Apple To Ship Mac OS X Snow Leopard On August 28 647
okapi writes "Apple announced that Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard will go on sale Friday, August 28 at Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, and that Apple's online store is now accepting pre-orders."
Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Leopard messed up audio programs of all kinds until Apple finally got around to addressing the issues with the .3 update. The recent .8 update screwed up some people's wireless connectivity. It hasn't been that long since some early adopters lost entire volumes of data when they upgraded.
Snow Leopard is supposed to be fixes, tweaks, and improvements, so maybe this one is a better bet, but still, I can't see myself pre-ordering.
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Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a G4 PowerMac which apparently won't run 10.6. Can Linux be run on this machine? Are there any stores/dealers/whatever that would do the install for me?
Yes, but why? Snow Leopard brings disk space benefits (good), full 64-bit support (useless to you), Grand Central which manages multi-core programming (useless to you) OpenCL (useless to you) and, um, QuickTime X.
So, you're missing out on saving 6GB and running QuickTime without any window borders. The vast bulk of Snow Leopard's advances are to make it scream on modern hardware. I don't think it's such a horrible thing to suggest upgrading your seven year old computer if you're interested in running the most current software on it.
But yes, you can run Linux on it. You'll save some more disk space, you won't get 64-bit support, multi-core anything, OpenCL, QuickTime X, or anything else that Snow Leopard or OS X in general gives you. But hey, at least you'll get to bitch about how you can't do those things with Snow Leopard either!
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Indeed - they've dug themselves into a hole in that "OS X" is the brandname, as much as "XP" or "Vista", and not simply a version number. Already they acknowledge this by the fact that they call it OS X 10.4, when repeating the "10" is redundant. It wouldn't surprise me if they bring out "OS X 11" or something dumb like that (or more likely, they'll eventually switch to a new brandname altogether).
It's not like the 10 was ever a version number anyway, in that it's a derivative of Next, not ("classic") Mac O
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Good point. Do us a favor and post here after you install it so the rest of us know whether it's safe?
Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm one of those crazy ones who always installs the .0 release. (I also back up, which is something most computer users don't do, either, so my risk profile is still probably better than average.) Most of the time for vast majority of people the upgrades go fine. There are always a few problems and the people experiencing those problems jump on the nearest message board and you hear a lot of noise about it. The millions who don't have problems don't, and you don't hear about them.
Would I install 10.6.0 on a mission-critical, high-uptime machine? No, definitely not-- there's no immediate business justification for it yet. (Wait until more 64-bit and massively parallel software takes advantage of the new APIs.) My home machine, though, is for my own learning and fun, and it's definitely worth it for me there. I can always restore if things go terribly awry.
Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:5, Funny)
...but still, I can't see myself pre-ordering.
So it broke your webcam too?
Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:5, Informative)
As someone who has been testing Snow Leopard in many different scenarios for the past four months, I can say this is one update that will likely give you no problems if you install over the top of your existing 10.5.x installation.
But, for maximum speed and efficiency, I would back up your user data and apps, and do a clean install. Snow Leopard is very lean and mean, and I noticed considerably more Snappiness on machines where I clean-installed and manually migrated my data.
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Yes, because many (all?) of the Apple-supplied apps have been slimmed down from Universal Binaries to Intel-only executables. Also, there has been considerable "tightening up" of the Apple-supplied apps in that they use Frameworks (what's known as dynamic libraries or shared libraries on other OS's) as much as possible, instead of having nearly all code stuffed in their .app bundle.
But, I've noticed that to get maximum space efficiency, you need to do a clean install. For example, Rosetta (the PowerPC tra
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Yes, because many (all?) of the Apple-supplied apps have been slimmed down from Universal Binaries to Intel-only executables.
And then fattened up again to 32-bit Intel+64-bit Intel executables.
Also, there has been considerable "tightening up" of the Apple-supplied apps in that they use Frameworks (what's known as dynamic libraries or shared libraries on other OS's)
Well, not exactly. There are conventional dynamic shared libraries and there are frameworks. Conventional dynamic shared libraries are pretty much the same as they are on other UN*Xes; frameworks *include* one (or more) such shared libraries, but they also include other items, such as header files, nibs, etc.
as much as possible, instead of having nearly all code stuffed in their .app bundle.
That's not new in SnowLeopard - they've always been linked with shared libraries and frameworks.
Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:5, Informative)
OS X apps have had 32-bit and 64-bit executables in their bundles for quite some time now. At least since 10.4, if not some point in 10.3 (it was definitely soon after the arrival of the first G5), so this is a non-issue.
I know there are true shared libraries (Unix-style) and OS X Frameworks--two separate entities--but I was dumbing it down for those who don't want to get all pedantic about it.
