OS X Mountain Lion available on the Mac App Store | Hacker News Reader

OS X Mountain Lion available on the Mac App Store

itunes.apple.com

143 pointsfriggeri148 comments

I still can't believe the 'skeuomorphic' interfaces for Calendar and Reminders made it into the final version of Mountain Lion.

These apps are often in the corner of the screen while working with different applications; they should be minimal and not full of harsh textures and deep bevels. Also, they're just plain ugly.

Here's a screenshot for those not familiar: http://f.cl.ly/items/3R0I3X2Y041b091l0j1w/Screen%20Shot%2020...

This doesn't seem like it is going to change. Ever. The course Apple was on software-wise when Jobs passed away Apple seems terrified of moving away from, even when it was clear at the time that desktop was not getting full attention over iOS.

No one in software at Apple seems to have the vision required to make positive changes, rather than cribbing from iOS as the Lions have. Jonny Ive can keep hardware running well, but software is languishing.

It used to be such an easy choice as to what OS I wanted. Mac OS X was prettier, more stable, more fluid and had better apps. I think Windows 8 is a much prettier OS, although the apps aren't there yet. Ubuntu is also plenty usable, has the UNIX underpinnings, and is less ugly in a number of spots than OS X (god I hate linen, and I have no love for skuemorphism). I've strongly considered running Windows 8 as my host system and virtualizing Mountain Lion, although I'm leaning towards sticking to Mac as host for now.

EDIT: FWIW, I would note that Apple's core programming: system libraries and such, remains top notch. It's the front-end that seems fairly clueless.

I've been considering a fulltime move to Linux for a long time, but have yet to take the plunge- I tried a few years ago, but the driver support for my Macbook was less than great.

Now, Lion seems to have slowed down my 2010 Macbook Air- at times it absolutely crawls when I'm positive it never used to. Is there anyone out there running Ubuntu full time who can say how good driver support is? In particular the trackpad- I've never had a perfect trackpad experience outside of OS X, Windows hasn't been able to do it either.

Are you running time machine? Time machine brings my SSD MBP to a crawl.

Yeah, SSD is completely negated when the file system has to wait for an external drive to spin up before it will be responsive, even if you're only using the local drive.

Because there's no setting for automounting and unmounting a Time Machine drive, I ended up using my old Macbook Pro as a file server and plugging in the external to that, then using a hack to get Time Machine to recognize it as a Time Capsule.

sigh

Running Ubuntu with either Unity or vanilla Gnome 3 about 75% of the time on my MBP 13", after having switched to it from the increasingly ugly consumer-tailored, unstable Lion. Unfortunately, OS X still has a great lead in terms of input, particularly the trackpad. There are a few ways to make existence under Ubuntu more pleasant. Here is an article that helped me:

http://uselessuseofcat.com/?p=74

> Now, Lion seems to have slowed down my 2010 Macbook Air- at times it absolutely crawls when I'm positive it never used to

That's not Lion (same system, OS, identical performance to day 1). I'd fire up Activity Monitor and see what's active when it's slow - there's probably something causing a ton of background I/O.

I prefer bolder features in these applications, they are the ones in the corner and when your eyes look out for them the distinctive features help enormously. As a counter example take Google's redesign: I can't tell by a glance whether I am in Calendar, Email, Groups or Blogger. It is unified but without distinctiveness.

My take on skeuomorphism has always been ambivalent. Unless the interface really takes away from your productivity, and having to click one or two extra buttons doesn't count, then it's alright by me. Anyone complaining about the visual aspect of it is really complaining to complain.

I agree - they look fine. Everyone needs to stop over-analyzing.

Actually everyone needs to stay analyzing, that's how we make progress.

The steam engine's fine, everyone needs to stop over analyzing.

Did you really just compare the industrial revolution to the texture of a calendar app menu bar?

No, the original poster made an analogy. There's no equivalence being drawn nor value-comparison being made and it's very frustrating how often legitimate analogies are made and the conversation gets bogged down in "you said those are basically the same you must be crazy!" when no such thing happened.

