Panther Upgrade Disc: Do You Need Jaguar Installed Already?


Does the Panther upgrade disc demand OS X 10.2? (Jaguar). Maybe, if MacBidouille's story, based on a Japanese Panther disc, proves accurate.

A reader points out that he has verified that the Panther upgrade would not install on a disc partition unless that partition already had Jaguar installed. A clean install is apparently not possible

What does this mean? That Panther is really an upgrade for Jaguar and not from OS 9 or any older version of OS X? Is it meant merely for Macs as an 'up-to-date' fulfilment program? Do you need to buy the full retail package if you're, say, upgrading from OS X 10.1.5?

MacBidouille conjectures that there may be a workaround to fool the 10.3 installer into doing the install without Jaguar. The OS X 10.1 upgrade disc could install on OS 9 systems with the deletion of merely one file - 'check for OS X'. We suspect Apple's awake to that one now and, obviously, it would be a license violation in any case.

Have you received your upgrade disc? Does it work with pre-Jaguar systems?