108 replies to this topic

[Camper-Hunter]

Frost, on 02 June 2016 - 06:00 PM, said:

I'll defer to the nerd with glasses. I failed that hurdle at birth, sadly, so I can never join the ranks of the truly elite.

When presbyopia finally hits you, you'll be so happy!

[Frost]

Camper-Hunter, on 02 June 2016 - 11:56 PM, said:

When presbyopia finally hits you, you'll be so happy!

I know I'm on my way there. I used to be 20/10 in my teens. I had an eye exam recently and found that somewhere between there and 33 my distance vision has decayed all the way to 20/20, possibly even slightly worse as of last year. I was wondering why the whole world is a murky fuzz lately outside of up close. "Not enough to be even worth correcting" says the eye doctor. Is he kidding? 20/20 is practically blind. I can't read the shipping company name off freighters on the horizon in the Houston ship channel anymore. Getting older blows.

Hopefully we have 20/10 synthetic lens implants available before too long. Totally will spring for those. Might as well get started on the Battleroid conversion early, youknowwhatImsayin.

I... why are you all looking at me like that?

[macdude22]

Frost, on 02 June 2016 - 10:29 PM, said:

And I would recommend thinking about Time Machine. A clone is a better solution if you need to restore the whole thing, but in a scenario where you're like, "Oh popsnizzle, I threw away something two months ago and I need it back!" it is an absolute lifesaver. I did that at the six month mark and recovered my stuff thanks to Time Machine, and was very glad I started using it finally in 2013.

The traditional clone is great when you need a fast,  exact duplicate of your system. Time Machine is significantly slower (well the initial backup, and future depending on the amount of data that changes frequently). A time machine backup isn't bootable, a full system has to be restored from Recovery or Migration Assistant. Restoring a specific file from a specific time? Priceless. There is value in both methods but TM has gotten much more reliable since 10.5, I don't hesitate to recommend it now. There's still value in the clone mechanism. I'm a little bit anal and do both.

As far as SIP goes I truly believe the benefits outweigh the cons for most people. A mechanism that protects system data and important filesystem components from being modified by a malicious actor, even if they gain root access. This helps more than it hurts. The decision to have SIP restrict bless from writing to NVRAM is interesting, I can't help but think internally Apple has a proof of concept attack that relies on one of the bless execution modes.

I would suggest supplying feedback to Apple about your usage of bless. http://www.apple.com/feedback/ SIP is sort of a work in progress and was somewhat fluid during the 10.11 beta. I expect additional changes to be rolled out with 10.12 (or whatever the next version of MacOS gets named)

[the Battle Cat]

How can I rollback this Mac to Mavericks?  And why bother if I disable SiP?  Doesn't that give me everything in El Crapitan minus SiP with the same security of Mavericks?

[macdude22]

the Battle Cat, on 03 June 2016 - 08:32 AM, said:

How can I rollback this Mac to Mavericks?  And why bother if I disable SiP?  Doesn't that give me everything in El Crapitan minus SiP with the same security of Mavericks?

Probably, just bear in mind a PRAM(NVRAM) reset will re-enable SIP and future OS X versions may remove the ability to disable SIP entirely (complete speculation on my part). You don't really lose anything but 5 minutes of your time disabling SIP to see if it will meet your need here.

[Sneaky Snake]

Frost, on 03 June 2016 - 12:37 AM, said:

I know I'm on my way there. I used to be 20/10 in my teens. I had an eye exam recently and found that somewhere between there and 33 my distance vision has decayed all the way to 20/20, possibly even slightly worse as of last year. I was wondering why the whole world is a murky fuzz lately outside of up close. "Not enough to be even worth correcting" says the eye doctor. Is he kidding? 20/20 is practically blind. I can't read the shipping company name off freighters on the horizon in the Houston ship channel anymore. Getting older blows.

Hopefully we have 20/10 synthetic lens implants available before too long. Totally will spring for those. Might as well get started on the Battleroid conversion early, youknowwhatImsayin.

I... why are you all looking at me like that?

my eyes went from 20/10 to 20/40 in the space of about 12 months back in high school. Damn growing pains.