Interesting that you would accuse me of putting words in somebody's mouth by putting words in my mouth. It's a flawed analogy.

Aesthetics matter. Whe you look at how much more progressive The new Windows and Android UIs are this kind of thing starts to look like something from a sidebar ad in the New Yorker: cheesy trash designed to make rich people feel good about spending too much money.

I feel like, MS and google thought "ok, we cant keep copying apple, lets jump ahead of them instead, so well be where they are heading" but they missed their mark by a mile to the left..

I understand what's not to like about it, but I actually like that screenshot. Mostly because of the visual differentiation.

There's a limit, of course. I saw a screenshot of Mountain Lion where Reminders was a yellow legal pad with scratchy red coloring-pencil markouts on finished reminders. That was harsh.

But I find even the ugly examples are almost always superior to the days of uniform chrome like the Win2000 era: http://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/digitalguide/images/Misc/da_screen.... -- where you could squint your eyes and become unable to tell apart the programs on screen.

The yellow pad is the notes app and still there

I loathe Calendar, but Reminders seems OK to me. The texture is quite subtle.

> These apps are often in the corner of the screen while working with different applications;

Maybe that's the rationale behind it in the first place? "It's so cluttered... Let's make these apps' looks really distinct so they really stand out..."

I like it. I saw many blog posts and rants either way, but never concrete usability data saying it's bad. The Calendar and Reminders apps don't work a whole lot different than their non-virtual counterparts, minus the automatic notification. Borrowing the metaphor makes people more quickly familiarize themselves with the software (even if by feeling only, which is a plus).

Well, as long as they basically keep printing money they'll continue this course.

WE don't like the skeuomorphic stuff (no need for quotes, it's a real word) but the general public does. It demos well and makes software more approachable.

It drives me nuts, but I'll bet it's here to stay. At least until the first video game generations are retirees.

>> the general public does

Source? We don't have much data to measure the fondness of end users for skeuomorphic interfaces of the Mac OS sort.

You mentionned some of the reasons to make UIs like that, and of course Apple is selling trunks of devices, but how do we know that users specifically like Calendars, Reminders, the Fullscreen mode of Photobooth, etc. ?

That's just my opinion. How about a quick appeal to authority - I've been deigning and shipping websites for 8 years and am the Online Marketing Manager at my web development agency.

As a more serious attempt to back that opinion up I'd say look at the success of Apple's design in the marketplace over the last 10 years - pinning that exclusively on their love of skeuomorphism would be iffy, though.

Since half of the people buying a Mac is new to Mac, it's safe to say many of them use an iDevice before they use a Mac. It makes sense to give them something familiar by copying some UI elements, especially for things like Calendar when the desktop experience does not need to be different from the mobile experience.

You could have torn those tatty bits of paper off the thing before giving it to me Apple…

I'm not a huge fan of brown leather, but Calendar's textures work together to draw my attention to the most relevant parts of the screen in a way that is almost entirely missing in Google Calendar, to pick on a prominent competitor.

The leather is mildly ugly if I focus on it (never), but Google Calendar's harsh asymmetry, nonsensical color scheme (cartoonishly highlighting two buttons - "SEARCH" and "CREATE" - I never use), and inability to hide numerous unused elements bother me every second I have the tab open.

I don't understand the value of these discussions about design that start and end with how skeutomorphic an application is. It's one of dozens of design elements, and it's disappointingly rare to find a well reasoned argument (not "I dunno, Windows 8 just feels cooler now") why skeutomorphism is categorically bad design.

The torn paper at the top of the Calendar app is torture to anyone with the slightest hint of OCD. I just need to tear off the bits that were left behind and I can't!

Never mind that it's plain distracting visual clutter and serves no purpose whatsoever. Design for the sake of design.

Again, I consider this far less offensive and distracting than the undesign of, say, the garish red "Create" button and the garish blue "Search" buttons that pop right out of the Google Calendar interface. And you can actually have your calender occupy the center of the window in Calendar, which is aggravatingly impossible with Google.

