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Mac OS X Leopard: First Impressions

My Impressions of Leopard

I did a clean install (not an upgrade) on my G4 1.67g PB. Install took about 25 minutes with no problems. My PB really likes Leopard, everything is faster and I like the new cleaner look, I also love the new dock and menu bar. Internet page loading in Safari is noticeably faster too, I am assuming due to the new TCP stack that I heard 10.5 is using. Overall, I am very satisfied and well worth the $100 (I got a $30 online rebate from Compusa). :)
 
Worked Swimmingly,
EXCEPT
Optical Out on the Santa Rosa Macbook Pro failed to work. Aieee!
Trashed /Library/Preferences/com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist and it worked again... weird. Did an archive and install, by the way.
Sloppy, Apple.
 
over all im enjoying leopard now. im finding it really hard to resist just playing with the spaces for hours. the instal was fast and uneventful and quicklook was just indispensable in clearing out all the junk on my hdd.

however there were/are some issues here:

  • most importantly mail decided it would completely change my @mac.com acount details for no reason and wouldnt accept the new details i input. so i was bared from sending any emails for quite a while.(and yes i know its all my own fault for doing an upgrade :))
  • while spaces is brilliant its really annoying if you want to have windows for one app in multiple spaces. going to the original space opening a second window and dragging it to the next space is just pointless.
  • on top of this the screen freezes every now and then when you have zoomed in and there are a few other little bugs as well
 
This can't be...

OK... I have a MacBook PRO with the following specs...

2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
2GB (two SO-DIMMs) of PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 memory
800MHz frontside bus
160GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive

Video:
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor with dual-link DVI support and 256MB of GDDR3 SDRAM

And some things are running chunky... like the scale and genie effect.. I mean, do I need a faster machine to run Leopard?... OMG!!!!
 
two issues via airport, passwords

wingmanmac said:
I did a format then a clean install on a powerbook 1,25. My biggest issue now is that with the airport, internet start working normally, then after a few seconds it goes slower and slower then disconnect completly. If i connect to ethernet, internet works normaly. Anyone else experience this?
Click to expand...

Have a powerbook G4 1.25 15" and had a slowdown via airport too. Apparently there is already a software update that helps. Installed that and now airport is flying faster than ever.

On the mac discussion board there was discussion of this. Someone noted an airport file in extensions with something "2" as part of the extension name needed to be removed for folks not doing a clean install. I didn't see it as I did an archive and install.

Weird thing was that I had a problem trying to resolve the problem with the airport utility. My password was never recognized, even though I went and checked in my keychain for the password and went into network and made a quick change and got the screen to always allow update. No matter what the airport password would not take.

Had to follow the instructions to use a pin and hold it underneath for a few seconds to reset the password. The green light reset and then everything started flying.

It's more than a feature update to me. This seems to be the best internet performance I've seen. And it's amazing that it comes on a G4 laptop.
 
i did an archive and install on a macbook and everything is running perfect. Things are definitly quicker in a lot of apps, really notice it in safari, the web pages load a lot quicker. Ichat improvements are great as well, so far loving leopard
 
Leopard on a G4

Romanesq said:
Have a powerbook G4 1.25 15" and had a slowdown via airport too. Apparently there is already a software update that helps. Installed that and now airport is flying faster than ever.

On the mac discussion board there was discussion of this. Someone noted an airport file in extensions with something "2" as part of the extension name needed to be removed for folks not doing a clean install. I didn't see it as I did an archive and install.

Weird thing was that I had a problem trying to resolve the problem with the airport utility. My password was never recognized, even though I went and checked in my keychain for the password and went into network and made a quick change and got the screen to always allow update. No matter what the airport password would not take.

Had to follow the instructions to use a pin and hold it underneath for a few seconds to reset the password. The green light reset and then everything started flying.

It's more than a feature update to me. This seems to be the best internet performance I've seen. And it's amazing that it comes on a G4 laptop.
Click to expand...

