[mrl14]

You people are all basing your opinions of the next major revision to OS X on something Steve said was not EVEN ALPHA yet!!

From all your comments if Jaguar is even half as fast as 10.1 I'm excited. It has debug code in it. Half finished features. Features that won't make it in the release.

and finally, MANY programs won't work without Updates...so really...if you have a copy boot it up, enjoy the new features you see off the bat and then go back to 10.1.

There is no doubt in my mind that this will be the best Upgrade yet. It'll probably make it so that G3's can run X efficiently.

Please wait for at least a BETA stage before making assumptions. This just hurts the Mac Community and Apple.

[Liquidity X]

Thats what i did, and tell every one.

[kangoo_boo]

Originally posted by mrl14:
<STRONG>You people are all basing your opinions of the next major revision to OS X on something Steve said was not EVEN ALPHA yet!!

From all your comments if Jaguar is even half as fast as 10.1 I'm excited. It has debug code in it. Half finished features. Features that won't make it in the release.

and finally, MANY programs won't work without Updates...so really...if you have a copy boot it up, enjoy the new features you see off the bat and then go back to 10.1.

There is no doubt in my mind that this will be the best Upgrade yet. It'll probably make it so that G3's can run X efficiently.

Please wait for at least a BETA stage before making assumptions. This just hurts the Mac Community and Apple.</STRONG>

All osx version have debug code. It doesn't even slow osx down, it's kinda "normal".
But, you make me laught, like go back to 10.1. If people want/need to test, that's not like a Public Beta it's more like Developer Preview. Therefore if you are developer you know why you run it (anyway you have double boot )
So if you aren't developer then you know why you install it if it crash your system or what it's your problem.
So i guess you weren't told about that eh ?
So the problem is that it get distributed too widely and people assume it's somewhat a normal useable release ? (*hint* *hint* warning this is a pre-release are u sure do you want to install ?)
so may be its just humans who are a bit stupid ;p i cn never understand why people install the pre-releases whitout thinking that it can actually _really_ trash your system.

[moki]

Originally posted by mrl14:
<STRONG>You people are all basing your opinions of the next major revision to OS X on something Steve said was not EVEN ALPHA yet!!


Please wait for at least a BETA stage before making assumptions. This just hurts the Mac Community and Apple.</STRONG>

Development builds frequently have *lots* of things broken in them -- that's not unusual at all. I would tend to agree that the rampant piracy of alpha's of Jaguar and other products isn't helping Apple, or anyone else for that matter.

Still, human nature being what it is, many people are curious and excited about it, so I'm not surprised. I just wonder who is leaking NDA'd copies of development builds (assuming the versions leaked are the same at WWDC). It surprises me that anyone that is serious enough about Mac development to spend the bucks to go to WWDC would leak it.

Most likely, they gave a copy to a friend of theirs who has no such "moral limitations" and it spread from there. *sigh*

Regardless, developer builds like this are for... you guessed it, Developers. they are generally buggy as hell, but developers are used to dealing with buggy programs (that is their job, after all). The point is to give developers a heads-up on the technologies that are coming.

It is a good thing for developers, I just hope Apple isn't more reticent about giving out developer builds after seeing how rampant the piracy of it has been.

[MacGorilla]

I have to agree with Moki on this one. The pirating of Jaguar, the breaking of ndas has been astonishing. Not even a week after the WWDC and it's all over the place.

I think that Apple will be a little more careful next time, me thinks, which will hurt everyone, developers included.

I am as excited about 10.2 as the next guy but I'm not about to download a pirated alpha quality OS and ***** about it' failings.

[Adam Betts]

Jaguar build is very stable enough for me to use it as main OS right now. I've seen some odd behavior on several other hardware but it run smoothly on my TiG4.

There are several sites who gave their reviews of jaguar build such as www.register.co.uk

I guess people who didn't sign the NDA have right to say whatever they want. I know it's wrong but you can't expect all mind to be same.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
<STRONG>Jaguar build is very stable enough for me to use it as main OS right now. I've seen some odd behavior on several other hardware but it run smoothly on my TiG4.

There are several sites who gave their reviews of jaguar build such as www.register.co.uk

I guess people who didn't sign the NDA have right to say whatever they want. I know it's wrong but you can't expect all mind to be same.</STRONG>

Here's what I have to say:

5Q125 (10.1.4) is REALLY messed up. I have it installed on two different systems (one, I use regularly, one I don't). BOTH of these systems crash daily. This includes anything that involves a forced reboot. I get a kernel panic on my iBook about one in every three times that I wake it from sleep. My desktop computer just sometimes spontaneously crashes. (my internet connection on my iBook dies, so I know the desktop computer crashed).