I'm not trying to point to an Apple/Google horserace, but seriously, there are other aspects to design then skeutomorphicness. Textures that appear as subtle gradients in your periphary are barely noticeable for most the vast majority of the population. I mean, just ask a non-geek iOS user what they think of the silk texture in iOS and prepare for a blank stare.

If you bought one of the updated models from June 2012, don't forget you can get the upgrade for free: http://www.apple.com/osx/uptodate/

I have the new model. I don't see an option to select a macbook air when choosing the mac type. Guess I will be on call with apple..

I selected "MacBook" for my MB Air, and it worked, which is weird because I don't think they make plain MacBooks anymore.

They also ask for the address of the reseller, but I purchased mine from Amazon, so I just entered my address.

Interestingly enough I went through their redeem process (which is sort of convoluted, with a password protected PDF), and was then told "This code has already been used. Each code may only be used once." when I tried to redeem the code they gave me...

So you might want to wait a bit until they sort out the bugs.

I am having the exact same issue. I'm hoping it's a minor issue with validation, but that seems like a weird message to get if that's the case?

edit: swapped "had" for "am having" as this is on-going

Me too, and I'm seeing a whole lot of other people with the same bug on twitter. Apparently AppleCare are saying codes will be reissued, so report the problem: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/25/apple-reissuing-os-x-mou...

edited to add: I've now had a response from apple after mailing support. We're getting new codes. NB they do mention doing this in response to a claim, so it appears you did need to contact Apple if you had a problem!

"Before I proceed I would like to point out that Apple is aware of the issue and are working hard to resolve it ASAP...If your claim is accepted, a valid replacement code will be sent to you by email. There will be no need to submit a new claim....Please let me know if you do not receive a replacement code within 24-48 hours, as I'll be happy to look into things further for you."

not working here either. the support forums are filled with complains :(

Why do I get the feeling that Apple wants to turn my laptop into a big ipad with a keyboard? Facebook sharing, Twitter integration... These features make sense for users like my Mom, but I couldn't care less. Are there any compelling features for developers? Why should I hassle with upgrading, especially after a lot of the stability issues people had when upgrading to Lion? I want to keep being productive, not turn my laptop into a gizmo toy.

Imagine how Mac Pro users like me feel. Now my Mac Pro feels like a phone. Yippie. I'm staying on Snow Leopard for as long as the hardware works. When it fails, it's time to move on. Linux is looking prettier every day. I don't know what the hardware choices are going to be in 5 years though. If Apple has their way, general computing will go away by the end of the decade.

Ugh, sorry to hear that. I can imagine the new interface designs being pretty annoying for Mac Pro users.

I have also thought about making the jump back to Linux, but really enjoy the sturdy unibody build quality of macs. I'm also less inclined to fiddle with OS customization and tweaking than I used to be in college, which I did a lot of when I was in Linux land.

Why not put Linux on your mac?

Hardware support/ease of setup mostly. I ran Ubuntu on my iBook PPC circa 2005 or so, and it wasn't a great experience. Has hardware support for the modern mac lines gotten better in recent years?

It's usable but hardly ideal.

Absolutely. E.g., check out the Ubuntu wiki:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro

Original Mac Pro owner here, it runs better with 10.8 than it ever did with 10.4, 10.5, 10.6 or 10.7. I can do every single thing I was able to do in 10.4, including the ability to run 10.4 if I wanted. I don't though because just like clinging to XP, you do yourself no favours by not taking advantage of all we've learned about computing in that tine.

Honestly, turned your machine into a phone? Give me a break. OS X at it's core is the same as it ever was. Besides those who make extensive use of virtual desktops, most people don't have a good reason to feel otherwise.

Is Apple forcing you to use Reminders, Notes, Messages, etc? I don't quite follow how your Mac Pro suddenly feels like a phone now.

Now my Mac Pro feels like a phone. Yippie.

I must admit, I'm having a Poe's Law moment here. Do you really feel this way because of a few additional features and UI tweaks?

I've been a lifelong user of apple OSs and I honestly think Snow Leopard was the peak of OS design. I'm planning to stick with it as long as possible as well :(

Although I wish people would stop being so dramatic about the demise of general purpose computing, that's sky-is-falling talk and I don't think it will ever happen.