What is the AP software update that you are referring to? i experienced no issues with my 802.11g AP but I am always looking to boost performance whenever possible. My G4 1.67g 17" PB is flying and working better than ever with Leopard. :)
 
Just Beautiful

I have waited since Christmas of last year for a mac, getting a MBP in June and returning it upon DOA. So I finally waited until Leopard came out...and am I glad. I bought a 24" 2.4GHz iMac today and Leopard couldn't look or perform better. I thought I was almost immediately going to order another 2GB of RAM on top of the standard 1GB, but its so damn fast on just 1GB there's no rush.

Stacks are cool but yes, really don't have much use.
I haven't been able to use Time Machine yet,
Spaces is nice since I'm so used to Ubuntu (w/ Beryl)
Looks AMAZING (especially on this screen)
I like that they changed the top bar from so translucent to only a little bit, so you can actually see the menus unlike before.
FAST, just amazing speed, loaded up x64 Vista also today and there's just no comparison...


Going from a 2.4GHz Athlon64 laptop with a 15.4" screen to a 2.4GHz 24" is just...

Let's just imagine a night with the hottest girl you can dream of.....yeah..it's kind of like that :)

too bad its just a computer :(

so yes definitely upgrade if you haven't already
 

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joshysquashy said:
Screenshots go to the desktop, not the downloads stack, and there is no way to change this.
Click to expand...

I was seriously hoping that this would be fixed. I take a lot of screenshots and this would be a very, very cool feature.

Maybe we should make this known to apple...
 
desktop image X product name

First, I have to say that I'm a macmaniac ! I really love the computers and interfaces and OS's. I'm crazy to have a computer good enough to install leopard.
Nevertheless, as I'm a designer, art director and working in advertising for 28 years, I can't understand why Apple still giving names of "cats" to it's system and making the official desktop images with nothing to do to their names.
The image of Leopard is really beutifull but why the OS was not called Space, Universe, GALAXY, Galactic, Flux, Omega, Acrux ... etc. Or, why not, a very nice texture of something about the animal (leopard).
 
i was very hyped up for leopard. i installed on friday. isntall was very smooth. except i had to re-install all the iapps like iChat because i had used the migration manager adn i guess it brought over my old iapps.

i like the new dock, but i have it larger than my leopard one was because they icons are somaller. the blue glowing dots under the icons are a nice touch. i like it better than the black arrow. but i do find myself switching back to the 2D doc once and a while.

coverflow is great! i use it for all the time for picture scrolling. in tiger, you could choose list or columns etc. for a folder and it would keep it for that folder. but in leopard, you have to use the same viewing options for all folders. i wish u could change it for each folder like in tiger. the left hand navigation is nice. i think it looks better than tiger.

overall, leopard seems to be different from everything apple has done for mac os x. it is not very unix looking, which was one of the many things i liked about macs originally. i just hope apple doesnt stray from Mac OS X design too much.
 
applesith said:
overall, leopard seems to be different from everything apple has done for mac os x. it is not very unix looking, which was one of the many things i liked about macs originally. i just hope apple doesnt stray from Mac OS X design too much.
Click to expand...

How is the Unixity different from any other version? IIRC, it's even Unix certified now.
 
Brilliant in general, although as you'd expect from a .0 release there are bugs and annoyances.

Annoyances:

* Bring back the black triangle for indicating running apps on the dock. I didn't realise how much I relied on them, but when you have to squint to even see the new markers, I really miss the old ones.

* Selecting iPhoto events in Time Machine or Automator is guesswork, because it doesn't show the title underneath. When the vast majority of your events are mountain walks or something else where the scenery is similar, it can be quite difficult to pick the correct one.


Bugs:

* Automator doesn't seem to work in certain circumstances, such as "get selected finder items" (has no effect) or picking an iPhoto album. However running it standalone and asking for a specific set of files does work.

* Exposé is broken at the time of typing. I'm sure it'll work after a reboot, but currently it'll activate but you can't click on anything (have to press escape to get out of it).