I think the release of 10.1.4 is doing more to hurt Apple than the pirating of 10.2. As soon as I have time (unless 10.1.5 comes out first), I'm downgrading to 10.1.3. On 10.1.3, my iBook had uptimes of over a month. 10.1.4 crashes daily. Why would I be interested in a pre-alpha build of OS X when I can't get much done on this "public release quality" piece of junk?


BTW, I never have believed all those people that claim that their OS X machines have never crashed on them. On my desktop machine (Dual 533), my uptime record over the past three months is 8 days. This vanity dockling has enlightened me as to how UNSTABLE OS X is. Now, I will definately say that it is SIGNIFICANTLY better than 9 or Windows. But, I don't believe it's what everyone else thinks.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by MacGorilla:
<STRONG>I have to agree with Moki on this one. The pirating of Jaguar, the breaking of ndas has been astonishing. Not even a week after the WWDC and it's all over the place.

I think that Apple will be a little more careful next time, me thinks, which will hurt everyone, developers included.

I am as excited about 10.2 as the next guy but I'm not about to download a pirated alpha quality OS and ***** about it' failings.</STRONG>

I'm not sure what to think about this.

Certainly, the rampant pirating of these builds is hurting Apple. But at the same time, this rather inane policy Apple has about keeping its customers in the dark is also hurting them. Steve pulled off a huge surprise with the original iMac, and it probably did save Apple. But he keeps reaching for that same pie in the sky, apparently not realizing that his lottery win is only one-in-a-million odds. He gambled once and won, but now, in the end, he's losing out.

I'm not saying Apple should have released the WWDC build as a public beta. But they need to be more open about what they are doing. If they were, I think they'd find that piracy of their prerelease builds would drcrease dramatically.

Because, let's face it: why do people pirate Jaguar? Because they want to know what's going on. Give them that knowledge, and they won't be as interested in multiple-CD downloads just to find out.

[dws]

BOTH of these systems crash daily. This includes anything that involves a forced reboot. I get a kernel panic on my iBook about one in every three times that I wake it from sleep. My desktop computer just sometimes spontaneously crashes. (my internet connection on my iBook dies, so I know the desktop computer crashed).

Wow! I've never had a kernel panic; not once since March 24th, 2001. I'm sorry that you've managed to mess your computers up so bad that you have made OS X so unstable.

I think the release of 10.1.4 is doing more to hurt Apple than the pirating of 10.2.

No, you've done something to 10.1.4 and are blaming it on Apple. You are the one hurting Apple with incorrect logic.

Sorry for the harsh words, but they were deserved. I'm not saying that OS X 10.1.4 is perfect, but the degree of instability you are experiencing is not caused by the OS.

Back to the subject at hand...

I'm sure that Apple knew that giving out an alpha build of Jaguar would result in a few people getting pirated copies and then having all sorts of difficulties. What difference does it make? It's not as if more than a few people will ever know that the silly twits hosed their systems by not knowing what they were doing. By the time that Jaguar is released, all of this nonsense will have disappeared.

One of the reasons you haven't heard much from actual developers doesn't really have anything to do with NDAs. The fact is that the new developer's tools, the new compiler, the new documentation, and Jaguar (to a small extent) are so completely mind-blowing that they don't have the time (or interest) in doing anything other than play with their new toys!

Quibble all you want about details that have no relevance to the OS that will be released in a few months. It will give you something to do while real people are working.

dws

[moki]

re: 10.1.4 -- odd that it is unstable for you; my guess is that you have a bad RAM DIMM or some other hardware problem. I've been using 10.1.4 on three different machines ever since it came out, with nary a kernel panic.

re: Keeping customers in the dark -- Apple put up a web site announcing the major new features of Jaguar. What more do you expect them to do? This should be adequate for letting people know what is coming, and it is also unfair to excuse piracy for any reason.

re: What's the harm? -- well, sure, people are curious, and are going to play with illegally obtained builds. That I don't think hurts anyone -- but posting about all of the problems they are having with it could arguably be harmful (there is a reason it is a developmental version -- stuff is broken, that's how it works).

The issue I'm concerned about (not surprisingly) is that as a developer, I hope this kind of rampant piracy doesn't cause Apple to become even more closed with disclosing important information and seeds to their developers.

