[mikemako]

I'm clean-installing OS X on my Mac because I'm gonna use it only for music right now.. using Cubase SX 1. What do you think has been the most stable OS X so far? On a clean install, 10.3 has been incredibly buggy for me, so I think I'm gonna use 10.2.8. Good idea?

I was going to post this as a question, but I thought it'd be fun as a poll to see what everything thinks. Thanks for participating.

[sniffer]

10.0.x never crashed to me.
10.3.1 is the best and most stable I've ever seen so far. No crashes at all. 10.3 screwed up a little, but wasn't all that bad.

[SteevAK]

For me Panther has been the buggiest version since 10.0.

It broke my burning capabilities, Finder is unstable (it hanged and died just on a window-resize yesterday), and there are other annoying windows/icons behavior. I've also had one kernal panic already.

[sanity assassin]

I've been pretty lucky, been using OS X since 10.0, and now using Panther. I think in all this time it's only ever bombed out on me less than 6 times, and most of those were due to something I did to it to make it keel over.

In terms of stability, again, not sure, it's been rock solid for me so far, all versions, but I really noticed the overall speed, stability when Jaguar came out.

Now with Panther, I've not had a single problem yet, the OS itself has always been extremely stable for me, and that's a real testament to OS X; apps too have been behaving well, the odd crash here and there, still pretty rare.
I keep throwing stuff at it, and it just keeps ticking along

Got to say, after all these years, and using most OS's out there; OS X is the first OS that I've really felt completely happy working in, and feels more than just a tool to get work done; it's an environment that I spend most of my day staring at, and working in, and just feels right.

[Xerxes]

None of the have been particularly problematic for me other than the 10.2.8 update which was awful. Panther has just given X a much needed speed boost which is most welcome. Other than that, all was well anyway.

[Orion27]

10.2.6 was nice. 10.2.8 I almost lost the faith but survived because I'm so anal about disk housekeeping. Panther has been solid for me so far and 10.3.1 the best.

[dlefebvre]

10.2.6 was amazingly stable. 10.3.1 is very stable so far, I will see when I have it as long as 10.2.6.

[Johnny_B]

10.3 and 10.3.1 has been a hell here. I didn't just do clean install, no no, it was reformat then install. Usually the Dock just crashes, and it is impossible to restart it from the Terminal, if I have it open. The apps there are already there works, but I don't get anywhere else And then things usually becomes even messier, one app at the time is gong down. Hard restart is the only option that will end it.

I also experience almost daily (just every second day or so the above), that it just relogin, no warnings, nothing, everything goes blue, then it logs me in again, but everything that was open i gone, and if not saved, totally gone.

Crap man. I've used OS X since 10.1.4 (OS 9, 8 and 7 before that), and 10.3 and 10.3.1 (even worse) is the crappiest and most unstabile Mac OS X. I've seen Windows 98's that has less crashes.

You have some clues ?? On some updates there has been reports that a combo install fixes most stuff, but there is no combo Hopefully there will be one on 10.3.2.

[Terri]

10.3.1 is rock solid for me.

Not one system crash. Apps seem more stable. Nice and fast. I can really see where this is going.

I have a few pet peeves, networking is a mess, it works, but it is an inconsistent mess with some stuff showing up on the desktop and some not, keychain doesn't work right with it.

Printing is still weak. It doesn't show what pages have been printed and what ones haven't. Seems to choke older postscript printers.


Overall I would say that it is almost there.

[wataru]

I like Panther, but I've had more problems with it than Jaguar. If you want stability, wait for Panther to mature.

[Macfreak7]

Panther has crashed on me FOUR times already.
I can only remember one incident where it completely froze for no apparently no reason. The other times i'm not sure what happened.
So I'd have to say 10.2.6. 10.2.7 wasn't too bad either.
But lets not disregard the fact that I had a couple of "haxies" installed.

[Ron Goodman]

The only kernel panic I've seen since the Public Beta came a couple of years back trying to install a new version of Norton. I think Panther is the nicest version of X, but there has been no difference in stability since the beginning.

[benb]

Originally posted by Johnny_B:
Don't make up fake quotes!

Maybe it's all that 3rd party stuff you use, like the SCSI card, or the USB card, or the flashed 8500. . .

[Macrat]

10.2.6 was pretty good to me. The only time I restarted was for system updates. 10.3 has been pretty aweful in comparison. I had the first hard freeze since OS9 the other day, with just photoshop and itunes open. The finder crashes and restarts every other day, just by opening my hard drive to get to a folder. And this is on a reformated and clean installed powerbook.

[MacGorilla]

10.1.x was pretty buggy for me but with 10.2 and onward, not a problem.

[Landos Mustache]

I had a couple KP's with 10.1something and 10.2.7 on my G5. 10.3 is rock solid if not a little buggy.

[malvolio]

I voted for 10.3.1, but really it's a tie with 10.3. Both have been just about perfect for me. No lock-ups, no kernel panics, very few app crashes.
Of course, I'm not using a theme, or haxies or anything along those lines�

[Johnny_B]

Originally posted by benb:
Maybe it's all that 3rd party stuff you use, like the SCSI card, or the USB card, or the flashed 8500. . .

Yeah, OS X don't like that you use your pci slots, what a shame !! And the ATi card is a PC OEM from ATi, which is the exact same card as the one to Mac. ALOT of people has a flashed R8500, but they don't have the same problems as I. I never had any problems with 10.2.

[mikemako]

I must say, I am really surprised that the majority says that Panther is the most stable! I have had numerous problems with it, and for the last 2 weeks there have been an excessive amount of apps that unexpectedly quit throughout the day, causing all my work to get lost: Soundtrack, Documents in Word, Photoshop, Site updates in DW MX 2004. It's quite unnerving. Must be something in my preferences file that is corrupted. For me, 10.2.6 was the most stable so far.

[edit: I wrote "10.1.5" was the most stable for some reason before.. I don't know why. I was thinking "10.2.6"]

[JKT]

Well, I find this question impossible to answer - I've had maybe three or four KP's since installing 10.0, around ten to fifteen hard freezes (almost all in games - wish Apple would provide some means to force quit these damned things when they lock up the window server). Overall, I'd have to say that the 10.0.x series was the least stable but, largely, OS X has been rock solid from day one.

[Cipher13]

10.2.6.

[voodoo]

Most stable? 10.2.6. It was amazing. 10.3.1 has crashed on me twice but other than that it is pretty stable. Buggy, but stable.

[CatOne]

I've had a couple things that made me reboot so far in 10.3.1... System Preferences quit responding (couldn't open it), and the screen saver password quit working.

Never had any such problems with 10.2.6. So it's not necessarily that the OS "crashed," but I was forced to reboot to regain full functionality.

[yukon]

coupla problems in 10.3.1, including the cursor freezing a day or two ago. not terrible, but not welcome. no problems after 10.2.4 here, never tried 10.2.8

[SMacTech]

I haven't had any KPs or freezing with Panther, including betas going back to late July.
10.3.2 is what I am running now. To those that are having problems with Panther on a clean install, I would suspect RAM or other hardware issues. Panther seems a little pickier about RAM and I don't know why.