And, lastly, I know that OS X apps have always utilized Frameworks. But the point is, in Snow Leopard, Apple is utilizing Frameworks more than ever. I mean, how else can Mail.app shrink for 192 MB to 16 MB? It's not just the PPC code being excised.
I appreciate your clarifying things, but it is obscuring my main point--apps in Snow Leopard, and the OS itself, are VERY lean compared to any previous version of OS X, and there is a noticeable speed boost.
Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:5, Informative)
OS X apps have had 32-bit and 64-bit executables in their bundles for quite some time now. At least since 10.4, if not some point in 10.3 (it was definitely soon after the arrival of the first G5),
Nope - the output of "file" on the Mail executable on 10.5.8 is:
$ file /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail
/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures
/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail (for architecture i386): Mach-O executable i386
/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail (for architecture ppc7400): Mach-O executable ppc
No 64-bit code there. Perhaps you're thinking of the libraries, some of which had 32-bit and 64-bit slices in 10.4, and most if not all of which had those slices in 10.5. They would still need their 32-bit PPC slices, even on Snow Leopard, for the benefit of PPC binaries running under Rosetta, although they could lose their 64-bit PPC slice, as Rosetta doesn't support 64-bit PPC binaries.
And, lastly, I know that OS X apps have always utilized Frameworks. But the point is, in Snow Leopard, Apple is utilizing Frameworks more than ever. I mean, how else can Mail.app shrink for 192 MB to 16 MB? It's not just the PPC code being excised.
Where do you get the size figures from? ls -l? size? Activity Monitor? Some other tool? I'm not seeing them.
The only valid way to determine whether, for example, Mail is using more libraries and frameworks is to run otool -L on the binaries and seeing whether it reports the Snow Leopard binary as being linked with more libraries and frameworks. That wouldn't tell you whether a given bit of functionality was moved from Mail to a framework, for use in other applications, but "Mail.app shrunk" won't tell you that, either.
I appreciate your clarifying things, but it is obscuring my main point--apps in Snow Leopard, and the OS itself, are VERY lean compared to any previous version of OS X, and there is a noticeable speed boost.
That wasn't your main point, it was the main point in the posting to which you were responding [slashdot.org]; the points in your article were claims as to the reason why that was the case:
is this youtube now? (Score:5, Informative)
OpenCL is going to change scientific computing, for good. NVIDIA's CUDA is great and all, but you get bogged to one vendor's platform. With OpenCL you can define compute kernels that will be run in the GPU, if the thing supports it. For neural networks, genetic algorithms, matrix stuff, fast fourier transform, etc, expect HUGE performance gains. Especially whenever there's an NVIDIA TESLA with 192 cores behind it you might find gains of 100x speed. I'll probably be modded as funny or some shit, but imho OpenCL is a game-changer for the scientific community.
Finally, ONE DAY, there will be a killer app for the general public using the power of the GPU. Then I hope everybody will understand.
In the meantime, I, and my students, will be studying and working with it.
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Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:4, Insightful)
you have a point. Apple only has 5 notebook models (white, air, 13" 15" 17") going at a time and they tend to keep the same model for 18 months or so with only minor updates. Compared to Dell that has many models, plus variations, and upgrades the entire consumer line with completely "new" models every 6 months or so. With Apple the tiniest inconvenience sticks out where with Dell, you'd be lucky to get the same internal parts even if the model numbers were the same, they change them all the time, even from week to week so it's hard to say any specific problem is "Dell's" fault and not your particular mash-up they shipped you this week because not enough people on the internet have Inspiron 13wzyz to complain about..some have 14wxyz and others have 13wxy ... get the idea.
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Leopard messed up audio programs of all kinds until Apple finally got around to addressing the issues with the .3 update. The recent .8 update screwed up some people's wireless connectivity. It hasn't been that long since some early adopters lost entire volumes of data when they upgraded.
Snow Leopard is supposed to be fixes, tweaks, and improvements, so maybe this one is a better bet, but still, I can't see myself pre-ordering.
If you have Time Machine running, and your current Leopard install DVD, you have nothing to worry about. The problems you listed affected less than 0.1% of the Mac population. Even if something horrible happens and you lose your whole drive, you can just boot your old disc, choose to restore from Time Machine.
If you *don't* have Time Machine running, you really should. The cost of an external drive is minute compared to the benefit of never[*] having to worry about losing all your data.
