Now we get to the things that did not work after the installation.

Immediately after the installation finished, I used Update. That downloaded just over a gigabyte of updates, the big one being the 10.7.2 update (remember, I installed using my original 10.7.0 USB memory stick) which clocked in at over 800 MB. The update did a re-boot and seemed to go smoothly.

When I tried to access a local web site (i.e. one on my computer), it did not work. A little bit of checking showed that the “web sharing” preference setting had not carried over. Turning that on allowed me to get at local web sites. Well, sort of... Apache was not interpreting PHP code. So the second setting that failed to carry over were those contained in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf. Changing the setting to load the PHP module resolved that issue. But I missed something...

Under Snow Leopard, I had installed a more up to date version of PHP than came with Mac OS X and that remains true under Lion. I had also built it to incorporate additional libraries that Apple does not include in their distribution (for example, “mcrypt” which is required to run phpMyAdmin). When I changed the setting to load the PHP module, I had just un-commented the default PHP5 loadmodule statement. I had used a nice build script made available by the folks at http://php-osx.liip.ch/. It does not muck up the distribution, but instead relies on changing the PHP5 loadmodule statement to point at the newly built PHP5 installation. That installation had been copied over, so the final change appeared to be to correct the PHP5 loadmodule statement.

Now, after restarting Apache, everything seemed fine.

But a few hours later, my Mac appeared to lock up. I got the dreaded spinning beach-ball cursor (the system busy cursor). I could move the cursor around the screen, but not change the focus (it occurred while in Firefox). I could not get at the Force Quit option of the Apple menu and the keyboard short cut also did not work. I thought I'd give it some time and read for about 1/2-hour. Still nothing. I also noticed that the clock (I use the digital setting) had not been updated (pretty obvious after 30 minutes!). The interesting thing is that I was running Safari at the same time as Firefox and using Safari to stream a British classical music radio station. Safari was minimized but despite the lock up, the music kept playing.

Eventually I powered down (I have a MacBook Pro — 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) which meant opening the lid and holding down the power button... I run my MacBook with its lid shut and external devices: a 30” Samsung monitor, an Apple USB keyboard and an Apple “Magic Trackpad”.

It has been running fine since I re-booted, but I'm starting to feel anxious.