Mac ppc => intel migration warts

rutt

Headline: Had to copy Photoshop application manually

So I got this shiny new core 2 duo MacBook Pro. I've waited almost 2 years for this thing and was pretty excited.

I thought I'd try to shortcut my usual day or so of setup time and use the very tempting looking migration feature of setup. Mac owners may remember this as an offer to set up your computer from an old mac using a firewire cable. I connected to my old PB and let her rip.

The result was about 90%. Lots of stuff got copied correctly and worked. Some of the stuff that didn't was real hacker stuff and system configurations which didn't take long to find and correct (power saver options, modifier keys).

But there was one really disturbing failure. Photoshop CS2 plugins didn't get copied. No radial blur, for example. Only the ACR plugin did copy, but it doesn't live in the /Applications folder.

Anyway the fix was to make an archive (zip) of the whole Adobe Photoshop CS2 application folder (on the old computer) and move to the new computer and open. After this all the plugins came back.

Interestingly, this also made photoshop a lot faster! I was doing some benchmarking (using surface blur, which isn't a plugin) and was pretty disappointed. After the manual copy, the results were about 2x better.

[Moderators: I know you are going to want to move this onto the Andy advice thread. Cut me a break, eh, and wait a few days first. I think it will get a little more exposure that way and I'm interested if anyone else has something to add. I dug around on the net and didn't find anything about this..]

Andy

rutt wrote:

[Moderators: I know you are going to want to move this onto the Andy advice thread.

The mac advice thread has a gajillion views, and nearly 500 subscriptions going

rutt

Fine, move it. I don't really care anymore, now that I've written it up and an hour has gone by. Funny how that works.

DavidTO

rutt wrote:

Fine, move it. I don't really care anymore, now that I've written it up and an hour has gone by. Funny how that works.

You crack me up.

Interesting observation about your speed increase after the 2nd copy.

Andy

rutt wrote:

Fine, move it. I don't really care anymore, now that I've written it up and an hour has gone by. Funny how that works.

no we'll leave it here

Cool stuff.

wxwax

rutt wrote:

Interestingly, this also made photoshop a lot faster! I was doing some benchmarking (using surface blur, which isn't a plugin) and was pretty disappointed. After the manual copy, the results were about 2x better.

I don't understand.

Surface blur ran more quickly after you installed the plug-ins correctly?

rutt

wxwax wrote:

I don't understand.

Surface blur ran more quickly after you installed the plug-ins correctly?

Yes, almost twice as fast. I think migrate just installed a broken version of PS/CS2. All kinds of bad stuff internally. Perhaps it kept checking for something that just wasn't there, for example.

Before I copied the zip in manually, many of the filters were missing, but some don't seem to be implemented as plug-ins. For example, surface blur and usm were there.

wxwax

rutt wrote:

Yes, almost twice as fast. I think migrate just installed a broken version of PS/CS2. All kinds of bad stuff internally. Perhaps it kept checking for something that just wasn't there, for example.

Before I copied the zip in manually, many of the filters were missing, but some don't seem to be implemented as plug-ins. For example, surface blur and usm were there.

How interesting.

So the migration software isn't well suited to complimuhcated programs like photoshop, I guess?

DavidTO

wxwax wrote:

How interesting.

So the migration software isn't well suited to complimuhcated programs like photoshop, I guess?

It could also be that Rutt just had bad luck. I never experienced this problem, for instance. Or, it could be PEBKAC.

wxwax

DavidTO wrote:

It could also be that Rutt just had bad luck. I never experienced this problem, for instance. Or, it could be PEBKAC.

IIKWPEBKACM, IAA.

DavidTO

wxwax wrote:

IIKWPEBKACM, IAA.

Sorry.

PEBCAK.

rutt

There are plenty of problems between my chair and keyboard, actually plenty that start further back in the process as well, but in this particular case I don't see it. I took off my geek hat and just did the simple thing.

My own guess is that there is some interaction with Rosetta and the Migration tools. If anything is going to confuse Rosetta it's gotta be plugins. Refusing to copy ppc only plug-ins is not a totally unreasonable policy for Migration. Migration is not just a dead simple copy it turns out. I have some other more nedrly examples of it trying to be smart.

wxwax

DavidTO wrote:

Sorry.

PEBCAK.

G, T. IDKWTM.

Great, thanks. I didn't know what that meant.

wxwax

Which means the CS3 might not have such problems?

rutt

wxwax wrote:

Which means the CS3 might not have such problems?

I'm pretty sure than an install from scratch would have no problems at all.

How many others have used migrate ppc => intel with Photoshp? Andy seems like a likely candidate.

wxwax

rutt wrote:

I'm pretty sure than an install from scratch would have no problems at all.

What I meant was, CS3 will be Intel friendly, no Rosetta, so perhaps migration might be better.

rutt

wxwax wrote:

What I meant was, CS3 will be Intel friendly, no Rosetta, so perhaps migration might be better.

Yeah, I speculate that would be true. Are you planning to migrate from ppc to intel when CS3 comes out?

Anyway, I don't think it's a big deal once you know what to watch for.

wxwax

rutt wrote:

Yeah, I speculate that would be true. Are you planning to migrate from ppc to intel when CS3 comes out?

Anyway, I don't think it's a big deal once you know what to watch for.

Nah, just intellectual curiosity. I have a new Macbook, but waiting for CS3 before jumping into Macs with both feet.

Andy

rutt wrote:

I'm pretty sure than an install from scratch would have no problems at all.

How many others have used migrate ppc => intel with Photoshp? Andy seems like a likely candidate.

Didn't Migrate - did a fresh install.

pathfinder

I will wait for the second generation of Intel powered Power Macs before I consider making a move. This means other programs like Nik Sharperner Pro will also have to be updated as well, doesn't it? For Intel I mean.

I might look at the Mac Book Pros sooner though.

I was beginning to think you were all speaking in tongues!!

rutt

pathfinder wrote:

I will wait for the second generation of Intel powered Power Macs before I consider making a move. This means other programs like Nik Sharperner Pro will also have to be updated as well, doesn't it? For Intel I mean.

I haven't formed a consistent and reliable theory about what Rosetta can and can't do. If it can handle Photoshop's plug-ins, it's got a chance at almost anything. On the other hand it couldn't handle some of my old fashioned unix programs compiled by fink (if you gotta ask, you probably don't want to know.)

I'm pretty happy with the notebook. Those G4 PBs are really long in the teeth now and my tests show that the MacBook Pro is much faster, even with Rosetta based Photoshop. Jim, you had I have very similar desktops and attitudes about when to upgrade, and I'm going to wait at least for CS3 before considering it. By that time there will probably also be a 2x4 model, "the power of 8". Not that it it will actually matter on most of the things we do, but it will be cool.

ian408

Rutt, you should teach that Pouge guy how to put together a proper test...

W.W. Webster

rutt wrote:

I haven't formed a consistent and reliable theory about what Rosetta can and can't do. If it can handle Photoshop's plug-ins, it's got a chance at almost anything.

Is there any serious doubt about this?

rutt

W.W. Webster wrote:

Is there any serious doubt about this?

I have some examples of stuff that just didn't work. It was emacs compiled under fink and probably used a lot of shared libraries of different flavors. I didn't bother tracking it down, I just reinstalled all the fink stuff I use, which means it was recompiled for ix86.