More Panther 7B28 Details

[henryblackman]

Originally posted by iJon
ah i dont care, all i do on this computer is listen to music, talk, check mail and stuff like that. it has never been bad in jaguar, just now in panther. but thats ok, its a beta os.
iJon

You're making an assumption on what is not a beta-OS, it's a "seed" and still very much incomplete.

Havin said that, I've, so far, found Panther to be dramatically faster, more powerful and more friendly. I think MS would model themselves on Apple, Windows gets slower every release, OS X gets faster.

What I'd like to see though is Cocoa apps using less CPU. I'm shocked to see them use 50 % of CPU just to print text to a drawer. Hopefully changes to GCC will alleviate this in Panther shipped. They do seem to be working on performance and stability issues now rather than features.

The Apple Insider article says it was originally intended to ship for September, but that's not what Steve said. He said end of year. Having said that shipping for September gets the education crowd on board this academic year - which is a high priority for them.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Re: Hoping for Apple Expo Paris unveiling

Originally posted by onemilkid
I already got my Keynote admission. I just hope that panther will be ready by then, Mr. Jobs will give the Keynote (like last year) and every attendee will receive a free Box of Panther (and a Dual G5 just that we perceive the system as very fast;-)

I'll be there too!
Got my confirmation aswell. But is it a FACT that Steve will be there for his beloved Keynote?

 

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by henryblackman
I think MS would model themselves on Apple, Windows gets slower every release, OS X gets faster.

Yeah, it's almost as responsive as OS9 now...

 

[Samir 3.0]

Panther Upgrade

I know that this question could be a little of topic but what I will exactly get when i'll upgrade to Panther???
I've payed for Jaguar last november and when panther will be out there will be an upgrade disk like the one shipped with jaguar (i can't remember exactly how it works but maybe i've heard at the keynote) or i'll find a Panther only upgrade disk like the one with Jaguar 10.2.5???

Thx in advance and sorry for my not so fluent english

 

[kb9000]

Re: Panther Upgrade

Originally posted by Samir 3.0
I know that this question could be a little of topic but what I will exactly get when i'll upgrade to Panther???

If you purchase it you will get the full install, not just an upgrade CD. The content is just the same though.

 

[gordyt]

7B28 Notes

Hello All,

Installed 7B28 last night on a 17" Powerbook. Problems/fixes I've noticed:

1. Fixed - iTunes crashing when iPod plugged in
2. Broke - installing 7B28 removed admin privileges from all users. Had to boot the first install disk, give root a password, boot back into OS, then use root account/password to unlock user system pref and turn back on admin privilege checkbox.
3. Still Broke - Address book still crashes. But disabling Bluetooth by relocating these files/folders is a workaround (at the expense of no Bluetooth):
/System/Library/Frameworks/IOBluetoothUI.framework
/System/Library/CoreServices/BluetoothUIServer.app
/usr/sbin/blued

--gordon

 

[AppleMatt]

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
I'm surprised how long they've gone with posting pics of Panther for the past month or so. Same with Think secret, they have hundreds of pictures from their in depth series. I would have sworn that Apple legal would have shut that down within a day or two. Oh well, I can't complain. I have been drooling over those pictures since I saw the keynote from WWDC. With every update, it seems like Panther is shaping up to be more worth its pricetag. Let's just hope it's soon before I go mad...you don't want me to go mad...it is not pretty.

Although development of new features was supposed to have halted by now, it makes you wonder. Obviously Apple don't want to release a buggy file-vault, as that would really tick everyone off, but I wonder if they're not too bothered because they're still internally testing a few other goodies, and they see most of it as visual, ie, "expose is smoother", "mail is faster", "here's a version number", "safari doesn't crash here anymore" etc etc.

Originally posted by MacBandit
Oh, you don't know?! Apple has a new user prowess app. It runs all the time and determines a users aptitude level. If a user fails to meet a certain level of criteria it throttles them back to a basic user thus preventing them from hacking their own head off by doing things they shouldn't.

AppleMatt

 

[AppleMatt]

Originally posted by henryblackman

Havin said that, I've, so far, found Panther to be dramatically faster, more powerful and more friendly. I think MS would model themselves on Apple, Windows gets slower every release, OS X gets faster.

Definatly. This always happens with Apple upgrades, even software. I remember the dramatic jump from 9.0.4 > 9.1, and even QT 6.0 > 6.1, they keep getting faster on the same hardware. Windows says "even faster* productivity"

Now I'm hoping they remove all OS 9 code from Panther's QuickTime, that's really annoyed me for ages. It's a core technology!