[*] Technically, you
Re:Windows 7 (Score:4, Insightful)
Just wait until it gets bloated and begins to slow down. It happened with every previous version of Windows and unfortunately the behavior continues in 7 (I blame the registry). I have never had this issue with OS X, maybe because it separates the OS from the Applications so much.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:4, Insightful)
The more you use your OS- the slower it gets. Browser histories get bigger and take longer to open. Search bar suggestions take longer to load (as the data gets more bloated). Folders take longer to open as there is more to list. 'My Computer' gets slower with every drive you add since it feels the need to refresh its data with the latest usage and sizes. Sometimes programs install themselves to context menus and that has some overhead when right clicking. How about programs that have background processes always running... these didn't come with the OS (I am looking at you Java- where the hell do you hide?). And why can't more registry items slow down windows? Searching takes time. Storing it in memory takes... well, memory (which could cause you to swap).
You're right in that an OS doesn't slow down on its own. It's additional applications that do it. But most people don't have a computer to JUST "use" Microsoft Windows. And for some other typical applications (browser, office, email)- usage causes more overhead overtime as the program tries to become smarter or has to show the user more data.
*drops the mic*
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Informative)
Without a doubt what you say is true.
However, the parent is right in that increasingly, over time, Windows systems typically slow down. even if you don't add much in the way of applications or other software. Without a doubt, part of this phenomenon is related to increasing data bloat, especially in the registry. (After all, this is where things like the a MRU lists and settings are stored.)
But the difference between Mac OS X, Linux, etc. over Windows is that the former lack the registry altogether, instead preferring to store this data in individual files rather than one huge database.
Like it or not, this slowdown is a limitation of the system as designed.
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And I have never had this issue with Windows. I've used various versions of Windows on multiple computers for years, with no such troubles. Just wait? How long should I wait, exactly? The only slowdown is when I run Itunes.
Ah that's right - anyone claiming to have an experience otherwise is obviously a "troll".
Why is my anecdote not valid? Or is this a case of sticking your head in the sand if it doesn't concur with your preconceived assumption?
Perhaps the mod points should be given out to those who use the
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft's Astroturf campaign has been phenomenal for Windows 7.
It reminds me of the old days when Microsoft Marketing could have sold shrink-wrapped poo; those guys were that good. It's too bad the software was never as good as the marketing.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Insightful)
Which makes their failure to sell Vista especially noteworthy.
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Except operating systems are judged by how many people upgrade
Are they? Says who?
The point is there are many ways of rating a product - and sure, it's no doubt of concern to MS that Vista isn't as successful as XP (although we still have to take into account that XP has been on sale a lot longer - what was XP's share in 2003?), but in no meaningful sense is over 20% market share a "failure".
But I don't know why I bother - evidently even posting hard figures from sources is "flamebait", if it doesn't toe the
Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:5, Informative)
However the main reason will be the new APIs that will eventually require everyone to upgrade to Snow Leopard, but even before the new APIs get used much, its still a worthwhile upgrade.
Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:4, Interesting)
"a major one for some people will be Exchange support"
Maybe I look at things differently, but why should users have to upgrade their entire OS (from 10.5, which is an extremely modern OS already) to support something like Exchange?
Applications can support Exchange on OS X currently (i.e., MS Entourage). But with 10.6, the OS itself will support Exchange.
The irony here is that not even *Windows* supports Exchange directly.
Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree, but since their apps like iCal, Mail, notes...etc are all bundled with OSX this is considered a major feature when it really is nothing more than a application upgrade to include EWS.
Um, no. It's not using Exchange Web Service. It's interfacing with Exchange just like Outlook does.
And it's not just an "application upgrade", the support is at the very core of OS X. Contacts, email, calendar, any program can make use of these services. Address Book is just an interface to the system wide address book subsystem. iCal is the same. Mail is the only app that you have to use to interface with that particular service, but even there, any program can utilize it, just like on Windows, except that you don't have to buy Outlook to connect to an Exchange server.
Or, put differently, were MS to add Exchange support to Windows (which it doesn't have), it *would* be a big deal.
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"There are many reasons to upgrade to Snow Leopard, for example a major one for some people will be Exchange support,"
pfft. Windows has had decent Exchange support since at least Vista SP1.
Unless I've missed something (which is entirely possible, but I did to a google search just to make sure), Windows doesn't natively support Exchange.
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That hasn't been true since Spotlight was released. Ever since, each version of OSX added more and more crap that I can't turn off, like the 100% useless Dashboard.
You can disable Spotlight (it's in System Preferences, just add your hard drive to the Privacy list) and Dashboard doesn't run until you first open it. Remove it from the Dock and disable the function key for it and you'll never see it.
Additionally, you can completely turn off Spotlight if you want, but it takes either dropping to the command line or running one of the tinkering apps. Both methods work flawlessly, although there's really no need if your drive isn't indexed (and that's the only time it slows
Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:4, Insightful)
QUOTH YOU: - Money spent since 2002 on OS X 10.x - about $400. (Else my G4 Mac would stop functioning properly.)
