This is the story of how I installed Leopard.
To begin, India doesn't have any Apple stores, and their few resellers are still selling products that were replaced a year ago, so I faced the fact that this story would begin with 80 hours of continuous downloading.
I awoke suddenly at 5:30 AM this morning, and instead of going back to sleep, I checked my computer. Finished! I put on some coffee and got started.
As I stared at 66 100 MB files, I realized I didn't know what to do with them. There was no instruction manual. I panicked... the first of many.
An hour later, I found the solution in a little-known program Split & Concat. This process took another hour to complete.
Having began the day with caffeine, I couldn't nap.. so I read the first few chapters of The Fountainhead. That Roark seems like a cool guy. I bet he would've used a mac, too.
I was then faced with a very large disk image (6.66 GB to be exact, and ominous) that I soon realized was meant for a dual-layer dvd. If I'm going to find one of those in Mysore it'll be at FabCity. I call a familiar auto-rickshaw driver.
"Hello, Murhli? This is Nathan."
"Yes, hello?"
"Are you for hire from my campus?"
"Yes I am already coming."
"Someone else hired you from here?"
"Yes, yes."
"Okay, that's fine, sorry to bother you. I'm not with them, goodbye."
"Yes, goodbye."
I soon realize I don't have a dual-layer burner anyway, so I decided to try another approach: delete unnecessary files from the image like printer drivers and international languages. After a long, painful process I had a single-layer disc burned and ready.
I boot from the CD, which takes 30 minutes to load up into the installer. I click through a few menus and it starts to verify the installer CD.
"Install failed: crucial files are missing on the installer disc."
Okay so this approach isn't going to work. I could try an external hard drive, but I didn't bring mine to India. I was borrowing one from my generous friend to backup my data... but using it as an install disk would mean repartitioning it and erasing all current data. He's fine with that, though, and I'm about to get started when my phone rings:
"Hello?"
"Hello. Murhli! I am at the gate."
"Oh, hello, you must be waiting for someone else."
"Yes, okay."
"I'll call them."
"Yes. goodbye."
So I call one of my coworkers who usually uses Murhli as a driver.
"Hey, are you going into town?"
"No, but Murhli just called me. Did you hire him?"
"No. Well, maybe. I thought he said he was coming for someone else."
"Hmm well it's not me. I think he's here for you."
"ah, great. well, I've gotta figure this out."
I put on some clothes and walk up to the gate, sign out, then call Murhli.
"Hello, Murhli? Are you at the gate"
"Yes, 5 minutes."
Okay, my plan is to just give him 100 rupees and send him on his way with an apology. I check my wallet, however, and I only have Rs 500 bills. 15 minutes later, Murhli arrives, and I just decide to let him drive me to FabCity.
Frustrated, I'm inside for 5 minutes. They didn't have dual-layer dvds, but I couldn't use them anyway... so I buy a pack of diet coke and get back in the auto-rickshaw and head back to campus.
Having wasted a copious amount of time, I guiltily reformat my friend's hard-drive and create a mac partition. I'm about to start the install, but I realize I have to be in the education center in 5 minutes to integrate my java project with my group.
I return 2 hours later remembering I have to re-backup all my data again, only this time my laptop won't recognize the hard-drive. So I attempt to reformat it again, but i get a message saying there's an I/O error. I've gotta stop messing around with this thing before I break it. I give it back to H.P. (luckily it works for him) and give up for the time being.
Four days later I'm in Singapore. Singapore has Apple Premium Resellers: Singapore has Leopard. I have Leopard.
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