That's great news. Wonder what your XBENCH score was before and after though...

Heh, maybe Tiger gives a nice software overclock or something

My (forced) Tiger "clean install" today has transformed me... this is a really really big time-waster, and full of frustrations. Especially now that I finally had to admit to myself that my Tiger crashes were probably not software, but hardware (RAM)

(But anyway, you're right: Tiger runs nicely when cleanly installed).

I am a BIG believer in starting from scratch with each new OS.

I would bet that 90% of the problems people have in tiger are due to all the gunk from older software in the prev OS.

just my thoughts...

Yeah, I've always believed in a Clean Install as well (at least from my former life in the Windows world), but I didn't think it was that necessary on a Mac based on other user's experiences in this forum. I even recall a poll that was split between an archive and a clean install. The issue that most surprised me were the hardware benefits such as lower CPU temp and better battery life. It seems that Tiger taxes the CPU less, resulting in better performance and lower power drain.

I always do a clean install. For me when I do a clean install it makes my .Mac subscription worth it. I never lose mail settings, app settings desktop or other things backed up using backup. Just doing it twice is worth the price of admission imo. That and the amount of time it saves on restoring stuff.

I too have a clean install fetish Every new OS goes on a freshly zeroed hard drive. It's really no big deal, even though it takes me about 5 hours to do. I zero the HD, then reinstall the OS and any Apple apps, then use Software Update to install any that are required, then install my apps etc etc.

Sure it takes a while, but I firmly believe it's worth it in the end.

So, I'm getting my new 15" Powerbook (1.67/1GB RAM/128VRAM) in a few hours along with an update to Tiger (through Up-to-date). The system will have never been used before, so should I just do an normal update or another clean install?

And, should I use the Setup Agent and firewire all my old stuff from my ibook, or instead copy it manually?

thanks for any suggestions.

i'm thinking of doing a clean install but i don't have the external harddrive space to back everything up.

Mmmmmm... on my 1.5ghz Powerbook I did an 'archive & install' and everything went smoothly... even at reduced speed on this thing, 10.4 is snappy™ - I don't get any spinning beachballs... did I just get lucky? Thing is... so many people are recommending a clean install it's got me thinking now...

I just did an upgrade, I did the xbench gained about 30 points - look here:

http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/csi.x...achineTypeID=12

search for "crush" - I did some with QE2D on as well - the older date is for 10.3

Do a clean install, don't bother upgrading, if you want to use Tiger, just install it.

Once that is done, use the setup agent (I'm not sure if this is what is called) and firewire all you old setting (from your old comp) to your next one.

You can manually transfer all the setting and files. It's a question of how much time you want to spend and how detail you want to get.

damn!!!...when i got my bootleg of tiger i did a clean, then i got the retail version and just did an archive n install just to have a clear head bout it. looks like i have to do another clean install cuz my batt life died about an hour after archive n installing....DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN

I wouldn't attribute your "transformation" to the clean install of Tiger in particular--do a clean install of Panther and your Powerbook will be equally "transformed". This happens for various reasons, like more swap space, more efficient file and directory localization, etc.

That's not to say Tiger won't improve the performance of your laptop, but a clean install of any mature OS will do the same! Just ask anyone who has formatted their Windows PC and reinstalled Windows XP.

When you did the clean install, did you let your home folder, network prefs get copied over, or did you really begin completely from scratch? I ask because I did both (archive and install and clean install with copy mentioned above) and noticed very little difference in speed.

Slim

Got the powerbook yesterday ( ) and installed Tiger immediately on the system. It did a simple straight upgrade and everything is working fine. But, I had to reinstall every app and move over all my data, as I did not use setup assistant (I was afraid it would copy over my old user account, with all its bloated library folder, so decided not to use it.)

The most difficult part was getting my old data for Mail and iCal. Although I have .Mac, it did not seem to work very well for those two programs (worked fine for Address Book, Keychain, etc...) so I had to set up the mail manually. After experimenting with just copying the ~/Library/Mail folder (and relevant ~/Library/Preferences/ plist file), I deleted everything and restarted. This time, connecting to my old ibook through Firewire target disk mode, I used Mail's import mailbox function. It worked fine for all my local mail, but did not import the accounts, which I had to recreate manually and then move the imported folders into their proper place. Rather timeconsuming -- it's too bad just moving the ~/Library/Mail folder doesn't work -- and I think it might have created some duplicates, but I can get rid of these easily with an Applescript.

My first impressions of Tiger is that while Dashboard is nice eye candy, it isn't quite as functional as Konfabulator (but also much less of a resource hog.) I had been using Butler with Panther, which provides a lot of the functionality that Spotlight provides, so again for me it was no major innovation except that it also works more efficiently. Of course, moving from my old iBook G4 800 to a Powerbook 1.67 is a big step up, so a lot of the improvements might just be hardware. I suppose a lot of the improvements in Tiger are "under the hood", but so far I'm not as blown away as I was moving from Jaguar to Panther. Still, a nice upgrade, and I didn't pay $129 for it so no complaints. I haven't installed most of the major software yet, so I haven't come across any compatibility problems. Mail was problematic a few times, but probably because it had to reindex 1.2 GB of email.