[the Battle Cat]

OK I'm officially hosed.  I can't disable SiP from my recovery environment, a Command-R reboot works just like my R reboot, not at all.  Man I had no idea I was driving a lemon till now.  Don't buy this model of Mac from anyone, it's gimped thanks to Apple.  

I was looking around and I found a bootable 8GB Mountain Lion install USB flash drive that I made for that install.  I don't remember how I did that.  I have a Mavericks installer button in my Apple Store purchased list.  I want to put that on another 8GB USB drive that I have but it took some trick that I don't remember anymore.

How does one download a mac os installer to a USB flash drive?

and

Would it trash my user files to reinstall Mavericks?

OK,  now I'm back to being confused.  Is the guy in the second link saying that you need a USB Mavericks installer AND a Command-R or is he saying that you need a USB Mavericks installer OR a Command-R?  This guy should not teach classes but it sounds like he knows the answer, he just can't say it flat out logically.  Can anybody decipher that scrawled answer?

I can reinstall Mavericks from a USB drive if that is an OR?

I finally read it enough times that I see it is an OR.

Now for my last question O nerds.  Is it ADVISABLE to downgrade to Mavericks?  What are your thoughts about this?

Edited by the Battle Cat, 03 June 2016 - 02:05 PM.
Answered my own questions, came up with another one, answered it and asked another... sheesh.

[mattw]

If the installer boots OK why not use disk utility to partition your current boot disk and install a fresh copy on the new blank one?

That way you could get at the data on the other one or then upgrade it to same OS?

[Sneaky Snake]

If I was you, I would remove all hard drives from the machine except for your boot drive, and then try to re-install OS X on that drive.

Once OS X is re-installed you should be able to access all of your files from your backup drives.

[the Battle Cat]

mattw, on 03 June 2016 - 02:42 PM, said:

If the installer boots OK why not use disk utility to partition your current boot disk and install a fresh copy on the new blank one?

That way you could get at the data on the other one or then upgrade it to same OS?

I realized I had a Yosemite installer button download too in the Apple Store

I was thinking of this route today.  Will the Yosemite installer auto automatically grab all the user data from El Capitan?  Has any of the user data been corrupted by El Capitan?  For instance, can an older version installer read a newer version of the keychain in order to transfer the data?  

I've got all my passwords in LicenseKeeper so it's not critical and I have no iPhoto library.  I can re-download any old iTunes from the Apple store that may have been "encrypted" by the newer iTunes.  But I am worried about what I'm not thinking of.  After a satisfactory Yosemite install and I get all the data I want into Yosemite I intend to wipe the El Crapitan off the partition and return the entire space back to Yosemite.

Sneaky Snake, on 03 June 2016 - 04:19 PM, said:

If I was you, I would remove all hard drives from the machine except for your boot drive, and then try to re-install OS X on that drive.

Once OS X is re-installed you should be able to access all of your files from your backup drives.

I could do that, but what do you think of the plan I came up with after talking to mattw?  What is your critique?  Think the installer could grab much data and if not, what would be missing?

I read in my research of this that an earlier install won't install over a newer version.  It won't let me do it, displaying an error message.

[Sneaky Snake]

the Battle Cat, on 03 June 2016 - 04:25 PM, said:

I could do that, but what do you think of the plan I came up with after talking to mattw?  What is your critique?  Think the installer could grab much data and if not, what would be missing?

I read in my research of this that an earlier install won't install over a newer version.  It won't let me do it, displaying an error message.

you could go into disk utility from the OS X installer USB and nuke the hard drive prior to the re-install. Then that should let you install fine. The Yosemite install plan should work well.

[the Battle Cat]

Sneaky Snake, on 03 June 2016 - 05:43 PM, said:

you could go into disk utility from the OS X installer USB and nuke the hard drive prior to the re-install. Then that should let you install fine. The Yosemite install plan should work well.

