Installation of an operating system can be a daunting task to
even the most seasoned users. I was especially nervous as I
prepared to install OS X on my very expensive PowerBook Pismo. My Macintosh fleet
consists of my main desktop G4 , my Pismo, and a few older
systems.
I am one who must have the latest and greatest and could not sit
by and let the release of OS X pass me by. My original plans
to wait until Fall fell apart when I first laid my eyes on the
white box with the big blue X. I grabbed the box and ran back to
the house to install the new OS. As my G4 has been altered
considerably with peripherals, I decided to use the PowerBook as
the guinea pig. I carefully backed up the Pismo drive, opened the
box, and sat down for a long evening.
Let me digress and say that I am a veteran of around 40 Windows
installs from versions 3.1 to 2000. These were both new installs
and reinstalls/upgrades. Some went well, and others were more
difficult. I have breezed through the process in a few hours while
maintaining my cool. I have also had installs which lingered for
days in which I drank profusely and cursed the fact that I ever
became involved with a computer.
I feel comfortable with the process and expect success tomorrow
if not today. With this confidence, I sat down in front of my
laptop.
Booting from the CD, I felt nervous and began to question my
decision. I could always stop and wait a few months for patches and
user experience to become more readily available. I crossed my
fingers and leapt ahead, pressing the keys to begin the process. I
entered a bit of data. I grabbed the latest MacAddict and a cool
beverage, and I made myself comfortable for the install. I knew
this would be tough as I was moving from Mac OS to an OS based on
Unix.
I was certain I would have some trouble as I moved into
uncharted territory. I was dead wrong. The process was over before
I even finished my magazine.
I was flabbergasted. I screamed for my wife to come down to the
office. She had been anticipating screams of profanity and had
moved the kids to the safety of the second floor. She arrived
expecting to find me crumpled in a ball on the floor. Instead, she
found me celebrating the joys of OS X.
The new OS was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I
immediately began playing with the system and found that everything
ran wonderfully on my PowerBook. The investment in 384 MB of RAM
allowed me to run X smoothly and allowed for a few Classic apps to
run with respectable performance.
I was hooked. I immediately grabbed the CD and flew across the
office to the G4. Caution to the wind, I completed the second
installation within 30 minutes and was greeted be an even better
performance with the G4 processor.
My wife could not understand why I was so excited, and I tried
to no avail to explain that I had converted both of these machine
to a Unix-based OS within an hour. My typical Windows installations
took a best an hour before I would even return to the room. I could
not believe how smoothly the process had gone. I was once again
amazed at the work of the team at Apple Computer. They were able to
make the OS install process easy for even the most inexperienced
user. And not just any OS install - this was a complete overhaul
of the traditional Apple OS.
I have since installed Mac OS three more times, including
installation on a separate partition on my primary machine. All of
these installs have gone without a hitch.
Next week will be the ultimate user test: my father will be
installing OS X and Windows 98se in my lab to find out which
is more user friendly. I have a fairly good idea but will be
interested to see if he can complete either without causing a
fire.
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
