OS Upgrade question: For when Leopard does come out

[Gethin]

Bought an iMacG5 about 2 years ago and I'm still running Panther on it. Have just ordered a MacBook which will be running Tiger. It hardly seems worth upgrading the iMac if Leopard will be out in the spring - my plan is to move them both to Leopard at the same time.

A couple of questions - I appreciate we don't *know* the answers to some of them - but based on past upgrades....:
1) Is it usually possible to skip a generation when upgrading (i.e 10.3 --> 10.5 on the iMac) the OS?
2) I take it to upgrade the 2 machines I'll need to buy a family pack licence - or does the fact I own both machines mean I only need the one
3) Would the family licence work for what I need - i.e. upgrading one machine from 10.3-->10.5 and one from 10.4-->10.5

Cheers for any help...!

 

[rman]

1 - Yes

2,3 - You would need the family pack.

 

[Zoolook]

Is OS X like Windows though where there is a huge advantage to doing a fresh install rather than an 'upgrade'.

Upgrading Win98 or WinME to XP caused some really horrible bugs and performance issues, compared to a fresh XP install.

 

[Gethin]

Cheers for the reply rman - puts my mind at rest - didn't want to have to shell out for 2 full price licences!

Having never done an upgrade would be interested to hear the answer to Zoolook's question as well. I believe with Macs you it's usually safe to do an upgrade rather than wiping and starting over isn't it?

 

[kgeier82]

i prefer fresh installs. gives me time to revamp everything.