Lion OS X

[fiza]

New to MACs so would appreciate advice.

We have 6 MACs in School which I have never previously touched. They occasionaly get switched on but never used in anger. This is about to change as we want them to be connected to the network. We currently have Leopard OS on them and are upgrading to Snow Leopard and then to Lion when it is released.
I have heard that I can apply basic GPO style settings to the machines but one of them would have to be a server. Can I upgrade 1 to a Server simply by installing Snow Leopard Server on top of the Leopard client?

When we want to upgrade to Lion I have been told this is a download from the MAC App Store. How does this work for 6 machines? Do i need to create an Itunes style account for each machine? Or can I use the same account and purchase 5 copies and 1 server copy?

[fiza]

*Bump*
Anyone?????????

[wadtech]

At the moment it's not fully clear how Lion licensing is actually going to work. It seems as though it's a download once, install many type deal, but again, not sure until release date.

But you need at least one Mac with Snow Leopard on it to download Lion (App store only. booo) If you were looking to use one of them as a server instead of a workstation then it might be worth waiting for Lion as there is no server OS X anymore, just a server install of Lion.

The built-in AD plug-in does what you need, so you can authenticate logins and share home directories. Then use the Mac server to set OS X policies.

Apple Remote Desktop is now unlimited license from the app store as well, it's a great tool for remote work on the macs, including setting up customised scheduled tasks such as software updates and pushing software to multiple macs without touching each one.

I hope this helps, no doubt I've forgotten something.

[fiza]

From what I have read on the Apple site it states that I need Snow Leopard 10.6.6 minimum before I can upgrade to Lion. As we are on Leopard I dont think I can just go from that to Lion directly. At the moment retail prices for Snow Leopard Server are around £400 (not educational pricing). If Lion doesnt have a server version does this mean that by buying a £30 lion OS copy I will get the Server functionality? What about CALs?

Its all new to me and any assistance is appreciated.

[jubbi]

You need to wait until it comes out. We have all heard rumours, but until it comes out we wont know what the deal is. Wadtech went through the most likely way of doing things. The best route for you would be to get a snow leopard upgrade for one of your systems, then download 10.6.7 which has the app store and buy the upgrade. *from what I hear* You can then make an install media once Lion is installed which can be installed on any mac you own (Dont know how this would work in a school licence wise), regardless of the itunes account. Once it's installed, I'm guessing it wont need the itunes password. That would be a nightmare. This would tally with the previous upgrade licence which allowed you to install snow leopard on 3 machines if you bought the £41 family pack (Family packs haven't been announced yet). Once Lion is on your machines, you then go to the mac app store and buy the server app.
This way it will cost you the price of lion once and the price of the server app once. Dont buy snow leopard server as it would be a waste of money at this stage unless you intend to stick with that OS.

[wadtech]

From what I have read on the Apple site it states that I need Snow Leopard 10.6.6 minimum before I can upgrade to Lion. As we are on Leopard I dont think I can just go from that to Lion directly. At the moment retail prices for Snow Leopard Server are around £400 (not educational pricing). If Lion doesnt have a server version does this mean that by buying a £30 lion OS copy I will get the Server functionality? What about CALs?

Its all new to me and any assistance is appreciated.

Apparently you can just pay for Lion server in the region of £40. Hoping this is the case or we won't be upgrading any time soon. Importantly the server must be the newest version of all the OSes you want to bind, as it cannot control newer (Leopard server can't have Snow Leopard clients)

Obviously it's not such a hot idea to upgrade on release day especially in a school environment, but I would hope that by the tail end of the summer hols there should be enough information available to make a decision on.

Don't worry about it being all new, most of us are in the same boat. Once you demystify it all, it turns out it's actually not too difficult to get something that's workable and beneficial.

You need to wait until it comes out. We have all heard rumours, but until it comes out we wont know what the deal is. Wadtech went through the most likely way of doing things. The best route for you would be to get a snow leopard upgrade for one of your systems, then download 10.6.7 which has the app store and buy the upgrade. *from what I hear* You can then make an install media once Lion is installed which can be installed on any mac you own (Dont know how this would work in a school licence wise), regardless of the itunes account. Once it's installed, I'm guessing it wont need the itunes password. That would be a nightmare. This would tally with the previous upgrade licence which allowed you to install snow leopard on 3 machines if you bought the £41 family pack (Family packs haven't been announced yet). Once Lion is on your machines, you then go to the mac app store and buy the server app.
This way it will cost you the price of lion once and the price of the server app once. Dont buy snow leopard server as it would be a waste of money at this stage unless you intend to stick with that OS.

I don't know how the App store itself works, but I'm guessing it's an appleID (aka iTunes account) and that you would probably have to authorise an install using that.

