Creating a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Bootable Flash Drive 206
WankerWeasel writes "With the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion this month, Apple will no longer offer a bootable installer DVD and is making 10.7 Lion available only through the App Store. This guide provides quick instructions on how to use the OS X 10.7 Lion installer to create a bootable flash drive (instructions for making a bootable DVD are also included on the blog)."
So how do you install a new hard drive? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So how do you install a new hard drive? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, the same way every other OEM provides a way. Either open up the case in the case of a desktop or unscrew and open up the hatch for the hard drive bay on the laptop. It's extremely easy.
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You've obviously never had to replace the hard drive on an iMac...
The white ones suck due to the heat shielding, but the silver ones are no worse than a laptop GFX card replacement. Still, worse than just popping open a hatch and replacing a drive.
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If only they would listen to you (Score:2)
they could make literally thousands of dollars selling computers to geeks instead of having to suffer through making billions of dollars selling computers to consumers.
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I was wondering too. The current unibody Macbooks (white or the aluminum one I'm typing on that they only made for a few months) take about 5 minutes to swap out the drives. Even then, how often do you have to replace a hard drive? When I do, it's usually time for a new computer anyway.
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They provide a system recovery disk or flash drive with the computer.
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You don't. The new iMacs have a non-standard hard drive that must be replaced by an Apple technician.
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Um no they just have to be a newer HDD from the same manufacturer. It it was a Seagate, you replace it with another Seagate. If it was a WD, replace it with another WD. The Internet tells you exact what will and won't work.
This is not correct. Manufacturers have been making modified versions of their hard drives that first started appearing in the 2011 model iMacs. They are not the standard drives the manufacturers sell to the rest of the world.
Other World Computing has the full details in their blog posting.
http://blog.macsales.com/10206-further-explained-apples-imac-2011-model-hard-drive-restrictions
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Yeah, I mean you have to buy yourself a 4 dollar screwdriver [amazon.com] to unscrew it. OH THE HUMANITY!!!!!
Re:So how do you install a new hard drive? (Score:5, Interesting)
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0wned? (nt) (Score:2)
oh snap.
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And yet many have replaced their hard drives (yours truly included) with SSD's or other gear and had no problems.
First of all, Apple doesn't "block" you from using other hard drives nor do they use any specific firmware. The only thing that happens is that your fans may spin a bit harder (and they're very quiet to begin with) and that the optional Apple Hardware Test may fail on 1 test reporting a bad temperature sensor.
The issue seems to be (and you can read this in several other forums and blogs as well)
No, MacBooks just can't run at SATA III speeds (Score:3)
No, MacBooks just can't run at SATA III speeds. This is because the SATA cable is insufficient'y shielded, and since it's not COAX, if you put in a very fast drive, it'll happily negotiate the higher 6Gb/S data rate and then get errors and crash because of it.
So it's really not a good idea to put the jumped up SSD drives in as a replacement for the existing drives (and no, a real and shielded SATA III coax has insufficient clearance to install in place of the old cable; the tolerances are too tight).
-- Ter
Re:So how do you install a new hard drive? (Score:5, Informative)
This is one of the problems with owning a Mac. Everyone wants to see them fall.
So when one site states (through a mistake of their own making) that you cannot replace an iMac's hard drive with anything but an Apple-supplied drive, it goes viral, everyone who doesn't own a Mac (and some Mac users) want to believe it SO DAMNED HARD that it becomes repeated as truth, modified, passed on, and changed into various forms of APPLE ARE DOING THIS INSANE THING OMG.
Hint as to the truth: I replaced my brand new two week old 27" iMac's 1TB WD hard drive with a 3TB Seagate, and it didn't make the thermal sensors go crazy, it didn't refuse to boot, it didn't run at half speed, and it certainly didn't send DRM monkeys flying to Apple to report me. I closed up the iMac, re-installed the OS, and went on with my business as normal... then I had just about every Mac owner who hadn't done it themselves ask how I got around Apple's HD restrictions.
Lies last a long time when they're popular.
Re:So how do you install a new hard drive? (Score:4, Informative)
This is why I hate anti-apple people. Nothing in your post is true. You can't buy an "apple HDD", so therefore they aren't 2-3x as much. You can, however, buy any replacement drive you like, or go to an Apple store and pay a little more for the same thing you can buy at Fry's.