AirPlay won't work unless you have a 2011 or 2012 Mac. This is highly disappointing.

Must be using Intel Quick Sync technology

Must be. I find it strange that my 2010 MBP can't use AirPlay when my iPhone 4 can work fine. Really hope someone comes out with a hack/mod to fool the OS into thinking I have the proper hardware.

The iPhone 4 can't AirPlay Mirror, it can stream audio and video though. The same thing applies with older Macs.

Good point. Thanks for clearing that up

Awww man, that is a letdown. Airplay was the thing I was most looking forward to in Mountain Lion. I have a late 2010 MBP. :(

You might want to check out AirParrot (http://airparrot.com/). I haven't used it myself, but it seems like it might give you the functionality you are looking for.

AirPlay requires a GPU that has hardware h.264 encoding. This is so there isn't a performance hit to compress and send video to the AppleTV.

You can download AirParrot if you'd like the functionality to work with a small performance hit.

Can you at least send arbitrary video from apps to it, e.g. an h.264 video playing in Safari (as you would on iOS)?

#1 question I want answered: Does it support TRIM for 3rd party SSD drives without repeatedly doing a command line hack?

No.

Also, your SSD probably does garbage collection without the need for TRIM.

FWIW, when I upgraded to ML, my boot time was cut down from 20 seconds to 5. Awesome.

While boot times make for good review copy, how often does anyone actually reboot a Mac these days? Once a year?

Things that make me reboot my Mac:

1. Software updates.

2. My Bluetooth headset hangs in a way that requires a reboot via power button. Happens probably once every six weeks on average.

3. VM software (mostly VirtualBox) crashes my system. Has probably happened at least twice in the past three months.

4. Booting in to Windows to play games.

so, what, you're saving 20 * 15 seconds per year?

I don't know about GP but I reboot into Windows to play games every other day, usually multiple times that day. Reducing boot time is always welcome.

Also I'm having GPU issues right now, I had to RMA the replacement GPU, and I'm using the buggy Chameleon bootloader to extend the lifespan of my Mac Pro 1,1 past the EFI32 cutoff. So I'm rebooting quite a bit nowadays.

Software updates would be it. What's not to like about getting back to work (or uh web browsing) that much faster? Myself, I'd be that much more likely to install security updates sooner rather than procrastinating.

but most software updates don't require a reboot, I just don't get it, my mac stays up to date and the number of times a year I reboot you can count on one hand. Today being one of them, since ML is being updated.

There are lots of good reasons to be all for SSD's, but reboot time is not one of them, when considered rationally.

Ever since Apple broke the time display in the menubar updating correctly when the timezone changes, I reboot every time I change timezones (or suffer with the incorrect time display). Which is quite a good bit.

GC and TRIM are orthogonal. Doing good GC is necessary for performance, but without TRIM, there is no way for the drive to know what data actually is garbage and what isn't, so it will suffer from worse write amplification when it has to relocate blocks that no longer exist.

No, but if you use Trim Enabler(http://www.groths.org/?page_id=322) 'command line hack' turns into simple slide to enable.

After I used that on Mountain Lion (GM) and a Crucial M4, my MBP often froze during boot. Disabled TRIM again with Trim enabled and booting problem was solved.

An older version of TRIM Enabler did that same thing to be with a Crucial M4. Updating it to the latest version (as of 3 weeks ago) and trying again solved that problem.

Looks like I've lost all the command line tools. Trying to install them via Xcode 4.4 results in telling me I don't have the appropriate permissions to download them (I have an Apple Developer account but I'm not signed up to any programs).

This of course breaks homebrew installs (I found the issue when trying to run an application that uses image magick).

Anyone else having this issue?

The last time (last rc) I solved it by downloading only the command line tools from dev center.

https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action#

On the right, "Xcode 4.4 Command Line Tools for OS X 10.8"

Weird, that version isn't displaying for me. This is all I get: http://cl.ly/image/411o3o252t3E and none of those versions work on Mountain Lion :(

Same here. I was able to get it to work via the answer here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9329243/xcode-4-4-command...

