really know much about it to use it.

 

[RED™]

About how much GB are we talking? If it's not much, then transfer them via HDD and you're good to go.

If it's more than, say, 30-40 GB then use Migration Assistant. It's very handy and you'll find everything like you left it on your previous machine.

 

[MacUser2525]

I'm planning on getting a iMac soon and was wondering if I should use Migrate to move my stuff over from my current Macbook, or would it be easier to just move all my stuff over to an external HDD and then transfer it over to the new Mac?

Here's all I want to transfer over to the new Mac:
-Firefox bookmarks
-School documents (PDFs, docs, excel, etc)
-Applications
-Music, Movies, Pictures (all DRM free)

I saw Migrate when I did a clean install of Leopard, but didn't really know much about it to use it.

I did it last night when upgrading everything went fine except I was stupid enough to wait until after install which entails making a new account logging into it then migrating your user/applications with the Migration Assistant. Do it smart if your going to take the first chance offered during install and make sure all your apps are up to date first.