Liar. You could go back and install the old Mac OS X on that computer any time you wanted, and it would have all the features and functionality it did when you purchased it. There's NOTHING about an OS update (or lack thereof) that is necessary to keep a computer functioning properly. As if the OS has an expiration date.
Hyperbole and bullshit.
Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh yes... He could install the ancient OS X... But keep in mind that Apple no longer provides updates for it like MS does for XP of the same vintage (not that I'm a fan of MS by any means...) Furthermore, unlike XP, he will be unable to install most modern software since nobody supports 10.1, .2, and even 10.3 support is getting quite rare.
But back to your point. Yes, you are 100% correct that the old stuff will continue to function PROPERLY, but methinks the OP REALLY meant Effectively and Securely. Paid updates from Apple are really required for that.
I'll share my perspective having used Mac's since 10.1 (everything earlier I considered unusable,) Windows since 2.0, Linux since 0.99 and a plethora of random crap before that back to about 1978.
The amount of time I have spent messing with OS issues (problems) on OS X versus Linux or XP is FAR FAR less. If I value my time at a pathetic $20/hr, I've saved the cost of OS X probably about 100 times over. Whining about the cost of OS X updates is really, in my opinion, short sighted. This doesn't even get into how much better 10.5 is to use than 10.1. There is no F-ing way I would ever go back.
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>>>Liar.
A little strong there.
Are you a teeny-bopper?
>>>You could go back and install the old Mac OS X on that computer any time you wanted, and it would have all the features and functionality it did when you purchased it.
>>>
No because the original 10.1 that came with my Mac would NOT run the latest software which requires 10.4 or higher. And yes I could use older programs like Firefox 1 or Safari 1 or Internet Exploder for Mac, but they don't operate properly with today's web.
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I would also like to point out that you can't directly buy a viable version of Windows at this moment(Win7 isn't out, WinXP is only shipped with Netbooks as of 2008, and Vista is crap).
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If Vista is "not viable", fucked if i know where that puts linux... Don't be a fucking tight-arse with RAM, and vista is fine. Much better than XP, imho - if i had to go back, it would be to Windows 2000, thankyouverymuch.
free upgrades? (Score:2, Interesting)
I've never owned a mac, but was thinking of getting a macbook in the future. Are OSX upgrades free?
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The OS X equivalents of service packs are free. Upgrades cost money--I believe Snow Leopard is $29 for Leopard users. The retail price is $129.
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Re:free upgrades? (Score:5, Informative)
All updates within a particular version are free (10.5.1, 10.5.2, 10.5.3, etc.), but jumping to a major version (10.4 -> 10.5) cost something. This particular upgrade is a little different insofar as they've tweaked the behind-the-scenes stuff more than anything else, which some folks might consider nothing more than a service pack, but because of that it's only $29 instead of the usual $129.
HTH
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10 - OS Branding, like "Windows" or "Ubuntu"
Re:free upgrades? (Score:5, Informative)
OSX upgrades are as free as Windows upgrades are-- which is to say minor updates and bug-fixes are free, but major updates cost you.
Lots of Windows fanatics like to point to the numbering scheme and claim that Apple makes you pay for "service packs", so they'll note that 10.4 to 10.5 is a paid upgrade, even though the version number stays the same. However, in OSX, it's the third version number that's similar to a service pack, i.e. 10.4.1 could be called Mac OSX v4, service pack 1.
And that's not necessarily too different from Windows versioning. Windows 2000 was Windows 5.0, and Windows XP was version 5.1. Windows XP service pack 3, under Apple's versioning number scheme, could be called 5.1.3. Or really, since Apple isn't incrementing the "10" part of their versioning number, it could be 10.5.1.3.
Ultimately I'm just saying that whole side of the argument-- that is, the version numbering-- is a little arbitrary and stupid. The point is that Apple releases small improvements and bug fixes all the time, and those are free. Every two years or so, they release a new version with new features and major improvements, and those can cost as much as $130. However, in the case of Snow Leopard, most of the improvements are under the hood, so the upgrade price is only $30.
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As an owner of an old Mac laptop that still Run OS X 10.1.8 let me say, that I still think that 10.2 should have been free, because 10.1.8 is so buggy and it will newer be fixed. Using NFS to mount a disk will almost always crash my kernel within an hour.
A big problem with the way that Apple does upgrades is that to get bugfixes, you often do need to buy the newest OS X and it's seldom free. I wish they would split the os from their applications, so the os bugfixes/upgrades were free, but they could charge
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And XP bugfixes don't ever require new hardware unlike Mac OS X
There are certainly bugfixes between XP and Vista that you can't get without upgrading to Vista, and Vista requires new hardware.
