I think I'm ready for Tiger now...

[Blue Velvet]

I've got four drives in the G4, two of them brand-new.

I'd like to do a clean install of Tiger on one of them (120gb), reinstall all apps and essentially make a clean start from scratch.

The advantage to this method is that my current smallish Panther boot disk will remain as is so if anything goes wrong, I still can use the Mac exactly as it is now.

Applespider mentioned to me that Mail's mailboxes can be tricky to transfer from Panther to Tiger. Are there any other things I should consider or guard against?

Immensely looking forward to getting Quark activated, not.

 

[Lacero]

Upgrade when Tiger 10.4.3 comes out. It should be coming out very soon.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Upgrade when Tiger 10.4.3 comes out. It should be coming out very soon.

Yeah thanks -- I saw that -- but it's not an upgrade.

It's a clean install on a new and separate disk from my main system and so can be done over a period of days -- and when I feel it's ready and all the apps and backups are working correctly, I'll then transfer work and mail over to that drive.

Edit: It's a bit weird to have Tiger sitting around in its box since release and not have it up and running but I had other more pressing priorities.

 

[MacDawg]

I haven't made the change yet either BV, so make sure you post what you do, and how it goes. JSW gave me some good advice and info, so you might want to PM him.

I need to get more memory before I do anything I think, but I'm just too comfy with things working right now. I hate to upset the "applecart" so to speak.

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[Lacero]

That's how I upgraded from Panther to Tiger. I installed Tiger on a new, separate HD and slowly transferred my work over as I progressed. It took 3 months to completely wean off Panther.

I was expecting compatibility problems from the start, but most of the major apps have already been certified for Tiger. I still have my Panther drive for emergencies.

I suggested 10.4.3. simply because the install will be fresh, and you can slowly build compatibility up from there.

 

[Blue Velvet]

...I hate to upset the "applecart" so to speak.

I know exactly what you mean but this will not affect my current system drive at all. I'm concerned about transferring mail, accounts and anything else that may wait lurking in the wings.

Once in a while, it can be good to make a clean start (in all things in life).

 

[Blue Velvet]

It took 3 months to completely wean off Panther...

I suggested 10.4.3. simply because the install will be fresh, and you can slowly build compatibility up from there.

3 months?! Mind you, if you have a carefully set-up workflow that works for you, I can understand that.

I think you're right though. 10.4.3 might be the one to go for...

 

[MacDawg]

Once in a while, it can be good to make a clean start (in all things in life).

So I'm told... I seem to have be having to "start over" frequently in many things in my life lately. Uggghh. Need the rock solid stability of my Mac right now.

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[jsw]

I don't have many of the pro graphics apps that most of you do, but I had no problem whatsoever transitioning to Tiger. I cloned my Panther drive to another bootable disk and upgraded my original drive to Tiger. Not even a clean install, and I've been fine on my PM. The old iMac needed a fresh install, poor thing, so your mileage would vary with the upgrade route.

However, since you're doing a clean install and migrating, I don't expect you'll see any problems whatsoever unless there are some app-specific ones, but I'd expect those to be ironed out by now. The only "troublesome" app issue I had was a minor one very early on with Snapz Pro X, but that was quickly fixed.

As far as Mail goes: I had no problems with it, really, at least none that I recall now (so there weren't any major ones). The only real "issue" I had with it was that I wish Mail had had the Smart Mailbox option in Panther - I'd set up so many filters moving mail to individual folders (hence, individual files on the drive) in Panther, and those were all outdated by Tiger, where you can keep everything in one real folder (or, for safety and optimization reasons, a few real folders/files) and then use Smart Mailboxes, so it took me a while to clean things up. I highly, highly recommend using Smart Mailboxes in Mail - esp. because, unlike with Panther, you can have the same mail item appear in multiple folders (one for all mail from your aunt, one for all mail mentioning "cats" , one for all mail received in the past two days, one for all mail sent directly and only to you, etc.) - but the mail physically resides in only one place, and you can add/delete/edit Smart Mailboxes without screwing up your mail itself. Wicked good stuff. Smart Folders in Finder are just as cool.