[pmcd]

You never know but it seems to me that this just keeps a lot of people rather interested in what's happening with OSX. The same thing happens with Windows(). I really doubt that the general population is busy reading these boards and taking the "reviews" seriously. Everyone knows that you can't rely on the performance of this sort of thing on one system under non-controlled conditions.

Apple has to treat its developers well, and probably better than in the past.

Philip

Originally posted by moki:
It is a good thing for developers, I just hope Apple isn't more reticent about giving out developer builds after seeing how rampant the piracy of it has been.

[NeilCharter]

I'm sure Apple isn't happy with Jaguar leaking out, but it has to get it into developers hands. This type of thing comes with the territory.

And if you think that Apple is worried about the competition getting information about their new OS - well M$ has probably had builds of Jaguar well before WWDC.

But lets face it - the Mac community is an odd bunch and really keen on seeing what the next best thing is going to look like.

It really isn't the end of the world - Apple have a great new OS and its developing really nicely. X has already proven itself, there's still a lot of room for improvement and from what I've seen of 10.2 even at this stage in its development it will be really sweet.

It's just a shame it will take so long for the final to be released.

[yukon]

Who cares? Obviously, if the software hasn't been released by apple, then it should be treated like a nonapple product. People just want all of the improvements.

I got DP4. Why? I was ahead of the game. I knew all kinds of osx tricks, and learned a lot by the time OS X came out. People I knew had all kinds of questions, like "do creator/type codes still exist?", and users wondered "whats this terminal thingy?".

From Jaguar, we now can forget the "apple isn't working on ____". We know the least possible quality that 10.5 will be.

No, I didn't download jaguar. Too much effort, for things that have already been explained. As long as they don't pirate 10.5, then they can play dangerously IMO. I know moki's stance on piracy, so I am sorry if I offend you wth my opinion.

[pathogen]

People who download software like Jaguar are just as complicit in illegal activity as the person who shared it. I don't think that these people have "the right" to go and talk about it just because they didn't sign an NDA. The laws protecting the software don't change just because you got it through questionable means.

I agree with Moki most of all. "Human nature being what it is, many people are curious and excited about it". This kind of stuff was going to happen, especially since Apple made such a big public spectacle of it.

I don't think it hurts Apple too badly, because the upgrade will be available in public release in under 4 months. It's also not as major a change as 9 was to X. And because it's just a short time coming, it really doesn't deserve a "Public Beta". It's gonna be here before you know it. I can wait.

All of these threads have some interesting reading in them, but I have no compulsion to try Jaguar for myself until it's ready. I just wish the Mods would look at alot of these completely redundant threads and close a bunch of them. We don't need 50 simultaneous Jaguar threads...

[Millennium]

Originally posted by moki:
<STRONG>re: 10.1.4 -- odd that it is unstable for you; my guess is that you have a bad RAM DIMM or some other hardware problem. I've been using 10.1.4 on three different machines ever since it came out, with nary a kernel panic.</STRONG>

Indeed; I've only had one kernel panic, and I've been using OSX since DP4.

re: Keeping customers in the dark -- Apple put up a web site announcing the major new features of Jaguar. What more do you expect them to do? This should be adequate for letting people know what is coming...

In this very specific instance, perhaps. But this is a dramatic break in the pattern; Apple does not do anything even remotely like this in most cases. Why do you think rumor sites remain so popular in the Mac community? People want to know what Apple is doing, and these rumor sites are filling that need (however dubious the knowledge they provide is). And look how well Apple reacts to them. If Apple wants to shut them down, it should be filling in the gap with real information.

Your own Ambrosia is an example of a better policy. You post reasonably frequent updates on how your software is shaping up. Your developers are allowed to actually go and talk to people on the site, certainly not about the really secret stuff, but the general day-to-day workings of the place, and some talk about how development is going.

Mind you, what I'd really like to see out of Apple is a nice big set of personal developer weblogs, a la Mozilla (with somewhat stricter control; there are things which Apple has a legitimate reason to keep secret after all). But I'm not naive enough to think that'll ever happen as long as Jobs is at the helm.

and it is also unfair to excuse piracy for any reason.

I am not attempting to excuse piracy for any reason. While you and I may have our differences in terms of what an antipiracy system should and should not be able to do, we do agree that piracy is wrong and unjustifiable.