I still think that 10.2 should have been free, because 10.1.8 is so buggy and it will newer be fixed.
I thought 10.2 was free, or maybe was as cheap as $20 (incl. shipping and handling) or something. I remember one of the OSX versions being cheap or free, and I'm pretty sure it was 10.2.
I wish they would split the os from their applications, so the os bugfixes/upgrades were free, but they could charge you if you really wanted the i* software.
They do split their OS from the i* software. The only one that comes with OSX is iTunes, which is free anyway.
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If you buy a MacBook after June 8, 2009 (i.e. any time now) that doesn't yet have Snow Leopard (10.6) pre-installed, the update will cost $9.99. Apple calls it "free" with a $9.99 shipping and handling fee. (See the Macworld story [macworld.com].)
Re:free upgrades? (Score:4, Informative)
We need some fucking laws. In other countries, you can't commercially use the word "free" to refer to any transaction which money changes hands for any reason whatsoever. Let's enact those here too.
I am sick and tired of having to hand over money for "free" merchandise. Why not call an air ticket "free" with a seating fee, a booking fee, a fuel fee, an oxygen fee, a plane maintenance fee, and a landing fee tacked on?
"Free" should mean precisely one fucking thing when you come across it in public: free .
I was deliberately not passing judgement.
However, reading what Apple actually says, I slightly misrepresented them. What they say is "If you've purchased a qualifying computer or Xserve on or after June 8, 2009 that does not include Mac OS X Snow Leopard, you can upgrade to Mac OS X Snow Leopard for $9.95.*", with the asterisk noting that that covers shipping and handling. I mistakenly used the word "free", but Apple never does.
Apple's upgrade page [apple.com].
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No, point updates are free. New OS versions cost money. I guess you are new to computers.
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SP 2 was just fixing all the worst security holes in XP, to bring it to a tolerable level of usefulness. I certainly wouldn't expect to pay money for that.
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I think it's already useful. I look at snow leopard as adding a bunch of junk no one needs yet.
I'll be buying and installing it because it's cheap and I'm a mac user and I want to be cutting edge. But honestly, there is nothing special about the release, if they tried to charge full price for it I would pass for sure.
If vista was 29 bucks, I would of upgraded that as well.
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I dunno, I thought that trimming 7 GB off the size of the install was pretty neat. If the performance gains are as good as their marketing wants us to think there may be more value there than you think.
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that's funny, I don't have a problem with Leopard usability at all on my macbook, and we upgraded the old G5 iMac to Leopard for the speed boost (which it did) but we weren't having crash issues. I for one won't be in a hurry to upgrade to Snow Leopard, because Leopard works just fine.
I think that it's disingenuous to compare point upgrades in the mac world to service packs in the windows world. This comparison comes naturally because MS took many years to actually come out with a featureful consumer upgrad
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I think that it's disingenuous to compare point upgrades in the mac world to service packs in the windows world. This comparison comes naturally because MS took many years to actually come out with a featureful consumer upgrade (XP --> Vista), by which time every other OS had upgraded multiple times. Just because it takes Apple about as long to put out a point upgrade as it does for MS to put out a new service pack, doesn't mean they're equivalent.
Thing is Microsoft released a ton of new stuff outside of
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...that means that you are getting your PCs for $100 a pop.
You should let the rest of us in on the secret.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
new mac user here (Score:2, Interesting)
Picked up a mini first of the year. This will be my very first upgrade.
As I understand it, the version numbers here are pretty much on par with a Microsoft OS version number so 10.5 to 10.6 will be like going from 98 to Win2k and should be handled the same way, upgrading will make for an unstable system so I should backup everything and do a fresh install. Is this conventional wisdom still correct?
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always back up. use time machine.
try an in-place update. the installer should inform you if it is able to do an in-place update (it should be able to).
if that fails, a clean install should be just fine, with your time machine backup used for applications, user files, and settings.
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always back up. use time machine.
try an in-place update. the installer should inform you if it is able to do an in-place update (it should be able to).
How does that work for backing up applications? I had problems with utorrent's updates and for some reason could not do a full uninstall to be rid of it, user settings were preserved. I later found out that there were configuration files stored under my user folder in applications and libraries. Ugh, you know if Apple is going to steal an idea from Microsoft it's going to be one of the dumb ones. (Incidentally, utorrent for mac is still buggerfucked. They haven't had a stable version out for months now. I c
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What dumb Microsoft idea did they "steal"? Programs use configuration files, not a registry, this is better and way easier to manage. They are almost always stored in ~/Library/Preferences.