That would delete the El Capitan user data that I want to migrate into Yosemite.  I have two internal backup HHDs, I can wipe one to those then if doing it from a partition in main foils the data migration.  After a successful install I can wipe the main SSD and clone the Yosemite install onto the SSD then return my backup drive to service.  What is important to me here is if I can get most of my user data migrated with the installer.  It would make it soooooooo much easier.

I know I can install Yosemite either way, but I want the way that would get the most user data migrated.

[the Battle Cat]

Progress report:  Or, otherwise known as the no-progress report.  The Apple store gives me a download button for every OS download I've purchased from them but they refuse to download Yosemite onto my computer because it complains that my computer already has a more recent version running.  So not only are they not allowing me to run a downgrade, they even refuse to let me download the software.  But I still have the Lion installer I created earlier when I was upgrading so I'm going to wipe one of my backup drives and install Mountain Lion on it.  Then when Yosemite downloads, I'll save that installer to a flash drive for use later.  Going to make that a regular part of my upgrade process from here on out.

I have diminished hopes of a good user data transfer using the much older OS installer, but it's all I got.

[macdude22]

I have archived installers, poke me tomorrow when I am on an actual computer and I will send one to you via derp box.

[the Battle Cat]

OK thanks!  I'd like Yosemite please.  I have Mt Lion but I'm worried something that old can't find the data to migrate due to system changes with new versions over the years.  Yosemite has the best chance to migrate most of my data.

You sir are solid gold.  Remind me to change my will to bequeath to you all my gaming gear when I go teats up.  They might have to ship my cold dead hand gripping the small stack of Marathon CDs.  I doubt they can pry it loose.  Do you have bolt cutters?  If not I can include that in the will too.

After I get this squared away I'm looking into getting a gaming PC.  I had hoped to use my Mac for a much longer time but El Capitan has forced my hand.

[Frost]

the Battle Cat, on 05 June 2016 - 07:20 PM, said:

After I get this squared away I'm looking into getting a gaming PC.  I had hoped to use my Mac for a much longer time but El Capitan has forced my hand.

Let's build one!

[Janichsan]

the Battle Cat, on 05 June 2016 - 02:45 PM, said:

The Apple store gives me a download button for every OS download I've purchased from them but they refuse to download Yosemite onto my computer because it complains that my computer already has a more recent version running.  …

How weird. When I try this, the MAS asks me if I really want to download the older version, but then let's me choose whether or not to do that.

No matter what, you should be able to force a re-download by holding down option while clicking the button.

[macdude22]

the Battle Cat, on 05 June 2016 - 07:20 PM, said:

You sir are solid gold.  Remind me to change my will to bequeath to you all my gaming gear when I go teats up.  They might have to ship my cold dead hand gripping the small stack of Marathon CDs.  I doubt they can pry it loose.  Do you have bolt cutters?  If not I can include that in the will too.

Sometimes you get the craving for hands.

[the Battle Cat]

Frost, on 06 June 2016 - 01:02 AM, said:

Let's build one!

I'd be interested in talking to you about that, but first I need to get Bootcamp squared away.

Janichsan, on 06 June 2016 - 01:21 AM, said:

How weird. When I try this, the MAS asks me if I really want to download the older version, but then let's me choose whether or not to do that.

No matter what, you should be able to force a re-download by holding down option while clicking the button.

It asks me if I really want to do this, I click on continue, cancel being the only other option.  The download button ghosts and the cursor starts to go round and round in little black tick marks denoting it's doing something.  I've left it there for hours.  To reset the button I can quit the App Store and reopen it.  I click on it and get the message if I want to continue then goes back to the cursor spinner icon.

macdude22, on 06 June 2016 - 06:29 AM, said:

Sometimes you get the craving for hands.

Apparently that's pretty big with the younger set these days.

[Janichsan]

the Battle Cat, on 06 June 2016 - 09:55 AM, said:

It asks me if I really want to do this, I click on continue, cancel being the only other option.  The download button ghosts and the cursor starts to go round and round in little black tick marks denoting it's doing something.  I've left it there for hours.  To reset the button I can quit the App Store and reopen it.  I click on it and get the message if I want to continue then goes back to the cursor spinner icon.

Yeah, the MAS works incredibly reliable...