El Capitan - About to be released - suggestions?

Hi All - El Capitan is about to be released; I've taken my two Apple computers from early 2013 through several major OS upgrades - now both on Yosemite latest versions - what are the options? First, should one go immediately to 10.11 or wait until 10.11.1? My current backups are via TM and also CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) - do I need to also do another USB 'El Capitan' boot drive, and if so, what are the directions? Finally, since this will be my third major OS upgrade, can I simply install over Yosemite or should a 'fresh' install be a better option? If the latter, what are the suggestions?

Thanks for any help - and sorry if this kind of thread has already been posted - could not see a similar one - Dave

I think I did my install over Yosemite Dave. It has worked pretty well for me. El Capitan has been pretty stable for me as betas go. There was a brief period where the spam filtering built into Mail did not seem top be working for me. It worked when El Capitan was released, didn't work during one of the updates but is working now. I'll probably jump on this the first day.

Slydude said:

There was a brief period where the spam filtering built into Mail did not seem top be working for me. It worked when El Capitan was released,

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El Capitan hasn't been released.

Tomorrow is the day for general release. Agree with Sly the Betas worked well, better than Yosemite so expecting no troubles.

chas_m said:

El Capitan hasn't been released.

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You know what he meant! Sly is playing with the El Capitan betas which HAVE been released to the public.

RadDave said:

First, should one go immediately to 10.11 or wait until 10.11.1?

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I guess I've always been a bit conservative over the years with OS upgrades. I usually wait until at least the first update is released to do the OS upgrade. This way if there are any major bugs not ironed out during the beta process…hopefully the first update will take care of it. I say all this especially if someone only has one computer that they depend on…and don't want to deal with any unnecessary glitches.

A 2nd approach (if someone has more than one computer). If computer #1 is the "main" computer…and computer #2 is less depended on. Then go for it on computer #2.

Again…I've always been a bit conservative with OS upgrades. There is rarely a NEED on my part (or a new feature that I can't live without) to absolutely positively upgrade to the latest OS version on day #1 of its release.

- Nick

Thanks Guys for all of the helpful responses - I usually share Nick's opinion, i.e. wait until the first typically 'minor' update, like 10.11.1 and also avoid the first day download rush and server congestion. Dave

LOL, where have all the heroes gone to? That's what backups are for guys! Be brave, be first!

RadDave said:

...and also avoid the first day download rush and server congestion. Dave

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Yes…this too Dave. Thanks for mentioning it.

- Nick

chscag said:

LOL, where have all the heroes gone to? That's what backups are for guys! Be brave, be first!

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LOL! Guess that my 'cape' is out to the cleaners - Dave
.

Ha ha…"Billy Don't be a Hero"

- Nick

El Capitan is in the AppStore.
It is classified as " Utilities " ..... LOL

Cheers ... McBie

Installing it now. "About 33 minutes remaining"
They changed the pinwheel of death! Uh, I mean the busy pinwheel.

Let us know if there are any issues. I'm wanting to make the change but waiting to hear if there are any major bugs.

Oh you guys are an adventurous lot!

Ok, broke:
MenuMeters
Xtrafinder
USBOverdrive (crap, I need that)

So far. Add what you find.
And I see it still has that cartoon, flat interface. Was hoping they got away from the ios wannabe stuff.

RadDave said:

Finally, since this will be my third major OS upgrade, can I simply install over Yosemite or should a 'fresh' install be a better option? If the latter, what are the suggestions?

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I'm always going to answer this question this way - do a fresh install if you can. Honestly, it makes for a much leaner install and it's a great way to purge any old crap laying around. It also lowers the risk of incompatibilities if you start from a base where everything works.

harryb2448 said:

Oh you guys are an adventurous lot!

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I installed the GM a while back when it was available to devs. Does that make me extra adventurous?

Like Van, I've been running the El Capitan betas on a separate volume for quite some time. During that time I did indeed find bugs, but the big ones got squashed (and TidBits reported on a fix for a broken app that I posted about here in Mac-Forums! Woot!). At this point, I think its fair to say that nearly any typical user who downloads El Capitan today -- as I did for my Yosemite drive -- will be unlikely to run into any serious bugs, and may not see anything other than some apps that need updating in the way of inconveniences.

I think users will really like Safari 9 -- even on a spinning HD (which is where my former Yosemite volume was and El Cap 10.11 final is now), the different in speed is really noticeable. Indeed the entire OS is noticeably (here it comes) SNAPPIER! But seriously, it is. I'll have more to say about the new features as I play with them more, but one more I'll mention now is that Mission Control has been revamped to be MUCH MORE the way I've wanted it to be, so that makes me a happy camper. Overall, I think this is a very "safe" update as these things go, and the focus on speed, optimization, polish and bug fixes seems to have paid off. If I could get a hold of Craig Federighi's ear, I'd tell him this new "tick-tock" cycle for both iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 was a good idea and should become the norm again.

(edit) Additional info: the download was 6.08GB for me (upgrading from Yosemite), yes I made a copy of the installer before running it , the download took less than the 45 minutes I was advised it would take, but the install took about double the estimated 30 minutes it said it would take ... so ... Apple's time estimates still not worth a darn .

Yeah, mine was stuck at "less than a minute" for about 10 minutes.
And stuck at "less than a second" for 15. And that was BEFORE the restart.

Well you ain't got many worries. Service to Australia is ultra slow. 1.1GB in 3 hours so giving it away for a couple days.