5 ms·

It had surprised me when Lion came out that the installation was done by an "app", not as a bootable image. This is an unnecessary complication for those of us

by miles 14y ago

It had surprised me when Lion came out that the installation was done by an "app", not as a bootable image. This is an unnecessary complication for those of us that need to maintain machines. Earlier, when updating a different machine, I had learned how painful this could be when the installation app destroyed the boot sector and I needed to reinstall Snow Leopard from DVD, and then upgrade that to a version of the system recent enough to run the Lion installer app. As will become apparent, had Lion come as a bootable image things might have gone more smoothly. Lion and Mountain Lion installers contain images which can easily be converted to ISO: http://tinyapps.org/blog/mac/201209130700_convert_dmg_to_iso.html http://tinyapps.org/blog/mac/201209130700_convert_dmg_to_iso... and there are many more options and approaches: http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2628/install_os_x_from_dmg_file/ http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2628/install_os_x_from_dmg_fi... http://0xced.blogspot.com/2009/08/booting-from-dmg.html http://0xced.blogspot.com/2009/08/booting-from-dmg.html http://blogchampion.com/2011/03/12/how-to-create-a-bootable-usb-drive-installer-from-a-dmg-package-in-mac-os-x/ http://blogchampion.com/2011/03/12/how-to-create-a-bootable-...