Odd. Tried that too, got an access denied message. I see others are having issues too https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4136828?tstart=0 can't see to get past this.

Same problem. Downloading from the dev center works.

No compatible XCode release yet, it seems. Holding off since I can't afford being unproductive at the moment.

You're okay, actually: I've been using the GM for a while and Xcode 4.5 DP3 is pretty good. It's available on the iOS developer portal if you have access. There's a GM of 4.4 in the Mac developer portal too (should be the same build as the final). Both of these are for Mountain Lion.

I saw 4.4 final apparently is out now. The problem with the DP versions are that you can't submit to the appstore with them.

Also, I think I saw something about 4.4+ no longer supporting armv6, which is a dealbreaker for the few apps I'm still maintaining that needs to be compatible with iPhone 3G. :(

If you log in to developer.apple.com and click on the Mac Dev Center there's a button that says 4.4 in the App Store. Wasn't there yet but if you click on the View all downloads link in the section just below the dmg is available there for download. This is without the paid developer account.

Here's the direct link to the xcode downloads which includes the 4.4 final DMG: https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action?name=Xcod...

It's now showing in the Mac App Store for me as 4.4, but when I try to update to it, it says my OSX is too new. Hurr...

This is what I'm waiting for. C++ lambdas and the new Obj-C literals are way bigger quality of life improvements for me than anything in the OS.

No Mountain Lion for me till they have an official Xcode that supports the OS. I think the same is true for a lot of other developers too.

It appears to be in the App Store now...

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id497799835?mt=12

Did one of you check if airplay works in clamshell mode? I.e. when you have a keyboard/touchpad connected and wake up the mac with closed lid, does the screen content show up on the tv wirelessly?

This would be very convenient for a clutterless desk and reduce the number of cables I have to plug/unplug to the power cord when arriving/leaving.

So how much is it going to break once I update? I need my Mac for work today - I guess I'll hold off for now.

I don't know what you run, but I run some things that are obscure or tie into the OS in non-sandboxy ways, and can say "nothing broke" that I can think of.

Here's a sampling of items that are known good in my ML.

Pref panes that work:

- Growl 1.2.2 (same as Lion, uncheck the update prompt pref)

- Geektool 3.0 (non-app store version)

- Hazel 3.0.10 (had to update!)

- Logitech LCD Manager

- MacFuse

- MenuMeters 1.5

- Perian 1.2.3

- Plantronics Spokes 1.0.2 (USB headset driver)

- Printopia 2.1.5

- Xmarks for Safari 1.4.1

Menu bar apps that worked on latest versions:

- Fantastical

- Dropbox

- Adium

- Xmarks

- Google Drive

- Display Maid

- BetterSnapTool

- Flux

- gfxCardStatus

- Transmit

- Western Digital Drive Manager (USB RAID Manager) - NOTE: This one had to be updated for Lion, with a beta driver http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=114&... and this same beta driver works in Mountain Lion. There does not appear to be a newer driver since that one.

- DisplayLink USB-to-DVI Driver 1.8 (for USB to DVI dongle, I use three monitors)

Apps I updated:

- Parallels 7.0 15104

- MailPlane 3 (build 357)

- Skype 5.8.0.1027

- ScanSnap Manager 3.2L60

- CardIris for ScanSnap 4.0.13

- FlashPlayer for OSX

I've been extremely happy with this update compared to the Snow Leopard to Lion update, where a variety of things needed updates or command line configuration.

Naturally, update Xcode and etc. for the latest command line tools.

Executive summary: absolutely nothing keeping me from getting work done.

For a long list of compatible and incompatible apps, check out Roaring Apps(http://roaringapps.com/apps:table)

This site is wonderful, thank you. Here's a quick list I pulled of common apps with Mountain Lion problems.

