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New MB: Should I reinstall OS?

J

jaern

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Just got my first Mac, a new MB C2D...

Had it been a new PC, I would have reinstalled a new fresh OS without all the small apps and exactly as I want it. Is this recommended for a new Mac as well?

Also, do you recommend installing a firewall? I have understood that Anti-virus shouldn't be required.
 
A lot of people do new installs on new machines.
You can get rid of all the localization files and unwanted extra apps, extra printer drivers etc.
 
I cut the size of the OS X footprint almost in half with a fresh install. That was a savings of some 9GB.

Do it.
 
jaern said:
Just got my first Mac, a new MB C2D...

Had it been a new PC, I would have reinstalled a new fresh OS without all the small apps and exactly as I want it. Is this recommended for a new Mac as well?

Also, do you recommend installing a firewall? I have understood that Anti-virus shouldn't be required.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the Mac family!

There should be no reason to do any OS reinstall with a new Mac as there are only a very few things that you might want to leave out (possibly all of the extra language packs -- these packages do not impact on performance anyway, they just take a little space on the drive). The only people that I have bumped into that reinstall their OS are audio/video professionals who need a very lean system and will only install the bare minimum core plus the DAW or Video software. For 99.99999% of other people (professionals included) a reinstall gains them nothing except to save a little disk space.

A firewall is always a good idea. Although the core of Mac OS is Unix and is very well configured out of the box for security, having a physical (as opposed to software) firewall makes an already secure system extremely difficult (nothing is impossible but this configuration comes close) for anyone to gain unauthorized access to your system.

Viruses are not a concern with Unix based OSes due to the fact that nothing can run without your permission and even if you loaded something (viral) in on your user account it can't damage anything critical as nothing at the user level can access root level system items (root level items cannot be written to, or damaged, from the users account without authorization from the user). The only real way for a virus to gain access to your system is for the virus writer to have local physical access to your computer (in other words he/she is sitting in front of your computer) and have root privileges, or know your password in order to invoke "sudo", and then to manually enter the virus. Do not waste your money on _Anti-virus_ software for the Mac.

Enjoy your new Mac.

Sopranino
 
netdog said:
I cut the size of the OS X footprint almost in half with a fresh install. That was a savings of some 9GB.

Do it.
Click to expand...

Is that possible? Dang. I cut out all the stuff I didn't want, and I didn't save nearly that much space. I did keep some of the languages though, maybe 15 of them....just in case.
 
i ALWAYS do a fresh new install when i get my Macs. There's a lot of stuff i won't use or need so there's no point in having them there.

But as one person said, it doesn't affect the system in any way. It just saves a bit of HDD space.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Macs and enjoy your MB 🙂
 
To turn on firewall click on Apple logo, system preferences, sharing folder, firewall.

Enjoy the Mac experience!
 
I also do the fresh reinstall of OS with my Macs. I want to get rid of languages I don't need, trial software I don't need, printer drivers I don't need (I basically get rid of all the printer drivers), and some others. The internal HD is getting bigger and bigger after each revision; but, I find I don't want to waste the internal hard drive space even for a 500 GB drive. I freely waste space with my external hard drives, though😎
 
Abstract said:
Is that possible? Dang. I cut out all the stuff I didn't want, and I didn't save nearly that much space. I did keep some of the languages though, maybe 15 of them....just in case.
Click to expand...

I think this is possible if you take into account all the software, which is installed in addition to the system on a newly bought Mac. iLife and the iWork trial together already come close to the 9GB, I think. If you don't need those, you can save a lot of space. You don't have to reinstall though. You can delete them from the standard install. However some of these programs also have some resources (big ones) in the Library folder on the hard disc. Therefore it is not sufficient to delete the Application alone to gain back the disc space.
 
Don't mean to hijack this thread, but how exactly does one delete an app from OS X? There's not "uninstall" app like what we got on Windows.

This is my first Mac as well, and I did a fresh install on a new HDD, so I got rid of all the demo software, most language and printer drivers as well. Saved quite a bit of space. (~6-7GB)
 
RadarLove said:
Don't mean to hijack this thread, but how exactly does one delete an app from OS X? There's not "uninstall" app like what we got on Windows.

This is my first Mac as well, and I did a fresh install on a new HDD, so I got rid of all the demo software, most language and printer drivers as well. Saved quite a bit of space. (~6-7GB)
Click to expand...

You don't have to hijack the thread. Info you are looking for is already here on this site. Look for "Guides." It's a must for new Mac users, I think.
 
YS2003 said:
I also do the fresh reinstall of OS with my Macs. I want to get rid of languages I don't need, trial software I don't need, printer drivers I don't need (I basically get rid of all the printer drivers), and some others. The internal HD is getting bigger and bigger after each revision; but, I find I don't want to waste the internal hard drive space even for a 500 GB drive. I freely waste space with my external hard drives, though😎
Click to expand...

i absolutely understand what you mean. it's the same for me. bought a 160GB hdd and just use 70 or so 😉

sorry if i hijack but i have to say i love this forum. you are all so kind. excuse me :-D
 
Abstract said:
Is that possible? Dang. I cut out all the stuff I didn't want, and I didn't save nearly that much space. I did keep some of the languages though, maybe 15 of them....just in case.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all your tips and welcoming!

Just to let you know, I did a new install and indeed saved 8,8gb. Now I need to search this forum for good apps to install. I feel like such a beginner, can't even use the mouse properly... 🙂
 
RadarLove said:
Don't mean to hijack this thread, but how exactly does one delete an app from OS X? There's not "uninstall" app like what we got on Windows.

This is my first Mac as well, and I did a fresh install on a new HDD, so I got rid of all the demo software, most language and printer drivers as well. Saved quite a bit of space. (~6-7GB)
Click to expand...

Generally you just drag the icon from the Applications folder to the trash and then empty the trash.

If you used an installer (some apps still do) then there's generally an un-installer included in the package.

But, seeing as applications in OSX are, for all intents and purposes, self-contained, you just drag the app to the trash.
 
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