Today, I upgraded my operating system to Snow Leopard. I knew that it would be worth it in the end, but every time I do this I am petrified. Of all my files disappearing (this happened once to me); of the upgrade stopping partway through, leaving me with no operating system (this too has happened); of my programs not working after the upgrade because they haven’t been upgraded themselves. Luckily for me, however, none of these happened when I upgraded today. I write this not only as a story of my installation, but also as a reassurance to you that Snow Leopard will not become—despite its namesake—a sharp-toothed beast with untold powers of destruction. This cat is surprisingly tame.

The upgrade process is, in the spirit of most Apple products, incredibly easy to figure out. I popped the install DVD into my computer after taking it out of the packaging. The packaging itself I was less than impressed by, for other than the snow leopards scattered around, there was little else specific to this release. True, there were pages in the booklet extolling the features of the operating system, but most were ones that could be found in 10.5 as well. Nevertheless, this did not stop me from continuing with the installation. The DVD’s minimalist window showed up on my screen, with three choices. Two were folders, and the only one I was interested in was the installer itself.

I double-clicked on the icon, and was presented simply with the choice to install or not. I continued through a few windows, and input my password. And that was pretty much it. Unlike some other installers, this didn’t even have to restart before initiating the install. It quit all my programs, and then I was left with nothing to do. It also took, all in all, a surprisingly short time. It estimated an hour, and it took a little bit longer, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes. Now, I chose to upgrade, rather than to wipe my hard drive and do a clean install. I don’t know how the timing of this would be different.

The waiting was the worst part, however. I was constantly watching for any sign of the petrifying greyed-out screen that signifies a kernel panic. Or even worse, a black screen (or perhaps even worse than that, the smell of burning plastic). But none of these appeared, and my trusty Macbook went through the process unscathed. The computer restarted itself and I was greeted with the same orientation video I saw a few years back when Leopard came out (still cool, but I could have done with something newer).

And then came the other fear: Did my computer still work? Did all my programs—and more importantly the system—still do what they were supposed to? The answer to this, actually, for the first few minutes, was no. My menubar was, for lack of a better word, twitching. Spotlight kept appearing and disappearing, and I couldn’t see the date, or any of the apple icons. However, with some quick Google searching I discovered that the issue was iStat menus, a very handy little program, but one that has yet to be upgraded for Snow Leopard. The only other big problem for me was that I noticed that, for some reason, I was doing everything much more slowly than usual. I then realized that my application launcher Quicksilver was no longer working, and so I was doing everything by hand. This upset me greatly, but once again Google saved the day. There were a few other necessary tweaks, but in the end it was a very painless process.

So far, I’m very glad to have updated. At least as of now, it’s the little changes that I didn’t know about that I find most useful. Exposé is tweaked to be more helpful. The Dock pop-up menus are on grey instead of white, and so fit better with the aesthetic. The menu bar can finally show the date. The list goes on, but needless to say, updating was the highlight of my day. Oh yes, one more thing. There are many desktop pictures of snow leopards. And none of them are angry.