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Lion Clean Install Requires Snow Leopard Disk?

why have a crappy Lion icon in a disc shape if not on a disc?
(yes i realise there's no hole in the middle and that they have other equally crappy round iCons)

bet they felt well smug getting an 'i' in their smelly cat OS branding – trust they know cats have 9 lives, maybe that's the X link...

steve is prob tying this in with another Lion King release on Disney
(no i'm not serious)
 
welcome to the future of apple, where everything is propriety and apple gets to decide what you can do and what you don't. where the only way to install software for your mac will be the mas, just like it is now in ios except you jailbreak your device. where the only way to get content on your mac will be through itunes. the ongoing ios-ification of mac os x will eventually lead to the lock down of the file system and apps like finder will be deprecated.

thing is, apple is the only company i know of that could get away with it, because they have loyal costumers who blindly follow them. users who criticize apple are the minority and their numbers will continue to drop, because eventually they leave apple (wonder)land. i'm pretty sure, apple doesn't even want them in their eco-system/walled garden. it seems to me they do everything they can to drive them away.

as things are right now and judging from apple's costumers the majority of whom are i-sheeps, i don't see how these users can (or will) possibly force apple to change tactics. they just sit tight, waiting with their credit card at hand so they can buy all new shiny apple stuff (hardware or software).
the only ones who could possibly force apple to change are the other major players in the game, like microsoft or google. in fact, i really hope that google would grow some b@lls and cut off all the ios devices from their services, including youtube. maybe it's not the right approach, but something has to be done because apples arrogance has reached an all-time record high.

that said, only time will tell if i'm right or not with my predictions. i really hope i'm wrong, but there are strong indications that this is the future of apple or at least that this is the future apple is dreaming of.

and don't come at me with all that fanboy crap, i'm not a fanboy of anything. i'm just a user who likes to think for myself and don't want a company do the thinking for me ( i don't care if this company is called apple, google, microsoft etc). i love my macbook, 'cause it's a solid piece of hardware and i really like os x, because up unti now it combined a lot of the pros from the linux and windows world (at least for me it did).
 
It's just another not-so-hidden way to spill money from users. They can claim Lion is sold at 30$, but in many environments it will cost double. Frankly, it is hard to understand why an OS should not be distributed also on a traditional disk.
 
Clean is the adjective; install is the noun

To fishmoose and so many others:
Steve Jobs speaks of clean install just as I speak of it: in the old OS 9 terminology. "Clean" modifies "install". We don't have a "clean drive", just a "clean install". You will never see the term "clean install" in any OS X installer screen. The equivalent term in OS 10.5 and before is "Archive & Install" (just "install" for OS 10.6). In any case, it means all fresh OS files installed cleanly (not mixed with any old OS files). One cannot make the OS cleaner by erasing the HDD. That fixes file system issues, but cannot improve the installation level of all fresh OS files. A fresh install of the OS into new directories is as clean as an install can get. Want to talk about "clean drive"? OK, fine. That's another concept.

The term "clean install" got picked up by the PC guys who never used Mac OS, and didn't have any obvious way to select a clean Windows install to solve problems with the previous Windows install. They always thought their only option was to format. That has caused them to confuse the term "clean install" with "format" or "wipe".

When I worked for Dell, we did use a command line method of clean install. It was called deltree windows. The command would delete the entire contents of the Windows directory without erasing any other files. Then we installed Windows and all was well.
 
Lion is an upgrade disc only

There have been several instances of Apple selling OS upgrade discs. Plenty of people bought them and didn't complain, because they were cheaper than the full deal. You could buy an upgrade from OS 10.3 to 10.4 for $29.95 or whatever, and that was a substantial savings over the full OS 10.4 DVD at $99.95. Where Apple goofed with OS 10.6 was not offering it as a full install DVD for $99.95 and an upgrade CD for $29.95. They tried to sidestep the question about whether the $29.95 DVD would do a full install, and it simply went over as bad press. By selling the full install disc for $29.95, they set a bad precedent, as well. Now everyone expects to get an OS 10.7 full install DVD for $29.95. In fact, it is likely Apple thought if they never admitted that the OS 10.6 DVD was a full install, everyone would either buy the Mac Box Set or think they pulled the wool over Apple's eyes, and just thank their lucky stars. Apple is great at technology, but pizz poor at mass psychology.