One great little usability improvement that I had wanted for a while: you can create a new Safari window from the Dock menu, so you don't have to bring up a minimized window and press Cmd-N. There are a lot of small changes like that, which makes the experience just a little more polished. Sometimes it's the small details that count.

I'm doing a clean install of Tiger this afternoon on my 12" Rev B. I did an archive & install on the launch day, and my machine is running terribly. I had a play with a current 12" iBook in an Apple Store yesterday, and it was absolutely flying compared to my powerbook, so definitely going to give a clean install a shot!

Just for info... I d/l the 3.0.3 Diskwarrior upgrade last night... the software does everything for you, just follow the instructions, insert a blank cd-r and you're set! Rebooted with the new CD, optimised my directory so it's now showing 1% out of place (on reboot), instead of the 22% after I did the archive and install... and it runs even SMOOTHER now...

Of all the apps I've ever spent money on, Diskwarrior is a live saver (for me anyway)...

Good luck with the clean installs...

I started completely from scratch. I used an iBook I have in the house in Fireware target mode, and I copied my documents, movies, music, and pictures folders to that computer. The only preference file I copied was "com.apple.mail.plist" for mail, located in ~/Library/Preferences. I also copied the folder "AddressBook," located in ~/Library/Application Support. I don't use iCal, so I didn't have to worry about files realted to that program. Of course it was a process to have to set up all of the networks, printers, devices, etc. that I use both at home and at work, but I wanted the cleanest install possible, so the time was well worth it.

I'd suggest the clean install. That way you can customize the install and skip the languages/printer drivers you don't need, saving a ton of disk space.

Were you being sarcastic there?

I wonder how many people do an archive and install without backing up first?

Most People. It's scary how many people I know who do not have backups of anything.

Agreed..I have saved and then Zero'd my drives since 2000 on my Pismo from OS 9 to 10.0 and never will do an archive and install...the 45 extra minutes to zero my drive is well worth the wait.

After reading the many posts on this forum (and having an hour or two to spare) I decided to take the plunge and zero my drive, then reinstall + back-up/migration though a neat little app called 'superduper' and it is...

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDu...escription.html

There def. IS a difference in the responsiveness of this PB now... it's was pretty quick before (I thought snappy™) - but compared to NOW, wow... what a difference... no more archive & installs for me from now on... stevesnj & the rest are right...

In the past I would have gone to the trouble of doing a clean install, but at least in my case it doesn't seem necessary...

Since I had a clone of Panther on an external drive I decided to try the Tiger upgrade option and see how well it worked. I ran my G4 iBook off the external drive for five days without a serious problem, and the few persistent glitches were attributable to third-party software/Tiger incompatibilities.

I have now upgraded two iBooks using the simple upgrade option and the time spent per iBook was less than 30 minutes. I am amazed at how well things are working and as the third-party developers are making adjustments the minor problems are going away one by one... I have quite a few third-party apps and haxies on my iBook.



The upgrade option can also be customized; if you deselect the languages and printer drivers the drive space used by the upgrade drops to less than 900MB.

I just want to point out that 'archive and install' is not the same as 'upgrade'. In the former, the installer disk installs a fresh OS -- and then takes your user files, network preferences, etc from the older system. In the upgrade, OS files are added/replaced, but a lot of third-party junk (usually that you don't want) is left in the OS folder. Not sure what option the original poster used.

I recently had to rebuild my wife's Lombard from scratch, which took me more than a day from start to finish to install all the apps, etc (hard drive failed so that it would not even mount; even disk warrior failed -- used Data Rescue to recover most of her files.)

For most of us, we need our computer to get our work done. I could not afford to lose my machine for that length of time, when the archive and install option does 99% of what you need from a fresh install. At the same time, I regularly run Diskwarrior -- and a fresh run of DW always makes my machine snappier -- before AND after any major software upgrade. That likely would have fixed whatever problem Spotlight had on your machine.

I am also dependent on my Macs, which is why I experimented on a "disposable" clone residing on an external drive. I was curious whether the basic upgrade option would work, and it did.

BTW SEkker, if you had had a clone of that Lombard somewhere other than that dead drive, you could have copied it back to the new drive and saved yourself hours of time and trouble. I prefer SuperDuper! over CarbonCopyCloner and these days I maintain two clones of each Mac in the house, just in case...

It's a long story, but I did start with a clone of a fully functional copy, made right before our vacation. The crash happened right AFTER the vacation, and before I had had a chance to run the backup, so I had to recover the lost family fotos we had stored on the computer between filling up the CF cards. But the cloned copy started acting VERY flaky, so i decided it was time to do a fresh install (and upgraded the HD on her Pismo at the same time while I was at it). So far, that was a good decision. But it also reminded me how long it takes to get a machine up and running -- and as we speak, I'm trying to find the registration code for delicious library (my wife purchased it online, and she seems to have tossed all of the registration info...).