Official Mac OS X Leopard Installation & Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

Mac OS X Leopard

This is the official thread to discuss installation and initial
impressions of the new Mac operating system.

The thread will open on release day, October 26th.

 

[ErichH]

Make a backup of at least your user folder, if not a clone of your main disk. That said, install with confidence - this is not windows yet Some 3rd party stuff will work if it doesn't involve icon haxies, or a hack on the graphics. Things that do not work will not hose the system - perhaps a dialog or 2.
Install takes around 30 minutes on newer machines (even if it starts with a 2hour+ time count)

Some welcome new features in email and ical.
Cover Flow might be useful at certain times, but slower than list view when you need to get things done. It is an interesting option though. Quick View is nifty.
If you don't want to use 2 clicks for a dock folder to open as a finder window - use command click. A preference would be nice. The doc folder grid is impressive, but many users will prefer a list view in folders that have many items.

The translucent menu bar looks to be around 30% or 70% depending on how you calculate the see through. I'm neutral on this effect, but it may bury some dim icons with a grey desktop color. Brighter colors tend to have a better effect.
Translucent menu backgrounds are another matter. Bookmark text on a dark browser window tends to loose it's readability.

So far, I see a speed boost on Apple's native apps, and a hit on the GPU. MacPro users with high power cards will probably see a boost in the GPU. Older Power Books and iMacs might draw a little slower. All this eye candy comes with a price. Now I know why there's an 800mhz floor on Leo. He's hungry!

Quicktime seems to handle wmv files better - thank you.

Once you get past the huge amount of `Bling' in this release, you'll find some very useful improvements. Time Machine could take away 3rd party backup utilities once it matures. It will no doubt sell some fire drives right away.

Have Fun!

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Install took 45 minutes on my Mac Pro.

I must say, not overly impressed with what I see on the surface.
There really isn't any major overhauls in desktop design. That could
be considered perhaps a good thing since nobody wants the hacky
Vista type eye-candy.

Having problems with a few programs that will not work, including
myNotes. SpamSieve also does not work and with the permissions
that are already set in the email program, all my email is going to
the SPAM folder. Not the worst thing in the world. I'll just go to SPAM
for new mail until SpamSieve updates itself.

Mail is organized a little differently in that any extra
mailboxes that you add (other than INBOX/SENT/TRASH) are
consolidated under a section called On My Mac. Have not
had time to play with the new stationary.

The iChat video effects are incredibly AWESOME! You
can place yourself in front of the Eiffel Tower (with people walking
around you) or on a Rollercoaster ride. The problem is, it's not very
fluid in blending the iChat user with the background without showing
its seams.

iCal has been enhanced slightly. Most notable change is that
it actually displays today's date on the icon.

Really, I am in the very early stages of playing with this new
software. Haven't even had the chance to look at Spaces
yet or figure out how to do the Stacker function.

Yahoo Widgets do not work which is friggin' annoying!

 

[ErichH]

I didn't include the disk check in my time count.
Ron - you should be feeling a speed boost in some areas on that pro?

Just noticed the system-wide grammar checking. Almost a redundant feature. Most text related apps
already have this, so.....hmmm OK.

 

[Carlo_M]

Kind of a bummer they took the "R2D2" effect out of iChat. Of course my friends should probably be thankful. I'd have used that effect non-stop and bugged the hell out of them while reciting Star Wars lines..."help me Obi-Wan Kenobi...you're my only hope"

I'll probably be picking Leopard up some time in the next week or so, just to make sure that the programs I rely on most (ProTools, Adobe CS3, MovieMagic Screenwriter) don't have any migration problems.

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

Talk about best laid plans...I arrive home tonight, copy of Leopard in hand, only to find that my power is out! Grrrrrr. Come on ComEd...I need the juice!

 

[DaveF]

Some interesting articles on Leopard:

What's Leopard really worth?

MacWorld's Leopard Review

The great Leopard Moan

Leopard

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

Slightly? Slightly?

The new iCal is awesome.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Aaron,

What do you find so vastly different?

Honestly, I have not played around with it extensively so you may
have found things I didn't.

I just noticed that it got a slight facelift with a few sidebar enhancements.

Also...

Like the way a DOWNLOAD folder is placed in the dock and how
it STACKS all your downloaded files. Also see a DOCUMENTS folder
that is very handy as well.

I like what I see thus far, but really, everything seems a bit subtle
as far as enhancements are concerned. I guess I expected a radical
change, but as I stated before, perhaps its a good thing that we still
have less eye-candy to deal with over Vista.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

Event dropbox -- where you put files for the people you're meeting with. And office hours and availability windows and room reservations... lots of useful stuff for managing groups of people. It went from an easy-to-use personal calendar to a very useful business calendar.

And you can delegate your calendars to someone else when you're away!

Sure, it doesn't have screen sharing or crazy backdrops like iChat, but it's a gigantic upgrade.

 

[Todd H]

I'm about to start my install. See you on the other side!

 

[Todd H]

That went well. So far the only problem I see is my Razor Pro mouse is not working correctly. My scroll wheel doesn't work, as well as my other mouse buttons. Hopefully Razor will release updated drivers.

 

[DaveF]

Aaron, do you know if an iCal can be shared on a home network? If my wife and I could have a shared iCal calendar across our two machines, that might be really helpful in the DaveF household.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

I'll check with the new one -- the old one needed either .Mac or another server to publish to.

 

[Ted Todorov]

I'm loving Leopard so far.

Hey, can one install Leopard directly on top of Panther (10.3.latest)? A slow moving friend wants to know...

Thanks!
Ted

 

[ErichH]

No problem - as long as he's on a high power g4 or better.
Judging from the way it slows iMacs, a G5 might be a better minimum.

BTW - Custom folder icons of old do not work in the dock - I need a new resource. Re-paste on the new folders does not work.

As days go by, I like the white outlined black dock less and less. I use a side position. Hurry up clear doc and anything that hacks the GUI back to simple elegance.

BTW - with a finder window open - view - show view options - uncheck show icon preview if you want to gain back a little GPU power in list views that have lots of photos, etc. It's not bad on a MacPro with a 512m card.

This does not effect jpg, mov, etc on the desktop.

 

[DaveF]

I went to the Apple store this evening -- a Genius Bar visit for a problem with my MBP -- and had some time to demo Leopard with my wife.

Leopard has Sort By options for Column View!!! That merits a dancing banana:

Lack of sort options in the Finder is a huge deficit in OS X. This modest change is enough to sell me on Leopard. If the rest of it is spit-polished like that, it's going to be a great switch. As good as my switch to OS X has been, I envy those starting their Mac life with Leopard and iLife 08.

(And now my wife is lusting for the latest Quark Xpress... )

But, I have to send my Mac back for repairs -- Leopard is postponed until I can do a robust backup and get my Mac out and back from repair. (sigh) Hopefully I can upgrade before Thanksgiving.

 

[Carlo_M]

Dear Leopard Owners:

Does the final (I'm assuming) build of Safari 3 bundled with Leopard address the various problems that Safari 3 beta users have been having with HTF? Specifically the ability to use the back button?

Thanks!

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

Installed some software for my wireless data card that seemed to leave my MBP very unstable. Decided to take the plunge and restore my entire system from a Time Machine backup. Will apprise everyone of how it turns out once it finishes.

 

[Brian W. Ralston]

This doesn't answer your question, but that problem is not isolated to Safari 3 people. I have the same problem using the old Safari 2 on a G4 and G5 MAC running Tiger. I never upgraded to Safari 3 beta at all. It just started happening one day in the old Safari as well.