What I am trying to point out is the reasons people are pirating Jaguar, because they're very different from the reasons people pirate most other software. No one ever got fired for underestimating the intelligence of the general populace, but most people still have enough common sense to know that the WWDC builds of Jaguar are not suitable for everyday use. And yet they download and use it, even though it makes no sense to do so from the strictly utilitarian viewpoint of most pirates. So why do they do it, then? To see what is new. Fill that want by other means, and people won't be as interested in pirating it.

re: What's the harm? -- well, sure, people are curious, and are going to play with illegally obtained builds. That I don't think hurts anyone -- but posting about all of the problems they are having with it could arguably be harmful (there is a reason it is a developmental version -- stuff is broken, that's how it works).

...there are, of course, a few who don't have the common sense to know that a developer build isn't suitable for everyday use. You see them making posts like the ones you mention.

The issue I'm concerned about (not surprisingly) is that as a developer, I hope this kind of rampant piracy doesn't cause Apple to become even more closed with disclosing important information and seeds to their developers.

Of course that's what will happen. And it's exactly what Apple shouldn't do. That's the irony of it all. Apple should be looking at the situation, realizing that there's a real desire for information about what Apple is doing, and filling that need. But that won't happen, because Jobs wants to keep us in the dark. It may even be how he maintains the infamous RDF; he believes that if he keeps surprising us, we'll worship him for it. That wouldn't be so bad, if he could actually deliver on that "surprises every 90 days" promise he made so long ago. But no one can deliver them that frequently, and because of that, he has to drop this. It'll only hurt him in the end, and hurt him -and Apple- badly.

[kennethmac2000]

Originally posted by moki:
<STRONG>re: Keeping customers in the dark -- Apple put up a web site announcing the major new features of Jaguar. What more do you expect them to do?</STRONG>

Perhaps include slightly more detail might help. Apple relegated features that the type of people that download developer seeds are most likely to be interested in to a tiny paragraph entitled 'And That�s Not All' and some features it didn't mention at all. For example, why mention SMB browsing, but not the GUI for the firewall?

Obviously Apple is entitled to do what it likes, but if it keeps customers in the dark about a lot of Jaguar's new features, they will inevitably find out about them from elsewhere.

[King Bob On The Cob]

I take it you never knew why 10.1 didn't have that many bugs when it came out? Feedback from Pirates. Apple expects what they release to large numbers of people to get out of control. (TechTV had an article on it) It's how they get feedback but without saying it's a Public Beta because the OS is still buggy. And they did that entire show on iChat (I have yet to see how that's going to help a developer) and other technologies that were not even in the Developer's release. It was to get the public's attention. I do wish that people would stop complaining though and get over the fact that their unsupported OS may be broken.

[Angus_D]

Originally posted by King Bob On The Cob:
<STRONG>I take it you never knew why 10.1 didn't have that many bugs when it came out? Feedback from Pirates.</STRONG>

ROTFL. Sure. Whatever.

[K++]

Originally posted by Detrius:
<STRONG>


Here's what I have to say:

5Q125 (10.1.4) is REALLY messed up. I have it installed on two different systems (one, I use regularly, one I don't). BOTH of these systems crash daily. This includes anything that involves a forced reboot. I get a kernel panic on my iBook about one in every three times that I wake it from sleep. My desktop computer just sometimes spontaneously crashes. (my internet connection on my iBook dies, so I know the desktop computer crashed).


I think the release of 10.1.4 is doing more to hurt Apple than the pirating of 10.2. As soon as I have time (unless 10.1.5 comes out first), I'm downgrading to 10.1.3. On 10.1.3, my iBook had uptimes of over a month. 10.1.4 crashes daily. Why would I be interested in a pre-alpha build of OS X when I can't get much done on this "public release quality" piece of junk?


BTW, I never have believed all those people that claim that their OS X machines have never crashed on them. On my desktop machine (Dual 533), my uptime record over the past three months is 8 days. This vanity dockling has enlightened me as to how UNSTABLE OS X is. Now, I will definately say that it is SIGNIFICANTLY better than 9 or Windows. But, I don't believe it's what everyone else thinks.</STRONG>

X is way too nice about these things. It should blatantly proclaim in big bold letters at startup "I HAVE CHEAP RAM IN ME, TAKE IT OUT!!!" With that said take out whatever extra RAM you have added and watch as stability reigns down on your computer. And yea ALL problems that cause OS X to crash are HARDWARE related. So, us people who have never had the experience of a KP do exist, and those of us who have uptimes of months not days also exist.

