Mountain Lion question

I have only had my mbp since May. I have been following the changes coming out with Mountain Lion and I am looking forward to picking it up. The main question I have is; should I wait a while to download it? I am a long time pc user and I know when windows comes out with a new platform there are typically bugs aplenty, so it is sometimes advantageous to wait a month or two for patches to come out before installing. I was just wondering if apple is a bit better on their releases, or should I wait a while before downloading it?

I think it's really a matter of personal preference - there are people he who wait until at least one subversion has been released (10.x.1) and there are some people that jump right on for the latest and greatest.

Personally, I'm split - sometimes I've waited and sometimes I've jumped. Leopard -> Snow I jumped, Snow -> Lion (aside from a test box) I waited until like .2 or .3. This latest version I've installed on the iMac here at work to see how I like it and what might break of what I regularly use prior to installing at home (I did use the beta for a while on a MBA just to test it but it was an earlier beta and caused too many issues with some of the software I needed - I had figured I would setup another external drive to boot from but I never quite got around to it).

So far with the release it's been a fairly good experience - only problem I had was an incompatibility with the version of Virtualbox I had (fixed by updating to the latest stable version). Unless I find some critical problem with one of the other packages I normally use, I'll probably install it at home in the next week or so.

I've read of some people having trouble but I haven't experienced those issues yet with ML on this iMac (it's a barely makes the cut 2007 iMac).

You may want to wait a few days, but you've got to remember the big difference with the Windows analogy - Windows XP to Vista to 7 so on, is a platform change. OS 9 so OS X is a platform change. This is basically just a service pack like XP sp2.
The ever sound advice is just to backup before you update. I upgraded last night and have had no issues other than having to download xquarts to replace x11.

I think a lot will have to do with how comfortable you are troubleshooting. Not that I am expecting major issue and there have been none for me.

In addition to having a backup I suggest using something like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your current installation. That way if ML proves unstable for you, or you just don't like it, you can easily restore back to Lion.

With every upgrade there are people who run into problems and those who don't. If you're usually among the former, wait.

I just upgraded a couple hours ago, and everything seems to be working perfectly. Haven't run into any compatibility issues yet. I always make a bootable backup before updating though and update at the beginning of the weekend. That way if something is buggy, I have the weekend to figure it out without having a work deadline hanging over my head on a workday. And I can always restore from my backup if the update turns out to be a bad idea...

Jaygray said:

I just upgraded a couple hours ago, and everything seems to be working perfectly. Haven't run into any compatibility issues yet. I always make a bootable backup before updating though and update at the beginning of the weekend. That way if something is buggy, I have the weekend to figure it out without having a work deadline hanging over my head on a workday. And I can always restore from my backup if the update turns out to be a bad idea...

Click to expand...

Good advice but that requires a bit of patience. Generally in short supply when OS upgrades are available for the downloading.

I used to be someone who waited at least a week or two, but after years of good experiences I have just "jumped in" on the last three OS versions without incident. I attribute this to my pre-update practice of doing a repair permissions run (actually I do a whole maintenance run with OnyX but repairing permissions is IMO crucial), update the Time Machine backup and make a clone (I do the latter two anyway so it's not any extra work).

Then I install the upgrade. Usually in these cases at least one restart is requested by the upgrade itself, but if not I'll restart the machine anyway.

I could just be coincidence, but this system seems to have avoided any significant issues with upgrading.

I agree with chas_m. Good preparation is the key to a successful update. I've run into several things in ML after updating but that's to be expected. That happens with any major update of an operating system whether it be OS X, Windows, or even Linux.