Snow Leopard Developer Preview

[pkrekelb]

Having returned from WWDC with the shiny new developer preview discs...

I have installed the Snow Leopard Server developer preview on our Xserve. The serial from connect.apple.com indicates it will expire on June 30, 2009. How are we expected to continue to use it after that date if license cannot be purchased until September? We're all for buying a license, but it appears they're just not available yet.

Should I just downgrade back to 10.5 to be safe or will there be a way to keep the developer preview going past June 30? (or will there be another serial posted on connect.apple.com for us to use until the September release)


I am not an ADC Premier member, but I am a registered iPhone developer so I have an ADC account from that. I'm just trying to figure out if it was a mistake to install the Snow Leopard Server developer preview we were given at WWDC since I don't get all the other developer seed releases from Apple.

Thanks !
-Patrick

 

[Consultant]

You install non-release software on a separate partition to test your app only. Thus you should not be worried about upgrading or if it has expired.

 

[pkrekelb]

You install non-release software on a separate partition to test your app only. Thus you should not be worried about upgrading or if it has expired.

I didn't. Should have. For a (experienced unix but) inexperienced OS X admin, what are the basic steps for this sort of partitioning?

I'm guessing I need to downgrade the boot disk, then format and partition it? It's all a single partition now.

 

[Billy Boo Bob]

I didn't. Should have. For a (experienced unix but) inexperienced OS X admin, what are the basic steps for this sort of partitioning?

I'm guessing I need to downgrade the boot disk, then format and partition it? It's all a single partition now.

(Realizing you may be starting over in this case...)

In (Snow) Leopard you shouldn't necessarily need to reformat, losing your stuff... In Disk Utility, select the drive (not the volume) and go to the Partition Tab...

Click on your one partition to hilite it (blue border), then hit the plus (+) button below. This should offer a second partition that can be resized, either by dragging between the two, or setting the size in the text field (once you have your new partition selected).

Assuming you're formatted correctly in the first place, this should do you fine (once you hit the Apply button).

Note: If your files are scattered all over the disk this could take time since it will have to relocate files in order to end up with a contiguous block large enough (I guess at the "end" of the drive) to partition.

If you're doing this from scratch with a full wipeout - format, then use the Partition tab instead of the Format tab to do the formatting. You can utilize the popup above the partition "table/graphic/ummm?".

There's always the option to add a FireWire drive as a temp drive to install any test servers on. That way you don't have to mess with any partitioning. Another option is VMWare Fusion which will let you install Leopard and Snow Leopard Servers. Granted you may not want to use that for production servers unless you have some serious hardware that can keep up. It can serve well for a test system, and you can test with it while your production server goes on undisturbed.

Also... I have messed around with Leopard Server in the past... I can't remember the details about it, but if memory serves me correctly it seems that when first firing up and entering initial user data that there was an option to import settings from another Server install... If so, and you end up putting Leopard Server back on (in your new partition, perhaps?), you "might" be able to import your settings from your soon to outdate Snow Leopard Server install... Just a thought, and I admit I might be thinking all wrong here (and that it's limited to regular Leopard and the flakey Migration Assistant). It's been a while.

HTH

BTW... What's your first impressions of Snow Leopard Server vs. Leopard Server? I've gotten a peek at Snow Leopard Client, but not at Server (other than Apple's podcasts), and am anxious to find out if they've improved the admin of Web / Virtual Hosts at all, as well as Mail Admin.