Leopard Upgrade Concerns

Question

To All:
First, thanks for reading my post. I own an iMac G5 (2nd gen) and a 17" MacBook Pro w/ core 2 Duo. Both of them came with Tiger installed and have worked very well for me. Now with Leopard out, I have read Apple's Support Discussions, the Macfitit and MacInTouch websites and between these three places, I've read about a lot of issues with Leopard. It has made me nervous about upgrading and I'm not sure what to do. I know that all these sites report issues so they give a slanted view of how easy Leopard installs and how well it works.
I've never had to upgrade my OS and I'm not sure what the best approach is. I have SuperDuper on both machines and I have external hard drives that are bootable clones for both machines. I know that SuperDuper is not presently compatible with Leopard along with some other applications I use, so I am waiting for a bit to upgrade.
Now, what do I need? First, some reassurance on how Leopard is really doing in the Mac community. Is it just a small group of users having problems or are there issues that newer users like me need to be aware of? I have read in the regular press that Leopard is doing very well for Apple. What's the real truth here?
Second, Since I've never done an OS upgrade, what is the best approach after doing a full backup? I know you can just do an direct upgrade by booting from the install disk, but what about archive and install or doing a fresh install? How hard is it to re-integrate my applications and data from my backup hard drive if I were to do a clean install of Leopard? What do I use and how successful is it?
Working in the Windows world, I've always preferred a fresh install of the OS as an upgrade can cause problems. Is this true in the Mac world?
I hope your experiences can help me make the best decisions when I do decide to upgrade to Leopard.
Thanks,
Gerry

Answer 1

I agree with Dirk. I downloaded some of the info from several web sites that gave step by step instructions for loading Leopard. Did all the things that Dirk said he did. I am currently running Leopard on three of my four Macs. My wife's is one of those PhDs who yells for her IT guy every time there is a problem. Her IT guy is me. And believe me I am no IT guy just a very long time Mac user. She has one of those minds and schedules that have never allow her to really learn the Mac OS - I'm not sure she ever mastered Windows before we were married.
With the exception of a couple of applications programs. I have a lot of application programs and data for my work - CAD, FileMaker, Fast Track, OmniPlan, Office, etc., etc. Most have worked fine. Couple needed patches and have since been patched. Couple that still have problems are Super Duper (Time Machine works great when the back up drive has its own direct connection to the Mac - don't daisy chain), Canon All-In-One machines like the MP780 work with individual driver functions but their MP Navigator needs a patch. I'm not sure Norton Anti Virus has been fully patched. It works okay, but I can turn off searching for updates each time I start my Mac.
Also found an issue with memory. I had 512MB memory that was factory installed on my G5. I installed an additional 2 gigs that I purchased from a Certified Apple Reseller and Repair Facility. G5 ran slow and when I check About This Mac after reading some posts about third party memory found that my computer was only recognizing the original factory installed 512MB. Called Apple Care and we found by disconnecting the original 512MB and restarting the computer, it recognized the other 2 gigs, shut down, reinstalled the 512MB and started it up. It recognized all 2.5 and has been ripping since.
I'd say make sure the instructions that were posted on the various web sites are followed implicitly and there should be no problems.
This is a general statement, I'm not saying that problems can't be encountered, but most problems are induced by the user and some times by the overly confident user that doesn't read all of the good info that is out there or by being over confident and missing crucial steps - been there and done that.