Not great, but one Lion solution

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Level 1

8 points

Not great, but one Lion solution

Still being new to Mac (about 2 years overall, little more than 1 as my primary business computer), I still tend to approach a lot of things from a PC perspective. Especially anything new – the old PC rule “Never install v1.0 of anything” continues to serve me well. And that is exponentially higher when it comes to a new OS.

I had looked forward to Lion for several reasons – the biggest being the rumor it would include a full-up Windows emulator and I could junk Parallels and Win7, that virtual computer being the source of nearly all the problems I've ever had with my iMac (27" i5 w/8GB RAM – soon to be 16 – and 1TB HD).

Alas, Lion failed on that score. But I still planned to install it – as soon as it became 10.7.2, as it now is. But before installing anything, I always check the user forums. And despite Apple claiming a 4.5 out of 5 star customer satisfaction rating, almost every message I read was in the 1 or 2 star range. What really caught my attention was when users began to call it MacVista – Vista having been the proverbial straw that sent me to Apple in the first place.

Even some AppleCare and Genius Bar techs agree – this OS is a PITA – and I don't mean Greek flatbread. Apparently, it won't work with anything except the latest 60-bit versions of any software. Got something 32-bit – or more than a year old? Tough. I even had one Apple rep tell me that flat out, saying, "Well, you were going to have to update your software sooner or later anyway, so why not now?"

Mostly because I prefer picking my own timetable for things that are going to cost me thousands of dollars and take days or weeks to install and learn (even programs you've used for years are going to have major changes running 64-bit on Lion, even if you were running them 64-bit on Snow Leopard).

I wanted to get the Win7 vc off my iMac, moving Windows programs I must have, but have no Mac version, to a new Win7 desktop I have installed next to my iMac (something I swore I would never, ever do again). Now I can't even trust my "old" Mac software will work.

So I have come up with a typical PC-user solution – not one I like, but one I hope will work: Cut my 1TB drive in half, with one partition retaining Snow Leopard and my current configuration as is; in the other, Lion and whatever programs specific to it I want to try, one at a time, on my own timetable – beginning, alas, with Parallels 7, which I bought before discovering it really only works with Lion.

This would, of course, be a dual-boot configuration, which means I can't cut and paste between the Lion and Snow Leopard partitions. Enter Drop Box, which will keep all files from both OS drives current online – and on the rest of my network – in real time.

Not the most elegant solution in the world, but I think – hope – pray – it will work. I'll let you know – and I hope anyone with a better solution will share, as well.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.7), 27-inch i5 version

Posted on Sep 10, 2011 7:07 PM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,916 points

Sep 11, 2011 3:21 AM in response to Unipresser

Unipresser wrote:

I had looked forward to Lion for several reasons – the biggest being the rumor it would include a full-up Windows emulator

I'd be curious where you got that idea, which certainly seems like total nonsense.

I think your solution is excellent. In general it does not make sense for anyone who depends on their machine for their daily bread to just upgrade their OS without at least having a bootable clone of their earlier working system available to go back to when something critical to their work suddenly no longer works.

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Answer 2

lupunus

Level 4

1,000 points

Sep 11, 2011 4:15 AM in response to Unipresser

Unipresser wrote:

I still tend to approach a lot of things from a PC perspective. Especially anything new – the old PC rule “Never install v1.0 of anything”

Full ACK!

Early adopting is for experienced users with a "spare" system to test out. Alternative to ones with no hustle to delete and reinstall several times or roll back a previous version.

I'm on Mac since1989 have seen a lot of OS trouble over the times. Also I'm with Windows since v 3.1 and had quite the same experiences.

Unipresser wrote:

Windows programs I must have, but have no Mac version,

There are very few applications on Windows systems without a working Mac counterpart or a matching solution on a Mac.

For me, as for many others, the only MUST HAVE from Windows is a fully compatible Excel.

First I had a virtual machine (Fusion) containing a complete windows with MS-Office, and I used Excel in Unity mode.

Never had trouble with that and still using Fusion to run different Linux installations.

So where is my Windows and Excel left?