To restore an application you would restore it to /Applications. To restore any personal configuration would you have to restore the files in ~/Library.
Of course, if you back up and then do an in-place update, there should be little reason to restore anything. They have continually gotten better with their upgrade system.
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This is an incorrect assumption. (Score:4, Informative)
The SL upgrade is much more like going from Win 98 to Win 98 SE if it must be put in those terms.
Almost all of the upgrades are things under the hood that most users will notice little of, except the general speed up (which is quite significant in many parts), dock improvements, better Exchange support and improved dock functionality. This is a good update for tons of reasons most people shouldn't even really care about, so the pricing is quite justified.
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Listed dock improvements... twice, they are that good ;)
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As I understand it, the version numbers here are pretty much on par with a Microsoft OS version number so 10.5 to 10.6 will be like going from 98 to Win2k and should be handled the same way
You're kidding, right? Please tell me you're kidding. Anyone who could possible equate going from OSX 10.5 to 10.6 to upgrading Windows 98 to the NT kernel-based Windows 2000 is one of two things:
- Too young to have actually used Windows 98
- Undergoing unhealthy bombardment by the Reality Distortion Field
Reading the list
Re:new mac user here (Score:5, Informative)
Picked up a mini first of the year. This will be my very first upgrade.
As I understand it, the version numbers here are pretty much on par with a Microsoft OS version number so 10.5 to 10.6 will be like going from 98 to Win2k and should be handled the same way, upgrading will make for an unstable system so I should backup everything and do a fresh install. Is this conventional wisdom still correct?
You shouldn't have to backup your Mac just for Snow Leopard; ideally you've been keeping backups all along. Leopard made keeping good backups so brain-dead easy that all you have to do is get yourself an external USB/Firewire drive and plug it in, and let Time Machine take care of the rest. You don't even have to start the process in any way -- plug the drive in occasionally and let it do its thing in the background.
However, presuming for a moment you haven't being doing regular backups: yes. Backup everything first.
That having been said, with OS X I've never had to do a full wipe and reinstall. OS X has this very, very nice "Archive and Install" option that will move all of your existing system files into a "Previous System" folder, and then do a clean system install (optionally preserving all of your users and network settings, which I suggest). This does require a lot of free disk space, but it's safe and effective, and has always given me a very nice stable install of each new OS X release since Panther (10.3).
Yaz.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You must be confusing Win2k with WinME. Going from 98 to 2k was an earth-shaking whose-yer-daddy OMGWTFPWN upgrade.
Running out of cats? (Score:5, Funny)
Pretty soon, Apple is going to run out of cats to name their OS X versions after. How many are left? When are they going to stoop to calling a new version "Housecat"?
Re:Running out of cats? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Probably after OSX 10.9 Tomcat
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Oh, these common ones are still available. and wikipedia has a list that is 10x longer of possibilities.. Don't think they will run out soon.
lion
cougar
bobcat
ocelot
serval
puma
lynx
Re: (Score:2)
Puma was OS X 10.1.
Re: (Score:2)
Sarge: Because 'M12 LRV' is too hard to say in conversation, son.
Grif: No, but, why 'Warthog'? I mean, it doesn't really look like a pig...
Sarge: Say that again?
Grif: I think it looks more like a Puma.
Sarge: What in Sam Hell is a 'Puma'?
Simmons: Uhh, you mean like the shoe company?
Grif: No! Like a Puma! It's a big cat, it's like a lion.
Sarge: You're making that up.
Grif: I'm telling you, it's a real animal.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
OS XI: Chupathingy.
Everyone says Apple users are gay men but (Score:4, Funny)
the truth is we are literally swimming in pussy
Re:Running out of cats? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Running out of cats? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Running out of cats? (Score:4, Funny)
Pretty soon, Apple is going to run out of cats to name their OS X versions after. How many are left? When are they going to stoop to calling a new version "Housecat"?
I think they've got plenty of good cat names left still in reserve. For instance:
Mac OS X 10.10: "Selena Kyle"
Mac OS X 10.11: "Cheetara"
Mac OS X 10.12: "Nuku Nuku"
Mac OS X 10.13: "Bubastis"
Mac OS X 10.14: "Ravage"
Mac OS X 10.15: "Sammy Davis Jr."
German tanks (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually you could argue that Apple has named their operating systems after German tanks. Of course they probably never did it purposly, but it is interesting to consider: http://ormset.no/wordpress/2007/01/01/german-armored-vehicles-and-apple-mac-os-x/ [ormset.no]
Even "snow leopard" is a German tank. Not sure how many German Tank names are left, but we'll have to see what happens after SL.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Mac OS Liger, it's just about my favorite operating system.
kanji input (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:kanji input (Score:5, Informative)
There's a large number of under-the-hood rewrites and redesigns. The Finder is finally rewritten (so it's not using 10+ year old technologies), the major parts of the OS (kernel, most built-in apps) are 64-bit, and there's several other new things - like the new QuickTime (which serves, however terrible the app on other platforms is, as a very nice media playback framework on OS X).