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Culture20 is talking about the new iMacs only (so far).
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/12/apple-restricts-hard-drive-replacements-on-new-imacs/ [macrumors.com]
Try to keep up before falsely accusing others of spewing nonsense.
Re:So how do you install a new hard drive? (Score:4, Informative)
So, no, you don't need to buy Apple HDDs or whatever nonsense you are spewing.
Please tell that to angry iMac Fans:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3053942?start=0&tstart=0 [apple.com]
http://blog.macsales.com/10146-apple-further-restricts-upgrade-options-on-new-imacs [macsales.com]
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/12/apple-restricts-hard-drive-replacements-on-new-imacs/ [macrumors.com]
Re:So how do you install a new hard drive? (Score:4, Informative)
So, no, you don't need to buy Apple HDDs or whatever nonsense you are spewing.
Please tell that to angry iMac Fans:
Yeah, because "angry iMac Fans" have never been wrong before.
BTW, the claim "you have to buy only Apple HDDs" is already wrong, and that is not what people actually complain about, so I'm not even going to waste more time with you troll.
http://forum.hardmac.com/index.php?s=c4ee13da3fefe1394852a4b8fa883faf&showtopic=10324&st=0&p=18910&#entry18910 [hardmac.com]
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/05/13/hdd-fan-control-software-addresses-imac-hard-drive-replacement-i/ [tuaw.com]
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1183176 [macrumors.com]
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or drive to your local home depot...
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100087664/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053 [homedepot.com]
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Imagine my annoyance when I discovered it needed a T-45 and I only had up to T-30.
This afternoon I had cause to attempt a service on an espresso machine. It had security screws on two of eight in the baseplate, which I have a bit for. The problem came when I tried to insert the bit, surrounded by the holder into the small recess.
I will just go out and buy another screwdriver. A £1 screwdriver is cheaper than a Â
Already have a bootable USB driver for MacOS (Score:3)
I expect the stumbling block here is creating some sort of normal looking install media for MacOS Lion.
Once you've got that, it's actually pretty simple to target any USB storage device. Just install it like you would a normal disk. Pretty simple stuff.
rank speculation (Score:2, Insightful)
With the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion this month, Apple will no longer offer a bootable installer DVD and is making 10.7 Lion available only through the App Store.
Apple only announced that Lion would be available through the Mac App Store. They did not annouce anything else. All commentary on whether or not you will be able to burn a bootable disk, whether or not you will be able to purchase physical media, and so on, is merely uninformed speculation.
Re:rank speculation (Score:5, Informative)
Apple has said, quite explicitly, that Lion will ONLY be available in the App store. They mentioned this as part of the WWDC keynote.
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I was there. I heard them. It will only be available for purchase via the app store. They did not say ***anything*** at all about bootable disks, whether/how you could burn one, whether there would be any kind of recovery disk available, and so on. You, like the OP, are extrapolating based on your own assumptions.
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I was there. I heard them. It will only be available for purchase via the app store. They did not say ***anything*** at all about bootable disks, whether/how you could burn one, whether there would be any kind of recovery disk available, and so on. You, like the OP, are extrapolating based on your own assumptions.
Yes they did. Watch the WWDC keynote again from Apple's keynote podcast. It is at the 35 minute mark and Phil Schiller says, "How are we going to get it? In the past, one thing that every version of Mac X has shared in common that it came on an optical disc. No more. (preso animation of a disc dissolving) Lion will only be available in the Mac App Store."
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That still says nothing about making your own bootable discs. It doesn't come on an optical disc anymore (as in, Apple won't sell it that way), but who says you can't put it on one? Nobody.
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They have clearly said that THEY will not supply any physical media. It is easy to speculate, however, that you'll be able to make your own physical media.
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Apple has said, quite explicitly, that Lion will ONLY be available in the App store. They mentioned this as part of the WWDC keynote.
So new Macs will never come with Lion?
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So new Macs will never come with Lion?
New Macs will come with the latest OS on the hard drive like always.
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oh, I agree... once you have it downloaded, it's quite easy to just burn the file to a DVD or a USB key. I was just saying that in order to buy it, you'll be doing that through the App Store.
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Speculation? People are burning backup media. The gold master has been released to developers. Not much speculation at this point.
