Computers and technology

Shooting My Own Foot

9 Comments

Every now and then things just don’t work as planned.

Apple rolled out a free download of a beta version of the new operating system, OS X Yosemite. I’ve previously been an early adopter of Apple’s releases, so I figured what the heck, and I downloaded it (at work – we have HUGE bandwidth) and installed it.

Got home after work, fired up the MacBook with it’s shiny new OS, cranked open the Apple Mail program, and it started crashing. Bad.

You can’t just re-install the Mail program, and the only way I could revert to the old OS was to go to my Apple Time Machine™ and do a system restore.

Takes five hours.

First time Apple has failed me.

9 thoughts on “Shooting My Own Foot”

  1. Linux keeps the OLD system until you specifically decide to remove it. And gives you an easy way to boot to it instead. I keep the first version of an install, and the most recent version that has run successfully for a while. And at roughly 80 Mb, it don’t take all that long to download the “new” version.

  2. Mark-

    The latest beta of OS-X was over five gigabytes. That’s why I dragged my Mac out at work: we have a much faster throughput there than I do at home.

    I liked the look, but it kept crashing my Mail program, so I ditched it.

    I’ve used Linux a few times, but it offers me nothing extra in my styles of use.

    MC

  4. Mark-

    Hadn’t looked.

    Right now I own two working computers, one running Windows 7, dedicated to my 3D printer (and my backup in case the Mac dies) and this MacBook, which as I’ve said before, I consider to the evolutionary pinnacle of laptop developement.

    My work computer is managed by our corporate IT department right up to the point where they had to give me administrator rights because I run some software for my work that they’ve never even heard of.

    I keep Linux in mind, though, in case I have to resurrect a dinosaur for somebody.

    MC

  5. You could also dual-boot it on your MacBook. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a computer that just works? GRUB does a great job with dual boot these days. I triple-boot this desktop. My default is Ubuntu 64-bit. I have Windows 7 64-bit to do the video editing on my YouTube files (youtube.com/user/matismf) since I like the way MovieFactory does “autoenhance”, and I have a Trinity 64-bit partition as well. Trinity does work best if you do the updates in Ubuntu and use Update Manager, but since that is simply logout/login it’s very easy to do. Boot times even with BIOS are significantly faster than Windows. I expect you may even beat boot time for your MacBook if you use UEFI for the Ubuntu as well, which I believe would be the default for dual-boot.
    http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

  6. Mark-

    Oddly enough, my MacBook IS dual-boot. The other partition is Windows 8.1 for those business-related programs that are only available for Windows.

    MC

  7. OK. Never mind. With a SSD, Windows, and Apple, you most likely don’t have enough space to triple-boot as I do.

  8. Mark-

    Yeah, I have a slim partition, 100 GB, for the Windows side. The remainder of the 512 GB is my Mac side.

    I might try Linux on a USB stick if I get a wild hair…

    MC

  9. Try the Trinity from the link above if you do. Better choices on the GUI.

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