Making the Big (Sur) Jump
Feb. 7th, 2021 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerI’m pretty blithe about upgrading my “iDevices” to the latest versions of their operating systems, but caution seems to kick in when it comes to my Macintosh computers. Waiting for the second “point revision” or so, though, sometimes means a critical mass of negative reactions accumulating such that I cling to the previous version, and having done that with macOS 10.15 after having skipped versions 10.7 and 10.10 did get to feel intimidating. The “so help me I will switch to Windows!” threats that turn up every so often started sticking in my mind more; a “bleah” reaction to the system font of Windows at work only carries so far. There’s also, of course, the passive-aggressive accomplishment of getting some version of Linux running. I did do that on a black plastic MacBook some years ago, but found no particular joy in its look either and didn’t push far enough to master “building from source.”
Acquaintances upgraded to Big Sur, though. So did family members, friends at work, and a few people I keep some track of online. Its name did not get abbreviated and turned into a cruel jab, at least so far as I’ve seen. With the second “point revision” approaching, I did get to the point of thinking I could consider making the leap myself, and ordered a solid-state drive for my bootable backup and a new hard drive for Time Machine. Then, system 11.2 showed up, and I pushed myself to get around to the upgrade.
A fresh backup to the external solid-state drive stretched from Saturday afternoon into the evening, and downloading the system installer took hours more. In the meantime, I’d started up an antique PowerBook G4 purchased used over a decade ago and run on OS X 10.4 the Mini vMac emulator to check something in System 6. Booting off the solid-state drive was a lot faster than using an external hard drive these days, though. The “Take Control” ebook I’d bought recommended starting with “upgrading in place,” but I did wonder about wiping the internal hard drive just in case and letting Migration Assistant reinstall my files overnight as a compromise from trying to reinstall everything from scratch and cut down on some of the myriad files buried in my Library folder. However, the “erase” option didn’t seem available in Disk Utility, so I took a chance on upgrading in place. That didn’t take quite as long; while I stayed up later than I usually do beginning to feel things out I was also getting used to them. While I didn’t have the chance this time to try out the operating system in an Apple Store, I did discover on rebooting it remains possible to turn the “toolbar” off on most windows and operate in that antique “each folder opens in a new window” mode. Even with continuing dire warnings about some sort of bug in the official Mail program, I might be doing all right.
Acquaintances upgraded to Big Sur, though. So did family members, friends at work, and a few people I keep some track of online. Its name did not get abbreviated and turned into a cruel jab, at least so far as I’ve seen. With the second “point revision” approaching, I did get to the point of thinking I could consider making the leap myself, and ordered a solid-state drive for my bootable backup and a new hard drive for Time Machine. Then, system 11.2 showed up, and I pushed myself to get around to the upgrade.
A fresh backup to the external solid-state drive stretched from Saturday afternoon into the evening, and downloading the system installer took hours more. In the meantime, I’d started up an antique PowerBook G4 purchased used over a decade ago and run on OS X 10.4 the Mini vMac emulator to check something in System 6. Booting off the solid-state drive was a lot faster than using an external hard drive these days, though. The “Take Control” ebook I’d bought recommended starting with “upgrading in place,” but I did wonder about wiping the internal hard drive just in case and letting Migration Assistant reinstall my files overnight as a compromise from trying to reinstall everything from scratch and cut down on some of the myriad files buried in my Library folder. However, the “erase” option didn’t seem available in Disk Utility, so I took a chance on upgrading in place. That didn’t take quite as long; while I stayed up later than I usually do beginning to feel things out I was also getting used to them. While I didn’t have the chance this time to try out the operating system in an Apple Store, I did discover on rebooting it remains possible to turn the “toolbar” off on most windows and operate in that antique “each folder opens in a new window” mode. Even with continuing dire warnings about some sort of bug in the official Mail program, I might be doing all right.