I wanted to share with all of you the experiences I've had so far with one
of the new MBAs from an imaging standpoint. As most of you know I am a huge
user of InstaDMG for my initial OS image and then layer everything on using
Casper.
So, the first thing I tried to do with this shiny new speed demon (yes, they
are fast) was to create an image of the USB stick that the OS comes on.
Unfortunately I was unable to do so using Disk Utility and just selecting
"New Image".
The next thing I tried was to use the "New Image from Folder" method in Disk
Utility. This worked to create a DMG file, however when I dropped that into
InstaDMG, InstaDMG reported that it could not find an OS image.
Okay, next step was to try dropping that DMG into Casper Admin and telling
CA that it was an OS disk. Nope, that didn't work either.
So, I was eventually left with the option of using Composer to do a snapshot
of the machine and then load that into Casper Admin.
After getting the OS into CA, I created a new configuration, added all of my
images/scripts/printers, and then set out to do a compile. The compile took
over 7 hrs to complete, and the configuration was small (no Adobe in it).
I finally laid the image down on the MBA and it appears to be fine. I
mainly wanted to share the following key points:
- right now, there doesn't seem to be a way to capture an image of the USB
stick
- Apple has changed the file structure on the USB stick away from their norm
which affects InstaDMG and Casper Admin
- Composer snapshot appears to be the only way to capture an OS image at
this time, until 10.6.5 is released (hopefully it will have the drivers)
If anyone else has any other experience with these, please do share.
Steve Wood
Director of IT
swood at integer.com
The Integer Group | 1999 Bryan St. | Ste. 1700 | Dallas, TX 75201
T 214.758.6813 | F 214.758.6901 | C 940.312.2475
Maybe I am missing something here, but if you use any 10.6 image file with instaDMG and instaUp2Date it will apply all the updates needed. You may have to modify, or grab the new catalog file from the instaDMG project. As long as it is scanned for restore on a laptop the apple installer will load the proper drivers on it.
That will be true once 10.6.5 is baked. 10.6.5 should contain the
On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 4:25 PM, Thomas Larkin <tlarki at kckps.org> wrote:
appropriate drivers for the new MacBook Air. However, since the hardware
was released after 10.6.4, just using InstaUp2Date right now won't cut it.
Steve Wood
Director of IT
swood at integer.com
The Integer Group | 1999 Bryan St. | Ste. 1700 | Dallas, TX 75201
T 214.758.6813 | F 214.758.6901 | C 940.312.2475
I'm seeing rumors that 10.6.5 could be out as early as Friday, though they just released a new developer seed yesterday.
John Wojda
Lead System Engineer, CTS
3333 Beverly Rd. B2-338B
Hoffman Estates, IL 60179
Phone: (847)286-7855
SMS / Text Page: 2245873298 <mailto:12245873298 at messaging.sprintpcs.com>
I hope 10.6.5 comes out soon...rumor has it Apple have already begun to seed 10.6.6! ;)
http://www.macnn.com/articles/10/11/04/1065s.release.therefore.imminent/
Don
Yep, a quick google search for the build reveals some torrent links to
download it (not that I condone such behavior).
Kind of odd they would have .5 and .6 so close together...I also read
there was like 12 revisions of .5 so far, with the latest version
(10H574) coming out yesterday. Also with the latest version they
supposedly removed the AirPrint - which doesn't really bother me since
there is so few printers that work with it - at this stage I think it's
(AirPrint) more of a pipe dream for Apple.
John Wojda
Lead System Engineer, CTS
3333 Beverly Rd. B2-338B
Hoffman Estates, IL 60179
Phone: (847)286-7855
SMS / Text Page: 2245873298
Team Lead: Chris Sta Ana
Soup's done...shows up in Apple Software Update.
Don
10.6.5 came out its around 600 mb. Got it from software update around 5 pm today.
Jason Kong
Apple Support Specialist
Queens College DH-154
Office of Converging Technologies
Jason.Kong at qc.cuny.edu
718-997-5993
It released tonight. It was showing up on a few of my machines before
I left the office.