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The only feature of Snow Leopard that looks at all interesting is the hanzi/kanji input on the trackpad...But since I rarely use my laptop OPEN (I run in clamshell mode to an external monitor most of the time), even that is not particularly useful to me.
I don't even have a trackpad, because I use an iMac. I'd probably have to buy an external trackpad to take advantage of this feature.
Come to think of it, I'd also have to learn Japanese.
- RG>
"built in Exchange support." (Score:2)
'Nuff said. Some of us are forced to use it. It was a pleasant surprise to see it integrated so well into the iphone/itouch; it will be even better to see it integrated to ical and mail.app. Of course, I'd prefer not to have to use it at all, but I'd also prefer to live on a beach in Hawaii.
Snow Leopard? More like SLOW Leopard! (Score:2, Insightful)
See, I changed one letter, an 'n', for another, an 'l', as a way of making fun of the new release of Mac OS... I don't have any real reason for thinking it's slow, and it's not like I really have anything against Snow Leopard (apart from the fact that I, myself, am not interested in running Mac OS X any more) - it's just fun to make fun of it.
Re:Snow Leopard? More like SLOW Leopard! (Score:5, Funny)
See, I changed one letter, an 'n', for another, an 'l', as a way of making fun of the new release of Mac OS... I don't have any real reason for thinking it's slow, and it's not like I really have anything against Snow Leopard (apart from the fact that I, myself, am not interested in running Mac OS X any more) - it's just fun to make fun of it.
iSee.
Webmail? (Score:2)
One of the things I've been trying to find out about are the improvements to OSX Server in 10.6, specifically regarding email and webmail. Can anyone tell me whether they're still using SquirrelMail?
Apple has a very nice webmail/web-calendar system that they use for MobileMe, but so far they haven't used any of that in OSX Server. I'm somewhat baffled, since I would probably buy an Xserve on the day that they offered such a nice webmail solution in OSX server.
several interesting issues (Score:4, Interesting)
1) this is an update, not a full installation. There is no "full price" edition, you MUST have mac os 10.5 on it now
2) 10.6 drops support for PPC (already mentioned previously here) so if they have older versions of Mac OS X on them it doesn't matter. However, some of the earliest intel macbooks and imacs shipped with 10.4.7-9 and their owners have not upgraded to 10.5 so there are some intels floating around without leopard on them.
3) VERY IMPORTANT - Apple will stop selling 10.5 the day they release 10.6. So if you have a macbook or intel imac with 10.4(.11) on it and don't get it updated to 10.5 before the 28th you cannot install Snow Leopard. The AASPs are going to go mad as of today trying to order as many 10.5 retail packs as they can get their hands on. If you will be needing one, you'd better get it NOW.
Re:several interesting issues (Score:5, Informative)
also 4) for $170 you can get the 10.6 box set that includes ilife and iwork. that is the only option apple will offer you if you get stuck with a 10.4 intel after the 28th.
Boxed Set (Score:5, Informative)
3) VERY IMPORTANT - Apple will stop selling 10.5 the day they release 10.6. So if you have a macbook or intel imac with 10.4(.11) on it and don't get it updated to 10.5 before the 28th you cannot install Snow Leopard. The AASPs are going to go mad as of today trying to order as many 10.5 retail packs as they can get their hands on. If you will be needing one, you'd better get it NOW.
Apple sells a "boxed set" that upgrades Tiger to Snow Leopard, with no intermediate steps.
Yes, the Boxed Set is $169, which is more than Leopard alone was($129) but it does inlcude iLife and iWork as a bonus. (Yes, this is just a ploy to get more copies of iLife and iWork out there.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1) this is an update, not a full installation. There is no "full price" edition, you MUST have mac os 10.5 on it now
Only the $29 version is an update and you need Leopard to use that version.
Tiger users can buy the Mac Box Set at $169 that includes Snow Leopard, iLife 09 and iWork 09.
Re:several interesting issues (Score:4, Informative)
1+3: Lies.
There is a full price edition - Mac Box Set. It contains the OS, iWork and iLife. That one is targetted at 10.4 users, according to the info page.
Leopard users already have iWork and iLife, and at least iLife is available as a very cheap upgrade for those who have '08.