The speculation is if it will be possible to buy an optical disc at some point. I would be surprised if it doesn't come out eventually, or maybe they only sell it in areas without Apple stores, or something similar.
No DVD for upgrade, but probably for new computers (Score:3)
Apple will no longer offer a bootable installer DVD ...
Note that everyone is talking about the 10.7 ***upgrade***. If you are buying a new mac with 10.7 preinstalled you will probably have DVD media to restore your system.
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Yeah, great to replace an optical disk that is cheap enough to be disposable with something that isn't quite so dirt cheap anymore.
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Err, for consumers it's better - installing from USB thumb drive is FAR faster... Sure, it costs a little more for Apple to supply it.
But here's an idea, when they do Mac OS X 10.8 it would be really easy to write that image over your install USB to keep it current.
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For the Air it would have to be... but why not standardize. Great opportunity here for Apple.
The restore media may have different contents depending on the product family, more than the operating system may be included. My several year old media seems product family specific. Even if the media is universal they could save a lot of money by using less expensive DVDs for the majority of the computers to be sold.
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Except that you won't. You'll have a new Mac with a drive that has Lion with a recovery partition. No disks, sorry.
Pure BS and FUD (Score:5, Informative)
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It's BS and FUD to you, certainly - any of us here know (or should know) that the download includes an image for a bootable DVD. But how many normal Mac users are going to know that? In all honesty I don't know how well publicised this is. I read the tech press so I've known it for a while, but if I asked someone like my dad? I'm not so sure. Then their drive goes down, their computer is unbootable, and they're mightily pissed off with Apple for either not making it clearer (though as I say, it's possible t
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Or they boot from their existing media and use their Apple ID to re-download it (yes a huge hassle... but doable). Or probably more likely they take it to an Apple Store where a "genius" fixes it, and as part of that process they reload the OS... Just saying.
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But a problem there is if there *are* no Apple stores nearby, and you're on capped broadband.
I just think Apple probably should offer Lion on DVDs, too. As it is, a lot of their customers aren't likely to have burned any recovery media and will have to go to an Apple store... and there might not even be any. (I live in Norway. We don't have any here. We've got quite a few resellers, but they're just resellers, and I've got absolutely no idea what they will or won't be able to do.)
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Connect it to the Internet and use your Apple ID to download a fresh copy (it really is that simple).
Yeah, Apple have removed the floppy disk again... we'll adapt.
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yea a bootable dmg file you should have burned when you downloaded it does not do much good when its been deleted for 8 months and your computer is hosed does it
Apple! Always finding a way to fuck up a perfectly good disk
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If your Dad doesn't know to make a recovery disk or thumb drive, he's also not gonna know how to boot from the system disk that was provided.
And if you don't understand Apple's desire to push new paradigms like download-only purchases, then you haven't been paying attention to anything they've done in the past 10 years.
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Or, they're going to buy a much cheaper Dell machine and say "Fuck Apple". Which is a scenario Apple obviously think isn't going to happen - and hell, they're a big company with some good market research so it's entirely possible they're right and the bulk of their target demographic would just go out and buy another Macbook Pro - but which is a scenario I know would happen with a good few people like my dad who know enough about computers to be comfortable, but aren't nerdy enough to read the tech press or
Yeah, Dell is kicking Apple's ass lately (Score:2)
Clearly Apple needs to come read slashdot forums so they can get their company back on track.
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Damn straight.
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Yeah because every PC OEM includes reinstall media don't they? Oh, but they don't, they include a "reinstall partition" (which is no help if the drive is borked). I even saw a laptop (Acer I think) where you could only make one set of the reinstall media from the recovery partition! (Think about that for a while... yeah)
Apple are one of the few vendors who include a recovery DVD (currently), I think it highly likely they will continue to provide recovery media of some kind (I think it'll be a MacBook Air st
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Lenovo also limits you to only one backup of the recovery partition, though it is easy to modify a hidden .ini file to allow another one.
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Every single year, eh? Let's take a look in my house.
1999 G4 Mac, original two hard drives still work, computer still works
2006 Intel core solo Macbook, original hard drive
2007 Intel core duo iMac, original hard drive
2008 Intel Core 2 Duo Macbook (aluminum), original hard drive
2010 Intel Core i7 Macbook Pro, original hard drive
So it seems your assessment that I should buy a new Mac every year due to failing hard drives is anecdotally incorrect--I seem to buy them because I like them.
