Why: I had successfully (sort of) managed to installed
Java 1.7 on the snow leopard (This worked for me
http://jksha.blogspot.se/2013/09/java-7-and-snow-leopard-osx-106.html) I wanted 1.7 so the latest version of Android would be available to me. Unfortunately even though I got 1.7 installed there were some compatibility issues with the android code. Finally I decided to upgrade
What: I read good reviews about Yosemite and decided to opt for it. Unfortunately I put it off for too long and by the time I actually started with the actual upgrade, El Capitan was out and Yosemite was not available. Ah well. Serves me right
How: I had read on various sites that the ‘installer’ gets downloaded (eventually) in your Applications folder. So before I launched the install process I did the following:
Backed up absolutely cannot afford to loose type of data on an external driveBacked up the installer dmg on an external drive
Download took quite some time, the dmg is ~6GB! Also I faced ‘error issues’ A quick google told me this was ‘normal’. Just resume download in case it fails and one eventually suceeds!
The actual install went pretty smooth. Took me ~45 mins for the full installation process.
Restarted the machine and I was let down. It was absolutely sluggish. Cmd+Space and the spotlight comes up after ~1 minute! I had a WTF moment, till I realised the OS was getting to know the system and most probably it was creating the indices in the background. An hour or so later it was much much better. It retained all my original files and data. Hooray!
Problems and solutions (if any)
1) I could see Java 1.7 was installed. Tried to launch eclipse (Juno) and I was greeted with a dialog which told me “To open “Eclipse.app” you need to install the legacy Java SE 6 runtime.”
Solution:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26433495/intellij-not-starting-after-os-x-yosemite-update/31231728#31231728 and eclipse launches properly
2) Menu meters is in compatible with El Capitan
http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/#requirement
Solution: Someone has been super enough to port the fix!
http://member.ipmu.jp/yuji.tachikawa/MenuMetersElCapitan/
3) I used to use open office. Junked it. Keynote, Numbers and Pages are available in the app store (free)
In case you are contemplating upgrading and wondering about compatibility issues, check out
http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/os-x-el-capitan-working-not-working-apps.1890772/