What, you don't like paying more than an upgrade price to get the latest OS? Fuck you for not buying a newer Mac :)
(The box set is priced about the same as MS Office home editions in my Apple online store)
Re:several interesting issues (Score:4, Informative)
It is an upgrade, true, but ALL Apple OS sales are upgrades, they don't just sell a 'full install' because there has never been mac that went out the door without an OS on it.
Upgrading from 10.4 to 10.6 will not be a problem as long as you are an intel mac, 10.5 isn't required to be installed. In fact, upgrading from no OS will work as well, they 'upgrade' disks are fully bootable and will install on a blank harddrive.
Not sure where you get your ideas from but it would appear that you haven't been around for the last 5 OS upgrades with OSX or the previous 9 with System1-9, nothing new here, move along.
My personal experience with 10.6 (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm on 10.6 right now and even the betas seemed far more stable than 10.5. Also, the speed increase is definitely there. I honestly never expected moving to 64 bit using every day desktop apps like mail and safari would have a noticeable speed increase, but I was wrong. It is much faster. However, I admit the speed increase is the most noticeable on first load of that app, or a cold start. After that most apps in 10.5 are so fast the speed increase in 10.6 is hardly noticeable.
The dock has changed yet again. The even in the most resent release of 10.5 I have issues dragging an item from a folder in the dock to the trash. If I do this to quickly the trash can does not come up. 10.6 has cleaned out most (if not all) of the dock issues in 10.5 in my case. The new folder design in the dock is nice but I wish it had more options. I would love to shrink the icon size or change the display format (like details) in the folders in the dock.
Quicktime X bothers me. The logo for the new quicktime in the dock is terrible looking and when running the program even if the UI looks nice it doesn't match the rest of the OS. It is like running the most recent version of windows media player in Win2k. The theme may be nice but it is kind of odd. They also removed features I used from quicktime 7. Like, I would go into full screen and it would auto start playing. In quicktime X I have to manually hit the play button after full screen. If I stream a video I can't find the options any more to turn off the auto play. I hate it when it starts playing randomly when the window is minimized ffs.
All in all, 10.6 is nice but so is 10.5 and honestly the UI changes with the dock and quicktime in 10.6 I dislike. I would of been much happier with 10.6 looking identical to 10.5 and just running faster and being far more stable.
The only features I haven't "played" with yet is OpenCL. My macbook pro has a 128meg geforce 8600 which is the min requirements. In windows for openCL the min is 256meg (it sometimes works half assed with 128meg) so I need to make an RSA decrypter or something to see how well it runs. I'm honestly not expecting much in this area.
So what are the compelling reasons to upgrade? (Score:3, Insightful)
You will not get 64 bit kernel, since by default 32 bit kernel is installed on all supported hardware except XServe. Even more, you can not install 64 bit kernel on hardware that could normally run it, since it appears Apple has restricted 64 bit kernel to hardware that has 64 bit EFI. Also, 64 bit kernel is not available on any Macbook.
So, basically, you have 32 bit kernel with 32 bit kernel extensions and drivers, just like in Leopard with hacks to allow it to run 64 bit user applications. True more applications are now 64 bit, but who cares if their mail or calendar is now 64 bit instead of 32 bit? It's not like your mail program needs more than 4 GB of RAM anyway.
And the applications that could really benefit from 64 bit like Photoshop are not available anyway. And once they are available they will run on Leopard as well (which was marketed as 64 bit end to end, when in fact the only application that is 64 bit on Leopard is Chess, and XCode).
So unless you really need that exchange support, I don't see compelling reason to upgrade at all?
There are good reasons (Score:3, Informative)
You will not get 64 bit kernel, since by default 32 bit kernel is installed on all supported hardware except XServe.
(a) we don't know if this is true of the final release.
(b) it hardly matters unless you planned to add more than 32GB of RAM to your system. All user apps can still run in 64-bit mode just fine.
And the applications that could really benefit from 64 bit like Photoshop are not available anyway.
Well sure, the system is not out yet!
But we'll see those apps before too long, especially a lot of ap
Re:Will it support DHCPv6 ? (Score:4, Informative)
The ideal IPv6 setup does not even use fixed DNS and NTP, etc. The system should be using stateless autoconf and multicast services for that.
Gamma!!! (Score:3, Funny)
They're changing thedefault Gamma from 1.8 to 2.2???? Hell just froze over!!
Re:I'll try the Kool-Aid. (Score:5, Interesting)
You'd think twice about that if you had an SSD in your machine. Think about the Macbook Air with the 64GB SSD... ;)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm a laptop user, you fucking cunt.
I don't want to drag portable HDs with me all the time, and what you fucking yanks call Internet connectivity is anything but.
Re:Service Packs... (Score:4, Funny)
How much you gonna be paying for Windows 7 just to make Vista work properly? ;-)