I had to upgrade Office to a newer version some day and asked myself, should I spent money for a new Windows licence and a Office?

Answer was: "Nope."

So I bought only Office and installed it inside Wine.

Works well and smooth and I have not to deal with frequent Windows updates or a complete running virtual machine with Windows, only for using Excel.

Ok, that's no solution for common plug and play people, but It's worth a try.

http://wiki.winehq.org/MacOSX/Installing

Cheers - Lupunus

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Answer 3

etresoft

Level 8

46,206 points

Sep 11, 2011 8:56 AM in response to Unipresser

Unipresser wrote:

I had looked forward to Lion for several reasons – the biggest being the rumor it would include a full-up Windows emulator and I could junk Parallels and Win7, that virtual computer being the source of nearly all the problems I've ever had with my iMac (27" i5 w/8GB RAM – soon to be 16 – and 1TB HD).

This is the first time I've heard that rumour. Are you talking about Boot Camp maybe? That has been available for years. What is the problem with Parallels? It has always run great for me.

Alas, Lion failed on that score. But I still planned to install it – as soon as it became 10.7.2, as it now is.

10.7.2 has not been released yet.

But before installing anything, I always check the user forums. And despite Apple claiming a 4.5 out of 5 star customer satisfaction rating, almost every message I read was in the 1 or 2 star range. What really caught my attention was when users began to call it MacVista – Vista having been the proverbial straw that sent me to Apple in the first place.

This is not a user forum. This is a tech support forum. The only people who come here are people who are having trouble with their machines. That trouble is almost always a direct result of some user misconfiguration - often from something they did after reading about it some user forum 🙂. The Lion advice you read here is identical to what people said about Snow Leopard when it came out - and Leopard before that.

Even some AppleCare and Genius Bar techs agree – this OS is a PITA – and I don't mean Greek flatbread. Apparently, it won't work with anything except the latest 60-bit versions of any software. Got something 32-bit – or more than a year old? Tough

Nonsense.

You appear to be following some particularly bad advice on a number of fronts. The biggest problem I see that you are just here to announce what you have done after the fact. There seem to be a number of serious issues and misconceptions that you haven't addressed. That doesn't bode well for the future. When the time comes that something else is horribly screwed up - and it sure it will - it would be better to ask here first.

There are a number of popular software packages that were abandonned by their authors in 2006 or so. Those programs do no run in Lion. They only ran in 10.4 in a special compatibility mode. After five years, Apple has declared the transition to Intel chips to be complete. Anybody that didn't make it stays behind. Pretty much everything else has a recent update that runs great in Lion.

People will be happy to help resolve whatever compatibility issues you are having. All you have to do is ask. Remember, in the modern world, there are three categories of falsehoods: lies, da mned lies, and internet forum postings.

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Answer 4

lupunus

Level 4

1,000 points

Sep 11, 2011 9:47 AM in response to etresoft

etresoft wrote:

This is a tech support forum. The only people who come here are people who are having trouble with their machines. That trouble is almost always a direct result of some user misconfiguration - often from something they did after reading about it some user forum 🙂. The Lion advice you read here is identical to what people said about Snow Leopard when it came out - and Leopard before that.

... and Tiger before that and Panther before that and so on down to 7.x

Etresoft, you made my day with that.

Is it allowed to quote that elsewhere? 😁

I've tryed several times to explain that ... but most people want not read or understand that the majority of "Lion Problems" are PEBKAC, incompatibility, misconfiguration or infrastructure issues.

I've decided now, only to help peoples with there problems if the are willing to perform a proper troubleshoot.

And to all blaming Lion for there trouble is said, there will never ever be a instant-easy-update-quick-fix from Apple to solve your problems with WiFi, iTunes drop outs, lousy Internet connection or can't get working my external Display issues.

Lupunus

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Answer 5

Unipresser Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 12, 2011 9:16 AM in response to lupunus

Not sure who you have been talking with the past couple of years, but the "Lion will have a Windows emulator" rumor was one of the most common I encountered after making the move from PC to Mac. And, no, it had nothing to do with Boot Camp.

