macports-users Digest, Vol 192, Issue 1

[chilli.namesake at gmail.com]

Generally in enterprise production stays up until confidently duplicated. I've never used the migration method I described in a corporate setting, it is what I figured out (~2009) works well for my personal mac migrations, and it has been very successful for me through several migrations. I wasn't sure, and misjudged your situation.

That said, I would still recommend, when using the Migration Assistant, pairing down what it is migrating as much as possible. Transferring user accounts and keychains is a nice feature, as is using it to migrate settings. But having it migrate applications is duplicating easy tasks, and my estimate is Migration Assistant takes about 4 to 20 times as long to transfer your applications than the time it would take if you reinstalled them. If there are a lot of third party serialized applications, and the serials or activation keys have been lost (seen this before), there isn't much choice. But otherwise, both copying documents manually and reinstalling applications is, in my experience and I realize unsolicited opinion, more reliable, much faster, and the subsequent performance of the applications is noticeably better than with migrated applications. It may as well be voodoo, because I couldn't begin to explain why, and it honestly could be a bias I have formed.

But I'll just come out and say it, and I don't mean any offense, but XCode is kind of a complex piece of work, though very easy to install, and MacPorts and however many ports are also very easy to audit and reinstall, and personally I prefer to roll everything I can myself locally to each machine, and if my impression is that building the entire kit from source is faster than Migration Assistant can just copy and verify the copy, then... I hope my new point is made..l

...which is you'll finish faster, see better performance, and have more satisfaction using Migration Assistant for only what is absolutely necessary, and uncheck and disable and not use it for easy things that you could do in your sleep with your hands tied behind you, blindfolded, etc., because it is dreadfully slow and opaque about what it is doing while you wait.

But by all means, please do what you think is best, and good luck.




> On Aug 1, 2022, at 10:38, Murray Eisenberg <murrayeisenberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Just to note that for some of us, "hang[ing] on to an old system, for a time, until you production is back up and solid” is not a feasible option, if one is trading in to Apple the old machine: Apple provides only a 14-day window in which to receive the old machine (after one receives the return carton).
> 
> 
> OnSun, 31 Jul 2022 18:44:15 -0400, chilli.namesake at gmail.com" <chilli.namesake at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> ... in my experience working in IT for more than 2 decades is that it is almost always better to manually migrate rather than use Apple's Migration Assistant. 
>> 
>> First, consider what the Migration Assistant is doing... it is duplicating your user accounts, copying third party applications, and the user settings in ~/Library. That is all it is doing, and it is absurd how long it takes to do these seemingly simple tasks. 
>> 
>> Rhetoricals: 
>> 
>> Are there a dozen distinct user accounts? Or is it a single account? 
>> 
>> How many applications are migrating? Are these Applications that required an installer and have kernel extensions, or are they just bundles that install with drag and drop?
>> 
>> How vital or unreplaceable are these applications' user settings? 
>> 
>> 
>> My recommendation is to start with a clean install of macOS with a mind towards the next migration. Create your user account. If you are the sole user, create an ~/Applications folder in your home folder, and install every drag and drop application that you use there (this only works if it is a single user on the machine, as other users won't have access to your user folders). One by one, reinstall the applications that require an installer and need to live in /Applications.  Manually copy your documents over, which is easy if they all live in ~/Documents. If you really need the settings... you can manually copy your entire ~/Library over:
>> 
>> (on new system) 
>> sudo rm -rf ~/Library
>> 
>> sudo cp -vpn  /Volumes/old.machine.in.target.mode/Users/you/Library   ~/Library
>> 
>> sudo chown -R you:Staff ~/Library
>> 
>> But it is better to leave your old ~/Library behind and as you use your applications on the new system, manually restore your settings and preferences on the fly. The pain doesn't last forever.
>> 
>> Reinstall XCode. 
>> Reinstall macports from scratch. 
>> On the old system, run
>> 
>> port requested > temp.txt
>> 
>> Use this created text file as a guide to restore all your ports, and consider editing the file into an macports install script, just a list of install commands for each port you had requested before, and run it. 
>> 
>> Sync your browser bookmarks to the cloud, then resync them down to the new system's browser, or export bookmarks to a file and import them to the new browser.
>> 
>> 
>> Then the next time you migrate, after creating a new account and logging in on your new hardware, put one machine in target disk mode and copy and replace the new user directories with your previous user directories, wholesale, which if you created an Applications folder in there, this will neatly reinstall all your applications that did not require an installer, bring over all your documents and settings, and much much faster than Migration Assistant. Then reinstall the applications that require the installer. Reinstall XCode and macports and repeat the requested command as a map, and reinstall all your ports.
>> 
>> Hang on to the old system, for a time, until your production is back up and solid.
>> 
>> The next migration will be easier because it is mostly just copying your user directories in one go, reinstalling a few other applications, reinstalling XCode, macports, and individual ports.
>> 
>> I guarantee you far better performance on the new system by rebuilding it like this rather than using Migration Assistant, and the migration itself will take far less time.
> 
> ---
> Murray Eisenberg		murrayeisenberg at gmail.com
> Mobile (413)-427-5334
> 503 King Farm Blvd #101		
> Rockville, MD 20850-6667	
> 
> 
> 
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