Mac Users - Leopard?

[R]

Hi to the Mac users. I recently installed Mac OSX 10.5.1, Leopard, on my iMac and eMac at home. Initially, however, it seems to have a few serious bugs. One that I have experienced, and a friend at my office experienced, is that downloads can hang and never finish, though not always. I like lots of the new features, like Stacks, Screen Sharing, Time Machine, Mail 3.1, etc. What has your experience been? Tiger (10.4.11) is mature, and is rock solid. My installations are on Firewire external drives, so I can easily go right back to Tiger if I need to.

[stefan]

i have noticed some little bugs too, but nothing paralyzing. although i haven't had the download problem you have had, i have seen that others have.

10.5.2 should be coming out very soon (any day now) and should (as has been tested by developers) fix a tremendous number of issues. tiger had bugs at this stage as well, many of which were fixed by the correspondingly similar update 10.4.2.


my biggest gripe was that they shipped leopard with a broken x11. although many mac users don't use x11, there is a core of us which rely heavily on it. while there are options to rebuild tiger's x11 or using open source xquartz project, it's frustrating that apple has left this core of users hanging in a sense. hopefully they will fix it in 10.5.2.

[CarpeyBiggs]

5.... 4... 3... 2... 1...

Cue up typical bashing of all things apple, and ROLL IT!
:popcorn:

[Alex]

LOL Dan, I had the thoughts rushing through my head as I was reading the thread, so I will just restrain myself and go chew on ice or something :five:

[Iceaxe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No4GzXzNIY8

[accadacca]

:roflol: I LOVE that video.

[accadacca]

Sorry for the slight hijack. Apple fans check this out: "Unboxing a brand new Apple //c in 2008 [pics]"

http://flickr.com/photos/dansays/sets/72157603835099525/

[RedMan]

It seems to launch apps slower than Tiger.

But tonight I rendered some vids and it is much faster so go figure.

[stefan]

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/02/05/linus2_wideweb__470x300,0.jpg

Torvalds pans Apple with 'utter crap' putdown
Nick Miller
The Syndey Morning Herald


Apple's much-touted new operating system, OS X Leopard, is in some ways worse than Windows Vista, says the founder of the Linux open source project, Linus Torvalds.

Torvalds was in Melbourne last week for the linux.conf.au conference and was invited to pass judgement on OS X versus Windows Vista in a wide-ranging interview.

"I don't think they're equally flawed - I think Leopard is a much better system," he said. "(But) OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary."

He poured scorn on the modern trend to treat a new version or update of an operating system as a cause for major celebration and marketing.

"An operating system should be completely invisible," he said. "To Microsoft and Apple (it is) a way to control the whole environment ... to force people to upgrade their applications and hardware."

As for his own operating system, Linus said the most exciting developments were Linux's improving green credentials, and a push into mobile devices such as the One Laptop per Child project and Asus's new ultra-cheap Eee PC.

The latter, he said, could be a sign that Asian hardware manufacturers were starting to bypass Western commercial operating systems in order to get more control over their products.

"That's the primary area that open source (software like Linux) is useful. Software is really expensive to produce and takes years. If you're a hardware company you can't really afford that, you either have to be controlled from the outside or take a pre-existing software stack that you can make changes to."

Linux would be an obvious choice for anything from full-blown PCs to phones or video players, Torvalds said.

"I think it's one pretty exciting possibility and it's where the market really wants to go," he said. "The hardware in a mobile device now outweighs anything in a desktop 15 years ago - which is where Linux came from. The (Linux) kernel is already being used in things like cell phones, but the problems have been in the UI (user interface)."

He said he finally saw Linux as able to boast genuine green credentials, after years of hard work.

He and fellow programmers modified almost every part of the operating system's core to improve power management. They also enhanced the ability to track down the most power-hungry parts of a hardware and software system.

"Everybody wants to be power-aware," he said. "It's not just that you want to be green - it's eating up your batteries."

Linus also praised Google for its contribution to the development of open source software, after a shaky start in which it had been a "black hole" for talented programmers.

[stefan]

update 10.5.2 came late last week and, reassuringly, they have fixed a good number of bugs, as was expected. if anyone was holding out to update, reports are good ...


i am very happy to see that they have fixed X11. part of the issue was that they switched to a more modern codebase (Xorg 7.2), but didn't have it functioning properly to release. the main apple developer and others worked independently to try to resolve the issue, forming the open source Xquartz project ... as a result apple has incorporated this (plus more) into 10.5.2. only took 3 months to get right, i guess.