[SpeedRacer]

So i've been using X since the DP3 now and i'm getting to the point where the flashy buttons, CLI novelty, and weekly shareware "hits" are wearing thin. Each time a new point-update gets released i think, "maybe this is one that will bring GUI responsiveness up to the level of 9", but alas i am, once again, disappointed post-install.

Now i'm well aware of the promise of X: a true-multiuser OS built on a time-tested unix foundation with one-click Apache websharing, truly stunning network performance, yada yada yada...

The problem i find with all this "promise" is that this is an OS now shipping on all Macs (default or non-default) and yet it offers few tangible benefits over the existing OS version to the majority of Mac users. From everything i read there's a thousand different theories as to why the Finder/UI of X is sluggish (most of which make absolutely zero sense to the majority of Mac users) but meanwhile i'm sitting here on a G4/450 with 500+ MB of RAM and it still takes close to 30 seconds to launch IE, over 2 minutes to boot, and far, far too long simply to resize window, scroll a hierarchal menu, use drop-down menus, etc.

Add to this the generally pathetic state of Motorola processor development and i find myself twidling more thumbs on a brand-spanking new G4 with 256MB than nearly 1/2 decade-old PM8600 running MacOS 8.6


Add to this persistent kernel panics whenever i unplug a USB burner (isn't this supposed to be a modern, USB-compliant OS?), inability to burn data CDs or watch DVDs nearly 3 mo's after public release, and a lackluster schedule for the impending "coming out party" of X apps.

What's my point? No, not X-bashing, but the irony in the commonly-expressed hope among us Mac users that, "maybe next update will bring us closer to the responsiveness of OS 9". WTF? If this is a truly modern and fast OS why is there a need to compare it relative to the prior version of MacOS?

I love Apple but the combination of CPUs running at 1/2 the horsepower as the competition and an OS that grinds to a halt under anything but G4s with massive amounts of RAM is just not terribly encouraging.

Outside of Mac-bashers and Mac-hotrods (running 733mHz, 1000MB machines) what do others here think? Am i alone in my disappointment with the state of the MacOS?

Speed

[moki]

Originally posted by SpeedRacer:
<STRONG>I love Apple but the combination of CPUs running at 1/2 the horsepower as the competition and an OS that grinds to a halt under anything but G4s with massive amounts of RAM is just not terribly encouraging.
</STRONG>

You are clearly not an "early adopter"

[SirCastor]

Originally posted by moki:
<STRONG>

You are clearly not an "early adopter" </STRONG>

Graceful and simple Reply.. I like it
-Aaron

&gt; I love Apple but the combination of CPUs running at 1/2 the horsepower as the competition and an OS that grinds to a halt under anything but G4s with massive amounts of RAM is just not terribly encouraging.

FYI, G4 MHz != x86 MHz

[mr_sonicblue]

To be honest, the only reason I considered buying a macintosh was for OS X. It gives a usable and well-supported front-end and API to a Unix backend. This is very important, although the typical mac user has no use for such.

In short, Mac OS X allows for a far greater range of applications and abilities than seen on any other previous OS.

But, it does worry me when the promise of OS X is lost on many because of the slow interface and imperfect hardware support.

exactly. except few if any can give you an jonest answer about this. the problem for most hardcore mac fans is its easy to use but is built from the ground up instead of rehashed from system 7.5. You expect a certain speed and i admit it does have half the horsepower but you can always boot back into OS 9-9.1 and do your graphics work/video there. personally, i just changed the themes on mac OS 9 to look like Mac OS 10.
so you aren't alone bud, just take mac os x off your system until the next wave of major apps, usb/firewire support, or speed comes your way.
see ya

[juanvaldes]

I agree with mokki, you probably should just go back to 9, if it works for ya keep it! No one is pushing you to use X.

I like X, I like having UNIX there, but like you I am disapointed with the performance, (DP 450, 448RAM) I expected my machine to fly under X, seeing how in 9 only one CPU is even being used. Too bad it doesnt. Though I haven't noticed much diffrence in speed from my machine to a 400Mhz Pismo with 192 megs of RAM, so maybe, hopefuly there is hope that they can improve performance.

I will contine to wait and update X. Then when I need to watch a DVD, burn a CD or simply play UT or Dialo 2, back to 9 I go. No prob.

[jarinteractive]

It only takes me 1:45 to start up (with Apache webserver & PHP). 14 seconds to launch IE and load my locally hosted home page .

