Best way to migrate to new Mac from 10.5 to 10.6

[m3coolpix]

About to purchase a Mac Mini 2.4ghz C2D (late 2010 model, barely used)
with OS X 10.6.x.

Have a MacBook Pro 2.16ghz C2D (2006 model) with OS X 10.5.8. It's
got a video card issue (a recall)...and slowly starting to get worse
it seems, especially during heavy Photoshop use. Doing Carbon Copy
Cloner daily backups, but need to get my main workhorse retired to non
daily essential duties, and the Mac Mini will fit the bill fine (have
several 1.83 ghz units).

What's the best way (not necessarily the easiest/fastest) to make the
Mac Mini be equal to the MacBook Pro?

I'm guessing that it will be Migration Assistant (but never used
this)? Or would it be Carbon Copy Cloner (but then there's the issue
of the different OS's---don't know if the 2.4ghz Mini will use 10.5,
maybe it requires 10.6)? Or would it be just re-install all the apps
on the fresh 10.6 install on the Mini (a pain, but could do)?

Anyone with some experience and insight into a successful process?

 

[mr.steevo]

Migration Assistant worked fine for me. If you connect computers with an ethernet cable the transfer time is shorter.

 

[dolphin842]

An alternate method would be CCC'ing to your backup drive, then hooking the drive up to the new Mac and using Migration Assistant (either on first boot or afterwards). Hooking up the drive or the old Mac should yield identical results. Just make sure that the new Mini doesn't have an account with the same username you're trying to transfer... Migration Assistant will protest.

You're correct in that the current Minis will not run 10.5.