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Should I take the risk in installing Lion as my primary?

hellomoto4

hellomoto4

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
804
0
Australia
Okay, so I'm in a bit of a pickle.
I tried to partition my HD this evening, only to realise that it was corrupt. Therefore, I need to repair it. To do this, I need to insert my SL disc and run disk utility from there.
However, I tried to insert my SL disc and my superdrive is dead. It just spits out any CD after around 15 seconds.

So, I can't partition because I can't repair my HD, and if I bought a new HD, I couldn't install SL on it because my superdrive is broken. I do have a Time Machine of my whole system though (can an OS be installed via Time Machine? I've never tried/known).

As a last resort, I've considered installing Lion as my primary OS and shunning SL forever (muhahaha :cool: ) however I really don't want to do this.

Does anyone out there have any ideas on what I can/should do? And as I mentioned above, if I do buy a new HD, can I reinstate SL via my Time Machine external, partition that and then install Lion on it?

Thank you very much!
 
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No. The reasons are too numerous to list and there's no benefit at this time. If however you like taking risks and have nothing better to do with your time, have at it. Down time & trouble shooting can be very interesting.
 
Even if you are a developer there's no need to install Lion as your main OS. If you're not a developer, leave it until the final release is out in the stores.
 
Sky Blue said:
Even if you are a developer there's no need to install Lion as your main OS. If you're not a developer, leave it until the final release is out in the stores.
Click to expand...

I just looked into developing (for Mac - I already have a few iOS apps, albeit nothing amazing!) which is why I became a Mac Dev yesterday, and I'm really OCD about having the latest stuff ;) But hmm I might have to wait I guess...
 
I'm not a developer, although I have an account and I've installed Lion on my MacBook, which I use for work and stuff, so it's my primary... Up to you what you do, but I like taking risks...
 
It's safe enough. Make sure you have a Time Machine backup of your Snow Leopard desktop and DO NOT backup over it.
 
Do it. I dedicated a small partition to Lion for testing and the rest is Snow Leopard. No problems so far.
 
I think you should go ahead and do it. I've been using it since Thursday, and it's been quite stable. However, you should make a full backup of your current machine so you can revert within an hour or so if something goes wrong, especially if you use the computer for work.
 
I just installed this morning .....I used a second partition on my MBP HD and pulled all my settings and files from SL partition. Honestly I love it seems stable and wil probably not go back to other partition.
 
nospeed411 said:
I just installed this morning .....I used a second partition on my MBP HD and pulled all my settings and files from SL partition. Honestly I love it seems stable and wil probably not go back to other partition.
Click to expand...

I made the mistake of only partitioning a small part of my HD to Lion. I think after using it for a few days now I am going to resize Lion to bring my settings over.
 
Make sure your basic needs will be met (ie, does your printer work with lion, do you have any hardware which isn't supported yet, etc.) While it may seem fun to use Lion, using it as your main machine when it is not stable puts you at serious risk for loss of productivity.
 
I installed without thinking about bugs... (don't do that, it's not always gonna work out...)

I'm using it as my OS without thinking about bugs.

Does it have its quirks? Yes.
Are they bad enough to constitute not installing it as your main OS? No, not so far as I have seen.

I would do it, though you may wanna invest some extra money to get the hardware trouble worked out first. ;P
 
Depends on what you need your system for. If its just web surfing and some text editing, go ahead but make frequent back ups (different back up then from snow leopard).

Do note though, when Apple comes out with a new "major" update for lion during the beta process, you might need to reinstall the entire OS.
 
TheAppleDragon said:
I installed without thinking about bugs... (don't do that, it's not always gonna work out...)

I'm using it as my OS without thinking about bugs.

Does it have its quirks? Yes.
Are they bad enough to constitute not installing it as your main OS? No, not so far as I have seen.

I would do it, though you may wanna invest some extra money to get the hardware trouble worked out first. ;P
Click to expand...
Agreed. Been using as my default OS since it came out and barring a few quirks it's been a dream to use.

When the tiny bugs are squashed it's going to be an awesome release.
 
I guess it really depends on what you use your machine for. As noted previously, check if your hardware is supported. If so, then give it a try. However, if you are going to use Lion as your primary OS, be patient with the bugs. While it is relatively stable, there are times when things go wrong. For normal everyday stuff, I am trying out Lion (and for testing). For everything else, like work, I still use Snow Leopard.
 
tourada said:
I made the mistake of only partitioning a small part of my HD to Lion. I think after using it for a few days now I am going to resize Lion to bring my settings over.
Click to expand...


I did the same thing ...only pulled 100gb...oops went to transfer all my crap over and it hung on the "transferring files" screen all night. I had to kill the partition and reinstall it. I figured if we are gonna test it might as well test it with all my stuff.

The only part I can't get used to is the "backwards" iOS style scrolling:D
 
Yeah, the inertia scrolling does take some time to get used to. However, using an iphone for so many years, it isn't all that difficult. Now I find my self scrolling up to go down in Leopard. Confusing. Ha.
 
I "upgraded" my Snow Leopard partition to Lion, everything seemed to install fine, but when It restarted my my entire User folder was gone…so make sure to use Time Machine before doing anything you can regret.
 
Woo! Someone else who has experienced the crappiness of the Apple SuperDrive!

(Mine and my replacement drive both went bust in 1.5 years. Have no AppleCare left, so I guess I have to go MacBook Air style-y! :D )
 
Go ahead and install it as your primary OS if you like, but don't come back here and make threads about things that don't work.

Too many people are installing Lion and then asking questions here as if Lion was a finished OS.
 
After having used it for one day at home, I had to install Better Touch Tool on my work SL install to invert my Magic Mouse scrolling. I'm shocked at how quickly it took my brain to adjust.

Now I want Lion for my work computer as well. Going to hang out for a few essentials though, like 1Password.
 
So...what do you guys are going to do when Apple releases a new Beta of Lion? Install over the old one again and loose all data? It kinda sucks when you use it as your primary.
 
DandsM said:
So...what do you guys are going to do when Apple releases a new Beta of Lion? Install over the old one again and loose all data? It kinda sucks when you use it as your primary.
Click to expand...
Having used pretty much every beta release of every Mac OS since Mac OS 8 I can confidently say that has never ever happened.
 
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