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Janaka Cooray · Aug 17, 2005, 06:45 PM

Just upgraded to Tiger expecting speed improvements - and it seems slower! browsing in Safari and Camino.

Anyone else notice this?

Panther seemed slow - then I started using Camino optimisd for G4 - and web browsing was very quick - whats going on?

Have I missed something?

analogika · Aug 17, 2005, 07:25 PM

Well...*is* it still indexing the hard drive?

You can tell from the little pulsating white dot in the magnifying glass on the right end of the menu bar...

hldan · Aug 18, 2005, 01:11 AM

[QUOTE=Janaka Cooray]Just upgraded to Tiger expecting speed improvements - and it seems slower! browsing in Safari and Camino.

Anyone else notice this?

Panther seemed slow - then I started using Camino optimisd for G4 - and web browsing was very quick - whats going on?

Have I missed something?[/QUOTE

If you upgraded or did archive and install then BAD IDEA!! The only way to install Tiger from Panther is to do reformat and install or in other words do a complete erase and install.
I did archive and install of Tiger from Panther on my iMac G4 and not only was it slow, it stuttered a lot. I immediately backed up my HD then completely erased using Disk Utility and installed Tiger and all is well.

ChasingApple · Aug 18, 2005, 01:38 AM

I also did an upgrade option on 2 macs (ibook and imac) and both sucked afterward. I have since backed up the imac and have done a full erase and install on it and tiger is better, but honestly I am not impressed with Tiger (and its problems) and I will be putting Panther back on it.

Whenever you do an OS install, backup and start from scratch!

Janaka Cooray · Aug 18, 2005, 07:52 AM

Anyone else who upgrade from Panther to Tiger who thinks that maybe Panther is better?

I am using a Mac mini - maybe Tiger really only benefits from the faster systems?

I rate smoothness and responsiveness over features to be honest (I wasn't dying without Tiger's features before - they're just nice to have as an extra.)

it looks like I need to backup and then erase and install - but the opinions on this thread will sway my decision as to whether I re-install Panther or Tiger.

ghporter · Aug 18, 2005, 07:57 AM

Tiger simply needs more RAM to seem as fast as Panther did. It's because Tiger is doing MORE and doing a bunch of it in the background, so you're not necessarily aware of what it is doing. As always, Mac OS likes a lot of RAM and unlike some OSs, it's easy to speed up OS X by adding RAM.

I'm getting a Mini soon, and I'm going for a full 1GB of RAM for that reason-faster performance.

JLL · Aug 18, 2005, 08:56 AM

Originally Posted by hldan

If you upgraded or did archive and install then BAD IDEA!! The only way to install Tiger from Panther is to do reformat and install or in other words do a complete erase and install.

BS! My to machines were both upgraded from 10.3 and they run great. But I didn't have any 3rd party extension, plug-ins or something like that, and I made sure that 10.3 was in great shape before I upgraded.

Janaka Cooray · Aug 18, 2005, 09:04 AM

that's interesting JLL - I've owned my mac for only a short period of time and never installed OS extensions or anything of that nature. It was pretty much as it was out of the factory! (I'm a light user really only wanting to do iLife stuff...)

Panther was smooth and responsive (with the exception of the web browsing - hence I upgraded to Tiger for Safri 2.0). I did an upgrade install - now my mac does seem to stutter and be slower.

Did you have atleast 1GB in your machines JLL?

Anyone else noticed that a RAM upgrade was needed after upgrading to Tiger to actually benefit from its speed increase?

PS I bought Tiger under the impression that it was compiled under the newer GCC 4.0 compiler (as well as having tweaked networking and graphics for better efficiency) - so Tiger would yield a speed improvement all round in the same way I hear Panther did for Jaguar users and earlier. It looks like I may have been wrong.

JLL · Aug 18, 2005, 09:36 AM

Originally Posted by Janaka Cooray

Did you have atleast 1GB in your machines JLL?

Yes, and Tiger is faster than Panther.

Perhgaps you should try to delete caches and run the periodic scripts.

Janaka Cooray · Aug 18, 2005, 09:58 AM

JLL Wrote
Yes, and Tiger is faster than Panther.

So are you saying that Tiger needs 1GB to be faster that Panther?

JLL Wrote:
Perhgaps you should try to delete caches and run the periodic scripts.

since I am new to the Mac, could someone tell me how to do this?

