I will shortly be transferring all my data from my old iMac to a new M4 Mac Mini using Migration Assistant/ Time Machine backup. However, I believe that a cleaner result would be achieved if I do a fresh install of Libre Office on the Mac Mini before doing the transfer, particularly because of the different chips used on the two machines, i.e. Intel vs Apple M4. Am I correct and do I need to take any precautions?
Your data will be safe. However, you must reinstall the applications from fresh because the machine code is different.
Unless, LO Mac is some kind of “fat binary” as was once the case when Apple transitioned from 68K to PowerPC: the application file contained both versions. But this was done on Apple software. LO is third party and I don’t think such a strategy is available (not considering that the binary becomes really huge for no real benefit).
There really is a universal binary for both Intel and Silicon on macOS; and IIUC we offer it from macOS appstore. But unfortunately not from our download site, where we have separate installers for Intel and for Silicon. I disagree with the “no real benefit” assessment - the ease of use here is very important, esp. in view of macOS’s default browser making it completely impossible to detect the architecture of the system, making the site offer only one architecture for all macOS users - which is wrong for part of them, and requires them to pick the correct one manually.
I totally believe, that wasting a hundred megabytes is OK, when this results in better user’s comfort. Only when you can reach the same level of comfort without that waste, will that become bloat.
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Thanks for your answer but I am not entirely clear. I am somewhat concerned about bloat, because I went for the basic model M4 although I am attempting to put big apps on an external drive. Vivaldi is already installed as my browser of choice on the Mac Mini, so will that give me the Apple M4 option as opposed to the Universal option on the Download site?
As I said, the download site only provides separate options, no universal installer. The universal one in only used for apple store.