Time for an official Snow Leopard thread - Page 3

I am backing up as we speak.  Preparing for the switch.

Jason, $120 for a 320 GB drive is really high.  You can get a Mini Max 1GB for that from Amazon.

It definitely requires recalibrating the monitors.  I had to select the profiles again, but they clearly aren't right, so I'll be running it through the paces.  First thing I do is probably to burn a disc in Toast 9.

I'm torn. I like the new shiny. I like the minor user-facing tweaks. But rationally, important things are broken and nothing immediately important has been added. Should I revert back to my 10.5 backup and wait for drivers to get sorted before changing to Snow Leopard?

Ugh. Why can't I be a sensible person and not buy it for six months when stuff is all updated? (Or: why are companies completely unprepared for major OS revisions known about for over a year?)

I had checked for several updates just a couple days ago and found none.  Today after upgrading, I found updates to everything that needed it, which actually was very few things.  My somewhat old Epson Stylus Photo R200 did not download drivers, but going to the Epson site showed a complete software upgrade package, including an entirely new version of Print CD, finally.  What I notice?  Video is significantly faster on my 2009 Mini, even with Firefox, which supposedly is not taking full advantage.  Web pages load like my internet speed has been tripled.  It feels almost like I went from 2 cores to 4 and significantly upgraded my video card.  FWIW, I am using the new Mini with (2) 23" monitors running at 1920x1080 each with a full load of RAM.  Toast 9 works fine. I already burned a DL DVD.  Get a load of this.  Adobe GoLive 6.0.1 (a VERY old app) appears to work fine.  Currently, a little app I have called Ardiem which lets me assign key combinations to open and close optical drives (I have several) does not work, but I have not looked for an update.

Dave, just go back to 10.5.

The only smal issue has been resolved. Ardiem appeared again once I restarted.  Apparently it needs Rosetta (which I can only guess is to permit use of old apps) which had been downloaded, but I guess it didn't work until I restarted.  I'm looking forward to significant speed improvements.  I'll be checking to see if any of the apps I updated take advantage.

Rosetta is to run pre-Intel programs, those compiled for PowerPC CPUs. Office 2004 requires this, among others.

Has anyone done a complete install from the $29 "upgrade" Snow Leopard disk? I'm wondering if it's safe to sell my 10.5 Leopard Family Pack.

I have 10.4.11, Tiger?

From scanning in this topic i can buy this new snow thing for $29 and upgrade my macbook?

edit: $25 at bestbuy.

.

Quote:
Correct.  Apple confirmed that on the record for Mossberg/WSJ.

I finally got a shipping notice for my Snow Leopard -- it is due Tuesday.  Now if only the almighty Google would tell me if SL breaks Ruby/Rails in any way or changes the preinstalled version...

As I understand it, the EULA that comes with the $29 package forbids that. OK, so I got that out of the way  ....

Yes, it works fine. I used the $29 upgrade to disc to install 10.6 on a MacBook with a completely blank HD. Looking at the packaging, I didn't notice anything on it that said "upgrade". Just plane old 10.6. In fact, the system requirements on the outside of the box do not list 10.5 as being required.

-Keith

It's too late to discuss the legal or moral points of violating EULAs. But I'll note that I pay Apple's price for family packs as appropriate. Their pricing and rules are so much easier than Microsoft's that I'm glad to pay the $$$ even if I could violate their terms.

But Snow Leopard is being explained very badly by Apple for no good reason. They've obscured whether it's a complete install DVD, as Leopard was, or if it won't work without aid from Leopard. It's not clear and simple and user-friendly: it's very un-Apple.

And if it is a complete install, I'm going to sell my Leopard Family Pack (because I paid extra to be a "legit"), as I've sold a PowerMac,  iLife (Family Pack, again) and iWork after upgrades. I bought it. Now I'll sell it. (And my Snow Leopard retail packaging has no EULA in it.)

That said, thanks a zillion Keith! I appreciate getting a final answer from someone that's actually done it.


And all that said...I'm really close to rolling back to my 10.5 setup. I have the good fortune of using products from vendors with poor update response times.

Okay, picked up a 500gb western digital my book on closeout at walmart for $57. I thought it was a good deal. Now I can back everything up and get snow lep installed.

 What I would like to know is if anyone has seen any sort of performance improvement.  And if you have, what was it.  I loaded it on my Mac Pro and MacBook Pro, yes I got the family Pack, and have seen very little difference in performance.  Maybe I just had my hopes set too high.  But I was thinking that Snow Leopard would really turn on all 16 cores and take advantage of all 16 gigs of ram.  My 64 bit version of Vista still out performs Snow Leopard in a big way. That's frustrating!!!!

Gizmodo did benchmarks and notes:

They've got charts and other details, if you care.

Personally, I've not noticed anything on my 2007 MacBook Pro.

I too notice very little. Here's what I have noticed, and they're mostly cosmetic improvements:

The "genie" effect of hiding windows into the dock bar has greatly smoothed out animation (yes I'm a geek and it bothered me before).

The Disk Permission Repair is much more accurate in terms of time remaining and where you are in the process.

Also, there is less to repair. Before (due to how much software I have on my MBP) there would always be a screen and a half of permissions needing repair and clearly 10.5.8 couldn't repair it because the same items were eligible for repair every time I ran Repair Permissions. Now when I ran it post 10.6 there were three things that were repaired.

