Snow Leopard or Lion for printing from Mac Pro

[Garnick]

Hello all,

I know this issue has been covered here, but a usual I'm rather slow in upgrading the OS when everything is working well. Originally there were the horror stories surrounding Snow Leopard, but that seems to have been remedied. Then there were those who leaped before they looked and got hammered with Lion. I'll be upgrading the Mac very soon and need some feedback concerning which OS is behaving best and some of the peculiarities/changes I need to look out for. I would very much appreciate any info you folks might be able to pass along before I make an final OS commitment. Obviously the "new" Mac Pro, as it is, will be shipping with Lion, but I may want to also install Snow Leopard if there are issues. I'm still working with Leopard 10.50.8, so I imagine the step up to SL will be a bit of a learning curve initially as well.

Again, any info will be a help at this point. Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Gary

[darlingm]

Lion won't run PowerPC apps, like X-Rite's i1Display 2.  X-Rite's answer is the iDisplay 2 is discontinued, so sorry, buy an i1Display Pro. 

[pfigen]

Gary - Moving to SL for me was a complete cf at first. I had to remake ALL of my old profiles as you couldn't print out of CS3 anymore without the dark print bug and the old ProfileMaker profiles now were producing the cyan overprint bug. That meant moving to i1 Profiler, which finally worked great with CS5/6 and SL but not at all with CS3. Confused? Me neither. I have too many older apps that need Rosetta right now to make the upgrade to Lion, but I'm sure I'll have to deal with that at some point. Hell, I even have to keep intermediate computers on the network just to get files from the drum scanner on 9.2.2 to SL, since there's no direct connecting them anymore.

[Christopher Sanderson]

[Corrected typo in title]

[digitaldog]

No issues moving from Snow Leopard to Lion in terms of printing, legacy profiles etc. I do have one machine I keep on hand to boot SN for older PPC applications but otherwise, quite a painless experience. Ready for Mountain lion <g>.

[tastar]

To find out what won't run in 10.7, go to the Apple Menu, go to About this Mac, go to More Info, go to Software in the left column, click on Applications, then click on Kind to sort by kind. PowerPC apps won't run (I have Classic apps in my list, too, since I've been migrating since the early days of OS X). 10.8, due to be released in late July, will even be less compatible with older software, and may give some Intel and Universal 32-bit applications problems - so upgrading to a new Mac with 10.7 will be more predictable and more forgiving than waiting for one with 10.8 (and if you buy now, you'll get a free upgrade to Mountain Lion).

The current Mac Pro's can be downgraded to 10.6 without hassles, but you need an install disk that will work (a 10.6.3 universal installer that may be available on eBay or other places, Apple no longer sells them). We tried putting 10.6 on a new Mac mini and couldn't get it to work completely - so, anything but a new Mac Pro probably won't work reliably or completely with 10.6.

Tony

[Garnick]

The current Mac Pro's can be downgraded to 10.6 without hassles, but you need an install disk that will work (a 10.6.3 universal installer that may be available on eBay or other places, Apple no longer sells them). We tried putting 10.6 on a new Mac mini and couldn't get it to work completely - so, anything but a new Mac Pro probably won't work reliably or completely with 10.6.

Tony

Interesting.  I wasn't sure it would be possible to downgrade from 10.7 to 10.6 with any degree of success.  I've been following the refurb Mac Pros at the Apple Store and was going to order one, but now I notice that the 3.2GHz machine has dropped in price to the level of the original 2010 2.8GHz.  Also 6GB RAM, although I'd be pulling those and installing at least 24GB(3x8GB), so that's not a purchase incentive for me.  I called today and was told that the 3.2GHz machine will ship with Lion installed, as I suspected.  I'm currently working with 10.5.8 and all of my printers, including the 9900 are behaving very well.  Therefore, although I'd like to get the 3.2 I'm thinking I might be better advised to buy the refurb with 10.6 installed.  Perhaps not as many issues as going from Leopard to Lion as far as printing is concerned.  In my business I use the printers every day and can't afford downtime, so it really is a big deal to learn a newer system and the accompanying drivers.  I will still be running Leopard on the older machine until I'm totally familiar with the new system and drivers and their challenges.  I appreciate your post Tony and the fact that apparently you've been able to downgrade to SL from Lion.  That being the case I would probably buy the 3.2GHz and downgrade as a start.

