Thinking about installing Yosemite as my Main OS. Thoughts?

[hamiltonDSi]

Ok, let's start with this :

- I know it's a Developer Preview
- I know it's full of bugs and I'm not complaining
- I know that not all apps are going to work

Why do I want to do this :

I own a 15" Late 2013 Macbook Pro with Retina Display with a 256GB SSD and I'm running out of space with 2 partitions.

a) Mavericks - 200GB / Free 18GB (I store all my movies on my 3TB NAS Server)
b) Yosemite - 50GB / Free 21GB

If I install Yosemite as my Main OS I can get a lot of free space back.

- I paid the 99 bucks to get access to this betas so I want to play with them with no restrictions (an example of a restriction is running out of space).
- Yosemite has recieved 3 updates so far ; that's a lot of bug fixes and new features.
- I have a bug with Mavericks which is driving me insane.

I've been playing with DP3 for a couple of days and I must say, it's far better than the previous DPs.

Why I don't want to do this :

- Even if it's been updated 3 time since June, it's still a beta which means :

a) The system could crash at anytime (i haven't experienced this yet but you never know)
b) You can never trust the readings (for example, battery) on a beta OS
c) The apps I use the most work with Yosemite but maybe I'll buy an app tomorrow which does not work with 10.10

As you can see, I have the same number of pros and cons on this.
What should I do ? I wan't to know your thoughts.

 

[maflynn]

Sounds like you already justified the action, paid your 99 dollars for the developer access. I don't think anything we write here is going to change your mind.

I'd say based on what you posted, just install it.

Personally, I'd rather not but that's just me. Yosemite (at least the prior builds) seems a too unstable for me.

 

[hamiltonDSi]

. Yosemite (at least the prior builds) seems a too unstable for me.

Yep. DP1 & DP2 we're not that great.
It had frame drops on simple tasks (like full screen animation) on a 2,000$ machine.

DP3 seems much better.

 

[DiscardedPacket]

DP3 seems pretty stable.

Safari is buggy (some glitches with images and text), but if you use firefox or chrome this shouldn't matter.

 

[talmy]

There is a risk going "all in" that I never see mentioned. There is always the possibility (and from my experience, a certainty!) that some new beta version will introduce a show-stopping incompatibility, or even brick your Mac.

Solve your space problem by having an external boot drive for one of the OSes.

 

[xmichaelp]

A dramatically better UI (in my opinion) to me outweighs the quirks of it being a beta. It's up to you. If you don't love the UI then I guess there isn't much point.

 

[nitromac]

Make a backup before you switch over.

 

[hamiltonDSi]

I did a back up last night with Time Machine when I was thinking this.
Does anyone here has Yosemite as the Main OS ?

 

[AlanShutko]

There is always the possibility (and from my experience, a certainty!) that some new beta version will introduce a show-stopping incompatibility, or even brick your Mac.

It's likely that you'll have an incompatibility, but I don't know any updates that have actually broken the hardware. Worst comes to worse, you can always just restore from your backups.

If the beta could actually brick your Mac, running it on an external drive wouldn't help.

 

[hamiltonDSi]

Solve your space problem by having an external boot drive for one of the OSes.

I have a 3TB NAS Server which was a lot of $$$. I got that Server because I wanted to get rid of cables for external storage.

 

[Fishrrman]

Title:
[[ Thinking about installing Yosemite as my Main OS. Thoughts ? ]]

My only thought is that you'd better have a backup....!

 

[talmy]

It's likely that you'll have an incompatibility, but I don't know any updates that have actually broken the hardware. Worst comes to worse, you can always just restore from your backups.

If the beta could actually brick your Mac, running it on an external drive wouldn't help.

OK, "brick" is a bit too harsh. Would un-bootable image do?

I won't talk specific OS here, but I went "all in" with one on an unimportant Mac mini used as an entertainment center. One seed install left the drive un-bootable. The installer simply didn't work on this computer. I could restore the image (from a backup). Several seeds in a row -- same problem. To get it working I took the backup drive, booted it on another system, upgraded from that, and restored the mini from the upgraded drive!

I've also had new seeds break virtualization software, ability to drive projectors, video screen capture, and mail -- all critical capabilities for my usage. I've had seeds that nail 100% CPU usage with errant system processes. No fun there.

Apps with local databases often get upgraded for new OSes and don't convert back if you want to revert.

For all of these reasons I never go "all in" with any system that I need to do productive work on. Apple themselves warn as much when you have to agree to the download.

 

[Nautilus007]

DP1&2 were both stable enough for my daily driver on my rMBP, some occasional bugs but seemed okay. That said I don't really use the computer for anything except browsing and some light email.

