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Che Castro

macrumors 603
Original poster
May 21, 2009
5,988
775
when el capitan releases to the public , are you going to do a fresh install or upgrade from Yosemite ?
 

jonobin

macrumors 6502
Sep 3, 2014
373
98
absolutely yes, I don't want my mac to have graphical issues due to some conflicts between old gpu drivers, OpenGL/OpenCL and the new Metal thing
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
The benefit I see is if you actually partition your drive (or use an external drive for that matter) is that you keep your older OS up and running. If you have the space, you can use CCC to clone the Yosemite partition.

My point is not overwriting the old OS, and keeping it.
 

T909

Suspended
Aug 16, 2008
196
61
Europe
I'll do a clean install as always.
This will take a lot of time to backup all my files, but there are lots of stuff in my mac that I do not need anymore and I'm too lazy to delete.
 

scrmtrey

macrumors regular
Mar 28, 2013
218
15
So are there any benefits from clean install?

Because i dont want to spend 5hour to do that and than nothing is better.

I hope that time machine works on el capitan. Anyone can confirm ? Thanks.
 

NintendoRev

macrumors member
Jul 1, 2013
39
104
I plan on doing a fresh install because after I bought my Late '13 iMac, I migrated from my '06 iMac running snow leopard and i had done a fairly large amount of editing of system files and settings on the old system. My new iMac has always felt slower than it should, not horrible but not up to par with what i expected from a $2000 computer. With what I've seen from El Capitan, the fresh install combined with the overall performance increase should make my system feel better than new! :D
 

MikhailT

macrumors 601
Nov 12, 2007
4,583
1,327
Clean install if you're updating from something that's already been updated from previous OS. I'd suggest never keep something more than twice updated (two OS X major versions). You're just going to carry over all the cruft from all of these years messing around with various apps, logging from removed apps and so on.

I first played with El Cap on the rMBP that was updated all the way since Mavs back in 12 and it was decent. I did a clean install and it is definitely much faster without having all the crap I had from the last 2-3 years. This doesn't mean El Cap is faster because of clean install, it just means the system is running with less crap.
 
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iamMacPerson

macrumors 68040
Jun 12, 2011
3,488
1,927
AZ/10.0.1.1
Absolutely, for this release. If it wasn't a performance improvement release, I might not but I really want to take full advantage of the new speed. FWIW, I did an over the top install of 10.11 DP1 on my MBP running 10.10.4 B3 and it wasn't running to its full potential. I wiped the drive and restored via a TM backup from Yosemite and it works wonderfully. Very fast and fluid, and I hope that one Kernel Panic was a fluke with the pervious install.

I'm leaving my laptop on the Dev Beta circuit and my Mac Pro is going to go on the Public Beta circuit. That way, I can test both similar to how I tested Yosemite last year.
 

Traverse

macrumors 604
Mar 11, 2013
7,711
4,491
Here
I think I will do a clean install, hopefully my last one. I'm getting a lot of strange bugs in 10.10.5 and I will clean install 10.11.10 in hopes of a "fresh start."
 

adrianlondon

macrumors 603
Nov 28, 2013
5,536
8,360
Switzerland
Not done a clean install since I bought the laptop (running Mavericks) but then to some people I'm crazy anyway as I took my only laptop and put a non-official version of 10.11 DB1 on it (the subsequent betas have come from the app store as normal; I'm not a registered developer but was too impatient to wait for the public beta).

I've had less issues than some, and none (as far as I'm aware) that aren't just generic beta ones. In other words, I've had no extra issues by upgrading each time rather than doing a clean install. In fact, it's been easier as sometimes they move options/settings around and people have to hunt for them whereas mine are just carried over during the upgrade.
 
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=E=

macrumors regular
Nov 8, 2013
132
8
.se
I always wipe the drive. Clean install. Always works. Yes, its a lot of work. But worth it in the end.
 

jhfenton

macrumors 65816
Dec 11, 2012
1,179
806
Cincinnati, Ohio
I always do in-place updates. Over and over, year after year. Both of our Mac minis (Late 2012) (i5 and i7) have been updated continuously from Mountain Lion. My i7 mini has had betas installed on it for Yosemite and El Capitan along the way too.

I don't have time to waste hours wiping and restoring computers which work just fine, thank you.
 
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DNichter

macrumors G3
Apr 27, 2015
9,385
11,184
Philadelphia, PA
Maybe I am naïve, but I have been trusting the majority of what is on my MacBook to iCloud. Music, photos, all my documents. I always clean install and then just have to install some apps. A clean install is a fairly easy straightforward process for me. I hear of all the issues people have over the years and I don't see it, but I understand everyone's situation is different. I've just been surprisingly happy with Apple's cloud offerings as of late. Guess I am one of the lucky ones.
 

Icaras

macrumors 603
Mar 18, 2008
6,344
3,394
Update, as always. i believe Lion was the last clean install of OS X that I did and I've never had any serious issues since the last four updates.
 

SgtPepper23

macrumors regular
Oct 13, 2010
167
38
Los Angeles, California
i'm thinking of doing a clean install, but i really don't want to bother with the settings going away from how i like them. anyone know how to save the preferences for everything? just the plist files in the Library?
 
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mashinhead

macrumors 68040
Oct 7, 2003
3,003
989
I will be doing a clean reinstall, I was about to do one of Yosemite this week but decided it was better to wait. I don't always do one, but my machine feels like it needs one.
 

thekayman

macrumors 6502
Oct 23, 2014
303
53
I'll do a clean install. With most things synced with iCloud, it's easier these days. I've actually made a checklist of things I need to pay attention to. The most tedious seems to be the reinstallation of office with its endless updates.
 

KALLT

macrumors 603
Sep 23, 2008
5,380
3,415
So are there any benefits from clean install?

Because i dont want to spend 5hour to do that and than nothing is better.

I hope that time machine works on el capitan. Anyone can confirm ? Thanks.

Time Machine works.

There is no tangible benefit to a clean install, it is almost entirely psychological (i.e. the feeling of having a clean slate and no redundant user data on your disk). The installer makes sure that old system components are updated and unnecessary components are removed. El Capitan will actually clean up your /System, /bin, /sbin and /usr folders by moving everything that is not part of the system image out of these locations. Upgrading should thus be a bit of a clean install. Old logs and caches are cleaned up automatically anyway and old preferences and application support files can be easily cleaned up as well (even though the effort is hardly worth it).

The only reason why I would recommend a clean install is if you installed software in one of these locations mentioned above, as El Capitan will break them without a timely update. A clean install could be a way of getting rid of broken applications so that you can start fresh. However, if anything was added to the locations above, El Capitan will get rid of them for you and place them in your home folder.

In sum, unless you have specific issues that a clean install can resolve or don’t like redundant files in your library and user library, a clean install is not worth the effort. You won’t see performance benefits either.

absolutely yes, I don't want my mac to have graphical issues due to some conflicts between old gpu drivers, OpenGL/OpenCL and the new Metal thing

Have you actually any proof that this is the case? Seems to be a widely held belief.
 
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