Again, for a newb, is 1GB practically required for Tiger? (I think 512MB is enough for iLife usage on Panther.)

nforcer · Aug 18, 2005, 05:08 PM

Is the Mac Mini capable of scaling its processor speeds? Perhaps processor performance in Energy Saver -> Options was reset to "Automatic" with the upgrade and should be set to "Highest"?

Millennium · Aug 18, 2005, 05:48 PM

Originally Posted by hldan

If you upgraded or did archive and install then BAD IDEA!! The only way to install Tiger from Panther is to do reformat and install or in other words do a complete erase and install.

Not true at all. I have two Macs, and I always do a plain upgrade on one and an erase/install on the other. The supposed boost from an erase/install is nothing but a placebo effect.

Janaka Cooray · Aug 18, 2005, 06:33 PM

OK - I noticed that the Tiger DVD was still in the drive - and it seemed to be accessing whenever Tiger was 'stuttering' - even though I wasn't accessing anything on the DVD.

That was when I realised that the DVD wouldn't eject! Finder kept saying the DVD was in use - even though I couldn't fid anything to 'force quit'. Even using terminal commands or booting into the 'Open firmware' and typinf the eject command wouldn't work!

In the end, I managed to eject the DVD by holding down the mouse button whilst booting up (quite impressed since I use an Apple Pro Wireless Mouse and thought that it wouldn't be recognised by the Mac until after the initial boot sequence.)

The stuttering has gone now.

...Now I'm still not convinced that Tiger is faster - if it is, then it certainly isn't a 'night and day' difference compared to Panther.

... I seem to heading inexorably towards the 'upgrade cycle' I expereienced with my PC - has anyone heard anything which confirms that TIger really needs 1GB RAM to show its 'speed improvement' over Panther?

mikemako · Aug 18, 2005, 06:39 PM

Hi there. In my experience, simply "upgrading" between major versions of OS X has provided unsatisfactory results. I started with 10.0, now use 10.4, and have tried the simple "upgrade" option, "archive & install," and "erase & install." "Upgrade" and "archive" both gave me problems, the "erase" option has always worked best for me.

I would recommend starting from scratch. Tiger really should be faster than Panther on a 1.2GHz G4 with 512MB RAM. You don't need more RAM to benefit from Tiger. Back everything up to a few CD's or DVD's, erase the disk, and install Tiger on a clean disk.

mikemako · Aug 18, 2005, 07:05 PM

Originally Posted by Janaka Cooray

...Now I'm still not convinced that Tiger is faster - if it is, then it certainly isn't a 'night and day' difference compared to Panther.

Also, I can confirm that even with a clean install, Tiger will not make a "night & day" difference in the speed of your system. It is a little faster, more responsive, and has some nice new features, but the difference between 10.4.2 and 10.3.8 is small.

Safari in Tiger is about that same speed as Safari in 10.3.8. I believe they both use the same rendering engine.

One area where Tiger is much faster than Panther is loading thumbnail images in a folder with many pictures in it. I would say Panther was rather slow at this, and Tiger is about the same speed as Windows XP in this area (an improvement). If you store all your photos in iPhoto, then it's irrelevent, but if you just keep your photos in a folder you will notice a significant speed increase there.

Give Tiger some more time to be refined and it's likely the speed will furthur surpass Panther.

TheSpaz · Aug 18, 2005, 08:43 PM

Originally Posted by hldan

If you upgraded or did archive and install then BAD IDEA!! The only way to install Tiger from Panther is to do reformat and install or in other words do a complete erase and install.
I did archive and install of Tiger from Panther on my iMac G4 and not only was it slow, it stuttered a lot. I immediately backed up my HD then completely erased using Disk Utility and installed Tiger and all is well.

Why in the WORLD would Apple make it so hard to upgrade their OS that you have to erase your hard drive in order to enjoy your new Mac OS X Tiger? They wouldn't do that to us and they DIDN'T do that.

Upgrading should be fine and I've upgraded a few Macs from Panther to Tiger with very little problems, the only problems I run into are the problems that came with Tiger (not caused by install).

Simple upgrade solves a lot of headaches, trust me. Archive and installs aren't as good as everyone says they are. Once you archive and install, then you copy your home folder back into Tiger, things start screwing up... you know why? I don't really know why but, I think it's because of the way Tiger handles preferences and Library files.

