Poll: What are your impressions of Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther?)

[MacRumors]

Vote: Poll: What are your impressions of Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther?) (http://www.macpolls.com/?poll_id=303)

[alset]

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooohoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooo!

I think that about sums it up.... I may be understating, a bit.

Dan

[nickmcghie]

I had been running 7B85 off an external hd on my powerbook for a few weeks now and had no problems whatsoever.

Just a couple days ago, I finally decided to do a complete clean install on my internal hd. It had been running fine until just a couple hrs ago when iTunes crashed. I couldn't even force quit the program. It was so persistent about not quitting that it wouldn't even let me shut down. I finally had to do a hard shut down by holding down that power button.

I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed that this would happen on a clean, newly installed system :(. Other than that, I suppose everything else has lived up to expectations, and all I have to say is "wow!" :)

[Nermal]

Don't have it yet. I'm probably going to join ADC as a student and get it through them (cheaper than buying it separately), I just first need to confirm that I'll get Panther if I join.

[mac15]

wow at first but now its like well it works fine and that I'm happy with

[MoparShaha]

I like it, lots of nifty new features. I'm not as dazzled as I thought I'd be though. Jaguar seemed smoother. Panther is fast, but the GUI seems choppy. I'm running a dual 1.25 with a radeon 9000. Choppiness should not be an issue. Also, there are weird quirks with the mouse when rolling over things like menus and the dock. Sometimes the menus and dock don't respond. I did a clean install, only explanation is bugs. To sum it up, I'm happy to be running Panther, but I'm not going to be super excited till the 10.3.1 update comes.

[wrldwzrd89]

I'm impressed with Panther. I never thought that "Julie", my PowerBook G4 667, would have this much zip. I know that having 512 MB RAM helps, but Panther REALLY sped things up for me. Of course, I voted "Wow!".

[jyvin]

It is an incredible update. All the new features plus the faster system responsiveness make this the best 10.X OS upgrade. Make no mistake, there are bugs. I have found and reported 2 already, but those are non-issues. My favorites are the fast user switching, expose, and new security features. Anyone that is on the fence with this upgrade; make the switch and you will be very happy with the decision.

[scottlee]

The install was a little shakey when the Epson print drivers were installing, it hung at 4% so I restarted and then completed the install. Once I was up and running, everything seems to be a bit snappier! Very Satisfied so far!

[JesseJames]

Very nice but there are a few issues. When I run Lightwave and try to manipulate my orbit viewpoint in a window, there is a lag. For a split second. It might be how Quartz Extreme is running but I'm not sure. Maybe it's Lightwave but it's freaking annoying.
I've got an Epson scanner and once when I was scanning I moved the mouse and the machine froze. WTF?
But overall, it's a badass Mac OS. I grinned like crazy when I saw Expose. :D

P.S. Aha! Considering that Quartz Extreme offloads a lot of the graphical workload to the GPU from the CPU, I'll need a beefier graphics card. Damn. I've got a Nvidia Gforce4MX card now. I'll have to bite the bullet and get a Radeon 9800. Then again, Nvidia just announced new graphics cards. Any Mac versions anytime soon?

[ckwm]

Still waiting for Apple to deliver it.

*sigh*

[grimmace]

I want to see Apple come out with an OS that will allow me to partition the drive so that I can run both PC and Mac on one computer. Other than in a business world, I see no reason to just connect to my PC with a mac. I still cant run any of the software. I am tired of the war between OS.

I want to see a hybrid and play PC games and use my mac apps on one machine.

Lets see panther do that, then I will purchase it and a new mac.

[Jerry Spoon]

Haven't purchased yet. Just saw it at the "night of the panther" event. There are some nice new features, but I don't think I'm in a huge hurry to upgrade.

[gopher]

Pretty cool. Now I keep my dock hidden and minimized at all times and use the sidebar of the Finder windows to do my navigation. The great thing is the sidebar is scrollable, which is a lot easier to access than a moving Dock. The speed is incredible. Mail loads before I can say boo. Safari does too. And Expose is such a time saver, I wonder why they never thought of that before! I will say this, backup your data before proceeding, I've already lost my iPhoto library once because I was impatient waiting for 4000 photos to load and had it quit. Also I can't figure out why at this point, but VirtualPC doesn't quit gracefully on my Powerbook G4/1.33 Ghz. Oh well, I'll use VirtualPC on my iMac if I need it.