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What difference does it make if they include physical media or not? Dell and other "PC" vendor's don't ship their systems w/ restore disk's anyways.
No, but HP at least plasters a huge dialog on first boot that asks you to insert a couple DVDs to create restore disks. Hopefully Apple does the same thing with these dmg files.
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Is there some reason to believe that new machines will not ship with restore disks of some sort?
Existing machines already have a bootable OS -- you might have to install 10.6 before you re-upgrade to 10.7, but that's going to be true of any aftermarket upgrade on any platform.
So unless someone wants to link to a credible story that reads "Apple stops shipping bootable media with new computers" the only real the only problem here is people who want to create a 10.7 installer disk for existing machines. That
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Is there some reason to believe that new machines will not ship with restore disks of some sort?
Yes, because Apple has said as much.
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Unfortunately I wouldn't argue with that.
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Everything you say is true, but it won't make any difference to GPP or others like him. The Apple-haters, like all fanatics, are uninterested in trivial things like data and logic.
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Nearly every consumer agency rates Apple at the top or near the top in hardware reliability. I'd cite it here, but it's easy to find for yourselves.
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The barest of UNIX underpinnings, and adoption of non-UNIXy elements.
Given that it's certified UNIX, what's "bare" or "non-UNIXy" about OS X?
Last I checked, all the things that Linux geeks swear by - you know, powerful shell, vim/emacs etc are all there.
USB flash drives cost more than DVDs (Score:5, Insightful)
Are Apple's profits too infinitesimal for them to take the staggering loss of pennies by making millions of DVDs that nobody uses after the first install? Or are they trying to help the environment by forcing all their technically-gifted customers to buy USB flash drives so that we can install a single download onto multiple computers?
I think this move is every bit as misguided as Apple's Final Cut Pro X (iMovie Pro) and only slapping 2GB RAM onto brand new MacBooks - or Jobs' decision to not include a disk drive on the NeXt Cube (a decade before writable CD's were widely available). Yes, I use Macs, but more and more begrudgingly because those rich BASTARDS are being CHEAPSKATES.
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You can't copy a file across your network?! Seriously, think about it - you downloaded it, you're going to run it from the hard disk. Now how can you do that from another computer? Copy the file across the network perhaps?
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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Belkin-F2CD008ng1-5M-Apple-Cable-Display/dp/B0038FI326%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAISRIXQ6RZDSZIFDA%26tag%3Dprodurevie0e6-21%26linkCode%3Dsp1%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB0038FI326 [amazon.co.uk]
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At least it's only a $30 service pack
FTFY
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or that XP was a service pack to Win2000 (both are NT 5.x)
jobs is louseing it time for him to go! (Score:2)
jobs is louseing it time for him to go!
He will likely F* the next mini with a i3 cpu and on board intel video that is weaker then todays mini with on board nvidia video. and have like 1-2 TB ports on linked at x4 so that will be like 8-12 unused pci-e lanes that are a good fit for some kind better video chip.
They want everything to be Apple Store (Score:2)
They really like the iDevice model, where they are the gatekeepers and controllers of all your stuff. You buy everything for your device from them, from one place they control. They decide what can be sold, and they get a cut of everything. That model has worked real well for them. Their massive rise has not been because of their computer division, it has been because of their consumer electronics division and associated online store (don't believe the fanboys who say they make nothing on iTunes and so on).
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In terms of the USB drive, if one wanted to make a USB bootable copy of the new OS, a 2 GB USB drive costs $5. I suspect that Apple w
Thank god Apple has you to guide them... (Score:2)
...or else their stock price might continue its perpetual slide into oblivion. I mean seriously, that company must be running on fumes now.
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You do realize that Apple reduced the price of the upgrade by 75% while moving to App Store distribution, right? I'm not crazy about distributing a new OS over the App Store, but keep in mind Apple could have *EASILY* charged $129 for Lion and people would have paid for it.
Also, pressing one DVD may cost pennies, but the screen printing costs several times that. Add in mastering costs, packaging, manufacturing, distribution, retail, suddenly you have half a dozen vertical chains to organize. That doesn't co
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You don't have a LAN? The upgrade is a single file. Transfer it to the other computer and upgrade it.