Upgrade from Panther to Tiger, it couldn't make more sense.

Before I finish, lemme ask you this: Do you erase your hard drive every time you want to install a 10.4.x update? No you wouldn't because it's unnecessary, just like erasing for an OS upgrade. Apple builds the installer so it will replace what it needs to replace and it fixes all your files and permissions and stuff, and an Archive and Install doesn't do that. I may be wrong about all of this cause I'm not an expert, I'm just going by common sense. Apple wouldn't make things that difficult for us... I mean come on, it's APPLE (The company that makes software so easy to use and most of the time so easy that they can't include FEATURES cause that would just scare any new computer user away from the Mac.)

hldan · 01:43 AM

Originally Posted by TheSpaz

Why in the WORLD would Apple make it so hard to upgrade their OS that you have to erase your hard drive in order to enjoy your new Mac OS X Tiger? They wouldn't do that to us and they DIDN'T do that.

Upgrading should be fine and I've upgraded a few Macs from Panther to Tiger with very little problems, the only problems I run into are the problems that came with Tiger (not caused by install).

Simple upgrade solves a lot of headaches, trust me. Archive and installs aren't as good as everyone says they are. Once you archive and install, then you copy your home folder back into Tiger, things start screwing up... you know why? I don't really know why but, I think it's because of the way Tiger handles preferences and Library files.

Upgrade from Panther to Tiger, it couldn't make more sense.

Before I finish, lemme ask you this: Do you erase your hard drive every time you want to install a 10.4.x update? No you wouldn't because it's unnecessary, just like erasing for an OS upgrade. Apple builds the installer so it will replace what it needs to replace and it fixes all your files and permissions and stuff, and an Archive and Install doesn't do that. I may be wrong about all of this cause I'm not an expert, I'm just going by common sense. Apple wouldn't make things that difficult for us... I mean come on, it's APPLE (The company that makes software so easy to use and most of the time so easy that they can't include FEATURES cause that would just scare any new computer user away from the Mac.)

Your information is correct to an extent, so maybe I need to clarify things a bit more. While the upgrade option generally works just fine it's designed to work at it's best from a clean install of the older OS. For example if you have been using Panther for say 18 months and have been downloading and installing this and that and whatever then a simple upgrade may not be simple and an archive and install will be even worse.

If a person has the upgrade only CD's then they need a clean install of the older OS to upgrade to the newer one, this is why Apple offers this feature. Archive and install is basically designed to repair or restore a faulty OS or missing apps so using it to upgrade to a newer OS will be a bad idea.
Don't add to stuff I say if you are quoting me, I never said that OS updates require reformat and install. Those are minor "updates" and not upgrades so your analogy makes no sense and you were just being rude.

ChasingApple · Aug 19, 2005, 01:43 AM

Its all about OS 9.2.2 anyway (which Im running right now as I post this).

Janaka Cooray · Aug 19, 2005, 06:07 AM

Well I'm looking at the posts this morning and there sems to be little consensus on:

The way I should have installed Tiger...

People on this topic advocating a clean install - based on their experience of noticing better results after the clean install when compared to the upgrade installs they did:

hldan
ChasingApple
MikeMako

People advocating an upgrade install - based on their experience of not noticing any problems with the upgrade:

JLL
Millenium
TheSpaz

Great!!

In addition, there are the other spanners in the works which have got me thinking:

1) May Tiger need 1GB RAM? How many people have 1GB RAM (GhPorter and JLL certainly do.)
2) Is Tiger's speed increase a plecebo effect? - Milleium, MikeMako?

CharlesS · Aug 19, 2005, 06:41 AM

Add me to the list of people advocating not reformatting the hard disk. There's very little benefit to this over a plain Archive and Install.

Janaka Cooray · Aug 19, 2005, 06:50 AM

Being a newb to the Mac,

What is the difference between the 'Upgrade' option (that I chose) and the 'Archive and Install' option?

JKT · Aug 19, 2005, 08:19 AM

Upgrade simply writes over the current Library and System Library folders whereas the Archive and Install option makes a back up copy of them (in a folder called Previous System) and then creates new Library and System Library folders and their contents. With an archive and install you have the option to preserve your preferences from your "old" system etc or you can start with a clean slate.

