Lion

[lozcart]

That's true Bill but in practice how often have you had to reuse the OS DVD.

I wonder if Remote Install will work with Lion if so you would think you would need a disc image or DVD for it to install.

[Steve]

If the recovery partition exists ( I suppose we'll find out on release) a further download may not be required.

http://www.applenewsblog.com/os-x-10-7-lion's-recovery-partition-changes-the-way-the-os-repairs-itself/

[lozcart]

I can't find any mention of remote install on Apples web site so it would seem that option will be discontinued.

[Steve]

I guess if the recovery partition exists remote install is not required.

[lozcart]

I've got five Macs to update so I was hoping to do one download and then use remote install for the others. Looks like late nights or early mornings so I can use my off peak allowance 

[Technical Ben]

Hmmmm is all I can say to that.

[Bill]

Looks like late nights or early mornings so I can use my off peak allowance 

At the moment my inclination is to stick with Snow Leopard.

[lozcart]

At the moment my inclination is to stick with Snow Leopard.

I will update a laptop first which is only used for web browsing and emailing and see how it goes before I update the others.

[Bill]

Couple of useful links from a tbb member:

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/06/07/how-to-burn-a-lion-boot-disc/

and

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/06/08/how-to-install-lion-from-an-sd-card/

[lozcart]

Thanks for the links Bill, it seems a backup DVD will be easy to burn. 

[pctech]

Apparently the Lion announcment included some pictures of the inside of the datacentre that will presumably support it along with iCloud

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/06/06/steve-jobs-provides-a-look-inside-the-idatacenter/

Interestingly the analysis says they are using HP ProLiant servers which of course are very reliable, but I have to ask why they are not using Xserves instead?

[Steve]

I think the Xserves are no more if not they probably cannot afford them

[pctech]

I also found something somewhere that says the activation relies on a serial number (presumably HDD serial) which changes when formatted on a PC unless it is coded into the image file shipped which those articles linked to by Bill refer to.

I have started to take a keen interest in this stuff because I should be getting some support training shortly as we are getting lots of queries.

[Technical Ben]

I wonder about any company trying to sell it's own hardware, then it's own cloud, but running it's own cloud on some one else's hardware. 
When I can cut the middle man out and just get a HP system. [Need an "asking for trouble" smiley]

[Bill]

I wonder about any company trying to sell it's own hardware, then it's own cloud, but running it's own cloud on some one else's hardware. 

If they can sell their own hardware for more than it costs to buy someone else's, then it makes sense

[pctech]

I reckon the next versions of OS X and indeed Windows will run directly from each companies server farms so you will basically have a dumb terminal. (MS trying this with Office currently)

That of course means the vendor can charge what they like for service and support and those of us that make a living from troubleshooting will be out of work.


The justificiation for all this will be security as the OS will be permanently up to date.

[Bill]

Where I worked before retirement we had about 1000-1500 PC's all networked and running Microsoft OS's and applications, centrally cofigured.

The IT department wanted to run the system like that, replacing PCs with dumb terminals as they came up for replacement, with wondrous reports of the money and time to be saved, easier updating and configuration etc etc etc...

Then the bosses of the various departments started asking awkward questions like "What uptime can you guarantee?" and it all went quiet

[pctech]

When I stsrted secondary school it was like that too, all remote boot diskless workstations connected by BNC coax.

As it was configured in a ring we had to stagger the log ons otherwise there would be too much packet collision and the machines would just crash or bring the server down.

Will be interesting to see what happens long term but while they are trying out all this stuff I have to say I'm somewhat concerned about how I'll end up making my living

[Bill]

We did at least have fibre Ethernet, though iirc it was only 10Mbps from the building hub to each office. Can't remember what the backbone links ran at.

I see your point about earning a living, but I'm not sure how larger organisations will view it... it's got cost advantages, sure, but if they've got a few hundred highly paid staff who suddenly can't work for some hours because of a network failure it gets very expensive very quickly...

Not sure how companies and government departments (with data ranging from Confidential to Top Secret!) will view their data being held and processed on someone else's internet-accessible servers either.

[pctech]

The condems have apparently dropped the government cloud idea

http://www.itpro.co.uk/633898/updated-government-g-cloud-is-dead-says-hp

Its fair to say the big winners will be ISPs (who will rake in revenue from bandwidth use) and the big software companies.

[Rik]

I thought you'd typed condoms for a minute there. 

[pctech]

I don't really want to know whats going on in your head. 

[Rik]

Who mentioned my head?

[Simon]

[Rik]