[Awimoway]

I gave it a "good" because I haven't had ANY problems and it seems a lot snappier than Jaguar, but not a Wow because I was thinking the new features are nice, but do not, as a whole, make it entirely worth the asking price.

But to be honest, I have barely scratched the surface. I'm still just trying to get all my apps and some of my prefs reinstalled after doing a clean installation of the OS.

There are so many features I really haven't had time to deal with yet. For example, the Font Book and the ability to create font "playlists" you can use in many apps. How cool is that?

On the whole, the widespread adoption of the iTunes browsing metaphor is a good thing, IMO, and has already made using Finder a much nicer experience.

[Stelliform]

I don't think that this should have been a paid upgrade though. I am not upgrading my other Mac running Jag. I don't see the need.

[G4scott]

I wish I could tell you how it went for me, but the stupid campus computer store here didn't have panther available for special student pricing ($20), even though they advertised it on their website... Stupid people... And then when I complained, they just changed their website, but I got a screenshot before they changed it...

They piss me off... :mad: :mad: :mad:

[1macker1]

I have a question. If I do a clean install, will i lose my music and my photos?. Sorry if this is a dumb question.

[wdlove]

I was very impressed by what I saw of Panther at the Apple Store on Friday. Expose will be a cool feature. I voted Wow!

[G4scott]

Originally posted by 1macker1
I have a question. If I do a clean install, will i lose my music and my photos?. Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Yes, you will lose them, because a clean install formats the hard drive before installing. Everything on your hard drive will be erased. You can make a backup of everything you want to keep, and then put it back on, but just remember that everything on the hard drive is erased when you do a clean install...

[1macker1]

thank you very much, i'll just save everything i want on a DVD and load it back.

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by grimmace
I want to see Apple come out with an OS that will allow me to partition the drive so that I can run both PC and Mac on one computer. Other than in a business world, I see no reason to just connect to my PC with a mac. I still cant run any of the software. I am tired of the war between OS.

I want to see a hybrid and play PC games and use my mac apps on one machine.

Lets see panther do that, then I will purchase it and a new mac.
And I want £100m, but it ain't gonna happen any time soon! :rolleyes:

[Stella]

If your waiting for this, you shall be waiting a *long* time until you get your new Mac!

Its not gonna happen any time soon...



Originally posted by grimmace
I want to see Apple come out with an OS that will allow me to partition the drive so that I can run both PC and Mac on one computer. Other than in a business world, I see no reason to just connect to my PC with a mac. I still cant run any of the software. I am tired of the war between OS.

I want to see a hybrid and play PC games and use my mac apps on one machine.

Lets see panther do that, then I will purchase it and a new mac.

[idea_hamster]

Originally posted by grimmace
I want to see Apple come out with an OS that will allow me to partition the drive so that I can run both PC and Mac on one computer. Other than in a business world, I see no reason to just connect to my PC with a mac. I still cant run any of the software. I am tired of the war between OS.

I want to see a hybrid and play PC games and use my mac apps on one machine.

Lets see panther do that, then I will purchase it and a new mac.
All we need is one copy of the source code of Win2000 or XP. Release that into the public domain and you will get the following:

1. A successful project like WINE (www.winehq.com) that allows Windows programs to run on a *nix-based OS, like OS X.x,
2. The historical status as the one who turned the Windows Megalith into a second-rate operating system, and
3. A lawsuit for so much money that your head will spin pursued by people who buy ink by the barrel.

I'd try to set aside some money to file your bankruptcy petition before you get started. ;)

[woodsey]

I voted "I am not using Panther (10.3)" because I am still running jaguar.

I would love to be running panther, but I don't think that means much to Apple. I was only supposed to arrive four days ago.

Oh Well... Still Waiting. :(

[j33pd0g]

Panther is great. Much faster. The new finder smells like Bill Gates though. Can I use the old 10.2.8 finder under Panther?