The advantage of doing an Archive and Install is that it doesn't copy over any third party extensions to the system (you have to do that by hand afterwards or by reinstalling apps) which means you won't experience any of the nasty software conflicts between the new system and any hacks or apps that are/were not yet compatible with it (e.g. Virex 7.5.x, NAV, etc).

The disadvantage is that you have to reinstall apps or copy things over by hand to get all your apps functioning correctly.

Personally I think Archive and Install is the best option in terms of user friendliness while cleaning out the cruft from the old system, so-to-speak. FWIW, this was also (more) true for the equivalent option with OS 8 and OS 9, IMO.

Janaka Cooray · Aug 19, 2005, 08:23 AM

Is there any way to 'uninstall' tiger and revert back to my previous Panther install? (so I can try out this 'Archive' and 'Install' option.)

SMacTech · Aug 19, 2005, 09:21 AM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Add me to the list of people advocating not reformatting the hard disk. There's very little benefit to this over a plain Archive and Install.

Add me to the list as well. Myself and probably CharlesS, being developers, have done more upgrade installs, archive and installs then most posting in this thread. Every single beta I installed with Tiger was always one of the above methods, same with Panther.

Only once have I erased a hard drive/reinstalled and it was because of a bad sector on the drive.

ChasingApple · 11:56 AM

People that did a clean install of Tiger after having Panther on thier computers for awhile would see a speed increase, only because any fresh OS install is going to be fast and unbloated. I just earased Tiger off of my iMac yesterday and did a clean install of Panther and indeed Panther was faster, but only because it is a fresh install.

Point is, I dont think Tiger is "faster" per say then Panther, rather a fresh install feels faster because its fresh. Panther is faster overall on my iMac vs Tiger though, not as demanding on memory.

IMac G4 1.25Ghz / 768MB / 80GB / Superdrive - Panther

iBook 466Mhz / 320MB / 40GB / DVD - OS 9.2.2 (Faster then OS X hands down)

OS 9.2.2 is faster on my old iBook then any OS X has been on my other hardware, if you were to see a fresh install of OS 9 today on your hardware, you would see the contrast difference in speed, and be amazed. Im not sure I like where OS X is heading at the moment.

Im one of those guys that has a ton of hardware in the house, several PC's, 3 Macs, and parts all over the place, I have pretty much all the OS's from Windows 95 to 15 Distros of Linux, to OS 9 - OS X Tiger, I have tried them all with different levels of hardware. OS X by far is the slowest of all the OS's, but it is the most robust in its features. I love OS X and what it can do, but I put up with and acknowledge the slowness of it. I am sure if I had a Dual G5 2.7Ghz with a couple GIGS of memory I would not complain too much about OS X's speed, but I dont.

Funny thing is Linux, it will run on ancient hardware, run fast, run modern apps, and is completely stable with little to no viruses / spyware if setup properly. OS 9 is also extremely fast, once again on ancient hardware. Even Windows XP runs rather well on older hardware, and that must be the most bloated of all OS's.

All I know is, I believe Apple needs to rewrite OS X, or perhaps everything will be faster once they switch to Intel hardware. I have read at many places that OS X was way fast on thier PC's. Time will tell.

CharlesS · Aug 19, 2005, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by SMacTech

Only once have I erased a hard drive/reinstalled and it was because of a bad sector on the drive.

I've done three erase-and-installs:

1. was because of a bad sector, just like your experience

2. was because I upgraded from my puny 30 GB hard drive to a nice, spacious 250 GB, which of course needed to be formatted!

3. was when I got the iMac G5 I'm currently using and wanted to make a small partition to have another boot drive for testing purposes.

TheSpaz · Aug 19, 2005, 09:30 PM

I'm very sorry if my post sounded rude, I didn't mean it to be rude. I'm just sick of everyone in these forums saying that you MUST do an erase and install in order to have a good Tiger experience and by your post about "Upgrading or Archive and Install is a bad idea" I thought you were another one of those people who feel that they must format the drive. I believe, like other people have said, erasing only causes a placebo effect because all the settings are back to default so, it may seem faster.

Whatever the case... I think upgrading is the most hassle-free way to install Tiger.