You aren't the only one who is disgrundled with this OS, but I like it! I won't mind it when they speed up the finder though.

10.0.4
Power Mac G3 B/W
350 MHz
192 MB
DVD, Firewire CD-R/W, SCSI Zip 100, Umax Astra Scanner, etc.

-JARinteractive

[smacintush]

A waste of time? Every article I've read states that OS X is better than Win2k, which is the best M$ has to offer right now. Apple doesn't care if some guy on a forum somewhere thinks it's too slow. They need good press and to impress those who were no impressed before.

It is VERY VERY early in OS X's development. You should be patient and see how kick a$$ it will be.

[Scrod]

Sometimes, after using OS X consistently for many weeks, I feel the need to restart into OS 9. At first I marvel at the speed. Then I get annoyed at how it doesn't multitask the way OS X does. And then, after crashing repeatedly in OS 9, I decide that it's time to restart back into OS X again. If Id software can get carbon Quake 3 up to speed with its classic counter part and I can get drivers for my MAUSB-1 SmartMedia reader/writer, I'll have no reason to reboot into OS 9. I certainly don't think OS X is a waste of time.

[Scott_H]

OS X boots faster for me than OS 9. But I never considered boot time to be that important.

OS X holds a lot of "promise" but when is that coming? 10.0.5? 10.1? Never? Apple needs to get and OS that people can use NOW. Not in 2 years. Two years is three years too late.

Get to work Apple

[malvolio]

Scrod summed up my feelings perfectly. On the rare occasions that I boot up in 9.1 to burn data CDs or defrag my OS X partition, I quickly become disgusted with the crashes and forced restarts.
As for SpeedRacer's original post, 30 seconds to launch IE - WTF?! On my 350Mhz iMac, it takes about 10 seconds.

[timster]

Creating a modern, full blown operating system that fits people like a leather glove and provides every functionality they want takes a LONG time.

What disappoints me is that people here fail to see the "promise", and have automaticaly assumed that OSX is here and for everyone.

Apple said it was for early adopters. If you have old hardware. If you dont like the glitches/rough edges of OSX.

USE MACINTOSH OPERATING SYSTEM NINE POINT ONE.

Whats the problem? People are expecting Apple to get it OSX right, immediately after it's release?

What are YOU smoking? Go write an operating system. Show me an operating system that did everything right on the first revision!

Windows? No.
Linux? No.
BeOS? No.
Amiga? No.
Solaris? No.
FreeBSD? No.


All of them have evolved, gained features and become more robust. But all of them even to this day have drawbacks, negatives, and issues that are not issues on "other operating systems".

I think its disgraceful and petty for all of you to unrealistically expect Apple to deliver a perfect solution for everyone on this planet that can miracously run on every hardware configuration option that Apple has sold in the last five years on the very first revision.

Operating systems need time to mature. Take a look at all the operating systems I listed above. All of them have been YEARS in the making since the first point release.

Give OSX the same break. If you dont like OSX, and have nothing new or constructive to say other than flog Apple engineers for not working 50 hours / 10 days a week to make you happy, then heres a few simple solutions:

1. Reboot in OS9. DVD! Burning! Fast GUI! Its all there!
2. Buy a PC, put one of those other OSes that has all the features/speed you want that OSX doesnt. (Win, Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc etc).
3. Go away and indirectly make this forum much more constructive.
4. Learn a programming language and write the perfect-OS yourself.

-tim

[klatuu]

Originally posted by SpeedRacer:
<STRONG>So i've been using X since the DP3 now ...
....but meanwhile i'm sitting here on a G4/450 with 500+ MB of RAM...
...Add to this persistent kernel panics whenever i unplug a USB burner...
...Outside of Mac-bashers and Mac-hotrods (running 733mHz, 1000MB machines) what do others here think? Am i alone in my disappointment with the state of the MacOS?

Speed</STRONG>

I've been using Mac OS X since the PB last September on a G4/400 (GBit).
Since March 24 OSX is my primary OS.
I never, repeat NEVER had a kernel panic, really. Can someone tell me what happens then ?

- I really like the feeling of the new OS
- I like the graphics
- I like the real multitasking
- I like the UNIX base (I work as a Systems Administrator with NT,2K and AIX)

I only need to go back to OS9 if I want to play Unreal Tournament, to scan something with my Mustek Scanner, to print something with my OKI-USB Printer (works also in Classic) and if I want to burn CDs.

Yes the speed is better in OS9, but I think that is the only real advantage besides the temporarily lack of drivers.