Just do it, Blue! Sounds like you're very safe because of the bootable Panther drive. Spend some time playing with Tiger, and I think you'll very much enjoy the new features.

And, of course, there's the Frogger widget... but that's only truly appealing for those who wasted hours of their misspent youth on the original game.

 

[Blue Velvet]

And, of course, there's the Frogger widget...

Well, screw the pro graphics apps then ... this is the real and only reason for upgrading.

Thanks for that post jsw, most interesting.

 

[MacDawg]

Thanks for that post jsw, most interesting.

See, I told you... I never know the answers myself, but I always know who to go to for the answers.

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[jsw]

Well, screw the pro graphics apps then ... this is the real and only reason for upgrading.

Thanks for that post jsw, most interesting.

Click to go to the Frogger, er, "Froggster" homepage....



I'm warning you, though, it can waste some serious time (if you're easily amused by early '80s arcade games).

 

[jsw]

On a more serious note, the Widgets are the biggest Tiger surprise for me - I expected to never use them. I expected them to be eye candy that I'd show PC friends (who will soon have "gadgets" of their own) but never use.

However, I've found some of them - travel and weather-related ones, for example - to be quite useful. And... installing widgets won't screw up any of your migration plans, so feel free to play with them - even if you're willing to install Tiger before the 10.4.3 update (which is nice, but I don't think you need to wait for it before even starting down the Panthera tigris path [interesting how the Latin name for Tiger includes Panther, n'est pas?]).

I've already (as of last night... so "already" after four months) hacked into the Weather widget to figure out how to display my hometown weather in my Location. I think Widget infiltration will continue to grow.

 

[zelmo]

BV, I was a bit leery of converting our prepress Macs over to Tiger, but the newest version of our workflow (Esko-Graphics' Scope) had been optimized for Tiger and had some key features we wanted to explore, so we went for it with the release of 10.4.1.
The only issue I can recall is this: making a Quark eps from files containing PS images would occasionally cause corruption lines to appear in the PS elements of the eps. This was a big issue, since it meant we had to pore over every Quark eps to make sure it was clean. Just because it was okay once did not mean it would be okay the next time we edited the file.
Solution? We turned off NAV's 'make desktop a safezone' feature. Our IT guy kind of explained to me how this solved the problem, but I honestly can't remember the details. I was just happy it was gone, and moved on to the next challenge.

Other than that, Tiger has been working great on our 23 Macs for a couple of months now.

Good luck with your move.

 

[Blue Velvet]

The only issue I can recall is this: making a Quark eps from files containing PS images would occasionally cause corruption lines to appear in the PS elements of the eps.

Cheers buddy... I never place PS files into Quark files anyway but that's still helpful. If I absolutely have to place a layered file, then a TIFF seems a better option. Thanks for your coments.

 

[doucy2]

sweet i used panther 10.3.9 for ever
ide just go for tiger 10.4.2 now i think it is really good no veery noticably gliches
go for it now and then update to .3 when it come out

BTW everyone this is my 500th post YAY

 

[IJ Reilly]

I also stared at that box on my desk for quite awhile, and I didn't even buy Tiger when it first came out. But I've since installed it on two Macs with no issues (straight upgrades -- I can't imagine having to go through the headache of reinstalling all of my applications, etc.). But each to his or her own.

Dashboard and Spotlight are worth the price of admission all by themselves. Come on in, the water's fine!

 

[xsedrinam]

I also stared at that box on my desk for quite awhile, and I didn't even buy Tiger when it first came out. But I've since installed it on two Macs with no issues (straight upgrades -- I can't imagine having to go through the headache of reinstalling all of my applications, etc.). But each to his or her own.

Dashboard and Spotlight are worth the price of admission all by themselves. Come on in, the water's fine!

Same sort of scenario, here. I've yet to take the plunge though I've had the box for nearly two months. Couldn't afford any down time, especially not wanting to break FCP HD (4.5), QTPro (I'm still with 6.5.2), and have just wanted to do a plain upgrade install rather than messing with archive/install or erase. Wanting to move to 10.4.2, QTP7.1 and CS2 all at one whack. I've enjoyed flawless performance with 10.3.9 and have just been waiting, but I know I need to make the jump.