The Sims TiVo Desktop Hulu Desktop Virtualbox 4 VMWare Fusion 3 Perian LogMeIn MacPorts MailTags MacFuse for NTFS DynDNS Updater Epson Printer Utility 4 Filemaker Autocad Candybar Chax Minor CS5.x Apps Dragondictate Dymo Label

No, it's not. At least, not yet.

"There was an error in the App Store. Please try again later. (100)"

You may have to click the "Buy" button a second time.

I live in Europe so I'm used to seeing prices with added VAT. When I launched the app store, however, my item was priced at the U.S. price of $19.99. However, after getting this error once, the app store was reloaded with the correct price tag and a functional buy button.

I still can't download it though. Still getting that error 100

App Store error 100 fix http://www.macstories.net/mac/how-to-fix-mac-app-store-error...

Does not help

Didn't work for me either. Guess we'll just have to wait.

I'm going to avoid clicking too many times - Apple has previous in charging people multiple times, e.g. when Lion was released last year [1].

[1] http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/27/paypal_users_m...

I got this error, too, on my German account. I tried several times.

My US account worked fine, though. Darn you, Apple, for being so un-global.

Getting the same error followed by a popup telling me that the product is temporarily unavailable and that I should try again later.

I'm getting updates for what seems to be every application from Apple though.

It would be interesting to know the build number.

I believe the build number is 12A269

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mountain_Lion

I looked but couldn't find this - is a Mountain Lion upgrade available for OS X Server yet?

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-server/id537441259?mt=12

"Apple Launches 'OS X Server' for Mountain Lion for $19.99" http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/25/apple-launches-os-x-serv...

I'm confused.

It says ¥128.00 there. So, I checked google http://www.google.com/search?q=%C2%A5128.00+in+usd

That's less than $2 or I must be mistaken.

Never mind. It's $20. http://likeforex.com/currency-converter/chinese-yuan-renminb...

I guess Google was wrong this time.

No, Yen and Yuan both commonly use ¥ as their currency symbol, so Google just made an (incorrect) assumption about which you meant.

Is the upgrade to Mountain Lion free for members of the Mac OS Developer Program?

I let my Mac developer account lapse a few months ago, but at least here's how it worked with Lion:

If you went into the developer portal and claimed the App Store redemption code for the beta, then you were automatically licensed in the store for the release version as though you had paid for it.

If you didn't claim it for the beta, then you could still claim it after the fact and get a license to the release version.

Yes, the codes for the GM should automatically be translated into codes for the release version. If you have the GM build installed then you should get the first update to 10.8.1 the same way that the rest of us do.

If I remember correctly, my Mac OS Developer Program page offered redemption codes of Lion and Lion Server after it was released.

Interesting to note they're using the "old" Twitter logo on http://www.apple.com/osx/whats-new/features.html (right at the bottom).

Twitter's official iOS app is also using the old logo: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twitter/id333903271?mt=8

Strangely, it shows that way in the Store, but the downloaded app has the new logo icon.

The system itself uses the correct, new logo in all cases I've seen.

Am I the only one who had problem installed the GM (dev. final release) with FileVault 2 enabled? Anyone can confirms he had difficulties installing from the MAS too with FV 2 or it worked flawlessly?

I had the same. The preparatory install that is carried out by the app, while still in Lion, went fine but upon restarting, no further install process took place and it would just boot back into Lion again.

I had to disable FV, install, then enable it again to get the GM working.

Anybody had the same problem with the MAS version ?

I had no issues installing from the MAS with FileVault 2. Never tried the GM.

Anyone knows whether Appcelerator Titanium Studio works with Mountain Lion (officially it seems it is not supported).

I wonder if I'll have to turn my 2006 MacBook into a Hackintosh to run it. That would be very disappointing.

Supports only 64 bit CPUs.

Supports only 64-bit CPUs and EFI of a flavor that (while I don't remember the technical details) rules out some early 64-bit Macs.

So, Hacintosh. Any good reason for this limitation?

I suspect the good reason is they didn't want to spend time making the 64-bit kernel support 32-bit EFI and didn't want to create and qualify an EFI update for 64-bit machines that have 32-bit EFI. Likewise, they probably didn't want to spend time supporting a 32-bit kernel when they stopped shipping machines which require it 5-6 years ago.