Dock animation (and magnification) are smoother. Again, I'm a nerd and I have a ton of items in my dock, and I like to use the magnification effect, and it's much smoother in Snow Leopard.

I'm fairly certain they changed the anti aliasing on the items in the top menu bar of the OS (where time and battery life are).

iPhoto 09 (where I have thousands of pics) is both faster and smoother running.

I like how Disk Space remaining (at the bottom bar of windows) is more quickly updated when I empty the trash.

I find the new version of Quicktime X plays videos more smoothly.

Expose animation is also smoother (and I like how it also shows what is minimized in a smaller version of a thumbnail).

Haven't noticed much in the way of Pro apps. Logic Studio might load a little faster, but nothing I could pinpoint.

Oh, and my number 1 improvement (knocking on wood): I have less wireless drops than before (haven't had one yet).

Paying closer attention, I'm seeing some of the things Carlo does. Scrolling my Applications folder, in icon view, was choppy in 10.5. It's smooth in 10.6. iPhoto was always chopping to scroll through. Now, it starts choppy, but after loading fully it becomes smooth.

But in some few areas, I've noticed major slowdowns. It's probably / hopefully due to non-updated software that will be fixed with revisions.

I've found workarounds for my outdated Tivo and Logitech software, which helps a lot.

Where I am seeing immediate improvements is in a few specific areas, which also agrees with what I understand about 10.6.  First, redraws are noticeably faster.  My understanding is this will depend heavily on the video card.  Web site redraws, scrolling, image resizing, all noticeably faster.  I may be wrong about that, but I understand that was one of the major improvements in the new Mini that was going to come to light with 10.6.  Any OS or Apple software intensive actions tend to be significantly faster.  This makes sense since only the upgrades with the new OS are likely to be taking great advantage of the many speed benefits of 10.6.  Disk intensive actions, like opening enormous apps such as PhotoShop CS4 or large image files are noticeably faster.  I watch the various status info while opening PS CS4 just fly by.

Oh yeah, printer response is considerably faster.  My old Epson Stylus Photo R200 used to think for about 30 seconds before finally starting to spit out a page.  I don't think it is much longer than 5 seconds now.  My Brother laser printer actually wakes up before I tell it to print, though this is not necessarily good, since it is my default printer and sometimes I actually am printing to the Epson.

 One thing I think that is worth repeating is that Apple has changed how 10.6 reports drive sizes:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2419

I see a lot of people saying 10.6 takes up less disk space and it very well may depending on how you installed 10.5 (I never installed the extra print drivers, languages or the extra fonts for the languages myself).

That being said, 10.6 reported my freshly formatted 500GB HD as having a hair over 500GB available where in 10.5, as I recall, it was only listed at about 465GB available. So, if you aren't careful, it is easy to think there is a bunch of extra space available.

-Keith

First, it is my understanding that the upgrade DVD is the same
as the full retail.  Same disc.  Mind you, I am getting this info.
from reading other sites.

Secondly, can't say I am overly happy after just installing Snow
Leopard.

Many programs no longer work and I have to sit here until 
manufacturers play catch-up.

Among those not working...

* Letterbox for Mail
* Mail Tags for Mail
* MiniMail (which looks like it will never be updated and I love it)
* Windowshade X (my favorite utility ever)
* Tivo Transfer

I will say my system feels somewhat more spunky than
before but nothing major to say here for the moment other
than I like the new Quicktime player for my WMV and AVI
files.

Well three of the programs you list are actually just plugins. It is unsurprising that after the main program changed the plugins will have to be updated as well; Firefox recently had the same problem going from 3.0.x to 3.5.

When you say Tivo Transfer, are you talking about Toast? Because the Tivo Desktop doesn't (officially) support transfers, IIRC. You should have a look at iTivo.

-Christian

Christian,

Appreciate the recommendation for iTivo.  Just downloaded
it.  Having problems connecting.  I have the media key but
not sure how to get the correct IP address.   

I suppose Tivo Transfer (tied to TOAST) will be upgraded
with the next update of the TOAST software package.

Yes, all those plug-ins have not been updated.  I went to
the individual websites and all are claiming that updates
are being worked on. 

Ron,
Lots of discussion at Tivo Community Forums on Tivo and 10.6. The recommendations are for iTivo (download from Tivo) and pyTivoX (stream to Tivo). Hopefully you can get iTivo to work.

I share your pain on broken little (but important) things. It's Leopard all over again.

Yeah, Dave, I am not overly worried.

Usually it takes up to a month for everyone else to
catch up with updates that make their programs compatible. 

http://www.youtube.com/user/bullychris

Video showing 10.6 installed on wiped harddrive.

 Yeah, things will break, most will be updated in a couple of weeks.  What bugs me is that now I am 100% dependent on my Mac for work, and I can't afford to take the chance.  At most I'll do one out of my three machines...

Quote: Ron, you should be able to see the IP address your Tivo has on the Network Connection screen.

-Christian

It seems that many should wait to install Snow Leopard:

• 10.6.1 or 10.6.2 would be out, fixing the inevitable little glitches that become more obvious with a full public release
• All the apps/plugins you rely on could update themselves and confirm compatibility -- although what have then been doing for months while Snow Leopard was in beta?
• Some new apps that take advantage of GCD and/or OpenCL would be out, and so you could see a clear definite reason to upgrade.

The lust for new-shiny short circuits rational thought.