“Apple’s OS X El Capitan is slated for release in fall, and with this season right around the corner, the OS will soon be available for those who wish to install it,” Topher Kessler writes for MacIssues. “While it is largely similar to OS X Yosemite, El Capitan does include a number of improvements that should enhance both your workflow and the overall snappiness of the OS.”
“These alone may be good reasons to upgrade, but as with any upgrade or update, there is always a chance that something may go wrong when you install it, so it is good to take a few steps to help prevent this,” Kessler writes. “Check your current software installations for compatibility, but also to check your system for any current problems, and address them as best you can.”
Kessler writes, “Back up your Mac. This step cannot be stressed enough. Having at least one current backup of your system is vital for far more than upgrading your Mac, and will be crucial for preserving your data if a problem arises after any change you make to your system.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This is much better than the “let’s roll the dice” method. Get ready now and then you can download and install with impunity the minute El Capitan is released.
Incorrect use of “impunity,” MDN. Nice try though.
Impunity is what you enjoy when you break the law or do something wrong, but you get away with it.
Maybe that word does not mean what you think it does.
“Impunity” has two meanings according to dictionary.com:
noun
1. exemption from punishment.
2. immunity from detrimental effects, as of an action.
MDN are using the second definition correctly here.
Timing is everything.
I will not be a first adopter. So I will be exempt from punishment and immune from any detrimental effects from doing so.
Actually MDN used impunity correctly:
“exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss”
or
“exemption from punishment or freedom from the injurious consequences of an action”
I.e. exemption from catastrophic resulting problems with your computer by taking precautions.
And detrimental effects are a distinct possibility. I failed to back up my system before installing El Capitan beta, big mistake. I’m hoping the final version will work out the problems I’m currently having.
It can mean exempt from punishment, as you point out, and in a more general sense it can mean immunity from detrimental effects, as of an action.
For me (and many others), downloading a new OS the minute is released is pretty close to breaking at least our own laws, so if I did it and got by with it, that would be impunity, right?
I hate to be a word-nazi nazi, but I feel obliged to defend MDN’s editors here. Impunity does have the meaning you describe, but also has another meaning, i.e. when someone acts _as if_ there were no consequences, which is the meaning used here. /pedantics
dmz
Anyone who downloads El Capitan on day one and expects to have no glitches, is dreaming.
Load it on an empty drive or partition, fine, but not for needed daily use.
I can’t see ever upgrading/clean installing until at least the 10.11.3 update.
Create a bootable clone (on a separate drive) immediately before the upgrade (making sure you can boot from it), AND have your ongoing Time Machine archive as a secondary backup. Not much risk then. If something critically bad happens, boot from the clone and “clone the clone” back to the internal drive volume. If clone’s drive just happens to fail at that exact moment, boot from Recovery HD and use the utility for restoring complete volume from the Time Machine archive (to the state immediately before the upgrade). You may want to try that Time Machine “complete volume restore” procedure (up to the point of actually doing the final step to run it), so that you feel comfortable with how it works.
No harm in waiting for as long as you want, but it’s less fun. 🙂
Why my getting in-line videos in articles on the iPad MDN , knock it off
Silverhawk, the invisible man.
If I get much more of the pop-over’s obscuring text I want to read, I may just have to not read more of other sites & use only MDN’s direct links, effectively becoming invisible, too.
I don’t deal with irritations well. I tune out actually.
Ditto. After explanations and pleas of ad tolerance MDN is only getting worse with the invasive ads in iOS (hence iOS 9 can’t come too soon.) . I just experienced a Lenovo PC video ad (talk about NOT your target audience!) playing in the middle of an article without the ability to turn it off and then tabs popping up at the bottom of the screen at different times. As much as I am sympathetic about whitelisting this site I have my own level of tolerance and it’s just been exceeded.
What is it with the site obscuring game these idiot ad jokers keep trying to come up with anyway? Don’t they know their alienated audience will rebel or leave and not come back?? Restraint is not a word they seem to know.
On top of that after settings of “Do not track me” on MDN I see ads for the very things I was researching here which drives me bonkers. I DONT NEED REMINDERS!! Plus it creeps me out. All this abusive ad and tracking stuff is more a reason to quit the Internet altogether.
I think I’ll do the usual and wait for the 10.x.3 release before jumping in. I just can’t be arsed with the pain of early adoption these days.
Install El Capitan the minute its released???
Advice suitable only for a masochist!
Personally I would never install new OS X until it has been updated to 10.x.3 or .4 because all previous versions had serious bugs at the time they were launched (Yosemite I am looking at you!)
I seriously doubt Apple can fix bugs present in current El Capitan Beta unless its release is pushed back several months which is unlikely to happen…
If you do install it at launch make bootable backup, install it on a external drive and don’t rely on Time Machine!
Advice suitable only for a masochist! Or a beta tester. 😆 But you’re right about the number of bugs — and some of them are big ones, too — I know, they’ve bitten me. I’m still working on the what-how-when of a couple of them with no success…
How to get ready for any new Mac OS.
1 back up
2 wait for the smoke to clear
3 Install update
4 Bitch about missing features
5 Complain about features Apple removed that crimp your style
Rinse
Repeat
Since I see no skinnability on the horizon for El Capitan, then no. Seriously, what’s up with the mindless fanboism for an OS that we all know has a serious UI problem out of the gate?