I really like Mac OS X !!!

greetings
klatuu

We don't want promises anymore. Apple lost the ability to promise anything a long time ago. We want results now.

[NeilCharter]

Reasons why OS X is slow:

1. EVERY MAC OS UPGRADE WORKS SLOWLY ON OLDER MACHINES!!!!!

2. X is very different from 9: can you really expect it to be at top speed from it's initial release.

3. Apple have compromised speed for compatability: AKA Classic. Unlike the original mac os 1, Apple couldn't abandon it's installed user base. You KNOW what happened last time.

4. Not many carbon / classic apps are out yet.

5. API's etc have just been finalized (more or less). So it will be a while better apps really become fully optimized for X.

If you add all these reasons up, can you really be surprised why X runs so slow.

The good thing is that most of these problems will disappear or be alleviated pretty soon. Some by next week, others by Sept, and the rest in 6 months.

Like you, things are frustrating but over time everything will improve. And there's nothign wrong with OS 9 if speed is your main requirement.

Neil

[Han's Hands on Leia]

Originally posted by smacintush:
<STRONG>Every article I've read states that OS X is better than Win2k, which is the best M$ has to offer right now. </STRONG>

Better how? Prettier I am sure.
Can you please show us all these articals?

I think speedracer is 100% correct. I have many many more problems in OSX then I do in OS9. I will take a crash once a day rather then not having my files show up in the Finder and watching the menus slowly drop down.

I switch to OSX after every update that comes out and I find myself frustrated to hell after an hour of trying to WORK (not surf and play).

I pray that 10.1 will rock the Casba.

Whats the problem? People are expecting Apple to get it OSX right, immediately after it's release? .........

What are YOU smoking? Go write an operating system! .......

I think its disgraceful and petty for all of you to unrealistically expect Apple to deliver a perfect solution........

If you dont like OSX.......

Buy a PC.......
Go away and indirectly make this forum much more constructive.....
Learn a programming language and write the perfect-OS yourself.....

-tim

F**k's sake! Isn't it uncomfortable walking around with Steve Jones's c*ck jammed up your arse?

Speedracer makes some valid points about X and exactly on cue someone steams in to have a go at him for being unfair to Apple.

Hey Tim, why don't people like you make the forums more constructive by f**king off and starting your own Apple porn site where you can invalidate your warranty by splashing on your keyboards at pictures of Steve Jobs and iBooks with their CD drawers splayed open?!

[OverclockedHomoSapien]

I can understand how people's expectations were heightened by Apple's hype, but c'mon, lay off it. Please. It gets old.

Everyone seems so impatient and spoiled around here. If OS X is too slow for you, then use OS 9.1. Keep using OS 9.1 until OS X is optimized. What's the big deal?

Jobs already said (admitted) that OS X has performance issues, so it seems clear that Apple is going to address these issues. Probably sooner rather than later. But until then, what's wrong with OS 9?

For my system, OS X is a bit slow (PMG4/400, 570 MB RAM, Radeon), so I use OS 9 most of the time. The funny part is that, when I bought my powermac, it came with OS 9. I bought my Mac because of the Mac OS. I LIKE OS 9.1. I know it's common sport nowadays to talk sh!t about OS 9, but please remember that it wasn't long ago that Mac users claimed that OS 9 was better than anything Wintel had to offer. Thus, here I am, enjoying my current Powermac, and also looking forward to using OS X someday.

[curmi]

Originally posted by &lt;sponkey manker&gt;:
<STRONG>Hey Tim, why don't people like you make the forums more constructive by f**king off and starting your own Apple porn site where you can invalidate your warranty by splashing on your keyboards at pictures of Steve Jobs and iBooks with their CD drawers splayed open?! </STRONG>

Now that was funny!

[OverclockedHomoSapien]

Yeah, and part two of my post:

I'm really sick of these unregistered cowards that post real IN-YOUR-FACE overblown bull like the dude's post prior to mine. If you want to criticize someone, then don't be a coward. Use your real registered name. Put your balls on the cutting block if you've got something bullish to say. Otherwise kill your monitor and go jerk off.

I bet there are a few common posters here who are split personalities..they probably act real together and polite but when the seams start to bust they go into anoynomous coward posting mode. It could even be a mod! LOL!