[froehle]

Originally posted by Nermal
Don't have it yet. I'm probably going to join ADC as a student and get it through them (cheaper than buying it separately), I just first need to confirm that I'll get Panther if I join.

You should get Panther. They sent me a copy of Jaguar in the mail when I joined a couple months ago. That said, unless you want the montly developer cd/dvd mailings or a hardware discount, you are probably better off buying Panther with your edu discount.

[MacFan25]

I was supposed to get Panther on Friday, but I wasn't home when the FedEx man came by. :(

But, I should get it today! :)

[grimmace]

Originally posted by idea_hamster
All we need is one copy of the source code of Win2000 or XP. Release that into the public domain and you will get the following:

1. A successful project like WINE (www.winehq.com) that allows Windows programs to run on a *nix-based OS, like OS X.x,
2. The historical status as the one who turned the Windows Megalith into a second-rate operating system, and
3. A lawsuit for so much money that your head will spin pursued by people who buy ink by the barrel.

I'd try to set aside some money to file your bankruptcy petition before you get started. ;)

That was pretty funny. :D Still, it should be done in the future. Why would there be a lawsuit if you purchase both OS? It should be done so we dont have to buy 2 computers for everything. Hard drives are large enough now that you could have 60G drives each for both systems. I think that it will happen someday and I wont be "waiting" to purchase a new mac. I'm only waiting for the PB17 G5 to come.

[rueyeet]

Originally posted by grimmace
I want to see Apple come out with an OS that will allow me to partition the drive so that I can run both PC and Mac on one computer.
It's a nice thought, but that would require either Apple porting OS X to Intel, a subject that's been debated to death but will probably never happen (see the Intel CEO's comments over at MacObserver (http://www.macobserver.com/article/2003/10/23.7.shtml)) OR would require Microsoft to write a version of Windows for the PowerPC, even less likely. That's more than hell freezing over--that's the Second Coming and the Dawn of the Apocalypse, and about seventy-two other improbable things.


...it should be done in the future.....It should be done so we dont have to buy 2 computers for everything.

But if we didn't have to buy two computers for everything, either Apple would have to hand over its revenues to the Wintel crowd, or vice versa. They want to make money. We as users only enter into the equation to allow that to happen.


I am tired of the war between OS. I want to see a hybrid and play PC games and use my mac apps on one machine.


And I want world peace, to win the lottery, etc. *shrug* Won't happen, though.

[sedarby]

Originally posted by rueyeet
It's a nice thought, but that would require either Apple porting OS X to Intel, a subject that's been debated to death but will probably never happen (see the Intel CEO's comments over at MacObserver (http://www.macobserver.com/article/2003/10/23.7.shtml)) OR would require Microsoft to write a version of Windows for the PowerPC, even less likely. That's more than hell freezing over--that's the Second Coming and the Dawn of the Apocalypse, and about seventy-two other improbable things.



But if we didn't have to buy two computers for everything, either Apple would have to hand over its revenues to the Wintel crowd, or vice versa. They want to make money. We as users only enter into the equation to allow that to happen.



And I want world peace, to win the lottery, etc. *shrug* Won't happen, though.

Actually Windows NT 4 was ported to PowerPC, MIPS and Alpha processors. Imagine the support staff for that call center! Yes, lets remove IRIX from your $100,000+ SGI and run Windows NT!

[MacFan25]

Just got Panther and installed it! I love it so far. Expose is great! :D

[idkew]

Happy with everything so far EXCEPT:

•Font Book: Not a solution for professionals. Jobs made me think it would be, but alas, it is not. Suitcast X1, here I come.

•Finder: Needs to be themeable to get rid of the Metal Skin that I hate, but some others seem to like.

[Panther Blue]

J'aime le Panther. I like Panther, but it's a bit over the top. I mean "Common Access Card Viewer"? It's a government thing... isn't it?

[Wonder Boy]

I like panther a lot. my problem is that when i use fast user switching, the cube doesnt rotate. is that because i have a 600mhz ibook? im assuming you need quartz and a better graphics card than what came with the late 2001 ibook. thx

PS- why do all my apps quit when i change users? i clicked enable fast user switching. that should be it, right?

