Thinking of upgrading from SL to Lion but...

[SolitaryHowl]

Hi,

I'm thinking of upgrading from SL to Lion, but I have some questions. First, though, system specs.

Macbook Pro (late 2006)
Mac OSX 10.6.8
2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
ATI Radeon X1600
275GB Harddrive @7500 RPM (I believe its a Seagate)

Because I have a 2006 MBP, would all the new features even work?

- How long would the upgrade take? I'm in university and I don't have any time to waste. Does it stop the installation for prompts?

- How easy is it to upgrade after buying it from Apple?

- Are there any known issues/problems I should be aware of?

- Would my MBP, considering its age, be able to run Lion smoothly? It seems to run SL very well in comparison to Tiger, but maybe that's because that was my first fresh install since I got my MBP.

- Is there a way to 'downgrade' if the update doesn't work or if it doesn't run smoothly? And, if so, could I get my money back from Apple? (This last question, I'm assuming is a no because of all the piracy going on, but I want to ask it anyways.)

- And I'm assuming all the programs and files will successfully move over to Lion with no problems, correct? Like there would be no compatibility issues...?

- If I do upgrade to Lion, can I keep all of my partitions from bootcamp? (I like to wander into Windows XP from time to time to play games.) Or will they get erased?

Thanks everyone in advance.

 

[Ledgem]

Because I have a 2006 MBP, would all the new features even work?

I think there was something about how the older Macbook Pros didn't support the multitouch gestures due to hardware limitations with the touchpad? You would have been affected by it with some of Snow Leopard's gestures, too. As far as I know, some of those touch features in Lion are the only thing you would be missing out on, and you could gain them by using a Magic Trackpad with your computer.

- How long would the upgrade take? I'm in university and I don't have any time to waste. Does it stop the installation for prompts?

- How easy is it to upgrade after buying it from Apple?

Figure the upgrade will take about an hour and that your computer will be incredibly sluggish due to Spotlight re-indexing for a few hours after that. There are no prompts during the installation. The installation process is very easy - after it downloads the Lion installer, the process almost feels like a point upgrade.

- Are there any known issues/problems I should be aware of?

People have varying issues. Here are two that I've run across and heard of:

1) You'll want to wipe your Time Machine backups after you install Lion. When I upgraded, Time Machine backups began to take an hour or longer even if there were only a few megabytes to back up. Apparently many others suffered the same problem. I wiped my Time Machine backup drive and now backups are faster than they were on Snow Leopard.

2) Lion performance is arguably slower in many areas than Snow Leopard. I've heard that installing Lion fresh, instead of upgrading from Snow Leopard, resolves many of those performance issues and dramatically increases its speed. I don't have the time to install it fresh, but I'd like to try it soon.

- Would my MBP, considering its age, be able to run Lion smoothly? It seems to run SL very well in comparison to Tiger, but maybe that's because that was my first fresh install since I got my MBP.

I think it would run it smoothly, but the question is whether it would run smoothly as an upgrade. See my point above. It's not unbearable, but Snow Leopard was definitely faster for me in many ways - especially when it came to shut down and boot times. My boot time has probably doubled compared to Snow Leopard. (I'm using a 2.4 GHz early 2008 Macbook Pro with 6 GB of RAM and a nVidia 8600 GTM with 256 MB of RAM.)

- Is there a way to 'downgrade' if the update doesn't work or if it doesn't run smoothly? And, if so, could I get my money back from Apple? (This last question, I'm assuming is a no because of all the piracy going on, but I want to ask it anyways.)

Make a backup using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to "downgrade." I don't know that you'll be able to downgrade via Time Machine, but Google that point to verify. Many people downgraded from Lion to Snow Leopard, so you're sure to find information on it. You won't get your money back.

- And I'm assuming all the programs and files will successfully move over to Lion with no problems, correct? Like there would be no compatibility issues...?

You would need to check with each program's developer to be absolutely sure, but in general there didn't seem to be major compatibility issues with Lion. However, I will note that Keynote and Microsoft Word have some slight glitches that came out with Lion. They're not debilitating, but if you work heavily with those two programs you may want to hold off until they've been updated further. (Check for compatibility reports on any programs you use heavily.)

If you use any PowerPC programs, you won't be able to run them on Lion.

- If I do upgrade to Lion, can I keep all of my partitions from bootcamp? (I like to wander into Windows XP from time to time to play games.) Or will they get erased?

They won't be affected.

 

[SolitaryHowl]

Thanks a bunch!

It sounds like I'll hold off then - it only takes my SL 1 minute to boot up (usually, unless installing an os update). It shuts down almost instantly when I tell it too. Overall, the performance of SL is about 5X faster than my experience with Tiger.

I don't want to lose that speed, so I'll wait a little bit until they release bug fixes and updates.