 

[smokesletsgo]

I use it as my main OS on my MacBook Air. It runs fine, but it has this rough feel: system font needs a lot of work, some animations are laggy, graphics glitches here and there... But it's useable, though i'd go back to Mavericks if i wasn't lazy to reinstall everything all over again And the fact that Safari works much better and is a lot faster then on Mavericks makes me wanna stay. Quite surprising considering it's an early preview of the OS.

 

[hamiltonDSi]

I use it as my main OS on my MacBook Air. It runs fine, but it has this rough feel: system font needs a lot of work, some animations are laggy, graphics glitches here and there... But it's useable, though i'd go back to Mavericks if i wasn't lazy to reinstall everything all over again And the fact that Safari works much better and is a lot faster then on Mavericks makes me wanna stay. Quite surprising considering it's an early preview of the OS.

How's the battery life compared to Mavericks ?
I never had the chance to test the battery life on Yosemite.

 

[denniskim527]

Same with me bro.

Had the same problem, but I updated as my Main OS.

Since this is one of the latest mac, it works fine. I do not regret updating as my Main OS.


Hope it helps.

 

[smokesletsgo]

How's the battery life compared to Mavericks ?
I never had the chance to test the battery life on Yosemite.

I think no worse than on Mavericks. But it may depend on system.

 

[denniskim527]

For the Retina 15...

How's the battery life compared to Mavericks ?
I never had the chance to test the battery life on Yosemite.

About an hour to 30min shorter compared to Mavericks.

 

[hamiltonDSi]

Had the same problem, but I updated as my Main OS.

Since this is one of the latest mac, it works fine. I do not regret updating as my Main OS.


Hope it helps.

It does help because we have the same Mac.
Did you upgraded or did a clean install ?

 

[denniskim527]

It does help because we have the same Mac.
Did you upgraded or it a clean install ?

Upgrade from 10.9.4.

 

[AlanShutko]

OK, "brick" is a bit too harsh. Would un-bootable image do?

Yes, that's absolutely fair. One should not try betas unless they're prepared to recover from this or other problems that you mention.

For all of these reasons I never go "all in" with any system that I need to do productive work on. Apple themselves warn as much when you have to agree to the download.

I do, but that's because I'm prepared to revert at a moment's notice if that should be necessary. I also have another computer I can use that I don't upgrade if I don't have time to revert.

My list of preparations would look something like

• Have multiple sets of reliable backups that you know you can restore (yes, test the restore!).
• Have a copy of the installer from the previous version prepped, or better yet, get a bootable image of your drive before install. This fixes the problem if for whatever reason you can't need to reinstall and can't download it.
• Have separate machines you can use if you can't use this one. NEVER run it on your only machine, because you might need another machine to help recover.
• Have a tested plan to bring your current working documents back onto your machine after you do a restore. You won't be able to restore a beta Time Machine backup on top of Mavericks, though you may be able to do a migration. Dropbox or file sync tools can also satisfy this.

These tips are good for anyone, really. I have a lot less stress knowing that a bulldozer could run over my laptop and I'm not going to lose anything. But you are so very likely to have problems when running a beta you'd better have a plan going forward.

 

[nathanalf]

I have 10.10 B3 as my main partition and a smaller (~40 GB) partition with a clean install of Mavericks just in case something goes wrong, as well as 2 external drives I regularly backup to.

Beta 2 was, to say the least, frustrating. I ended up downgrading to Mavericks because I couldn't handle the B2 bugs anymore, but B3 seems much better so far.

And continuity/handoff seem to be working pretty well this time around too

 

[Paradoxally]

Solution is Carbon Copy Cloner + external HD. Do a full clone of Mavericks, wipe your HD, install Yosemite. If you don't like it (like I did), boot into Mavericks from your external HD, open CCC, and then just wipe your internal HD and restore that backup to it. You'll lose nothing with the advantage of having an external backup that boots in ~2 minutes and works just like a full OS should anything go drastically wrong or if you just need to boot into Mavericks to do some work.

 

[r0k]

I picked up a 64 GB USB stick at Micro Center the other day for $20. $20. If you don't mind that thing sticking out of your Mac, why not put Yosemite on there?

 

[Dj64Mk7]

I picked up a 64 GB USB stick at Micro Center the other day for $20. $20. If you don't mind that thing sticking out of your Mac, why not put Yosemite on there?

Because of the "restrictions." In this case, the "restriction" is performance.

EDIT: OP has USB 3. My point still stands, however, since USB is much slower than the internal SSD.