[Nermal]

Originally posted by froehle
You should get Panther. They sent me a copy of Jaguar in the mail when I joined a couple months ago. That said, unless you want the montly developer cd/dvd mailings or a hardware discount, you are probably better off buying Panther with your edu discount.

I've contacted Apple and they said that I will get Panther if I join. The edu version of Panther costs $115 here, so the $99 to join ADC is cheaper :) Plus I get the hardware discount :D

[mrsebastian]

i like it very much! many improvements, especially in the finder, which makes the most difference for me. as others have stated, i'm not sure this upgrade is worth the complete retail value (i got mine for the $20 hardware upgrade price). it does seem to run faster and i assume apple has done quite a few upgrades under the hood. bottom line i'm liking it :D

[cb911]

well i voted "good". i just installed the "upgrade", and it is an upgrade!!:mad: it won't let you do anything if you don't already have a previously installed version of OS X on the machine!!:mad: damn it!!!!.....

well it's all good so far. i'm hoping that FontBook will be OK for my needs, but it's not sounding too good...

i do have a small complaint... and it is with the Finder. i think the metal look is a bit overbearing - i'll definitely be putting a theme on or doing something to fix that. the borders just look too big - i'm not sure if they are actually bigger than Jaguar's Finder borders, but they sure look it, and that's what matters.

however, i love the 'simple' version of the Finder windows, the view after you press the top right buttton. i have a feeling i'll be using that view heaps - if only there was a sidebar to go with that view...:(

[weev]

Originally posted by G4scott
Originally posted by 1macker1
I have a question. If I do a clean install, will i lose my music and my photos?. Sorry if this is a dumb question.



G4scott

Yes, you will lose them, because a clean install formats the hard drive before installing. Everything on your hard drive will be erased. You can make a backup of everything you want to keep, and then put it back on, but just remember that everything on the hard drive is erased when you do a clean install...


Is this correct?

I thought a clean install merely created a new system folder (at least it did in prior OS's) and put your current system folder and the sub folders into 'old system folder'.

If you check 'erase hardrive and install' (or words to that effect) then you are re-formatting your disk and all data is lost. The user screens will warn you of this, of course.

But I'be not used Panther, so...

But in Jag and OS 9 a clean install is NOT and erase and install.

[gopher]

Originally posted by weev
Is this correct?

I thought a clean install merely created a new system folder (at least it did in prior OS's) and put your current system folder and the sub folders into 'old system folder'.

If you check 'erase hardrive and install' (or words to that effect) then you are re-formatting your disk and all data is lost. The user screens will warn you of this, of course.

But I'be not used Panther, so...

But in Jag and OS 9 a clean install is NOT and erase and install.

"Clean install" is not a Panther installation option, or an option to any version of X.
Clean install is what you do to Mac OS 8 and 9 when you create a fresh System Folder, and rename the old one Previous System Folder and have to manually move Preferences, control panels, and extensions over to the new system folder from your old application installations.

In Mac OS X, you have four installation options, one of which is like a Clean Install but goes under a different name. There is:

1. Erase and install - erases the hard drive and installs a fresh copy of the operating system.
2. Restore system - restores the operating system and any applications that came with the Mac.
3. Archive and Install - first appeared under retail 10.2 CDs, now available under both 10.3 update CDs (the $20 variety) and 10.3 retail CDs. This gives you the option to create a new system folder, while renaming the old, and save user and network preferences. If you don't save user and network preferences, your installed applications that are non-Apple, and your Users folder get moved to the Previous System folder along with the previous operating system. This is the one most like the Mac OS 8 and 9 Clean Install option, but it is not called that by Apple.
4. Upgrade Install - Available on upgrade disks of all versions, as well as retail disks. This will simply upgrade an existing X system to a new one, not concerning itself if any old system preferencees are incompatible with the new system. This is usually not the recommended option because of its lack of sensitivity to the possibility an old system may not have compatible parts.

[wdlove]

So far my wife is a little disappointed. She installed Panther on her new 15" PowerBook yesterday, no problems. Has her preferences setup. It will not recognize the network wireless. So she plans on taking it to the Apple Store tomorrow.