I think the only Mac shipped with a 32 bit x86 processor was the original 15-inch MacBook Pro. But I suspect the Intel GMA GPU may also play a part. I read the HCL and couldn't find a machine with anything less than an Nvidia chip.

Anyway, 6 years is a long life for a laptop.

Actually, many generations of Macs shipped with 32-bit processors. The first two generations of Intel 15" and 17" laptops, the first generation (at least) of Intel iMacs, and I believe three generations of Intel Mac Minis.

You can't do that, only the Mac Pro can do that. The only reason the Mac Pro can get away with it is because its original unsupported GPU can be popped out and replaced with one that has drivers in 10.8. There is no GMA950/X3100 64-bit driver. You're SOL for running Mountain Lion on that machine, give up now.

This might be a newbie question — if I upgrade, will it mess up my rbenv, homebrew, and postgres installs?

I'd like to know that myself. I'm pretty sure homebrew should be okay (for the most part, and when it's not, just "brew update" it), but am not 100% sure. Sadly I don't remember what happened when I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion, and homebrew's homepage on github doesn't say much about the transition.

They mostly work as it is, things like imagemagick you need to recompile and reinstall dependent gems

But first update Xcode and the command line tools

Mountain Lion eliminates 32-bit code from a number of libraries, so YMMV for 32-bit code that links to private frameworks and random stuff in /usr/lib.

libpq.dylib is a actually a good example I ran into myself (using Python packages I had installed myself under Lion with pip): a fat binary in 10.7, but 64-bit only in 10.8. Quick fix if you've installed a fat libpq elsewhere: for each Mach-O binary that links to /usr/lib/libpq.dylib, install_name_tool -change /usr/lib/libpq.dylib /path/to/fat/libpq.dylib /path/to/binary This only works if your fat version is binary compatible with the pre-upgrade version, of course. If this command has no effect, verify the exact original path specified in the binary via otool -L /path/to/binary because, AFAIK, install_name_tool requires an exact match. The "preferred" solution is to rebuild whatever broke, making sure that it links against the right libpq in the first place, of course.

Note that this problem shouldn't affect tools bundled with a freestanding PostgreSQL installation, as they'll (presumably) be linked against the correct version already, nor tools installed by MacPorts, as they'll link to /opt/local/lib/libpq.dylib, but if things you've built and installed yourself start failing with "wrong architecture" errors from the dynamic loader, this is a likely cause. I've never used Homebrew, so I have no idea what it links against.

For those of us running the GM version do we need to get the app store version in order to get updates?

No, a GM is just like the released version.

thx

My friend can't boot his macbook after upgrade. Does somebody else experience issues after upgrade?

Are there any memory management / performance changes after the upgrade?

I've been running the GM since the day it got released (the GM is the same build as the one now for sale), and it's been performing as well as Lion did.

Did you notice the drop on memory consumption?

To me Lion seems like it's swapping an awful lot. I take it from your comment that there's been no improvement in this regard?

Measure it: there's no problem with the base Lion so you'll need to use Activity Monitor or dtrace to track down the process responsible

How easy is it to revert to your previous version if you don't like it ?

Make sure Time Machine is working and up to date on your current Lion install. Use Recovery Disk Assistant to create a Lion recovery USB stick (just in case).

Try out Mountain Lion.

If you don't like it, boot off recover partition/disk and restore from your old Lion Time Machine backup.

Not easy. You need a full backup (preferably not one touched by the new install) and to reinstall from scratch, restoring from the backup.

I made a SuperDuper backup of my entire drive before upgrading to Mountain Lion. 3 days after installing I used it to restore Lion. Mtn Lion added nothing I care about, and made several things break (terminal tabs started taking 5seconds to load... a dealkiller for me).

Nice, if not brand new, collection of answers to probable questions: http://www.macworld.com/article/1165460/mountain_lion_what_y...

Includes answer to my doubt, it seems you can upgrade Snow Leopard 10.6.8 to Mountain Lion 10.8.

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