Plagued with random Bus Errors in Python on my Tiger install, and wanting to upgrade to Python 2.5.1 (as Python 2.5 is not supported by Google App Engine and the SDK has errors in it that won't be fixed), I decided to upgrade to Leopard again.

I had initially upgraded right after Leopard was released, at the end of last year, only to experience a myriad of problems like keyboard freezes (and here). I was so disenchanted that I wrote posts with titles like Leopard is tarnishing the reputation of OS X and Leopard: Great eye candy, pity the keyboard doesn’t always work before giving up and downgrading to Tiger.

This time around, I decided to backup my drive and do a clean install. I initially tried the backup with Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) but it failed with errors. I then tried Super Duper, which worked out of the box. I did see that Super Duper had the option to repair permissions before backing up and I actually ran Disk Utility and repaired permissions manually before doing the Super Duper backup so it may be that CCC would have worked also had I'd tried it after repairing permissions.

I also downloaded the 10.5.4 combo update so that I could update to the latest release easily after upgrading.

With a sparse diskimage on my lovely new Lacie rugged drive in hand, I proceeded to install Leopard using the clean install option.

And I'm happy to report that everything went smashingly.

After completing the system install and the 10.5.4 upgrade, I ran a system upgrade that added a few more items (a security patch, the latest iTunes, etc.)

Instead of using migration assistant to pull stuff in, I decided to install only what I need at the moment and go from there. So, initially, I installed Zooom (which I can't live without; the new Zooom 2 rocks even harder than the earlier version for Tiger), Visor (which installed without issues, unlike my previous attempt a year ago), TextMate, iPython (sudo easy_install ipython followed by sudo easy_install -f http://ipython.scipy.org/dist/ readline), and several other apps. I used MobileMe to sync by contacts, etc., back to the new machine and it looks like I'm back up an running.

And, everything appears to be running smoothly. I don't have that weird feeling that something is just not quite right with the OS that I had a year ago. The four upgrades since must have hit the spot.

Leopard, I think we can kiss and make up now. Come 'ere you silly big cat! Awwww!

The Back on Leopard article by Aral Balkan, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England License.