10.5 Leopard upgrade - MacBook Pro

swimtech · Oct 31, 2007, 02:42 PM

Y'all already know I've been running 10.4 and XP on my MacBook Pro since April last year (how time flies!).

Well, Apple has integrated Boot Camp into the new OS (as we all anticipated) and Leopard is available to me so I'm going to upgrade it next week.

I've a ton of stuff that is important to me on the XP partition (don't you?

), so I am relieved, from what I've read, that the upgrade doesn't effect the XP partition at all. In fact, it appears Apple has distributed new/updated Windows drivers again.

I'll let y'all know what happens as I do the update. I'd do it sooner, but I'm in Vermont right now and not at work (for a change...) so next week it'll be...

fobis · Dec 4, 2007, 02:04 AM

swimtech, if you can, hold out on Leopard a little longer.
I got it on launch and I've had a mixed bag of feelings about it.
While the UI is seemingly more visually appealing at first glance, it's not really that much of an upgrade from Tiger.
As far as stability is concerned, I've had Leopard freeze on me a good 5 times and I've had to hard boot it. Tiger never did that to me (but of course I started using Tiger at 10.4.8).
Overall, Leopard is a little snappier than Tiger, but the compromise of stability for speed I had to make is hard to justify.
Solution: Wait until Leopard 10.5.4 or something.

EDIT: LMAO. I just noticed that this post is over a month old. By now, you probably have already installed Leopards and felt the same pains I have.

Lowfat · Dec 5, 2007, 12:23 PM

Definitely hold off, I currently hate Leopard lol. So damn buggy. Kernel Panics all the time.

thunderclap · Dec 5, 2007, 02:21 PM

I haven't had too many issues. On rare occasions a program crashes (usually Safari) causing the system to drag. A quick reboot (less than 30 sec) fixes it. I only have one incompatibility and that's with my tax software. Otherwise everything works fine.

**dj_stick** · Dec 5, 2007, 03:10 PM

i'm probably going to hold out on leopard indefinately - currently not compatible with my audio hardware drivers and one of my DAW packages, and I only use my OS X partition for music production - so i'm going by the rule; "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and will stick with 10.4.10 for a while

swimtech · Dec 5, 2007, 05:43 PM

Well guess what?

I got back to work and been swamped here since - no chance to upgrade. I'm not all that despondent either - with what I've been reading about some of the bugs and so forth, especially Time Machine being so picky about formatting and all...

No, looks like 10.4.11 will last a while, even though the Boot Camp beta is expired, which doesn't matter as long as I don't need updated drivers (which there are ways around, eh?

).

DJ, our media/creative people are in the same boat with you in some ways, and will likely continue to support themselves (with some help from me if needed...) on past the point where our "official" IT support moves to 10.5 officially, due to occur shortly after the holidays.

fobis · Dec 5, 2007, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thunderclap

I haven't had too many issues. On rare occasions a program crashes (usually Safari) causing the system to drag. A quick reboot (less than 30 sec) fixes it. I only have one incompatibility and that's with my tax software. Otherwise everything works fine.

But see, we shouldn't have to restart at all. I started using Tiger at 10.4.8 and it was rock solid then. I don't know what it was like before then, but Leopard should not be this buggy. Forcing the users to restart for no legitimate reason is inexcusable.

Honestly, if Spaces weren't useful for me and backing everything up wasn't such a pain, I would roll back to Tiger right away with a clean install.

fobis · Dec 5, 2007, 08:03 PM

I just found this: You Control: Desktops – Maximize your efficiency using virtual desktops in Mac OS X
Some nice virtual desktop software. Looks comparable to Spaces in every way. Looks like I'm going to be going back to Tiger this weekend.
The poor piss wireless stability is starting to wear my patience thin.

thunderclap · Dec 6, 2007, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fobis

But see, we shouldn't have to restart at all. I started using Tiger at 10.4.8 and it was rock solid then. I don't know what it was like before then, but Leopard should not be this buggy. Forcing the users to restart for no legitimate reason is inexcusable.

I agree with you. I used Tiger from day one when it was released as I did Panther. They each had their little hiccups which is to be expected with any new major release. The difference is that Leopard (so far) only requires a reboot once a week. My Vista system required it much more frequently, usually several times a day. That's not an intentional jab at Vista, just an observation that no OS is stable right out the door.

fobis · Dec 7, 2007, 02:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thunderclap

That's not an intentional jab at Vista, just an observation that no OS is stable right out the door.

Most definitely. I don't mean to sound like I feel that Leopard should have been perfect on launch, but I expected a little more from Apple considering their usual over-hyping of their new OS.
Oh, well. Once I find somewhere to back up all my data, I'm starting with Tiger fresh. The You Control: Desktops is actually a really neat piece of software which I actually prefer in a lot of ways over Leopard's Spaces. This is actually a piece of software I'll buy.

**dj_stick** · Dec 7, 2007, 04:48 AM

the virtual desktops idea is a good one, especially when multi-tasking

i've used the windows version a couple of times (it was one of their XP Powertoys, most of which were really quite useful)

swimtech: tiger is pretty damn stable for me, which is exactly what i need - it's solely for audio work, so i have no use for the gimmicky stuff added in leopard