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Scared to upgrade

F

fosterpants

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 12, 2010
19
0
Hello, I'm fairly new to Mac so go easy on me.

I am currently running Snow Leopard but want to upgrade to Lion mainly because Photostream won't work unless I do. But I'm afraid I'm going to lose settings and programs that have taken quite a bit of time to set up (for me) such as Growl, gfxCardstatus, WiTopia vpn, dropbox ect...

When I upgrade to Lion, will I have to go through an set these programs up all over again or will my Mac be essentially just like I had it only with the new features of Lion?
 
Unless there's a need to upgrade to Lion, why do it? I only upgrade to a new OS if it offers something I need or want that my current OS doesn't provide. So far, I haven't seen anything in Snow Leopard or Lion that would motivate me to upgrade from Leopard. One of the primary reasons is tools that I use daily would no longer work on SL or Lion. The loss of productivity isn't worth it, especially since I wouldn't gain anything useful. If you don't have a compelling reason for upgrading, then don't.
 
Most programs should work.

I would advise you to do some research as some applications may need to be upgraded. Some may not work at all. Research is your best friend.
 
GGJstudios said:
Unless there's a need to upgrade to Lion, why do it? I only upgrade to a new OS if it offers something I need or want that my current OS doesn't provide. So far, I haven't seen anything in Snow Leopard or Lion that would motivate me to upgrade from Leopard. One of the primary reasons is tools that I use daily would no longer work on SL or Lion. The loss of productivity isn't worth it, especially since I wouldn't gain anything useful. If you don't have a compelling reason for upgrading, then don't.
Click to expand...
How about the enhanced security?
 
fosterpants said:
Hello, I'm fairly new to Mac so go easy on me.

I am currently running Snow Leopard but want to upgrade to Lion mainly because Photostream won't work unless I do. But I'm afraid I'm going to lose settings and programs that have taken quite a bit of time to set up (for me) such as Growl, gfxCardstatus, WiTopia vpn, dropbox ect...

When I upgrade to Lion, will I have to go through an set these programs up all over again or will my Mac be essentially just like I had it only with the new features of Lion?
Click to expand...
There are a ton of sites you can use to research program compatibility. Keep in mind these 3 general points, though:
1. Rosetta (PowerPC-only) programs will NOT run at all.
2. Programs that depend on QuickDraw will (usually) still run, but will NOT compile from source code anymore.
3. iSync is no longer present in Lion - any programs that depended on it will not work anymore.
 
I'm on Lion and considered going back to SL once...

...then I discovered that the 20,000+ email archives I keep can't be "downgraded" because Lion changed their format when it was installed. I didn't realize this until weeks later and my old SL backups were gone. Always figured at least my data would be reversible but not so with the new Apple mail.

Make sure you're going to stay on Lion if you make the jump.
 
fosterpants said:
Hello, I'm fairly new to Mac so go easy on me.

I am currently running Snow Leopard but want to upgrade to Lion mainly because Photostream won't work unless I do. But I'm afraid I'm going to lose settings and programs that have taken quite a bit of time to set up (for me) such as Growl, gfxCardstatus, WiTopia vpn, dropbox ect...

When I upgrade to Lion, will I have to go through an set these programs up all over again or will my Mac be essentially just like I had it only with the new features of Lion?
Click to expand...

Of those you listed, I use Growl, gfxCardstatus, Dropbox. When I did the App Store upgrade from SL to Lion, all that worked for me. But I made sure I was on the latest version of all of them first. The only think I don't like about Lion is some reduce battery life. Other than that, its working fine.

You could make a Carbon Copy Clone of your system, and try Lion out. Then you could put your system back if you don't like it.
 
Tried Lion; am very happily back with SL 10.6.8. My biggest complaint was I had sleep issues (MBP wouldn't sleep after X minutes of inactivity), plus, suddenly, my battery state became 'Service Battery' (which ultimately disappeared upon going back to SL).

All in all, there are no new features in Lion that make me want to try again; maybe after .3 or so, or when new programs require Lion.
 
tkermit said:
Full ASLR? Sandboxing? Privilege Separation? Integrated, completely transparent Full Disk Encryption?
Click to expand...
Not significant enough to justify the average user upgrading just for that. SL has more than enough security features for the average user.
 
GGJstudios said:
SL has more than enough security features for the average user.
Click to expand...

I am not quite sure what that sentence gets across.

Unfortunately I think the average user is totally security unaware for the most part. Until something goes bad sometimes really really bad.

Lion by default shares a bunch of services and by default does not use much of the delivered firewall.

I would hope that most average users would look at the security and privacy system preferences and then eventually makes informed wise decisions about changes to the default settings. I doubt that happens in most cases though.
 
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