Getting Ready for Snow Leopard
Apple’s new operating system, Snow Leopard, hits the shelves tomorrow morning. Here’s a quick guide to get you through the upgrade process with as little pain as possible.
Check Your Compatibility
Snow Leopard is the first Apple OS to abandon the old PPC architecture that Macs used to run on. This means that only Intel-based Macs will be able to run it, but what Apple have been somewhat quiet about is that old apps written for the PPC and not upgraded to use Intel probably won’t work either.
There’s a compatibility list of applications for Snow Leopard, so check carefully everything that you rely on beforehand. One of the biggies on the list is Adobe CS2 – still in use by a lot of people due to the high cost of upgrading.
Those used to Growl notifications may have to wait a little while for a new version of the app – there are conflicting reports as to whether it works properly. Also be wary of old versions of Parallels, which will no longer run.
Make Your Backups
It always goes without saying to backup your important data before modifying your OS. If you want a failsafe solution, you can use SuperDuper to create a bootable backup of your Leopard install on an external hard drive. You can then fallback on this install by booting your Mac with the Option key held down.
Have a Clear Out
Take the opportunity to have a clear out of your Applications directory before you upgrade. Remove anything you haven’t used in a while and take out any applications that extend or modify your existing Leopard install. Things like this rarely survive the transition between versions and will generally do more harm than good.
Do A Fresh Install
Reports are emerging that the Snow Leopard “Upgrade Disk” will actually install Snow Leopard regardless of whether there is an existing Leopard install. If you’ve got your data backed up and well-organized and you really want a fresh and clean OS then you can wipe your existing hard drive and install Snow Leopard from new.