Reasons...
1. You don't have to re-install your Apps because of missing library files
2. You don't have to reset your preferences to all your Apps
3. All your desktop pictures and library files stay in tact as well as plugins and such
4. All your music, movies, pictures and other collections stay in place
5. You don't have to erase your drive and backup data (although backing up is very important)
6. I believe this creates the smoothest transition from Panther to Tiger
7. Some people at work upgraded to Tiger from Jaguar with NO problems at all
8. I think the installer may even be faster cause it doesn't have to replace EVERY file.
9. Just do it. Hehe

hldan · Aug 19, 2005, 11:31 PM

Originally Posted by TheSpaz

I'm very sorry if my post sounded rude, I didn't mean it to be rude. I'm just sick of everyone in these forums saying that you MUST do an erase and install in order to have a good Tiger experience and by your post about "Upgrading or Archive and Install is a bad idea" I thought you were another one of those people who feel that they must format the drive. I believe, like other people have said, erasing only causes a placebo effect because all the settings are back to default so, it may seem faster.

Whatever the case... I think upgrading is the most hassle-free way to install Tiger.

Reasons...
1. You don't have to re-install your Apps because of missing library files
2. You don't have to reset your preferences to all your Apps
3. All your desktop pictures and library files stay in tact as well as plugins and such
4. All your music, movies, pictures and other collections stay in place
5. You don't have to erase your drive and backup data (although backing up is very important)
6. I believe this creates the smoothest transition from Panther to Tiger
7. Some people at work upgraded to Tiger from Jaguar with NO problems at all
8. I think the installer may even be faster cause it doesn't have to replace EVERY file.
9. Just do it. Hehe

Thanks for the nice reply, hopefully the original poster takes all these comments and makes use of them.

ChasingApple · Aug 20, 2005, 03:08 AM

Im just one of those guys that backs up his stuff all the time, so I never have a problem doing a clean install. I guess I got used to it in my Windows days. Nothing like a fresh clean install boyee!

Randman · Aug 20, 2005, 03:13 AM

Archive & Install here. Did it on my PB and my mini, no problems. Upgrade can have a few issues here and there as sys stuff can be changed in upgrading OSes.

Detrius · Aug 20, 2005, 01:55 PM

Originally Posted by Janaka Cooray

Is there any way to 'uninstall' tiger and revert back to my previous Panther install? (so I can try out this 'Archive' and 'Install' option.)

It would be rather pointless to reinstall Panther just to do an archive and install. You can archive and install Tiger over top of Tiger. It basically just moves the OS out of the way--it doesn't matter what version it is.

Randman · Aug 20, 2005, 02:00 PM

For installation choices, you will see:

• Install Mac OSX: This option appears if you do not have OSX installed on your computer or if you have an early version that cannot be upgraded.

• Upgrade Mac OSX: The default method, Upgrade leaves all of your files, applications and settings in place. The installer replaces all the components of your OSX installation with Tiger equivalents then deletes the obsolete ones, leaving user-installed files (including preferences) intact.
Note: Despite this being the default choice, this approach can lead to problems with applications and services that may conflict with Tiger and it is recommended that a user not opt for this selection.

• Erase and Install: This method erases the entire contents of your Mac’s hard drive and installs Tiger in a pristine state. The drawback, if upgrading, to this method is that all of your preferences, network settings, installed software and documents will have been deleted and wiped from the hard drive.
After an Erase and Install, the Setup Assistant will run in case you want to copy files from another volume or Mac using the Migration Assistant.

• Archive and Install: Select this option if you want to install a fresh system on your computer while not entirely deleting this previous OS’ contents.
This method will move your existing OSX System files to a folder named Previous System before it installs a new copy of OSX on the selected volume.
OSX–installed applications, such as Address Book, Mail and Safari, are archived and new versions are installed in the Applications folder. Unless you select “Preserve Users and Network Settings,” user accounts and their home folders will also be archived in the Previous System folder.
If you select this choice, your existing user accounts, home folders and network settings will be carried over into the new system. User accounts include such things as Home folders and their contents; Preference settings; Address Book databases; browser favorites and Network settings and locations.
“Preserve Users and Network Settings” also copies the existing /Users/Shared folder to your new system.

mania · Aug 20, 2005, 08:24 PM

i will vote for a clean install - it helps get rid of old stuff - kinda like when you move.

if you have slow browsing only but everything else is fast - try adding your ISPs name servers in the TCP/IP settings and it might speed things up a lot.