[Han's Hands on Leia]

Originally posted by OverclockedHomoSapien:
<STRONG>Yeah, and part two of my post:

I'm really sick of these unregistered cowards that post real IN-YOUR-FACE overblown bull like the dude's post prior to mine. If you want to criticize someone, then don't be a coward. Use your real registered name. Put your balls on the cutting block if you've got something bullish to say. Otherwise kill your monitor and go jerk off.
</STRONG>

I have been saying that for months. So many chickens around here.

[edddeduck]

Like the joke about early adopter

Any way I love and hate every unstable (When something crashes everything goes down...) moment of it....

X has things (like samba) OS 9 never had....

Look to the future and reconfig your machine as my machine is super-fly on X for most things also why quit apps with X it doesn't really make a difference....

Cheers Edd

[booboo]

It interests me that many UNIX-heads seem to be rather pleased with Mac OS-X...

Does this mean that previous examples of UNIX OS's were significantly worse than OS-X?

Gawd 'elp us.

[MacGorilla]

I don't think Mac OS X is a waste of time. Its a new OS. Remember Mac OS 1.0? It took a while for it to come up to speed and Mac OS X will, too. Mac OS + Unix...YUMMMMMMM

[mr_sonicblue]

Originally posted by booboo:
<STRONG>It interests me that many UNIX-heads seem to be rather pleased with Mac OS-X...

Does this mean that previous examples of UNIX OS's were significantly worse than OS-X?

Gawd 'elp us.</STRONG>

No, OS X is not the bext Unix implementation there is. But, it is the only consumer-level OS with any Unix support what-so-ever. OS X is the broadest range OS ever conceived. But, it does not beat any OS in every area (as should be expected).

[ColonelSawtooth]

Hang in there speed racer!

I too am a huge fan of Apple - there is just something about their personality that makes them a very appealing computer. The style, elegance and attention to details sets them apart from the boring ole Windoze.

I feel your pain as well. I use OS X for web development M-F. I hate waiting when I save a document in BBEdit and then switching to IE and refreshing to debug. Sometimes it takes as long as 10 seconds to save and reload the page I'm working on - completely unacceptable.

One thing that keeps my hopes up is that OS X was written from the ground up. No other OS around these days can say that. Although it's not perfect now, I'm sure that it will become everything that everyone wants it to be within a year or so. And it you haven't seen the reviews yet, even big pro-PC editors are rating it much better the Win 2K and XP. Hang in there and you''ll get the OS that you and everyone else is looking for. Just keep giving Apple you feedback.

--
The Colonel

[Milio]

Originally posted by mr_sonicblue:
<STRONG>

No, OS X is not the bext Unix implementation there is. But, it is the only consumer-level OS with any Unix support what-so-ever. OS X is the broadest range OS ever conceived. But, it does not beat any OS in every area (as should be expected).</STRONG>

1. I have no interest in a unix OS. I was interested in the Mac.
2. OS X is not a consumer OS. Any OS with permissions is too complicated to be a consumer OS. MS understands this which is why Win XP has a home edition which won't have complicated permissions to cause problems with the consumer market userbase. If you want more security, use the Pro version.
3. I personally find OS X to be a waste of time. It's too complicated, unfinished, poor UI compared to the Mac, etc, etc. I keep checking in to see if they've fixed it though.

[mr_sonicblue]

Originally posted by Milio:
<STRONG>2. OS X is not a consumer OS. Any OS with permissions is too complicated to be a consumer OS. MS understands this which is why Win XP has a home edition which won't have complicated permissions to cause problems with the consumer market userbase. If you want more security, use the Pro version.
</STRONG>

LOL! That's an amazing judgement considering my father has no clue what a permission is, yet he uses OS X daily without a hitch.

[Han's Hands on Leia]

Originally posted by ColonelSawtooth:
<STRONG>
One thing that keeps my hopes up is that OS X was written from the ground up. No other OS around these days can say that.
The Colonel</STRONG>

Hmm, Mac OSX is the result of the combining of code and operating Systems.

Unix
BSD
Mach
Mac OS
NeXt
... and stir.

Yes it as some new technologies in it but it was hardly " written from the ground up".

Be OS was written from the ground up, not Mac OSX.

