The Full Metal Tech Post
Filed under THOUGHTS.
Apologies for going AWOL last week: I wasn't on vacation or trying to disconnect—nothing so refreshing. No, I revisited that long lost tradition of "re-building my computer". Party like it's 2001? Folks, it was fuuun.
But first, some images...
All shot in the car with the X-Pro3: Jacob landed his first part-time job, and we're now officially his personal chauffeurs. Happy for the kiddo. Before you ask, these have nothing to do with today's post. I just needed photography to be part of the mix. So if you're not up for an overlong, geeky, tech story...you can step away from the screen now ;)
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We've all heard the cautionary tales surrounding beta software. We all know it shouldn't be installed on a production machine, blah blah blah. But...pandemic...boredom...wtfism... I decided to install Big Sur on my ageing iMac 5K. A Saturday morning spur of the moment kinda deal. Looking for some form of excitement. And it worked fine...for all of 20 minutes 1. After this, everything started beachballing like crazy. I rebooted and... nope, it got worse and worse—until I couldn't even open a Finder window anymore. Or an app. Or a menu. I was fairly certain I'd given the poor iMac its final push towards oblivion, which...yay? Who doesn't want to spend $3000 right now?
Whatever. I'd obviously messed up. So I forced a reboot from a Carbon Copy Cloner backup on an external drive (I did have a backup, I'm not insane) 2 and began the glacial process of restoring my previous system. And this is where I realized that 2020 was actually not 2001: I had expected CCC to bring my drive back to its previous state but after a few hours, I noticed storage space vanishing precipitously as the operation progressed. So I stopped everything, opened Disk Utility and discovered that my internal drive now contained several APFS containers, none of which I'd created. I'm admittedly new to APFS (I believe Catalina silently changed all internal drives from HFS+ to APFS last year?) and hadn't thought much of it until now. I certainly hadn't managed drives since the switch. But from what I could gather, two of these new virtual containers were basically hoarding over 300 GB of what had turned into ghost data. So the restore was taking place in whatever free space remained...and going down fast.
I have no idea how this happened, if CCC or the Big Sur beta did this without my knowledge...but clearly something had gone very, very wrong. That my main drive was now named Update and the previous volume was greyed out didn't inspire a lot of confidence either.
I won't bore you with cumbersome details (several 6-7 hour restore sessions that never fixed anything) but suffice it to say that Monday morning I bit the bullet: I booted into Recovery mode, reformatted the iMac drive (deleting all those weird APFS volumes one by one...because instructions were cryptic and I read tales of horror on the web) and clean-installed Catalina.
Then, to make sure I wouldn't transfer any previous problems, I spent the next four days downloading, re-installing apps and bringing necessary files over manually—digging into the backup's libraries and pref files, copying stuff in the appropriate location, checking items one by one to make sure it was all working. I ran into permission issues, media library problems...going manual is not the easiest path to take. That said, the benefits are impressive: this 2015 machine just got a new lease on life—it feels as fast as the day I bought it.
It's also been years since I've run such a lean system. No more cruft hanging around in those library folders, no more unused apps from five years ago. No more lingering Adobe breadcrumbs either; I mean seriously: I still had a Macromedia folder (!)
I installed ONLY what I actually use on the Mac: Capture One, Logic Pro, Motion, Pixelmator, Affinity Photo, Pages, Keynote and Ulysses. I did install Things and a few other utilities as well but for the most part, I decided there was no need to duplicate my iPad or iPhone when those devices are always within reach anyway.
With this incident, I've essentially completed the transformation that began with my embrace of iOS/iPadOS: the Mac is no longer the kitchen sink. It is no longer the famed Digital Hub. It is an important cog within an ecosystem of devices.
It is The Truck.
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There's an ongoing conversation right now—especially with some of the UI changes coming in Big Sur—about the Mac becoming too much like iOS. And there's a fear of apps eventually being forced into the Apple-controlled App Store. But setting policy issues aside (and these are many, ongoing AND valid), this ordeal really highlighted the advantages of iOS/iPadOS. When I get a new iPad (or iPhone, but the iPad is the work machine for me), all I have to do is log into iCloud and wait for everything to sync. This is what having a centralized installer brings to the table.
We can achieve this on the Mac through Time Machine, Migration Assistant and iCloud as well (I don't miss the days of reconfiguring POP email accounts). But the complexity at the core of this system remains. The very thing that makes the Mac so versatile is also what eventually drags it down: desktop computers require coddling. If you're not careful, stuff accumulates in the background and eventually problems arise, no matter how careful you are at keeping things tidy. I used to do a clean install with every major update—which meant I'd be down for two-three days. And then the update process became much simpler and I just started going with the flow, adding one system on top of the other, year after year. It's supposed to be fine...but it's mostly an illusion of simplicity. It's a compromise filled with future consequences.
While iOS/iPadOS updates can certainly break things, these systems were built to remain lean and fast. They don't have the luxury of almost infinite storage space, so they manage data differently. This means a loss of control (don't get me started on the unmanageable Other category) but it also means systems that are vastly easier to maintain and work with.
I'm glad I could get back on my feet, get the iMac running again as it should 3. And the geek in me did enjoy fiddling around with obscure files, sensing that jolt of adrenaline rushing in after fixing a plug-in that wouldn't pass validation. Small pleasures. It's probably the same sense of accomplishment some get from tuning an old car engine or restoring a vintage typewriter to its former glory.
But it is a rather antiquated process, isn't it? I did lose an entire week here. More importantly, before any of this happened I considered my iMac to be on its last legs, its performance issues due to tired hardware. And regardless of money considerations, I'd been eyeing the new/last Intel iMacs...in case of emergency. I'd rationalized the potential "safety" behind the purchase, of a tried and true platform that would still serve for many years to come, avoiding what could turn into a difficult transition. I don't feel that way anymore.
We need trucks. But I think we need them to run on much sturdier and stable systems. I'm not saying Apple Silicon machines will fare any better...but there is a chance at rejuvenation. The company knows how to build devices that don't break easily, that boot up in mere seconds; that don't require constant management and coddling.
I'm really hoping we're on the cusp of a new generation of computers. Of a break that honours the past but truly brings us forward. I'm not advocating a lockdown, just a more streamlined system.
I'm hoping for a better cog.
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For what it’s worth: all my apps appeared to work fine initially. Even third-party plugins in Logic loaded and performed normally.
Nothing against CCC but: I'm returning to Time Machine for system backups. Sometimes control becomes needless complexity.
Which now begs the question: will I update to Big Sur or not? I probably will. I think what I experienced was more of a perfect storm than an actual beta catastrophe. But as I just mentioned: I now have a Time Machine backup again so getting back up to speed won’t be the same ordeal.