[mbryda]

Originally posted by Detrius:
<STRONG>
BTW, I never have believed all those people that claim that their OS X machines have never crashed on them. On my desktop machine (Dual 533), my uptime record over the past three months is 8 days. This vanity dockling has enlightened me as to how UNSTABLE OS X is. Now, I will definately say that it is SIGNIFICANTLY better than 9 or Windows. But, I don't believe it's what everyone else thinks.</STRONG>

Running 10.1.4 on the new iMac and so far it's likt this
<font face = "courier"> 3:49PM up 11 days, 20:37, 4 users, load averages: 0.85, 1.03, 0.88
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE WHAT
matt co - 30Apr02 11days -
matt p1 - 10:36AM 5:13 -
matt p2 - 10:36AM 0 -
matt p3 - Thu08PM 1day -
</font>

Much better than what I was getting with WinXP. Although so far my uptime record is Win2k server at over 100 days!

-Matt

[King Bob On The Cob]

And I also take it you never saw the first couple of builds of 10.1 God those things were unbearable.... (I ment to say as many bugs but it serves me right not reveiwing my posts.)

[Groovy]

Development builds frequently have *lots* of things broken in them -- that's not unusual at all. I would tend to agree that the rampant piracy of alpha's of Jaguar and other products isn't helping Apple, or anyone else for that matter.

I disagree. One of the main strengths of OS X is the Dev tools and the
tons of apps coming to OSX because of this. I myself have ported over
a half a dozen apps to osx on my own time. Some of the apps are used by
many people. This makes OS X more successful so i expect to get dev
tools and dev seeds of 10.2 for free so I can fix things BEFORE 10.2 is out.
I do it for free so apple can at least give me the seeds for free via download.
Most all of the open source stuff coming over is done by people like me for free
on our own time.

Does apple want weekend coders to code quality stuff or not.
Look I realize WWDC build is buggy most anyone would. Only a bonehead
does not get this and those boneheads will always find something to complain
about anyway. But please to not screw over people like me because a few idiots
like to yell very loudly.

Furthermore, it is MUCH better that we see seeds BEFORE feature lock. And i do
not mean just developers. End users should see what is going on because
this is for them ultimately NOT developers that THINK they know what is best.

We have major bugs being fixed by 15 years olds after 1 year of sending in
feedback and apple saying NO PROBLEM HERE on our boxes. LOL

This is proof Apple should open up the OS MORE not less.

End users see NO LABELS in 10.2 WWDC build so they scream ADD LABELS.
It is not that hard to code and we have 4 months to go. Better to see this now
then 10.2 comes out an everyone goes WTF? where is this basic feature we have
been asking for, for over a year.

Interestingly enough M$ does a better job here than Apple. M$ likes lots of end user
feedback. Apple likes to HIDE everything they do. Even more so on the hardware
side. Apple should at least say, "yes everyone we are working on a G5 and DDR
and it will be out when it is done"

At least this gives HOPE and keeps users from bailing to the PC side like i did.
Being in the dark too long/much loses more sales than if you ballpark hardware a
and risk people holding off on a purchase. In the long run at least you still have a
mac user and not users that jump ship to PC side never to return.

be glad i can afford both mac and PC or i would have totally bailed too
and I have been buying Apples/Macs since 1981.

[ 05-12-2002: Message edited by: Groovy ]

[mrl14]

Originally posted by Groovy:
<STRONG>

I disagree. One of the main strengths of OS X is the Dev tools and the
tons of apps coming to OSX because of this. I myself have ported over
a half a dozen apps to osx on my own time. Some of the apps are used by
many people. This makes OS X more successful so i expect to get dev
tools and dev seeds of 10.2 for free so I can fix things BEFORE 10.2 is out.
I do it for free so apple can at least give me the seeds for free via download.
Most all of the open source stuff coming over is done by people like me for free
on our own time.

Does apple want weekend coders to code quality stuff or not.
Look I realize WWDC build is buggy most anyone would. Only a bonehead
does not get this and those boneheads will always find something to complain
about anyway. But please to not screw over people like me because a few idiots
like to yell very loudly.

Furthermore, it is MUCH better that we see seeds BEFORE feature lock. And i do
not mean just developers. End users should see what is going on because
this is for them ultimately NOT developers that THINK they know what is best.

We have major bugs being fixed by 15 years olds after 1 year of sending in
feedback and apple saying NO PROBLEM HERE on our boxes. LOL

This is proof Apple should open up the OS MORE not less.

