Mac OS - High Sierra

[french frank]

Since there is so much hesitancy about upgrading to High Sierra, do I take it that reversing the upgrade, if it proves not to suit, is not feasible simply via Time Machine?

[Dave2002]

Since there is so much hesitancy about upgrading to High Sierra, do I take it that reversing the upgrade, if it proves not to suit, is not feasible simply via Time Machine?

I don't know the answer about that one. Some of the previous "upgrades" were apparently very difficult to reverse, though possible.

The best bet would perhaps be to install High Sierra on a separate drive - without touching your hard drive or SSD. Then it would be possible to boot up from that to see if it did what you wanted, or didn't cause too many problems. Once that has been checked out, then you might feel confident enough to repeat the installation to your main drive.

I have done this previously with upgrades to El C and Sierra as a way of checking out features and compatiblity, and it should avoid any need to reverse any process. The external drive can be reformatted afterwards if the installed OS is not needed. It works OK with USB, though it's slower than booting up from the internal drive, and if your USB is USB 2 it may be painfully slow. If an external SSD is used with USB 3 (or perhaps even USB C, then performance should be acceptably good - and certainly good enough to check out the OS.

[french frank]

Upgraded to High Sierra on the MacBook yesterday and am evaluating. If no obvious ill effects, and programs still work, will upgrade on the iMac (don't have Audio Hijack on the MacBook only on the iMac, but I'm fairly sure AH3 was upgraded for High Sierra some while back).

[Dave2002]

At least you shouldn’t be affected by this - Major flaw in millions of Intel chips revealed http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42553818 - according to the latest reports from earlier today - Rush to fix 'serious' computer chip flaws http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42561169

[french frank]

Upgraded to High Sierra on the MacBook yesterday and am evaluating. If no obvious ill effects, and programs still work, will upgrade on the iMac (don't have Audio Hijack on the MacBook only on the iMac, but I'm fairly sure AH3 was upgraded for High Sierra some while back).

All seems fine. Brief problem with get_thingummy Automator but that was resolved by clearing the Safari cache. GIMP okay, Audio Hijack 3 okay. For the security reason Dave2002 suggested, I'll be upgrading the iMac today. Leave it much longer and the next upgrade will be out

[Dave2002]

All seems fine. Brief problem with get_thingummy Automator but that was resolved by clearing the Safari cache. GIMP okay, Audio Hijack 3 okay. For the security reason Dave2002 suggested, I'll be upgrading the iMac today. Leave it much longer and the next upgrade will be out

I've been doing systems maintenance recently - with backups, and updates including updating Final Cut Pro X to version 10.4 - which seems benign enough, and allegedly provides some benefits, including enabling H265 codecs which are apparently good for 4k video, and also providing some compatiblity with iOS versions of iMovie. One problem is that any existing libraries need to be updated, which makes them incompatible with earlier versions. That won't matter for people who don't work with different machines and versions. Some people may need to make copies of libraries for earlier versions - e.g. for 10.3 so that the copies can work with older machines/versions, before doing the library updates. OTOH it's not too difficult to make new libraries from scratch and import the media in again. Users will need to decide whether to do that, or to make backup copies, or to update their existing libraries.

I am wavering about installing High Sierra. Firstly, I need to clear a bit more space on my MBP, as it apparently needs a tad more than 15 Gbytes of spare memory for the install process. Also once installed it uses about 1.5 Gbyte more than Sierra, so I'd need to keep the files I use down a bit. I may manage to do that if I tidy the file store up a bit further.

I found an article https://www.cnet.com/news/7-things-t...-sierra-10-13/ which mentions some of the reasons to update, but also has this information:

AFS is a big win -- for SSD owners

In addition to the aforementioned reasons AFS is necessary, it also theoretically improves performance and security. That's always a nice perk. But despite having over a year to work out the kinks with AFS, Apple rolled out High Sierra with a big caveat: AFS will only work with SSDs for now. You shouldn't use it for HDD+SSD Fusion drives and regular HDDs (spinning hard disks). Don't even think about it. When High Sierra went final, beta testers who had converted non-SSDs to AFS were greeted with a mind-bending list of instructions for banishing AFS from their systems.

I don't know whether Apple have brought High Sierra up to date for systems with hard drives or fusion drives, but I'll hold off updating any machines I deal with which don't have SSDs for the time being.

My itchy fingers might have me pressing install buttons on my MBP (it does have SSD) shortly, however.

[Beef Oven!]

I've just gone ahead and installed because I find that sooner or later you have no real choice, anyway. My MacBook Pro seems to be running Fitter, Happier; Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.

[muzzer]

I succumbed finally to high Sierra this week and it seems fine, so far....Slightly OT but has anyone got a new MacBook Pro and what adaptors did you need to get, as it only has a thunderbolt connector? Mine is nearly 6 years old and it feels like time to get a new one. Thank you.

[Anastasius]

Dave2002...If I may...how much time do you actually spend 'doing stuff' on your Mac as opposed to fiddling with various incarnations of OS

[jayne lee wilson]

I've just gone ahead and installed because I find that sooner or later you have no real choice, anyway. My MacBook Pro seems to be running Fitter, Happier; Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.

Yes but is it more productive? And after work is over, are you still being nice to Spiders, Moths and Ants?

[Dave2002]

Dave2002...If I may...how much time do you actually spend 'doing stuff' on your Mac as opposed to fiddling with various incarnations of OS

Almost everything is “stuff”. As a proportion of the total time perhaps 1% or less is spent on OS “work”.

[Dave2002]

Some software doesn’t work with High Sierra, such as Textwrangler, though BBEdit which is similar should. Final Cut Pro X 10.4 needs Sierra 10.12.4 or later, or High Sierra. Colour processing is slightly more comprehensively dealt with in FCPX 10.4, and apparently it’s better for 4K video. It also supports H265 video compression. Otherwise there’s not much wrong with sticking with FCPX 10.3. I haven’t checked MS Office compatibility yet - I didn’t notice problems, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any - as mentioned in msg 1. I did have “issues” with the wretched iCloud interfering with Contacts and the Calendar - and some calendar spam appeared which I’d not seen before. I did manage to get rid of that though, pro tem.

[Richard Barrett]

Slightly OT but has anyone got a new MacBook Pro and what adaptors did you need to get, as it only has a thunderbolt connector?

More correctly the new MBPs have USB-C connectors (two in my case), which also serve to connect the computer to its power supply. So far I've only needed to buy one adaptor, one of the extensive range made by HyperDrive, which has an additional USB-C socket of its own, two USB3s and an HDMI. There are more extensive multi-connector units than this but so far I haven't felt the lack of anything.

[MrGongGong]

More correctly the new MBPs have USB-C connectors (two in my case), which also serve to connect the computer to its power supply. So far I've only needed to buy one adaptor, one of the extensive range made by HyperDrive, which has an additional USB-C socket of its own, two USB3s and an HDMI. There are more extensive multi-connector units than this but so far I haven't felt the lack of anything.

Has this solved the endless problems with the cr*p design of the "Magsafe" adaptor?
On my main machine i'm on the 4th one (and have cracked open others to solder on new cables)

[french frank]

I haven’t checked MS Office compatibility yet - I didn’t notice problems, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any - as mentioned in msg 1.

I have MS Office. Haven't had any problems.