Apple should have offered the OS 10.7 as both full and upgrade versions, but it seems they are cutting corners in the development department and don't want to go to that much trouble.

There is a basic rule at MacDonalds that you never give the customer too large or too small a serving-- weigh with precision every time. Those who get a smaller serving next time will think they are suddenly getting cheated. Those who get a larger serving the second time will think they got cheated before.
 
double update

That really sucks. I don't even have a CD with Snow Leopard since I bought an update from Leopard...
So it means that I'll have to first install Leopard, then update to Snow Leopard, and finally update to Lion...

Really not cool :(
 
I can't believe there are 14 pages of discussion about this.

Why do people claim this is un-Apple??? This is exactly what Apple is about. A normal user doesn't care if it's a "clean" install or not as long as it works. The App Store from Snow Leopard is surely the easiest method of installing Lion for a normal user.

If you are a Pro user and want / need control over how you install things you can create whatever install media you want from the DMG that is included in the Lion Installer...

Apple doesn't expose Pro options in their mainstream products - they never do. It would be un-Apple in fact to provide a way to create an installation disk, since no normal user would ever know what the hell that is needed for.
 
vinpages said:
That really sucks. I don't even have a CD with Snow Leopard since I bought an update from Leopard...
So it means that I'll have to first install Leopard, then update to Snow Leopard, and finally update to Lion...
Click to expand...

Hum.. how did you update to Snow Leopard without a DVD/CD of Snow Leopard ? :confused:

Your post doesn't make sense. If you bought an "update" from Leopard to Snow Leopard, you have a Snow Leopard installation media.
 
KnightWRX said:
Hum.. how did you update to Snow Leopard without a DVD/CD of Snow Leopard ? :confused:

Your post doesn't make sense. If you bought an "update" from Leopard to Snow Leopard, you have a Snow Leopard installation media.
Click to expand...

I thought that since my Snow Leopard disk is an update, I can't use it on an empty drive, but only on a drive where Leopard is already installed... Isn't that the case???
 
vinpages said:
I thought that since my Snow Leopard disk is an update, I can't use it on an empty drive, but only on a drive where Leopard is already installed... Isn't that the case???
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how it is with Apple Updates but normally it only means that you have to insert the disc of the previous version during installation to prove that you have it - apart from that it's the same as the full version.

But if you have Snow Leopard already, all you need to do is fire up the App Store... And you can reinstall Lion even if your system becomes unbootable, as long as your main disk doesn't totally crash, which is the only case where you would have to reinstall Snow Leopard again first, before being able to install Lion again.

But then again - handling a primary hard drive crash means bringing the computer in for repairs for most people, and people who wanna/are able to do that on their own should also be able to create their own media from the supplied DMG if they have a problem with installing SL first.
 
Last edited:
vinpages said:
I thought that since my Snow Leopard disk is an update, I can't use it on an empty drive, but only on a drive where Leopard is already installed... Isn't that the case???
Click to expand...

No it's not. Apple hasn't ever released an upgrade OS X disc since OS 10.0. Snow Leopard is considered an upgrade over Leopard because it was sold for 29.99$ for people who had Leopard. So it was called an upgrade due to licensing, not due to installation requirement.
 
vinpages said:
I thought that since my Snow Leopard disk is an update, I can't use it on an empty drive, but only on a drive where Leopard is already installed... Isn't that the case???
Click to expand...

Apple only sold 1 version of the media : A full on install disc. It can install to a clean drive or perform an upgrade.
 
calcvita said:
thing is, apple is the only company i know of that could get away with it, because they have loyal costumers who blindly follow them. users who criticize apple are the minority and their numbers will continue to drop, because eventually they leave apple (wonder)land. i'm pretty sure, apple doesn't even want them in their eco-system/walled garden. it seems to me they do everything they can to drive them away.
Click to expand...

