I have a G4 i-Mac at my place....its a dual boot. It was set up by the same people that set up my work computer....so the hard drive is partitioned. For some reason....my OSX won't boot up...so I've been booting up in OS 9.2 I want to upgrade to the latest version of OSX....I guess my question is can I just install OSX over what I have already? Will the partitioning get messed up....or is it as simple as just putting the DVD in and clicking install?

 

yuou can choose to repartition the drive if you want to during the install process. this does not mean you need to, you can install osx on the partition that doesn't have 9.2 on it.

 

Not try and threadjack this, but I am looking at purchasing a new iBook or MacBook and I was wondering if you can install Apache on the OSx OS.

 

osx has a built in apache server.

 

like robb said, apache is bundled with OSX. but yeah, you could compile/install the most recent Apache as well if you wanted (which i'd recommend if you're using it for serious development).

my MacBook is a complete unix development environment, an identical replica to my web server.

 

Fantastic.

I have been looking at getting something that is mobile that I can use for my development / designing and for work.

I'd assume that installing PHP/mySQL is a cinch too?

 

theyre also bundled.

if you want custom installations, you have a million options on how to do it. you can either compile it yourself (as you would with any UNIX system), you can use mac/darwin ports, or you can simply use pre-packaged installers.

since i use my system for development of production level software, i compile and install every package on my system myself. this lets me maintain strict control of exactly what is and what is not on my system. everything goes neatly into /usr/local so i can be confident my environment will remain independent of outside influence.