End users see NO LABELS in 10.2 WWDC build so they scream ADD LABELS.
It is not that hard to code and we have 4 months to go. Better to see this now
then 10.2 comes out an everyone goes WTF? where is this basic feature we have
been asking for, for over a year.

Interestingly enough M$ does a better job here than Apple. M$ likes lots of end user
feedback. Apple likes to HIDE everything they do. Even more so on the hardware
side. Apple should at least say, "yes everyone we are working on a G5 and DDR
and it will be out when it is done"

At least this gives HOPE and keeps users from bailing to the PC side like i did.
Being in the dark too long/much loses more sales than if you ballpark hardware a
and risk people holding off on a purchase. In the long run at least you still have a
mac user and not users that jump ship to PC side never to return.

be glad i can afford both mac and PC or i would have totally bailed too
and I have been buying Apples/Macs since 1981.

[ 05-12-2002: Message edited by: Groovy ]</STRONG>

I agree with what you're saying but with Apple being tiny compared to Microsoft they need to hold onto what they have. What if the next version of Windows is a complete rip off of OS X? Like Windows 95 was of OS 7? At least this way Apple can keep Microsoft guessing for a little bit.

Nothing Apple does will make people happy. I mean even Microsofts lame Registration business with WinXP has been cracked.

[talisker]

Just a thought - could Apple not put some sort of unique identifier (eg. build no.) into the developer seeds that go to each company? Then when a version appears all over the web they would know who had broken their NDA.

[edddeduck]

Originally posted by NeilCharter:
<STRONG>And if you think that Apple is worried about the competition getting information about their new OS - well M$ has probably had builds of Jaguar well before WWDC.
</STRONG>

Legally too as they are one of Apples main large developers they will have properly had quite a few versions sent over the last few months.

Anyway the best idea is a serial key and an Key-Coded Disc idea then you could release builds to all developers as you would know who has what.

That is what we did with GTA3 for the PS2 and with CM 00/01 for the mac.

(btw we had NO leaks at all, smaller company granted but still no leaks...)

Cheers Edwin

[iJed]

Originally posted by Groovy:
<STRONG>
Does apple want weekend coders to code quality stuff or not.
Look I realize WWDC build is buggy most anyone would. Only a bonehead
does not get this and those boneheads will always find something to complain
about anyway. But please to not screw over people like me because a few idiots
like to yell very loudly.

Furthermore, it is MUCH better that we see seeds BEFORE feature lock. And i do
not mean just developers. End users should see what is going on because
this is for them ultimately NOT developers that THINK they know what is best.

We have major bugs being fixed by 15 years olds after 1 year of sending in
feedback and apple saying NO PROBLEM HERE on our boxes. LOL

This is proof Apple should open up the OS MORE not less.

End users see NO LABELS in 10.2 WWDC build so they scream ADD LABELS.
It is not that hard to code and we have 4 months to go. Better to see this now
then 10.2 comes out an everyone goes WTF? where is this basic feature we have
been asking for, for over a year.
[ 05-12-2002: Message edited by: Groovy ]</STRONG>

I largely agree with your post here. I think the leaking of these builds largely helps Apple - they get well tested and greatly hyped before release. It is also great to have the latest developer tools and OS version to compile/test my latest app versions on. I am a student developer and cannot afford premier or select membership.

[Since EBCDIC]

Originally posted by Detrius:
<STRONG>...I never have believed all those people that claim that their OS X machines have never crashed on them.</STRONG>

My G3 PB (Firewire) has *never* crashed since 10.0.0 was installed a day before the general release (I was one of the folks who lucked out buying a copy at the local Staples store). I've upgraded it each time via Software Update over DSL. Never deleted prefs, as some folks do. Never a crash. I run lots of UNIX software as this is also my development machine - Apache, Tomcat, Ant, X Window System, etc.

My in-laws' iMac 333 MHz had its *first* kernel panic a few days ago running 10.1.3 under 96 MB RAM, and I'm not sure why that was. Rebooted and all has been fine since. Stray cosmic ray, I guess :-|

If your machine(s) are crashing I suspect that (a) you're installing lots of funky KEXTs or other strange software or (b) you've got some bit of flakey hardware, be it the computer or the hard drive. How much RAM do your machines have? What machines are they?

I'm very sorry that your experience with Mac OS X is less than stellar, but damn, this OS is solid!