Mac Snow Leopard

macman

I agree with Leopard about giving it time. I had OS 10.5 pre-ordered, and was distraught after installing it turned my previously reliable G5 iMac into one that crashed 4 or 5 times a day. It was like going back to Windows 98. Apple did get it sorted in a few months, but it should never have been released in such a buggy state. Let's hope they get it right this time.

Leopard

Marty_J wrote: »

I've installed every update to OS X as soon as I could, and haven't had any problems.

What on earth do you mean, Marty J ?

Mac OS 10.5 was released in October 2007. For four months, until the huge overhaul that was 10.5.2 in February 2008, if you tried to Secure Delete a file the whole system would lock up and freeze, requiring a hard restart. There were plenty of other bugs (such as the fact that it would show my iDisk as having a capacity of 219 GB and its inability to synch the system clock with Apple's time servers, to mention but two) but how basic is the ability to delete a file securely and show the correct time? As macman says, it was a disaster and a disgrace.

After it had wreaked havoc on two of my Macs (of different generations) I had to quarantine it on to an external Firewire 800 drive, from which I could boot it and experiment with it until Apple finally got it sorted out. For any important work I had to go on using OS 10.4 natively on my Macs until Apple eventually did. And so did everyone else I know, including my local Apple dealer.

Given that debacle, I thought it was pretty rich for Apple to make TV ads poking fun at Microsoft for not being able to get LongWait/Viagra to work properly.

Just what were you using 10.5 to do in 2007, if you never encountered a problem with it? Do you never securely delete a file?

So bad was the original OS 10.5 that I even encountered problems with it last year when using it transitorily to put an OS on new hard drives before running the Combo updater. To such a degree that when iWork and iLife '09 came out, I bought the Box Set to give me a Mac OS 10.5.6 install disk.

I'm keeping the original Mac OS 10.5 install disk, though, because it gives me its multiuser licence - and that is the licence I regard as my moral entitlement to run Mac OS 10.5.7 on my Wind. If ever Apple should complain about me installing Mac OS X on a Wind, I'll point out that my OS 10.5.0 - for which I paid Apple some £80 - so breached its own EULA that it couldn't even run on a Mac. So, I'll damned well put it on a Wind if I want to.

Even today, when I go to the Apple Retail Store, the guy who sold me my original Mac OS 10.5 on the day it was launched still blushes when I remind him of what a terrible piece of software he inflicted on me.

I'll never trust Apple again, after that catastrophe.

Marty_J

As I say, I don't recall encountering such disastrous consequences.

The only major problem I do remember was with one of the earlier releases; 10.3 perhaps? It had something weird going on with FireWire drives that had Oxford chipsets. Mounting a drive would randomly render its contents unreadable, and the only cure was to format it and start over. Not nice when you've spent all day recording, only to see everything you've done disappear forever. At least Macs don't say "it's not my fault" any more.

Still, such is life I guess.

Leopard

Er, take no offence, Marty, but how does:

Marty_J wrote: »

I've installed every update to OS X as soon as I could, and haven't had any problems. In fact, 10.0 was probably the worst of the lot of them (unsurprisingly), and I've found every subsequent release to be an improvement.

equate with:

Marty_J wrote: »

The only major problem I do remember was with one of the earlier releases; 10.3 perhaps? It had something weird going on with FireWire drives that had Oxford chipsets. Mounting a drive would randomly render its contents unreadable, and the only cure was to format it and start over. Not nice when you've spent all day recording, only to see everything you've done disappear forever.

I'd call that quite a problem. :eek:

BikerEd

Not had any problems with Leopard, right since the day it was released, and I'm a heavy user of the system.

Marty_J

Leopard wrote: »

Er, take no offence, Marty, but how does:



equate with:



I'd call that quite a problem. :eek:

lol....I had actually forgotten about it until I read your litany of broken dreams and shattered promises concerning 10.5!

M4RKM

for those of you who are not on 10.5, the option won't be a "full" version of snow leopard, but the Box Set, which will include iwork and ilife as well..

Leopard

BikerEd wrote: »

Not had any problems with Leopard, right since the day it was released, and I'm a heavy user of the system.

With respect, the factor involved is not how heavily you use the system but how widely you use (or tried to use) the various different features of the system.

If you used heavily one of the few parts of the system that did actually work properly when it was released, you would not have encountered problems - whereas others, who tried to use (heavily or otherwise) features of the system that you did not, found that they were extremely bug-ridden.

Even so, I'm surprised that you did not notice ridiculous sizes being shown for your iDisc, that you didn't notice your clock in the menu bar showing the wrong time and that you never experienced a fatal freeze by trying to Secure Delete a document in the Trash.

Because pretty much everyone else did, at the time.

The majority of its failings were fixed by the OS 10.5.2 Updater in February 2008 but the time server synching failure wasn't repaired until the OS 10.5.4 Update.

Perhaps Apple, in its rush to meet the deadline for launch, distributed install discs that were not identical? I suppose it's possible. It's also possible that the install behaved differently with different people, depending on what software and preferences they had on their existing OS 10.4 system.

But whatever was your own experience of the original launch version of Mac OS 10.5.0, it caused a tremendous amount of hassle and grief for most people.

BikerEd

Worth keeping an eye on this frequently updated application compatibility list - http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/

Marty_J

For anyone who is interested, Snow Leopard will be shipping on the 28th August, and is available to pre-order from the Apple Store. The price is £25 to upgrade from Mac OS X 10.5, or £39 for a five user family pack.

Mac OS X 10.4 users will have to upgrade by purchasing the Mac box set, which includes OS X 10.6, iLife 09 and iWork 09. The price is £129, or £179 for a five user family pack.

Alternatively, if you don't want the Mac box set, you can purchase 10.5 from Amazon for £69, and then buy the 10.6 upgrade for £25 at a total cost of £94. A bit of a faff perhaps, but you would be saving £35. iLife 09 and iWork are more than worth the extra £35, but it's nice to have options.

Anyone who purchased a qualifying Mac from the 8th June onwards will be able to upgrade for a cost of £7.95 under Apple's Up-to-Date Programme.

Mac OS X 10.6 is Intel-only, so I'm afraid PowerPC Mac users are out of luck.