I brought my dual boot idea here to both offer it up as a possibility to others and to seek advice/response from those who may already have tried it. As someone who has been working with computers since 1967 (when the computer was the building), wrote a bi-weekly hardware/software review column for regional and national magazines for 25 years and built three PCs from scratch - and still do a lot of writing about military computers - I consider myself to be relatively well-versed overall, but still new and relatively ignorant about Macs.

Yes, those who post to forums and blogs tend to be those with problems, which skews the impression to the negative. And the vast majority of problems they raise are what we used to call "operator error" at UPI (back when there really was a UPI). But the problems are real for them and they usually come to places such as this for help.

Every user, every configuration, is different. It turns out a lot of my problems were due to a slowly dying iMac hard drive, which was replaced a few days ago. But I have to question your apparent attitude (and by "your", I refer not just to Lupunus) that all - or at least the vast majority - of problems people have with Lion are operator errors.

Why? Because every AppleCare tech with whom I have spoken - and every Genius Bar tech, for that matter - agrees there are serious compatibility problems and those switching to Lion should only do so if they, 1) have another computer on which to do important work and 2) are ready, willing and able to spend a lot of money on new versions of software they already have - and lose forever some programs, even those specific to previous versions of the Mac OS.

As noted, I'm still new to Mac and still shaking off a quarter century-plus of PC. But, contrary to what I had expected, I am now a solid Mac supporter, from the overall quality and reliability of the hardware - and software - to, especially, the incredible level of support Apple provides (without charging you a king's ransom for the privilege). That does not mean Apple is perfect nor Lion is without problems, which Apple seems to be working hard to fix, whether internally or in concert with third party providers, as appropriate.

But I will be exceedingly disappointed if user forums such as this one reject or belittle any problem raised - even if asking about a rumor or some misinformation picked up elsewhere - by any other Mac user at any level of experience. It's not a question of people being thin-skinned - or stupid - but of those with more knowledge and experience sharing it with grace and an always helping hand.

End of rant.

First report on attempt to do a dual boot install of Lion on an i5 iMac already running Snow Leopard: Even with a senior AppleCare tech on the phone (his choice, as it was his first attempt at this, as well), there have been unexpected glitches, which we worked around.

Now on to Phase 2 - Lion workshop and One-to-One sessions at the Apple Store this week to learn as much as I can and ask a lot of "stupid" questions, experimenting with all that at home (while using the Snow Leopard partition for work), installing necessary software, one at a time (including Parallels 7), etc. If anyone is interested, I will report back (much shorter) from time to time on the results.

Cheers,

J.R.

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Answer 6

etresoft

Level 8

46,206 points

Sep 12, 2011 12:06 PM in response to Unipresser

Unipresser wrote:

But the problems are real for them and they usually come to places such as this for help.

That is true. Which is why we always encourage people to:

1) Ask first instead of rant later

2) Ask their own questions instead of responding with "me too" on what they think is a similar problem, but is likely completely different

3) Actively seek to correct problems instead of hoping that some future "fix" will magically do it. If there is a known bug, we'll tell you.

every AppleCare tech with whom I have spoken - and every Genius Bar tech, for that matter - agrees there are serious compatibility problems and those switching to Lion should only do so if they, 1) have another computer on which to do important work and 2) are ready, willing and able to spend a lot of money on new versions of software they already have - and lose forever some programs, even those specific to previous versions of the Mac OS.

hearsay |ˈhɪ(ə)rˌseɪ|nouninformation received from other people that one cannot adequately substantiate; rumor: according to hearsay, Bob had managed to break his arm.• Lawthe report of another person's words by a witness, usually disallowed as evidence in a court of law: everything they had told him would have been ruled out as hearsay | [ as modifier ] : hearsay evidence.

I will report back (much shorter) from time to time on the results.

If you have questions, please ask first before commenting on the ill effects of not asking first. If you learn something in those sessions, please come back and help other people. If you want assistance with specific problems, there are many people here willing and able to help. If you want to come back with new Apple rumours, tell me that Apple doesn't recommend their products, or more rants, you can espect the same, gracious replies.

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