3am_hackernews 14y ago
I think the point isn't that is impossible to be able to do a clean install of an OS and apps (Time Machine included) you have already paid (premium!) for but the fact that it is non-trivial and very much involved - all the things for which the Apple system stood against. Most of the newer Apple products are a black box which cannot be fixed unless even the technically competent users take extra efforts(^). And this is coming from Rob Pike[1]. edit: (^)Or you take it to the Apple Genius people, who just have the correct tools. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Pike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Pike
- msbarnett 14y ago
  > I think the point isn't that is impossible to be able to do a clean install of an OS and apps (Time Machine included) you have already paid (premium!) for but the fact that it is non-trivial and very much involved - all the things for which the Apple system stood against. I'm not sure I agree? Apple's always optimized for the average person's average case. "Those of us that need to maintain machines" aren't the average person engaged in the average case activity; they're engaged in a corner case activity and should have the knowledge to swing the non-trivial (but still trivial) ISO extraction method. This is a small inconvenience for a small section of their customer base with a big upside: updating one OS version to the next over the internet is dead-stupid easy for the non-technical majority. It beats the hell out of what for years has passed as Microsoft's version of selling you an OS upgrade over the internet; paying for a download of an .iso, figuring out what to do with an .iso, burning it, and using it is easier for the "those of us that need to maintain machines", but way out of reach for the non-technical majority. It's optimizing for exactly the wrong case.
  - gizmo686 14y ago
    Why can't you have both? In Ubuntu, you can update your OS version from the update manager, but you can also download the *.iso and do a clean install. After they tack on payment and drm to the system, what about this can Apple not emulate?
    - X-Istence 14y ago
      What about this does Apple not emulate? I download and pay for the upgrade, I right click, show contents, resources, and voilá there is a perfectly good disk image sitting right there for me to burn to disk or write out to a USB stick.
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        That is so incredibly un-user friendly and undiscoverable, it is absurd. How would my mother know to do that? Why didn't customer support have Rob do that?
        X-Istence 14y ago
        Your mother would simply bring her machine to a genius bar at one of the Apple stores where they have all the required tools and media to re-install her computer. She wouldn't have had a tech come out to her house to replace it.
        jlgreco 14y ago
        My mother does not live near an Apple store; the closest one is in the next state. Nice thought though. How exactly are consumers supposed to know which official support channels are the good ones, and which are the bad ones?
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
  - ezy 14y ago
    What? I fail to see what is "non-average" about wanting to restore a machine from a Time Machine backup after a hard drive failure. Time machine is the only backup solution an average user will ever use, and is supposed to be a backup solution, not a placebo. As indicated in the article, it doesn't actually work for the the most (or second most) common case. Rob Pike is most decidedly average in this case, he is most interested in working on his projects, not understanding the trivialities of maintaining the Apple Macintosh. Just like most people who have work to do that doesn't really revolve around shuffling boot disks around. The "experts" (that, those who read macrumors regularly), will, of course, have not trusted time machine and will have a carbon copy cloner backup they can clone onto the new drive. They're ok. Meanwhile, the "average" folk who trust that an Apple provided backup solution... I dunno, backs things up... will be screwed. Is windows worse? Maybe, but you know what -- as shitty as their incremental backup to a series of .zip files is -- at least it takes a complete image of the boot drive by default as part of the backup.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  ”I think the point isn't that is impossible to be able to do a clean install of an OS and apps (Time Machine included) you have already paid (premium!) for” Huh? Mac users don't pay for OS X licenses, they only pay for upgrades. Time Machine is included in the OS, free of charge. OS X applications, and especially Apple's apps, are often cheaper than similar software on other platforms.
  - 3am_hackernews 14y ago
    Let me clarify: You pay a premium for the entire ecosystem - hardware and software. Also, there are a lot of Mac apps not made by apple of better quality and inexpensive.
- millerized 14y ago
  You seem like a smart guy, but heres an FYI: the Lion installation app, as well as ML installer, is just a wrapper application with preflight functions for the installer. This app wrapper contains the disk image of the Lion installer that functions just like any other disk image of OS X. To find the disk image for lion in the "Install Lion.app" app wrapper, you right click on the app and click show contents, find a resources folder and bam, there it is. The disk image can be burned to DVD or restored to a flash drive using disk utility. No excuses now, they didn't fail anyone. Time machine has never failed me. The only time things get dicey is when you encrypt, using vault or etc, large file sets or systems. All he needed to do from the first go is 1) back up to time machine, 2) install new drive, 3) restore the time machine backup with option at boot (snow leopard install disc might be required, but he scratched his disc, not apples fault), if disc is scratched for DVD install, there's a good chance he could have still restored a usable copy of it to a flash drive or a new DMG on his desktop using disk utility. 4) restore the disk image of lion from the install lion.app, the DMG you were unaware of and bitched so much about, to the flash drive w/ disk utility and 5) upgrade his SL to lion using option at boot. Also, before backing up a dying drive, make sure to repair permissions using disk utility. Also, if you kept your old drive, you can buy an enclosure for 30$ and turn the drive into an external disk and restore your original installation. And not the time machine backup. Works every time even with dying unrepairable drives.. Cheers.
vvhn 14y ago
Also, Lion did actually come on an installable USB drive (which is more expensive than the App store Installer app). Not Mountain Lion though. Creating bootable disks (USB or DVD) from the installer app is trivial. Also his other point about losing all installers is actually a point in favor of the app store distribution model. They're always there unlike a physical disk which can go bad on you. Time machine and Migration Assistant errors he rightly cribs about though. It is imperative that they work right. All in all it's strange that one of the people who did seminal work in the early days of UNIX and C comes off looking like lost layperson. You'd expect him to be able to be able to deal with this way better.
- ConstantineXVI 14y ago
  > You'd expect him to be able to be able to deal with this way better. You can be able to do something, and still find convienence in paying someone else to handle it for you.
dchichkov 14y ago
Yeah. I remember going through Snow L -> Lion. I wanted a clean system so had to make an ISO. Process reminded me a linux install from USB from 10 years back. And I lost iPhoto. Because suddenly my Macbook Air stopped being eligible for free iPhoto.
- 3am_hackernews 14y ago
  Haha, yes - I lost my iWork apps likewise.
- aidos 14y ago
  I had an annoying scenario recently. I reinstalled Snow L on an older machine and then could no longer reinstall iphoto. I'd paid for it on my app store account but there was no way to install the older version (and I couldn't upgrade to the newer version). Once again reinforced the danger of the cloud hosted licensing model; software I paid for wasn't actually mine to keep/use.
- X-Istence 14y ago
  If I remember correctly, when I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion I too lost my iPhoto, but that was because a newer version was required than the one I owned, so I had to re-purchase it.
- aes256 14y ago
  > And I lost iPhoto. Because suddenly my Macbook Air stopped being eligible for free iPhoto. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2604 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2604 iPhoto is part of the iLife package, a paid product. It is not part of OS X, but when you get a new Mac the latest version is thrown in for free. Maybe I've gone through too many OS X installations in my time but this neither surprises nor frustrates me in any way...