* Alt-tab is also a bit hit-and-miss at the moment, seemingly related to the above. I'm using Spaces BTW. This makes it HIGHLY annoying because the only way to switch windows is to move them around!!
 
glass dock, stacks, quicklook,webclip - 5 stars
mail, fast safari,coverflow - 4 stars
Front row, wikipedia, visualizer - 3 stars
transparent menu level should be on a preference slider

Overall - leopard +ilife08 +iWork 08 = magnificent beyond comparison. To take leopard in isolation would be to miss the point. Collectively they represent the most incredible, easy to use, reliable and ultimately pleasurable computer experience bar none.
 
Couple more things I've noticed in the past hour or two...

* The new massive window shadows and shading are a bit distracting... windows getting brighter when they go into the background seems a bit backwards, and when working with photos, the shadows give the illusion of the image changing in brightness. Maybe this will grow on me eventually, or I'm sure there will eventually be a hack to tame the shadows.

And more bugs....

* Icon thumbnails seem to break if a bunch of files are being generated, not sure of the pattern but I noticed this a few times when making albums in JAlbum.

* I somehow managed to get 2 instances of Safari open... weird.

Certainly starting to look forward to 10.5.1 :D
 
Leopard Firewall

Before my gripefest let me say hello to everyone.

I've only seen a few mentions of the new firewall. They've ruined what was a really nice interface to ipfw. The new functionality is fine, but, removing any trace of real configuration was insane. I'm really flabbergasted by this. It's amusing that the advanced tab lets you choose "stealth mode" and review logs. So, presumably the user is too dumb to open/close ports or configure UDP/TCP but is smart enough to understand "stealth mode" and parse logs. Unbelievable.

I'm pretty happy with everything else. Being able to Exposé while in Spaces is an especially nice touch. I like stacks and will use them. I created application groups that I can quickly launch from. Before having all of these apps in the dock would have made it too large. I do understand people's complaints with this feature though. Having some of the configuration suggestions implemented would make it better.

I really hope they do something about the firewall, that it was some sort of oversight, or that I am missing something.
 
This isn't my opinion as such, but I still think it's valid to mention:

I'm very very pleased for the people with older hardware that they can run this without a problem (unlike needing a new PC for Vista, and then sometimes realising that even that isn't enough):rolleyes:.

I don't really have 'old' hardware, I will be running Leopard on my 24" White iMac :).
 
I bought the last Leopard CD and with lots of trepidation I went and stuck the DVD in. I was pretty amazed that an hour later and a reboot everything is working even my mbox2pro is working, cisco vpn client etc.. no weird crashes etc..

It is very snappy, and PDFs pop in so fast its almost like they were already loaded ahead of time and prerendered. Lots to like.
 
I did a clean install and ran into a little problem with the BBOD and flimsy dock. Overall, I feel it's somewhat unstable which force quitting Apps here and there (original ones, not 3rd party). I'm running it on dual 2.7 G5 powermac and I felt that it's not as snappy as Tiger used to be. And copying 300 GB of backup from Tiger back into the system is painfully slow. :( Nice to have some new features, but I think it's aimed more to the intel users. I found the new finder need a little getting use to. I love the quick-view though. But it's buggy overall, for me at least, since I've already restarted my powermac 3-5 times because some the system is acting weird, it's hard to explain...
 
Bsod

I am not so sure that the BSOD is really that. I waited mine out and it progressed fine after that with no issues currently. I am so glad that I just waited it out and did not force a reboot.
 
Yeah, I haven't seen them removing options lately, but I haven't been looking at the firewall.

That is my one major gripe with Apple, although it *is* outweighed by the advantages: it's "their way or the highway". I know in general this is for the greater good - consistency, ease of use etc - but how hard would it be to put an 'advanced' button on there? That's just Apple's way, though.

On the positive side, can't remember where I asked this question but I can report that it runs smoothly on my G4 Powerbook (1.33/768). It seems about the same speed as Tiger, which is all I cared about... I wasn't expecting a speed increase!

Side note - I see so many people in other threads complaining that 10.6 might ditch PPC processors, yet personally I'm thankful.. nay, thrilled! that even Leopard works just as fast as Tiger on my 4 year old G4 PB. I mean just think of Vista.... any hardware more than a year old crawls to the speed of something 4-5 years old (it likes dual core etc), and if you want Aero, Microsoft completely wrote off any graphics card older than about 2 years!
 
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