Machine specific updates

[hetjan]

Apple from time to time releases updates that are machine specific. The latest update is the just released update for MacBook Air (http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macbookairupdate.html).

Can I install these updates into my InstaDMG images? Will they work on the intended machines? Will they cause problems with other machines?

[larkost]

I have plans to look into all of these updates a bit later (since I have 600 computers that need their updates), and I think that it might work to get the installer put on the computers, but they are still going to need someone with the admin password applying them at the console (to hold down the button).

Specifically on the MacBook Air one, it does require a reboot, but it does not require anyone holding down the power button, so I think that it actually needs to be installed on the computer itself (since I would guess a component goes into firmware). So that one is probably a bad example.

[hetjan]

I would guess that your firmware assumption is wrong. To my knowledge the SMC and EFI firmware can’t be modified without a normal firmware update.

On a similar note: I don’t quite get why InstaDMG splits updates into BaseUpdates and CustomPKG. Does it matter what goes where?

[larkost]

The reason for the split is that you want the OS level updates to happen first. Actually you want things to happen in a specific order, and this helps a little bit with that. In InstaUp2Date I went even farther in splitting things up. Other than that, the two sections are exactly the same.

[hetjan]

So the Base updates are updates that require reboot? Some updates like the 10.5.x combo updater installs, then reboots and runs a some install scripts [plus another reboot?]. Does InstaDMG have to worry about that?

[larkost]

Requiring a reboot is not so much a deciding factor, as more of a usual consequence. And the reason that most of them require a reboot is that they just changes something in the underlying OS services. But in the case of InstaDMG they don’t touch the truly underlying OS, so it is not an issue.

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