by miles 14y ago

3am_hackernews 14y ago

I think the point isn't that is impossible to be able to do a clean install of an OS and apps (Time Machine included) you have already paid (premium!) for but the fact that it is non-trivial and very much involved - all the things for which the Apple system stood against. Most of the newer Apple products are a black box which cannot be fixed unless even the technically competent users take extra efforts(^). And this is coming from Rob Pike[1]. edit: (^)Or you take it to the Apple Genius people, who just have the correct tools. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Pike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Pike

msbarnett 14y ago
> I think the point isn't that is impossible to be able to do a clean install of an OS and apps (Time Machine included) you have already paid (premium!) for but the fact that it is non-trivial and very much involved - all the things for which the Apple system stood against. I'm not sure I agree? Apple's always optimized for the average person's average case. "Those of us that need to maintain machines" aren't the average person engaged in the average case activity; they're engaged in a corner case activity and should have the knowledge to swing the non-trivial (but still trivial) ISO extraction method. This is a small inconvenience for a small section of their customer base with a big upside: updating one OS version to the next over the internet is dead-stupid easy for the non-technical majority. It beats the hell out of what for years has passed as Microsoft's version of selling you an OS upgrade over the internet; paying for a download of an .iso, figuring out what to do with an .iso, burning it, and using it is easier for the "those of us that need to maintain machines", but way out of reach for the non-technical majority. It's optimizing for exactly the wrong case.
- gizmo686 14y ago
  Why can't you have both? In Ubuntu, you can update your OS version from the update manager, but you can also download the *.iso and do a clean install. After they tack on payment and drm to the system, what about this can Apple not emulate?
  - X-Istence 14y ago
    What about this does Apple not emulate? I download and pay for the upgrade, I right click, show contents, resources, and voilá there is a perfectly good disk image sitting right there for me to burn to disk or write out to a USB stick.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      That is so incredibly un-user friendly and undiscoverable, it is absurd. How would my mother know to do that? Why didn't customer support have Rob do that?
      - X-Istence 14y ago
        Your mother would simply bring her machine to a genius bar at one of the Apple stores where they have all the required tools and media to re-install her computer. She wouldn't have had a tech come out to her house to replace it.
        jlgreco 14y ago
        My mother does not live near an Apple store; the closest one is in the next state. Nice thought though. How exactly are consumers supposed to know which official support channels are the good ones, and which are the bad ones?
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
- ezy 14y ago
  What? I fail to see what is "non-average" about wanting to restore a machine from a Time Machine backup after a hard drive failure. Time machine is the only backup solution an average user will ever use, and is supposed to be a backup solution, not a placebo. As indicated in the article, it doesn't actually work for the the most (or second most) common case. Rob Pike is most decidedly average in this case, he is most interested in working on his projects, not understanding the trivialities of maintaining the Apple Macintosh. Just like most people who have work to do that doesn't really revolve around shuffling boot disks around. The "experts" (that, those who read macrumors regularly), will, of course, have not trusted time machine and will have a carbon copy cloner backup they can clone onto the new drive. They're ok. Meanwhile, the "average" folk who trust that an Apple provided backup solution... I dunno, backs things up... will be screwed. Is windows worse? Maybe, but you know what -- as shitty as their incremental backup to a series of .zip files is -- at least it takes a complete image of the boot drive by default as part of the backup.
Samuel_Michon 14y ago
”I think the point isn't that is impossible to be able to do a clean install of an OS and apps (Time Machine included) you have already paid (premium!) for” Huh? Mac users don't pay for OS X licenses, they only pay for upgrades. Time Machine is included in the OS, free of charge. OS X applications, and especially Apple's apps, are often cheaper than similar software on other platforms.
- 3am_hackernews 14y ago
  Let me clarify: You pay a premium for the entire ecosystem - hardware and software. Also, there are a lot of Mac apps not made by apple of better quality and inexpensive.
millerized 14y ago
You seem like a smart guy, but heres an FYI: the Lion installation app, as well as ML installer, is just a wrapper application with preflight functions for the installer. This app wrapper contains the disk image of the Lion installer that functions just like any other disk image of OS X. To find the disk image for lion in the "Install Lion.app" app wrapper, you right click on the app and click show contents, find a resources folder and bam, there it is. The disk image can be burned to DVD or restored to a flash drive using disk utility. No excuses now, they didn't fail anyone. Time machine has never failed me. The only time things get dicey is when you encrypt, using vault or etc, large file sets or systems. All he needed to do from the first go is 1) back up to time machine, 2) install new drive, 3) restore the time machine backup with option at boot (snow leopard install disc might be required, but he scratched his disc, not apples fault), if disc is scratched for DVD install, there's a good chance he could have still restored a usable copy of it to a flash drive or a new DMG on his desktop using disk utility. 4) restore the disk image of lion from the install lion.app, the DMG you were unaware of and bitched so much about, to the flash drive w/ disk utility and 5) upgrade his SL to lion using option at boot. Also, before backing up a dying drive, make sure to repair permissions using disk utility. Also, if you kept your old drive, you can buy an enclosure for 30$ and turn the drive into an external disk and restore your original installation. And not the time machine backup. Works every time even with dying unrepairable drives.. Cheers.

