The Great 2012 Upgrade

[krpalmer]

When I heard the Macintosh system software was going to step forward a full point and become "Mountain Lion," I was interested, but also aware of how I'd been sort of scared off of upgrading to the then-current system. Thoughts of a "fresh start" mixed with "if it's needed, who's to say it won't be just like before?" While waiting, I took my previous iMac and, using a five-page tutorial in a computer magazine just a few years old, installed "Mint Linux" on it in a duel-boot configuration. This, though, might have been as much a play for "credibility" as "independence," and in any case I still can't quite seem to get the computer's wireless networking to start up, which means it won't play well with my current computer.

Mountain Lion was introduced in any case, and there didn't seem quite the same dose of "fear, uncertainty, and doubt" as before. Right around the time the second update to it came out, I managed to get to an Apple Store to see computers running it. One small thought motivated me to go to one particular site and download one particular PDF file of a decades-old computer magazine that had only shown blank white pages in 10.6's "Preview" application, and this time 10.8's "Preview" showed the whole thing. That got my attention. Even so, I did think I could just install the actual Adobe Acrobat Reader and surrender some small measure of integration. It might have been as much the thought of giving in to "fear, uncertainty, and doubt" for good that drove me forward.

Following an e-book I'd already bought, I made a bootable copy of my system on an external hard drive and then, trying something the book didn't call necessary, wiped the internal hard drive to begin a clean install. That was an apprehensive moment, but the whole process didn't take quite as long as I'd thought it might. While I was careful to keep that external hard drive intact, I suppose I have stepped into somewhat of a situation where to "go back" because of some peculiarity of operation or some third-party application that used to work just fine perhaps not being upgraded in the future would feel like "giving up." Nevertheless, the new system doesn't seem sluggish or to crash all the time, so things just may be working out.

Comments

[thrush]

I am running Mountain Lion on my laptop. I cannot say that I really like the direction that the OS is heading, but I can say that most of the superficial issues I had with Lion have been resolved. At this point, my desktop is still running Snow Leopard merely because it's too old to upgrade. (I got six years out of it, which is pretty good for a computer these days, but it is beginning to show it's age at last.)

[krpalmer]

I'm certainly remembering the "direction criticism" now. The possibility (as opposed to "certainty") the overrides to do things like get into the Library folder or open a non-developer-signed program will get more and more complicated and obscure until all of a sudden only anodyne vetted applications will run any more was one thought in my installing Linux, but I soon realised I don't yet really know about the command-line installation process and I'm stuck with the "package manager" there. I suppose, too, I told myself I have that old iMac and a used Macbook both running 10.6 in case I need to run an old program or two.

One thing I didn't remember to mention was how before I was convinced one thing that would keep digging at me would be finding it hard to say goodbye to the capsule-shaped buttons, thinking rectangular ones would be "just like everyone else's," but now I don't seem to be missing them too much.