Macs can boot from USB now? (Score:2)
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I can't speak for the PowerPC macs, but as far as I know all the Intel Macs have been able to boot from USB. The catch is they can only boot from EFI formatted USB devices, not MBR.
The Fedora Live CD has a way of creating EFI live USB sticks, but you have to burn the CD to get to it! I've never been able to get Ubuntu booting from USB.
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I was able to boot from a SCSI zip drive in the early/mid 90s, so I imagine USB was supported as well (but never tried). It's not like the Windows world where you are constantly doing a clean install of the OS.
Fuddy duddy (Score:2)
initial release of Lion is via the app store, a DVD will follow, at extra cost. It is no different to what a number of major PC companies have done, eg HP, with preinstalled versions of Windoze and a promise to reinstall if the HD fails under warranty. You can save the install app to a DVD or backup drive, you can install Lion on many of your home computers and reinstall Lion by mounting the repaired machine as a HD on the desktop of another Mac. or you can right click on the install app and burn the disk i
I'm a typical Slashdotter! (Score:2)
This is totally misguided!! Apple is totally shunning all those 56k people that... oh, that complaint came up already.
Uh... Oh oh Apple insists you gotta use a proprietary screwdriver to... dang, that one's here, too.
Ok.. ok... umm oh oh oh it's so confusing that they call it iOS, that's a Cisco thing!!
Re:Tired of all of the wanking about Lion (Score:4, Insightful)
Or perhaps you don't live anywhere near an Apple store -- you do realise that there are countries in the world with only one or two, or even none whatsoever? And that some of those are actually big Apple markets? Like Scandinavia where every monkey and his uncle has an iPhone but there are basically no Apple stores? And perhaps you have capped broadband, with a 4gig download taking a massive chunk out of the monthly limit? Perhaps you both live in a country without an Apple store *and* have capped broadband or, horror of horrors, dialup internet?
It wouldn't take much for Apple to have just released this the normal way in addition to the Mac App Store. But no, they went about it this way, intentionally alienating a section of their market. Not a very large or profitable section, mind, which is why they don't give a shit. Likewise with ditching Rosetta.
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From the original post: "If you don't want an apple id, are on AOL dialup, etc. you could still get it in person at an apple store the old fashioned way."
Fuck's sake. Learn to read. And if you assumed I was just talking about the App store, what part of "And perhaps you have capped broadband, with a 4gig download taking a massive chunk out of the monthly limit?" seems confusing?
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Perhaps their policy in places like Scandinavia and Australia will be different based on those regions strict bandwidth policies. Apple goes out of their way pretty well for other markets (just look at their localization of the OS, for example), and aren't as typically ego-centric-American as most US companies seem to be, in my opinion.
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Indeed, but if you google "OS X Lion boot disk" (not quoted, although that would probably work too), you'll find that the same instructions are all over the place. Basically, download the Lion installer, dig around inside it for a .dmg file, burn that, and you're done.
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Apple just invented this option. Linux never had it. Apple invented it because I saw in an Apple commercial that it's a cool new feature that they just invented.
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Ermm, no. You've been able to do this with Apple ever since, I don't know, Disk Utility v.1.0?
This is not a new feature for Apple. They don't even want you to know this is a feature. People who don't know how to use Disk Utility won't ever know they need it and people who need to do a clean install of Lion know how to use Disk Utility already. This is the biggest non-issue in Apple history.
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they want to make sure its stable before patenting it
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Linux has had this option for ages. How often does Apple play catch up with the OSS community?
Hate to break it to you but Mac OS has had this option longer than Linux has been around.
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> but instead how to specifically do this for Lion, since Lion doesn't come on a disc like previous versions.
Write the disk image to an actual CD.
That's kind of like what Linux has been doing since pretty much forever.
You can create your own private "app store" with Linux too.
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He said "I don't see how it's supposedly difficult, it's like DOS and Windows."
If you can't see the problem right there, you are lost.
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I'm not arguing or trolling - do you have a source for that? The last I knew that was properly clear, it claimed that Lion would only be available as a download from the App Store. That came straight from Apple's comments at the WWDC.
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I bet there will only USB thumb drive reinstall media - but personally I think that's better.
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Most people switch OSes because the OS sucks, not because one app for the OS sucks.
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Lion is $30. If you go over your ATT limit and have to pay an extra $50 or whatever, you are still ahead by $50 over the traditional $130 OS X upgrade.