Safari 10.4.11 to Leopard 10.5 advice and tips needed

Question

I'm new at all this so here I go...
After looking through the "discussions" it seems there's alot of problems to expect upgrading from Safari to Leopard and beyond.
What steps can I take to prevent or limit all those problems associated with the upgrade(s)??? what, where, how,
It appears that DU repairs and redownloading an update because of a corrupted file makes the biggest difference. What is the blue screen everyone talks about? can I prevent that first try upgrading?
So what if the installs goods error free...do I make the leap and update straight to 10.5.4?
Early 2006 model 20" Intel Core Duo iMac 2G Ram, 500G harddrive, x1600ATI.
Safari 10.4.11 or whatever the latest update is/was.
Upgrading to Leopard 10.5.1 or mb427a version i believe...

Answer 1

If you do things right you should not have problems. Those who do are simply not doing things right. Millions of users update without any problems or comment. A few hundred have problems and they all post about them here.
1. Repair your hard drive and permissions (use Disk Utility after booting from your OS X installer disc.)
2. Clone your startup volume to an external Firewire drive (use the Restore option of Disk Utility, Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper!)
3. Boot your computer with the clone from the external drive to be sure it works.
4. Update the clone on the external drive using Software Update or downloading the standalone updater(s) directly from Apple's Download Site.
5. Restart from the updated clone and use it for a while to be sure everything is normal.
6. Update the normal startup volume.
Key operations:
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger and Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger, and 4.1 for Leopard) and/or TechTool Pro (4.6.1 for Leopard) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
How to Clone Using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the startup or source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
This may also be done using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!.