I’m looking forward to using Tiger, but I normally wait for the bleeding-edge people to stop bleeding before I do anything about it. Usually I have one new-enough work computer that can actually run the latest OS without crawling too slowly and I don’t want to lose everything switching to a new OS. I’m not worried about missing data, but wrangling new versions of apache, perl, mysql, and whatever else may be updated.
I haven’t heard huge outcries about Tiger being all that bad, but I have heard about a problem downloading untrusted Dashboard items, various problems compiling things with gcc4.0 (although the fix was often very easy in most cases), and the usual old-app new-OS problems.
Fortunately I have a new work machine on the way that I can sacrifice, so I’ll be able to install it without risking an interruption of my daily work.
Still, I’m curious how people (other than the techies I talk to personally) are making out with Tiger. If you haven’t had problems, which feature do you like the most?
Tiger in your tank.
I am running the client. No problems running php, PostgreSQL, MySQL, along with everything else I throw at it. Will hold off the server for a while.
Make sure you run fix permissions after installing the dev tools as there are some sym links that need some fixing (mainly related to C++).
No Problems
Average Joe with four installs, no problems at all.
long delay when switching application focus
When I am switching applications, it now takes 5 seconds of spinning pizza of delay. This did not happen before installing Tiger. Menumeters reports that it is user space cpu spinning.
If anyone else has had this problem, please let me know. Or better yet, if you have a solution, please let me know.
-brewster
brewster@archive.org
Apparently,
Tiger has the buddha nature.
Tiger, tiger burning bright...
Be careful when installing to review your applications for conflicts with Tiger. For example, Virex is not compatible with Tiger (yet). It will, however, run in the background taking 80+% of the CPU, causing the machine to overheat, battery to run down, and your stock portfolio to plummet in value. Other than that problem, my install performs very well. I would suspect any spinning beachball of doom to come from an issue like the one I describe.
OS9
I'm still having problems with some 3rd party programs unable to start, crashing, and being unstable. However, I have numerous problems using older OS9 programs. Trying to start the program and OS9 at the same time usually crashes computer. I may have to wipe harddrive clean to resinstall system since I haven't heard of these problems from anyone else.
Fine
Basically, it's fine. No serious problems.
Spotlight was choking on some of my directories -- sucking up all my CPU -- especially Eudora's. I told it to ignore Eudora's folder, and a few others, solved that.
iCal keeps resetting my calendar colors. It's really bloody annoying.
The new QuickTime Player has some issues, including that you have to pay out more money if you had previously purchsed a QT Pro license and want the same capabilities you had before. But it also crashes for me under various conditions.
Safari still stinks.
That's about it, for me, I think.
No Serious Problems
I have 3 installs of 10.4.1-- iBook 500 MHz, iMac flat panel 800, Power Mac G5 DP 1.8. I've had no serious problems. I'm having trouble with Zinio Reader (for MacWorld Digital), but I don't know if that's an incompatibility with 10.4 or something else.
The apps I use most frequently are Word X, Entourage X (for address book and calendar), HP printer software, Safari, Mail, Photoshop Elements 2, Preview, VLC, Zinio, iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, and games.
I really like the increased UI responsiveness and Spotlight's speed. The widgets in Dashboard are interesting but not incredibly useful at this point. Mail works fine, but it really has been beaten by the ugly stick. Automator is fascinating. I'm still learning how to use it.
Doug
Mail an issue with multiple accts after wakeup
I did a clean install on a 12" PowerBook G4 (867 MHz) with a GB RAM. Installation went fine and the systems seems quite snappy in general having done the Jaguar to Panther move and lots of other installs over the last 2+years.
The only issue I am having is with Mail. After waking the PB from sleep, if I check mail too soon, the network (Airport) is apparently detected as not sufficiently ready and anywhere from 1 to all 4 of my mail accts claims to be having trouble with the connection.
Retrying after a few seconds works just fine.
Other than this one issue (so far, as it's only been 3 days), I'm very pleased.
Fast
I find Tiger smooth and fast. My install was a clean one - and a minimal one.
