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Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10A380: Part 1 Installation
Jun 10 2009 12:35 | 61 Comments
A brief review of Apple's newest operating system, 10.6 Snow Leopard. This is part 1, the installation. Other parts coming up in a bit. Naturally if you have any questions you have, feel free to ask and I'll try to answer them best I can.
At first screen nothing has changed, still the same standard languages.
Nothing new here either.
Still the old disk picker.
Now here's something new, during the installation, OS X automatically finds all the printers that are available on your wireless or wired network and automatically installs the drivers for them. Very nice and way more convenient then then just installing every single driver out there. Also Rosetta which is the emulation environment for the older PowerPC applications is now an optional installation, if not mistaken it was installed by default in 10.5.
Apple lied. They promised a "2 times faster installation". Well, the installation for me took even longer then usual.
Also the time counter seems to be broken as its not predicting the time correctly.
...and 10 seconds after I took this photo it was done.
Bing! its done! Total time for the installation took just over 20 minutes vs 12-15 that I had for 10.5 Leopard.
The initial boot was as long as it usually is. All following boots were very very quick however.
The intro movie was still the same one as in 10.5 Leopard. My guess is that they'll change it for the final release in September.
Finally the coolest part of the installation, if you check the 'Set time zone automatically' box, it within 2-3 seconds finds where you are (almost) and sets the time zone to that location, also very cool and if nothing else will make the new users go 'wow cool'.
Thats it for part 1, other parts coming up in just a bit throughout the day as I explore the new system. All I can tell you now is 'Wow, its fast!'.
Edward
I'm looking forward to a 64 bit OSX. It should have been this way a long time ago. I'm not really looking forward to installing since I'm a nuke and pave type. ^^
What about finder? I know Apple didn't redesign it but do you see any improvements?
Michael Flux
@Edward, No real visual improvements but all around feels way faster. Going from folder to folder is faster, loading previews for file icons is faster, copying/moving files is faster, all around a much more polished experience. So far has been great and almost all of the processes are now running as 64bit operations - as opposed to Leopard where the only thing that was running as 64 bit was the apache :)
Matthew
"if nothing else will make the new users go 'wow cool'."
Because we haven't seen this shit on every website from social networking to web development to google maps to porn (adult friend finder). Old news.
Michael Flux
@Matthew, You're comparing yourself to an average user. An average user doesn't notice that all of that is happening behind the scenes at the websites - but when he's first installing an OS, clicks a button and with a cool animation it instantly finds his location, that is enough to make the average user go 'holy crap this is cool'.
Macaholic
@Matthew, so when's the last time you saw OS installer do it? Never. And that's what's cool about Apple; they don't invent everything they use but they are inventive with how they use it and they sweat the details. Shut up and drink your Cupertino Kool-Aid.
Matthew
@Macaholic, Ubuntu 9.04 yesterday when installing it on my computer at work. The issue with doing that is you need to support out-of-the-box internet connections, and for Apple that's very easy because everyone's internet connection uses one of the same few cards. For other OS's it's much harder because the number of different network cards used on their systems is much higher. However, if you support the top 10-15 drivers for nic cards you can hit 85% of the users.
Macaholic
@Matthew, Yes, there's something to be said for vertical integration ;) As Apple already establishes a connection to the cloud during the OS installation's "Setup Assistant" a long time ago I'm frankly surprised that they didn't include automatic time zone setting until now.
Johan
@Macaholic, Actually android did it form me with the weather app. It detected the city I was in.
My reaction was, 'wow cool' =-)
Geoff
They said up to 45% faster.
NoD
Does the preview disc allow you to do a clean install? Is that what you did?
Michael Flux
@NoD, Yeah, you can do either an upgrade or a clean install as with any previous release. I personally choose to do clean installs all the time as it then takes me only a few minutes to move over all the settings and documents manually.
Olivier
Is it possible to install this seed using parallels 4.0 ? And also could you send me the new snow leopard wallpaper by mail I love it ???
Thanks Olivier
Michael Flux
@Olivier, I'm not entirely sure about Parallels as I personally don use it - I instead use Sun Virtualbox for all the emulation environments I need. But if other versions of OS X work in Parallels, you should have no problem at all running this one.
And for the wallpapers, here you go, both the client and server versions :)
Client Aurora: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelflux/3616596467/sizes/o/
Server Aurora: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelflux/3617415388/sizes/o/
Ducati584
@Michael Flux,
I think that still shot from the intro video would be the coolest desktop picture yet. I do have Aurora set now, though.
Olivier
Thanks a lot ! ;)
Alejandro Negrete Mateos
"Apple lied. They promised a "2 times faster installation". Well, the installation for me took even longer then usual.
"
They didnt lie, is just that you dont have the SL version that they show during the keynote. The build 10a380 that Apple gaved to all developers is not the same that they show during the keynote.
Thats why you dont have dockexpose nor the new QuickTime X icon, etc.
Michael Flux
@Alejandro Negrete Mateos, Yes, I'm very well aware of the fact that the build which they showed and which they gave, are not the same one.
But with that said, chances are by the time the final version will come out, everything will be as they promised, but at the moment, as things stand now, the installation times are long.
But for now, all I'm doing is reporting what I see. :)
lynx_deb
You have done an upgrade?