AppleMatt

*once you've upgraded your machine to these ludicrous specs

 

[Powerbook G5]

Yeah, the Wintel world always insists your brand new system that is top of the line the day you order it from Dell is out of date by the time it gets shipped to you. I just picked up some DVDs yesterday and one lets you play it on the PC "at amazing HD clarity, all you need are these basic specs: 3.06 GHz P4/HTT, 512 Megs RAM, 128 meg video card (256 optimal), XP professional, WMP 9, and a monitor resolution of at least 1600x1200" I am just sure that *everyone* has a PC that is at least that fast...

 

[Squire]

Re: Re: Panther Upgrade

Originally posted by kb9000
If you purchase it you will get the full install, not just an upgrade CD. The content is just the same though.

Please excuse me if this is a brutally stupid question. (I just switched 6 months ago.)

I'm thinking of buying Panther, too, but I was wondering...does it erase everything on my hard drive when it installs? Would I have to back everything up?

Thanks.

Squire

P.S. Gimme a break. I've only installed one Mac OS in my life.

 

[Mudbug]

you'll be able to install it as an upgrade over jaguar, so it'll leave your file directories alone, upgrading the system software only. But as in every upgrade case, be sure and make a backup of your stuff before you do it - things can (and do) go wrong...

 

[Squire]

Originally posted by Mudbug
you'll be able to install it as an upgrade over jaguar, so it'll leave your file directories alone, upgrading the system software only. But as in every upgrade case, be sure and make a backup of your stuff before you do it - things can (and do) go wrong...

Cool. Thanks. Maybe it would be a good idea to ditch everything. Clean house. My HD is like a maze. (I didn't opt for the 50-dollar "switch" software.)

Squire

<Edit: Oh. I checked out your avatar-to-be. Nice.>

 

[chromos]

Originally posted by Linc
Lots of people seem to be compaining about battery life, but the 7B21 and 28 on my 1ghz TiBook have been getting 4+ hours at normal usage, as opposed to the 2.5 hrs or so under jag.

This is so good to hear! It has been really depressing to see my battery life decrease with each update to Jaguar. I had given up any hope of believing Apple considered battery life an integral part of a computer's usability.

 

[guifa]

Originally posted by chromos
This is so good to hear! It has been really depressing to see my battery life decrease with each update to Jaguar. I had given up any hope of believing Apple considered battery life an integral part of a computer's usability.

It seems battery life is pretty jumpy all around on Panther. He and others may have gotten a boost in battery life, but some (myself included) have gotten a decrease.

 

[gordyt]

7B28 Developer Tools / IORegistryExplorer

Interesting thing happened this morning...I installed the 7B28 develper tools. Shortly after that I was unable to start *any* regular application. Any app that I tried to run would instead case the application "IORegistryExplorer" to be started. I had to boot into single-user mode and delete the /Developer directory.

--gordon

 

[soosy]

Anyone have pics of what selected icons in the Finder now look like?

I REALLY hated the inset rectangular effect. It made the icons look like yucky buttons.

I'm also not too pleased the way labels look -- especially in column view. I guess I'm just old school.

But above all, I keep waiting for them to announce theme support. There's no way I'll tolerate a metal Finder. (I want non-metal WITH Finder toolbars dammit!)

 

[Masker]

Originally posted by soosy
Anyone have pics of what selected icons in the Finder now look like?

I REALLY hated the inset rectangular effect. It made the icons look like yucky buttons.

I'm also not too pleased the way labels look -- especially in column view. I guess I'm just old school.

But above all, I keep waiting for them to announce theme support. There's no way I'll tolerate a metal Finder. (I want non-metal WITH Finder toolbars dammit!)

Oh, you WILL tolerate it, I'm sure, if you have no choice. The new Finder is so slick that you won't want to go back once you start using it...

 

[ryaxnb]

256MB?

Originally posted by foniks2020
256 MB of RAM! What is this 1992?

The iBook I'm using has only 256MB RAM, and it runs Jaguar fine.

 

[rDLr]

I often hear people reporting that the finder is using too much memory or CPU. Are these resources being taken advantage of to make the finder faster? Finder performance is usually the top complaint about Mac OS X. When the finder is sluggish it makes the whole system feel slow, even if it isn't. So my question is, isn't it good if the finder uses everything it can get so it can be faster? If it scales usage back when the system is busy with other tasks, it seems like this would be desirable.

 

[Powerbook G5]

If you don't like the metal, can't you just download one of the many themes that are all over the net? I've seen quite a few, but personally, I like the brushed metal look...it's like a nice accent you find all over the interiors in Ferraris and Audis Also, Arn has already posted the new selected icons graphics, and they don't look that bad. Just realize that Panther isn't out yet and with each seed, it seems like Apple does one or two GUI tweaks, so as far as we know, these little things could be a lot different in a month or two when you install the release version of 10.3.

 

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by foniks2020
256 MB of RAM! What is this 1992?