Andrew,
Thank you as well for the words of support.  As I recall there were a few issues regarding the printer drivers going from Leopard to SL, but I imagine they have all been taken care of by now.  Then I'll only have to deal with the Lion upgrade once I'm familiar with SL.  May I impose upon you to perhaps let me know what the main issues/differences might be from Leopard to SL, or from Leopard to Lion.  I know it's been a while, but I would very much appreciate any information you could pass along to help ease the transition. 

Anyone else with info or well informed opinions, please weigh in.  Much appreciated!

Gary   




 

[tastar]

I was wrong about one detail - Apple does sell the universal installer for 10.6, for 29.00 (US), at this link. If you have questions about the downgrade, I'll need to ask our tech - I'm fairly sure that he reformats the entire hard drive (including getting rid of the hidden Lion recovery partition) before the downgrade. We've done it a bunch of times for companies that need to use legacy software (there are lots of them out there). You will still have the color management issues with 10.6 (and I believe that they are the same in 10.7), that have been thoroughly discussed in these forums.

Tony

[Garnick]

Thanks for the link and info Tony.  If I recall correctly, the 'color management issues' in 10.6 were essentially related to printing profile targets and not necessarily standard image printing.  Of course I stand corrected if my memory is not serving me well.  Back when all of these issue were being discussed I was following the thread(s) continuously, but since I wasn't working in 10.6 it wasn't actually relevant at that time.  I believe I did copy some of the pertinent info into a doc or two but haven't had time to look yet.  If I can't find anything I'll try to track down some of those threads in the archives.  Either way it's going to be an interesting adventure I'm sure, but it is definitely time to upgrade.  I've been putting it off far too long.  As I mentioned previously it's sometimes difficult to step up, knowing that there are issues to be overcome and that the system you are currently working with is consistent and reliable. 

Thanks again for the link and other info, much appreciated.

Gary

[Garnick]

One more thing Tony.  I assume it would also be quite possible to have both SL and Lion installed on separate partitions or HDs and be able to boot in either if necessary.  SL for some purposes until I get things sorted out with Lion.  Whenever I upgrade the OS I have always cloned my previous OS and have that as a backup.  That way I know I can revert to it and continue working if necessary.  Of course I always clone my OS and Apps as well for backup in case of a SNAFU. 

Gary   

[tastar]

Yes, you can partition, but I don't like partitions - to me, they slow down hard drives. And, the only reason to downgrade would be to run older software or drive older printers that require Rosetta (that was eliminated in 10.7). If you don't need to do this, then Lion will run very well and you won't have the hassle of doing the downgrade (The color management issues are the same between 10.6 and 10.7 so that shouldn't be one of the reasons to do the downgrade.)

[Garnick]

The color management issues are the same between 10.6 and 10.7 so that shouldn't be one of the reasons to do the downgrade.

It's been a while since I read about this on the forums, but as I recall, the main and perhaps only color management issues in 10.6 pertaining to printing were related to the difficulty in printing profiling targets.  Of course I may be wrong here, since it has indeed been a while.  I guess what I'm asking for is perhaps some foresight into what might be the major issues going from 10.5.8 and CS3 to 10.7 and CS5 as far as printing is concerned.  Since I don't make my own profiles the CM issues in that respect don't apply, but if I can get some ideas about what to expect in other areas of the printing pipeline I will at least have some degree of knowledge to start with and not be totally caught off guard when these issues present themselves.

Thanks Tony,
Gary   

[madmanchan]

Just be sure that once you update, you download the latest printer drivers and install them after all your OS updates.

[Garnick]

No issues moving from Snow Leopard to Lion in terms of printing, legacy profiles etc. I do have one machine I keep on hand to boot SN for older PPC applications but otherwise, quite a painless experience. Ready for Mountain lion <g>.

Hi Andrew,

At the risk of repeating myself here, I seem to recall that originally there were Colour Management issues with 10.6 pertaining to printing, specifically Epson.  I believe those issues were related mainly to printing profiling targets, but I'm afraid my memory is not serving well in this case.  Otherwise, I'm hoping any other printing issues have been long since resolved and it would seem by your reply that you feel they have.  I'm also hoping I am interpreting you correctly and that there are really no major problems with 10.6/7.  I'll be upgrading from 10.5.8 and CS3 to 10.6/7 and CS5 and basically would like to know what I might expect.  As mentioned, I print everyday and cannot afford downtime due to upgrade issues.  I will be keeping the present system online until any bugs are taken care of with the new machine/system.

Gary