vvhn 14y ago

Also, Lion did actually come on an installable USB drive (which is more expensive than the App store Installer app). Not Mountain Lion though. Creating bootable disks (USB or DVD) from the installer app is trivial. Also his other point about losing all installers is actually a point in favor of the app store distribution model. They're always there unlike a physical disk which can go bad on you. Time machine and Migration Assistant errors he rightly cribs about though. It is imperative that they work right. All in all it's strange that one of the people who did seminal work in the early days of UNIX and C comes off looking like lost layperson. You'd expect him to be able to be able to deal with this way better.

ConstantineXVI 14y ago
> You'd expect him to be able to be able to deal with this way better. You can be able to do something, and still find convienence in paying someone else to handle it for you.

dchichkov 14y ago

Yeah. I remember going through Snow L -> Lion. I wanted a clean system so had to make an ISO. Process reminded me a linux install from USB from 10 years back. And I lost iPhoto. Because suddenly my Macbook Air stopped being eligible for free iPhoto.

3am_hackernews 14y ago
Haha, yes - I lost my iWork apps likewise.
aidos 14y ago
I had an annoying scenario recently. I reinstalled Snow L on an older machine and then could no longer reinstall iphoto. I'd paid for it on my app store account but there was no way to install the older version (and I couldn't upgrade to the newer version). Once again reinforced the danger of the cloud hosted licensing model; software I paid for wasn't actually mine to keep/use.
X-Istence 14y ago
If I remember correctly, when I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion I too lost my iPhoto, but that was because a newer version was required than the one I owned, so I had to re-purchase it.
aes256 14y ago
> And I lost iPhoto. Because suddenly my Macbook Air stopped being eligible for free iPhoto. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2604 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2604 iPhoto is part of the iLife package, a paid product. It is not part of OS X, but when you get a new Mac the latest version is thrown in for free. Maybe I've gone through too many OS X installations in my time but this neither surprises nor frustrates me in any way...