Steve
Sent from my iPhone
If 10.6.6 is already being worked on, it will be just a minor update to fix the bugs in 10.6.5.
Jason Kong
Apple Support Specialist
Queens College DH-154
Office of Converging Technologies
Jason.Kong at qc.cuny.edu
718-997-5993
But not as a standalone download yet...
First thing for 10.6.6 is the app store from what I've heard. Which is
not something I'm happy about. Hopefully there will be instructions
for disabling the app store easily.
Steve
Sent from my iPhone
We had an issue with using 10.6.4 (10F2521) on MacBook Pro's (mid 2010). It
effected the ability of Vmware Fusion 3.1.1. You could install any OS, but
when you attempted to boot the resulting VM or session from BootCamp, it
would lock up the computer; arrow could move, but no response or writes to
logs.
Because of that, we have the following fork to our configurations:
10.6.4 (10F2521) -> Mac Pro (Mid 2010)
10.6.4 (10F2025) -> all other models
I haven't heard of any issues with new iMac using 10f1025 from our users.
We don't have a base for the new MacBook Air. I suspect that 10.6.5 will
work for all!
I use Composer to make my Base OS package.
Apple updated their build number document on Nov 3, 2010
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1159
Jason
The stand alone was released a couple hours ago. Download is slow as heck. Sizes:
MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.5.dmg (977M)
MacOSXServerUpdCombo10.6.5.dmg (1.12G)
Someone already posted there was an issue with Tomcat, and JAMF posted their reply pointing to the KB article 287. We had the same issue with 10.6.5 on the server, and KB 287 fixed it for us too.
Don
Yeah, grabbed it this morning. Working on a new InstaDMG Catalog file that will hopefully cover all systems. I hope...
Anyone planning on waiting for 10.6.6 instead of .5?
James Fuller | Technology Application Services | V: 206.318.7153
Our primary concern is the need to re-unify our image. We branched off when the iMac11,3 patch was released (which wouldn't run on our more recent build image). Now that 10.6.5 is out, we'll test and hopefully will be able to get back to having a single image.
Don
I wanted to go away from having an image for each Mid-2010 Model (iMac, Mini, and Mac Pro) and then an image for the rest. Hopefully with 10.6.5 (testing right now) I will have an image that will cover all of Apple models, until a new model arrives (or apple releases a 10.6.5 geared towards a specific model).
Also 10.6.6 brings on the whole Mac Store issue, so if I can hold off on that for as long as I can, I will.
Allen
I just incorporated the 0.6.4 mini combo update on top of the regular 10.6.4 combo update to our image. Worked fine.
Sent from my iPhone
Hi John,
Interesting, seems that you had different experience with the MacMini update than we had with the iMac update. Here's how things unfolded on our end...
We had originally created a BaseImage from our newest hardware (MacPro5,1) and that build was 10.6.4 (10F2521).
Then we got some new iMac11,3 computers (released on the same day as the MacPro5,1) that shipped with 10.6.4 (10F2056) that required a special patch (URL below) that would not run on our existing 10.6.4 (10F2521) BaseImage.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1065
So we had to fork our BaseImage:
10.6.4 (10F2521) <-- Our default
10.6.4 (10F2056) <-- For iMac11,2 and iMac11,3 only
Now that Apple released 10.6.5, our plan is to apply it to our 10.6.4 (10F2521) BaseImage, since it's the highest build number, and see if the new 10.6.5 (10H574) BaseImage works on all the Macs (including iMac11,2 and iMac11,3).
My hope is that Apple didn't screw something up that will require us to continue to keep our BaseImage development forked. :)
Don
In order to apply the iMac11,3 specific patch, we had to follow JAMF's KB article 236 to create a new BaseImage directly on the iMac11,3
We had the same issues as Don. I use InstaDMG to make my base images and I had to maintain four different images, until now (knock on wood). Just finished up a new image and so far it's working on multiple models. My only worry is that Apple will issue a 10.6.5 update for a specific model and then we'll have to break up the images again. I hope not.
Allen