Some applications are very much faster: Disk Utility now goes like a rocket - just as well as permissions do still wander after installing updates.
I've no use for Automator. And I think Dan Miller has it right: Dashboard doesn't do anything that couldn't be done - and more to the point done better - in other ways:
They may be colorful, but I think they're useless. Worse, they give me doubts about the way the OS is headed.
Quote:
"Those widgets should never be allowed to get administrative access on the system," Zdziarski said in an interview. "Apple has taken sort of the Microsoft stance with widgets, in that it is one of the few tools that is completely built into the operating system."
Spotlight is very, very fast on my system. (It's also useful as an application launcher. But then OS X is missing a Start/Launch button unlike Gnome, KDE, and Windows. So here it only fills what was an obvious hole.)
As I say, Spotlight is extremely fast for me: however, many people report very sluggish running. I haven't got a huge number of files on the machine in question: some people, of course, have phenomenal numbers of files.
I have got concerns about Spotlight, too. It's only accessible by Root. Someone suggests to me Spotlight is likely to be a root-owned process; furthermore, that if that's so, it's bad news, because that shouldn't be done in a GUI - specially not in Cocoa.
I like Tiger because it is generally smoother and faster. However, I also have my doubts about things Apple are doing. Talking some of these issues over with friends, I find for the first time I've become sceptical of Apple and unhappy with them. I can't see myself shelling out another $129 next year ... and very other year in perpetuity.
No significant problems
Most of the problems I read about seem to be Mail.app and I just started using Mail.app with Tiger (was using BB Mailsmith) so that might be why my upgrade was easy.
I had no problems updating from Mailsmith exported mbox files to Mail. It took several hours to import and index with Spotlight but Spotlight works flawlessly on over 45,000 email messages and an additional 85,000 regular files and folders on my main volume.
Overall, everything seems a bit faster. Safari seems to be a little less tolerant of Websites doing a reset when they are under heavy load. My main problem there is MyCheckFree.com. But I can usually work around the problem.
The usually rants over Apple adding features and changing things are amusing to read. The sky is falling again but Tiger users will eventually get over it until the next upgrade at which time they will say, "I don't remember people having this many problems with Tiger, what's up with Apple nowadays," just as they did with Panther and Jaguar before that.
Hard disk spinning
I hadn't time to do my clean install on my PB 1.25Ghz when Tiger first arrived so I just did an upgrade from 10.3.9. I had no real problems but did find the hard disk was spinning more than usual. With a GB of RAM I found this unusual so I checked the processes that were running and found a kernal task was eating up a lot of memory. I performed a clean install at the weekend and have had no problems with that since. VLC has quit on me a couple of times, but seems to be stable again now.
long delay when switching application focus
Ok, figured it out (with apple's support help). It was fixed by deleting /Library/Caches and ~/Library/Caches as well as running the repair permissions in the disk utility.
I guess the tiger installation triggered something...
I am posting this in case others have this problem.
-brewster
tigers lions and Cows
i have been waiting for this operating system for ever and was thrilled to death to be an early adopter so far i haven't had any problems with apple however i am less than pleased with the responce of a few 3rd party developers i mean come on the developer kit for tiger has been out for some time now (i was tempted to buy it myself) i understand that the mac may not be a priority for developers producing for several different platforms but at least try and have a working version of your app out the door in a reasonable time after the release of the os lol
I feel embarased having bought a product with such poor customer service oh well it's just the usual os upgrade lag and i wonder if i am being a tad bit too harsh But what is the poin't of a developer pre release if developers don't use it!!!!!!
Windows Media Player
WMP is completely non-functional now. Not really Apple's problem, probably, but now I'm noticing how many sites are using .wmv files for video clips. Other than that, I love it. Even my old 550 Mhz G4 tower seems snappier.
Hard disk spinning
Dear
I have the same problem my Hard disk spinning more than usual, I think there is a virus or a worm in the hard Disk and I need to know what kind of worm do this in able to download the right tool to fix the prblem, when you format all thats mean you kill it but this is not the right solution