I am quite new the the world of Apple & OS X but I sold my 2010 MBA last week and have returned full-time to Windows.

I owned 3 MacBooks over the last few years but I don't like the direction Apple are going and decided to cash-in on my current MBA before it was refreshed and lost further value.

As a user, I don't like being told what I can and can't do. I don't like obstacles being put in my way of doing simple things either and from what I have seen of Lion, it doesn't appeal to me in any shape or form. Windows 8 on the other hand, looks quite special (I have been running a few early versions of it, including Build 7989, so I am qualified to comment).

I fully expect the fanboys to neg my post, but I couldn't give a toss.
 
Steve121178 said:
I am quite new the the world of Apple & OS X but I sold my 2010 MBA last week and have returned full-time to Windows.

I owned 3 MacBooks over the last few years but I don't like the direction Apple are going and decided to cash-in on my current MBA before it was refreshed and lost further value.

As a user, I don't like being told what I can and can't do. I don't like obstacles being put in my way of doing simple things either and from what I have seen of Lion, it doesn't appeal to me in any shape or form. Windows 8 on the other hand, looks quite special (I have been running a few early versions of it, including Build 7989, so I am qualified to comment).

I fully expect the fanboys to neg my post, but I couldn't give a toss.
Click to expand...

I am thinking of doing the same, but It seems a right pain to move everything back to Windows
 
scottness said:
Wirelessly posted (iPhone Dark: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8J2)



Lol... Wouldn't his iPhone have corrected that misspelling?

Leopard -- there, mine just did.
Click to expand...

Proof I think this message to and from Jobs is fully BS and just not true. Made up. Or a typo from the article author.
 
Steve121178 said:
As a user, I don't like being told what I can and can't do. I don't like obstacles being put in my way of doing simple things either and from what I have seen of Lion, it doesn't appeal to me in any shape or form. Windows 8 on the other hand, looks quite special (I have been running a few early versions of it, including Build 7989, so I am qualified to comment).
Click to expand...

Care to share specifics? What are you told to do, or not to do for example? What obstacles do you have in mind? I'm just curious because in my experience, everything that people say you can't do on Macs, it turns out you can with a simply tweak or hack that is easily found through Google. So if I'm missing something, I wouldn't mind being enlightened. Cheers.
 
JohnDoe98 said:
What are you told to do, or not to do for example? What obstacles do you have in mind?
Click to expand...

Getting the new OS without first having to provide a lot of information about myself to Apple.

Of course, like you say, just wait a few days and a Google search will provide a "hack". ;)
 
you guys are funny. i thought macs didn't have problems. i've never had to reinstall anything. and as far as selling is concerned, then it's someone else's problem.

Plus,why would Jobs want to send an email to macrumors?
 
KnightWRX said:
Getting the new OS without first having to provide a lot of information about myself to Apple.

Of course, like you say, just wait a few days and a Google search will provide a "hack". ;)
Click to expand...

You don't even need Google for that one just a little forethought. Go buy an itunes gift card for 30$ and make up a bogus name and address when you sign up for the itunes account. Problem solved.
 
They can keep their Lion. I'm staying with 10.6.

I know most users will not install Lion more than once, but for us techies and enthusiasts who always tinker with our Macs and like to have control of everything, this is certainly not an acceptable way to install - or should I say - upgrade - to a new OS.

New, CLEAN install every time on Windows, Mac is no different. And no, partitioning the disk with a "clean" install is not a solution either!

Give me OS installation from bare metal, or no upgrade for me.
 
JohnDoe98 said:
Care to share specifics? What are you told to do, or not to do for example? What obstacles do you have in mind? I'm just curious because in my experience, everything that people say you can't do on Macs, it turns out you can with a simply tweak or hack that is easily found through Google. So if I'm missing something, I wouldn't mind being enlightened. Cheers.
Click to expand...

You mean other than you and others on here constantly telling people what they should have to do with their hard earned money and how to think?
 
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