From Lion to El Capitan

[Todzilla]

I know it's a huge leap. I'm averse to upgrades just for their own sake, but the ancientness of Lion has caught up with me.

Any tips/warnings/admonisments? here's my setup"

late 2011 MBP 15" i7 w 16G RAM and 1TB SSD.
DP 8.02 (I think?)
NI Komplete 8
Arturia Vintage Synth collection
some freeware.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

-Todzilla

[stubbsonic]

Do you have to go all the way to El Capitan to satisfy your needs? You could take an interim step. I'd probably steer you away from Mavericks from my experience.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I thought Mavericks and Yosemite were pretty good. I installed El Cap yesterday and after some initial bumps in a few places, it went reasonably well T.day it seems like most of what I need is still working. I did loose Xtra Finder, Snapper, and Final Cut Express (no a big deals there). A few apps (like Xtra Finder) require the Safe Boot log in and special treatment. I don't feel like messing with that for a while and hope they'll get updated soon.

I can deal with the rest as long as my go to apps are working and they are. Whew! BIG sigh of relief.

[mikehalloran]

I thought Mavericks and Yosemite were pretty good. I installed El Cap yesterday ... I did loose ... Final Cut Express (no a big deals there)...:

This may help:
http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/fin ... e.1904108/

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Alas, I'm using 3.5. No big deal. iSkysoft to the rescue. Just no real fancy stuff unless I spend a few bucks.

[mikehalloran]

I know it's a huge leap. I'm averse to upgrades just for their own sake, but the ancientness of Lion has caught up with me.

Any tips/warnings/admonisments? here's my setup"

late 2011 MBP 15" i7 w 16G RAM and 1TB SSD.
DP 8.02 (I think?)
NI Komplete 8
Arturia Vintage Synth collection
some freeware.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

-Todzilla

You may need 32Lives for some of the freeware and old AU plugs (including MDA) to work due to Carbon/Cocoa graphics change that happened with OS 10.8.2. If your scanner didn't work properly, it will now (another 10.8.2 fix).

You'll want to update to DP 8.07. Whether or not to upgrade to DP 9 is dealer choice.

Apps that didn't follow the Apple Toolkit will give you grief by not working. Izotope finally updated Vinyl to 64bit so that works again.

Some of your freeware may crash your Mac -- again 10.8.2. If you have the Bresink temperature monitor or Roxio CD Spin Doctor installed, search for my threads on how to completely remove them.

10.8.2 was a watershed release. Subsequent releases have been relatively painless except during the v.0 transition period as software makers caught up. It's been long enough that current plugs have caught up with El Capitán. Apps and plugs that went under will likely no longer work.

Otoh, you have been spared the Maverics 10.9.0/1 — DP 8.0/1 — Gmail hell that many experienced.

Repair Permissions is now a new Terminal command —easy — I've posted that elsewhere (do it). TRIM will work with non-Apple SSDs via another Terminal command that I've posted to a sticky.

Many Canon printers and scanners require you to find the Mavericks print drivers to work in Yosemite and El Cap. Easy to find on their web site. Frustrating to those who got them free with their Macs through the Apple Store.

[Armageddon]

I already made that leap … getting ready to make it a second time. With the cavalier attitude only a long-time Mac user who is completely unaware of what happens after Lion can cop, I had just pulled my hard drive from my 2008 black MacBook (which can't be upgraded past Lion without hacking) and put it into my MacBook Pro. I was about halfway through reauthorizing all my software that had become unauthorized once I switched computers when I said "Heck, I'm so excited about my fast new computer, I think I'll just go ahead and upgrade straight to El Capitan. And why the hell would I back up or Time Machine my drive? What's the worst that can happen?"

I found out pretty fast. About half of my software suddenly became obsolete. Also, my older obsolete (but still functioning in Lion) software that I hadn't yet reauthorized had serious problems with their security features. Some of them never even let me get to the authorization stage. After deleting program after program and going "I'll just have to tighten my belt til I get all those upgrades!" for a while, I made the hard decision to wipe my drive and reinstall Lion. Fortunately, I had an even older drive I'd put in an enclosure and never wiped that had once been my system drive, so much of my critical information and my installed software still existed and allowed me to migrate it all during the reinstall of Lion. I'm currently in the process of re-re-authorizing my software, installing updates and paying for upgrades when/where I can and have purchased a Time Machine drive, so when I go back to El Capitan, it will hopefully be a little less harrowing.

Good call on 32 Lives, especially if you're sticking with DP as your main DAW. Since I got Pro Tools, I also had to purchase Blue Cat Patchwork (also great if you want a break from 32 Lives).