I've done a full installation on a USB Disk, and the space for installation was 8.99GB without additiona language and printer driver.. not 3.78GB for essential system!
Michael Flux
@lynx_deb, Nope, clean install with just the "connected" printers and all languages.
Matthew
"Bing! its done!"
Ew... Bing... *shudder*
Ashwin
The reason that the installation took longer than Leopard COULD have been because you did an "Archive ≤
I obviously have no clue what you did... but IF this was the case, then that explains why.
Otherwise Apple is to blame.
Ashwin
*Archive and Install
Michael Flux
@Ashwin,
Actually no, for this installation I did a clean install. After looking at the installation log afterwards what I came to find out is that over 15 minutes were spent installing all the printer drivers and additional languages. So if you uncheck everything but the actual system, you can kinda claim that its 2x faster. But then again thats like claiming that the MacBooks get 8+ hours of battery (when you're not using them and the screen is at lowest brightness). :)
Felipe Olivares
How come the image is 6+ Gbytes? If I go through the screen you posted, installation files barely add up to 4+ Gbytes. I guess someone could figure out a way to cramp the .DMG in a single layer DVD.
Michael Flux
@Felipe Olivares, Just when you install SL, just like with any previous version of OS X, it just installs everything for the regular user. However if you then go and browse though the 'extras' folder or whatever its called I forgot, but anyway in there, you also get something like 3 more gigs of Developer tools, Xcode etc... so hence the difference in size of the standard installation and the size of the DMG.
Max T
Okay, so I have a friend that is a developer and he sent me the .dmg. I have a 500GB external HD, and i made a partition with the installer on it. I know I can install snow leopard onto my internal drive, from the partition on my external drive BUT. I dont know if it will erase the contents of my external drive? so my question is... Will it erase my external drive if I am installing leopard from a partition on it? thanks
Steven
isn't posting these screenshots against the Non Disclosure Agreement for those who test the new versions?
Jim
I don't see a screen shot for choosing to do either a clean install or an upgrade. Where did you choose the installation type?
Martin
Hey I just installed Snow Leopard on my MacBook Pro
Everything works just fine and its way faster but the only thing that doesnt work is the internet.
And the internet is the most important thing for me. Does anybody have the same problem ?
or even better know a solution ?
thanks
Martin
Anonymous
@Martin, I also experienced the Internet issue even on build 10A432 and it kills my router too. Can only have Internet when I reboot in leopard + restart the router!
Calvin Ho
I was able to install Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro using an external dvd drive. Also I did not need to boot up the disc and was able to install straight on my desktop with Leopard already loaded.
However on my wife's iMac, she uses Tiger. I tried to boot up the disc but it just doesn't do it. I plugged the external dvd drive and tried to boot up the disc but was not able to.
Michael, is it possible that I have to install Leopard first on my wife's iMac? Then install Snow Leopard?
anonymous
Do i need to back up my mac HD before i install snow leopard? That is when i buy snow leopard.
Or do i need to back up my HD
Sam D
Do i need to back up my mac Hand Drive before i install snow leopard? That is when i buy snow leopard.
Or do i need to back up my an external Hard Drive
George B
I am wanting to upgrade an iMac with Tiger on it, and I've gotten to the part where I pick the disk and will be prompted to click "Install". I need to know if it's going to give me the option to 'archive install' or "upgrade".. I don't want to lose my applications or data. Where will it ask me this if so? I didn't see this on your screenshots.!
Michael Flux
@George B, Upgrading from Tiger shouldn't be a problem, all your files will remain there. However keep in mind that some of the applications you're using currently may not be completely compatible with Snow Leopard. For example Adobe Creative Suite 3 is incompatible with 10.6 and only CS4 is supported. So if you have any mission critical apps, just check what others are saying about their compatibility.
Caleb
i installed snow leopard but now my wireless internet wont work how can i fix it?
Dee
Hi i have the same problem as Caleb, i have installed snow leopart, but now i can't get onto the internet via wireless. However strangely skype is working. What is going on? I have no idea how to fix this? Can anyone help?
Christine
I installed Snow Leopard and thought my iLife would be updated to 2009 but it's still using the 2008 iPhoto etc. I am very new to Mac's so I followed the instructions given in the package when Snow Leopard and put the disk into the appropriate drive, but it didn't give me a choice of a clean install or an upgrade, only the upgrade. Am I expecting too much? Also my wireless internet is very difficult to find sometimes.
John
I purchased the new Snow Leopard yesterday and installed into my Macbook Pro (unibody) and right after install it would Kernel. After that it Kerneled 7 times in one hour. I booted using holding the "c" key and erased and partitioned the HD. When I would continue the install it would Kernel in the middle of the install.....HELP!!!
I also tried to install my OS X using the Disks that came with my MBP and now my systems says that my disks are damaged and now I cant even go back to OSX.5....can't use my old OS....can't install new OS...arrrgggggggg
Gary
If I have a flash drive with the DMG of Snow Leopard on it, can I use the installer to install the OS on the flash drive itself?
Anees
Dude, you made my week much easier, thanks.
vijay
Hi, I have dmg image file of mac os X. I have a dell laptop, i want to install mac os X on it, but how ? Pls help me.
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