Which Catalina rel. to expect on just-received new 2019 Mini

[bossanova]

Oldfart newb here. With all this dustup swirling re: Catalina and good/bad experiences/opinions on s̶a̶l̶a̶d̶ ̶f̶l̶a̶v̶o̶r̶s̶ release versions, I have some beginner's questions; I do realize it's a "still-developing story".

Purchased my first Mac desktop, a 2019 Mini: A1993/Z0W20xxxx/3.2GHz/64GB/1TB/#C07C82xxxx, in Western US. It's still boxed but I've finally got the time and correct headspace to set it up.

1. Is it possible to derive/divine the installed OS type and rel. just from the box label before powering it up? (FYI placed order w/Apple on 2/20/20, recvd it 2/24/20)

2. During setup is it possible to know the current OS rel. before the sw update phase? And can I see which OS ver. is available to download and choose to decline just the OS update at that time? Is that Y/N also possible for iTunes vers. upgrade?

3. If Catalina is the installed OS, which release should I upgrade to/which should I avoid/which should I wait for?
(I'll be using this Mini as my home machine, connected with a lower-end Synology NAS and Iomega boxes and Win10 PCs on my home (later to a home media center). As I do CAD and 3D work so there will be frequent transfers of copious numbers of files, some of which large. I'll be starting out with an older 2011 Apple TBolt display (TBolt 1). Also picked up a new Caltech T3 dock and their TBolt Minidock. BTW I'm ~600 miles away from the closest Apple store/~200 mi. from the closest town with any trustable Mac support resource)

4. Lastly, is there online a definitive guide/gouge to help me with understanding compatibility/gotchas re: moving my family-shared media from my 2010 MacAir's iTunes 12.6.1.26/Mavericks to my new Mini's current iTunes?
(Back in the day, the last time I moved storage and upgraded iTunes, Steve Jobs -intentionally- deleted all my non-Apple songs )

Thanks in advance!

 

[allan.nyholm]

Quick comments before I go to bed..

1. I think that your Mac mini comes with macOS Catalina 10.15.3 or 10.15.4. You can't decide not to have macOS Catalina installed as Apple decides that 10.15 is the earliest macOS that can be installed and used.
Edit... You might get one that has Mojave installed as the earliest macOS - keep that version if you have 32bit applications you rely on. macOS Catalina takes that away. I think it depends on how long the Mac has been on a shelf?

2. You can't get to know the OS before installing macOS Catalina while installing - this is can be done beforehand or after the fact. Perhaps look onhttps://www.apple.com/macos/catalina/ on a current computer and see what's new.

3. You ought to install 10.15.5 released just yesterday. Before getting to the Desktop and during the initial setup process my advice is to skip logging in to iCloud and go right to Software Update in System Preferences. Get 10.15.5 and be patient with the install.

4. I can't give advice on that currently.

 

[bossanova]

Thanks, great help. One of the Apple resources I spoke with made it sound like that higher-end configs. tend to be "final-assembled" in CA. This was a pre-COVID unit.

BTW if Catalina I wasn't really looking to get back to Mojave.

But if it's 10.15.3 should I throttle up to 10.15.5 right away?

I'm impressed/intrigued about your optimism with 10.5.5 just so shortly after release. Was there a sea-change in bugs/complaints? So quickly?

Re: 4. now I'm curious about interdependencies between iTunes iterations and major/minor OS releases. I'm trying to recall how they were "bundled" in past sw updates.

TIA

 

[allan.nyholm]

I suggest bumping up to past 10.15.4 and that only gives 10.15.5.

10.15.4 was just annoying for me because I noticed right away that the Dock.app would hang on shutdown or logout - and since I've upgraded through 10.15.3 and have patched the Dock with an application called cDock, for theming the Dock itself, I thought I best remove that and see if everything works out. It didn't. So I got a 10.15.4 fresh off App Store and made a USB drive as per Apple's instructions and clean installed 10.15.4 only to notice thatit wasn't cDock at all. So in that instance I could nothing but hope for a quick 10.15.5 to fix this. Then I began reading about the issues that 10.15.4 hadon this forum and someone mentioned the Dock hang -- exactly what I should have read about before reinstalling the entire macOS.

So, now it's fixed and probably somethng else will pop up. Perhaps stays on 10.15.3 but there's bugfixes since then. I didn't want to go the Public Beta route to get a hold of 10.15.5 even though it's easy to get into the Beta program. I don't know why I'm championing the latest macOS 10.15 release. It's feels great somehow to be on the lastest build number.

I noticed that a website that I don't often frequent but I probably should has great information on macOS.

The Eclectic Light Company

Macs, painting, and more

eclecticlight.co

And bugfixes here for 10.15.5: https://eclecticlight.co/2020/05/27/what-has-changed-in-catalina-10-15-5/


About your iTunes vs. Music app and how to progress.. Catalina Music app doesn't have a great place in my heart.
macOS Catalina, as you probably know, split up Podcasts and music content and the Music app was supposed to be a great deal for macOS Catalina. It's just not there yet. It's as if there's something just not right, you know. the feeling that perhaps legacy iTunes was the best to keep around.
You can install iTunes however on Catalina https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive

And I also have, perhaps I should try again..

My music plays just fine, but when I last imported music from my CD collection using the macOS Catalina Music app, I noticed that a track would began to play out of order from my collection when I wasn't palying music while importing anything from a CD - so it would be me importing tons of CD's and also quiet and then tracks would play - often not from any particular order.