In '92, 256 MB of RAM would have cost a couple thousand dollars if you could have found a machine to put it in!

256 MB or even 128 MB was not considered paltry until OSX came along unless you were a serious Photoshop user.

It is ridiculous that Apple doesn't furnish all new machines with 512 MB right from the start.

- j

 

[vrapan]

Originally posted by foniks2020
256 MB of RAM! What is this 1992?

ummm I bought my first 486 on 1996 and it had only 16... In truth it is not that long ago when 128MB seemed perfectly fine. Windows XP and Mac OS X needed more Ram as OS. Apart from heavy memory programs you should be able to run the OS with a few windows open fine with 256MB. Under Jag I should maintain some self discipline on how many windows I have open. On Panther that is much less needed but after 12 - 13 programs it starts complaining. Now I could max it to 640 - or spend 600$ on one of those new 1GB but guess what I haven't done either cause so far it is fine. I am planning on upgrading it soon but only to minimise the occasional crash than speed concerns. And if Panther keeps getting speedier I might save the mone and put it on an external FireWire for backup.

 

[Powerbook G5]

I have 192 megs of RAM on my G3 running 9.2 and it's damn fast. But yes, once I get my new PowerBook and run OS X I am planning on getting it up to 1 GB RAM as one of the first things I do with it. You should see my sister's Compaq running XP, I went to look at memory usage and right after boot, Windows XP is using over 200 megs of her 256 megs RAM...I can only imagine how my OS X uses.

 

[ColdZero]

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
Yeah, the Wintel world always insists your brand new system that is top of the line the day you order it from Dell is out of date by the time it gets shipped to you. I just picked up some DVDs yesterday and one lets you play it on the PC "at amazing HD clarity, all you need are these basic specs: 3.06 GHz P4/HTT, 512 Megs RAM, 128 meg video card (256 optimal), XP professional, WMP 9, and a monitor resolution of at least 1600x1200" I am just sure that *everyone* has a PC that is at least that fast...

I somehow doubt this post, since you can play a DVD on a Pentium 90 MHz with hardware decoding. Even without hardware decoding playing a DVD will use less than 40% of a P3 700Mhz. I know of 1 256MB consumer graphics card, the Radeon 9800 Pro, and that was just released. XP Professional is the exact same thing as XP home pretty much. And has nothing to do with DVD support. Since HD resoutions are 720 and 1080, when you convert them to PC resolutions you get 1280x720 for 720p and 1920x540 for 1080i. So I don't see how 1600x1200 fits in anywhere here. A 1280x768, which most 17" monitors are capable of doing would be a more reasonable answer.

Even better, lets do a little math using your figures.

1600x1200 = 1,920,000 pixels on the screen. Now lets say its 24 bit color.

1,920,000 * 24bits = 46,080,000 bits for every screen that appears on the monitor.

Now monitor refreshes are a different story. But anyway, the picture changes 24 times per second to simulate live motion.

46,080,000 * 24 = 1,105,920,000 bits every second.

Say the movie is 2 hours long so 120 minutes.

60Seconds * 120 Minutes * 1,105,920,000 = 7,962,624,000,000 bits for a 2 hour DVD, not including extras.

Convert it to MB.
7,962,624,000,000 / 8 (bits per byte) / 1,048,576 = 949,218.75 MB

Even with compression, thats a lot more than what can fit on a single DVD.

So tell me where you got this magical technology that can fit almost 1 tb on 1 DVD. Better yet, which DVDs did you buy that said this.

Next time before you go bashing another platform, try not to make up stories to prove your point.

 

[vrapan]

He was exaggerating quite obviously but he is quite right. Never windows upgrades have made you feel better for your hardware. I mean when I was using jag I thought I needed the 640 with Panther the situation is so much better that I think that my little 867MHz PB is so fast that well I dont "need" it. Made me feel like these 867MHz and 256 can take me through another couple of years no prob.

I remember in contrast when I installed Win95 on my win3.1 the 16MB was a joke my 486 in 120MHz was even more of a joke and I won't even say a thing about the graphics card. Same story with 98 (ME I wont touch cause even with 510MB they were crashing like every other second) and as soon as XP came my 1.4GHz with 384MB RAM felt sluggish. It was playing fine DVDs (even my 700MHz 256MB played them fine) but the machine felt a lot slower than 98SE. On the contrary my machine came wiht 10.2.3 and up to the 10.2.6 it was more responsive although I have it loaded with programs. With 7B28 I think that 256MB is fine unless you do picture and video or sound editing. The machine is super snappy. I bet that Longhorn will need the latest processor and a bare minimum of 512MB. And I also bet that Panther will run on a 500MHz 256MB RAM iBook / TiBook wonderfully. They might be asking you for 130$ but they don't demand a conservative 400$ upgrade to run better or the purchase of a new machine altogether.