Well, I just finished installing Leopard on my 4th Mac (one was for a friend of mine) and my initial thoughts are this… Fantastic OS, buggy installer. I had to do a full install on one of the four computers due to an unrecoverable error message during the upgrade. I had luckily backed up everything on that computer (and it was my non-critical laptop) but I shudder to think what my reaction would have been if I hadn’t.
Also, restoring files from the backup was not seamless – it would not import my old address book calendar files and did not import e-mail settings. The only way I was able to get my data back on the computer was due to my “backup” contacts and calendar on my iPhone…
Reading around the net today a LOT of people who tried the default upgrade encountered similar problems. If this was Windows, a LOT more press would come from this, methinks, but due to the “thank you sir may I have another” relationship may in the Apple community have with the company, the complaints will be far less than the number of individuals affected by this.
I think that the installer, honestly, was not ready for release, but Apple, just like they did with the iPhone, released a partial-beta to the public.
The most success (and the only upgrade of the two I tried that worked) was with my son’s mac mini, but then again, he has no e-mail or calendar entries and very few documents…
As I stated, he operating system is fantastic (and I am already taking advantage of spaces to increase my efficiency), but the advice I am giving everyone is simple – if you can backup and know how to restore your files, then do a clean install. Otherwise, wait until the next version is released (probably before Christmas – look for stickers on the outside of the package before then, indicating the point-release…)