Fingers crossed it's not a total nightmare.

p.s. I forgot to ask, what model and age are these macs? Leopard is the latest OS available for PowerPC models (eMacs)

Cheers,
wadtech

[mac_shinobi]

AppleInsider | Apple reveals Mac OS X Lion, Server prices for business and education

Am sure it will be similar in the UK

[Arthur]

Apparently you can just pay for Lion server in the region of £40.

Lion Server will cost £55.98 inc. VAT (£20.99 for Lion + £34.99 for the server apps).

It seems as though it's a download once, install many type deal

It is. This is how it should work...

1) Purchase Lion/Lion Server from the Mac App Store.
2) Go to your Applications folder, find the "Install Mac OS X Lion" application, right-click it and choose "Show Package Contents", burn InstallESD.dmg onto DVD.
3) Boot from DVD and install. Repeat this process on any other Mac's which you are licensed for. With Snow Leopard, you could simply copy the Lion .dmg to each Mac and run the installer from within the OS instead of creating DVDs.
4) On the Mac which will become your server, click the Mac App Store icon in your Dock, sign in with the Apple ID used in Step 1, then download and install the server apps for Lion.

Updates to Lion (e.g. 10.7.1, Safari etc.) are still downloaded via Software Update (no Apple ID required).

[localzuk]

You need to wait until it comes out. We have all heard rumours, but until it comes out we wont know what the deal is. Wadtech went through the most likely way of doing things. The best route for you would be to get a snow leopard upgrade for one of your systems, then download 10.6.7 which has the app store and buy the upgrade. *from what I hear* You can then make an install media once Lion is installed which can be installed on any mac you own (Dont know how this would work in a school licence wise), regardless of the itunes account. Once it's installed, I'm guessing it wont need the itunes password. That would be a nightmare. This would tally with the previous upgrade licence which allowed you to install snow leopard on 3 machines if you bought the £41 family pack (Family packs haven't been announced yet). Once Lion is on your machines, you then go to the mac app store and buy the server app.
This way it will cost you the price of lion once and the price of the server app once. Dont buy snow leopard server as it would be a waste of money at this stage unless you intend to stick with that OS.

The family pack has always been restricted to personal use only by the way and was not a legal way of licensing in education.

[Arthur]

Just found this...

Explaining the Mac OS X Lion Clean Install - OS X Daily

Mac OS X Lion is around the corner, and mixed in with the excitement is some frustration based on a misunderstanding of the system requirements. The latest bout of frustration comes from a post on MacRumors titled "Lion Clean Install Requires Snow Leopard Disc?" that apparently quotes Steve Jobs responding to a users question regarding a clean install:



The sender has a good question, and Steve Jobs answers correctly in that Lion requires Snow Leopard to install. This seems to have been improperly interpreted by some as that Mac OS X Lion can not be used to perform any “clean install” (for clarification: a clean installation of Lion would be a fresh install of Lion as the only operating system on a hard drive or partition, not an upgrade over a previously installed OS).

I am writing this to clarify that you can perform a clean install of Lion, to show you I did so, and also to explain some of the potential confusion which has led to the misunderstanding and flame-war around the web.

Proof of the Lion Clean Install
We’ll start off with the good stuff since this is what everyone seems concerned about. Yes you can create a fresh clean install of Lion. In fact, many of us who are running Lion Developer Preview have performed clean installs.

The only requirement for where a clean Lion installation is allowed is the existence of a target blank partition or hard drive that is properly formatted HFS+, this is the same requirement for past clean Mac OS X installs. I did precisely this in my post explaining how to dual boot Mac OS X Lion and Snow Leopard. I won’t walk through that entire post again, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that I created a separate partition for Lion, and performed a clean install of Lion on that partition, it was not an upgrade of Snow Leopard.

[wadtech]

Ok so as I understand it at the moment. We only need one Snow Leopard machine, in order to get access to the App store, then we can use DVD media (or netrestore?) to deploy Lion to the rest of the suite.

As for the server, which is Leopard Server there's no cheap upgrade path to Snow Leopard first, so might have to deploy Lion image and then buy Server components from the Mac store. (Fine by me, summer holidays job)

Thanks for the info, so confusing.

[fiza]

Thanks for all the info. Seems I wont be able to take advantage of the Educational pack as I only have 6 machines (they are Core 2 Duos) so dont qualify under the minimum quantity criteria but at least I wont have to individually download it on each machine and have an itunes type account on each machine.

[Arthur]

Ok so as I understand it at the moment. We only need one Snow Leopard machine, in order to get access to the App store, then we can use DVD media (or netrestore?) to deploy Lion to the rest of the suite.

Correct.

[wadtech]

Correct.

Cheers for clearing that up. Much obliged.