[ 07-12-2001: Message edited by: Han's Hands on Leia ]

[Doyle Creighbaum]

When I first saw OSX back in Jan 2000, I saw many good ideas that were directly related to fixing issues that plague new users:

Application launching-

There is no obvious launcher for OS 9. -The Dock answers this issue.
(Think about not knowing how to get & install these)

The Apple menu has no intuitive way to add applications. -Dock
(Think about being afraid to open the system folder)

The is no intuitive way to switch between open applications. -Dock!
(Think about what menus do: most are not used to switch between applications)


Interface-

New users typically want to clean up the desktop for fear of running out of memory. -Diskless desktop.
(Think about what new users think about memory)

Many websites look cooler than OS 9. -Aqua looks nice for new users what is cooler than blue?
(This is debatable but I think platnum is getting old)

Icons in OS 9 are cute but have reached their climax in beauty. -All systems will have bigger icons
(This is again debatable but I think even MS got this right in IE)
Desktop pictures are here to stay. -Remember when they had to be "hacked in" by a third party?

I think OSX is moving forward mostly to accomidate new computer users.
Most computer users stick with what they learned first. They are important to Apple.

Apple will get it right.

Buy OSX, learn it, wait for Apps, use Classic for your classic ones.

The other great stuff was put in to impress old users that never had it.
New users don't care wht multi tasking is.

[neutrino23]

Originally posted by MacGorilla:
<STRONG>I don't think Mac OS X is a waste of time. Its a new OS. Remember Mac OS 1.0? It took a while for it to come up to speed and Mac OS X will, too. Mac OS + Unix...YUMMMMMMM </STRONG>

Does anyone remember Mac OS 1.0? Don't think there was such a beast. The OS was called System xx until just recently. On our 512K Mac we ran System 4 or maybe 4.5. Was there ever a released version of system software 1.0?

[Craig R. Arko]

Originally posted by neutrino23:
<STRONG>

Does anyone remember Mac OS 1.0? Don't think there was such a beast. The OS was called System xx until just recently. On our 512K Mac we ran System 4 or maybe 4.5. Was there ever a released version of system software 1.0?</STRONG>

Yes, sort of, with the 128K Mac. There wasn't really a unified version labelling scheme until System 6, before that it was 'System File 3.2, Finder 5.01' and all the parts had their own version numbers. But the developer CD's had the various releases and called them 'System 1', 'System 5' etc. Very confusing in those days.

[OverclockedHomoSapien]

1. I have no interest in a unix OS. I was interested in the Mac.

I assume by this you mean that you like the "Classic" Mac OS? Then why don't you use OS 9.1? If you REALLY cannot stand X, then just back up your HD, boot from a system disk, initialize the HD and install OS 9.1. Problem solved, no more X. And trust me, you will be able to get away with using only OS 9.x for YEARS.

2. OS X is not a consumer OS. Any OS with permissions is too complicated to be a consumer OS. MS understands this which is why Win XP has a home edition which won't have complicated permissions to cause problems with the consumer market userbase. If you want more security, use the Pro version.

ROTFLMAO!!! So you're confused by having to enter your password every once in awhile during installs??/ Do you have a bank account, with an ATM card? Do you use Credit Cards? Are you functional in everyday life, or do you have caretakers to assist you with daily living? Macs are based on the philosophy of "intuitive" use, but not on being idiot-proof.

3. I personally find OS X to be a waste of time. It's too complicated, unfinished, poor UI compared to the Mac, etc, etc. I keep checking in to see if they've fixed it though.

Cool, that's exactly what I'm doing. I've got X on a seperate partition and I use it sometimes, keep it up to date, and oogle at it. As Apple more fully optimizes X, I suspect I will begin to spend more time booted into my X partition and less time booted into my OS 9.1 partition. It's all good.

[mumble]

Originally posted by Doyle Creighbaum:
<STRONG>There is no obvious launcher for OS 9. -The Dock answers this issue.
(Think about not knowing how to get & install these)</STRONG>

Erm, how about Launcher ?

First thing I delete on any Mac, but it is there.

[SpeedRacer]

Great to hear all the feedback on this issue. I've read through them all and while most make sense i just have to respond to the following...

Apple said it was for early adopters. If you have old hardware. If you dont like the glitches/rough edges of OSX.

X is still for early adopters? I see... so that makes every owner of a Macintosh since a couple weeks back "an early adopter" being that they have all received their machines with OS X preinstalled right? Interesting logic.

I think its disgraceful and petty for all of you to unrealistically expect Apple to deliver a perfect solution for everyone on this planet that can miracously run on every hardware configuration option that Apple has sold in the last five years on the very first revision.

Funny, i don't recall saying anything about expecting X to miracously run on every hardware configuration option that Apple has sold in the last five years on the very first revision. In fact, i recall specifically stating that my performance was sub-par on a G4/450mHz/500MB machine. This is an old/legacy machine? If so, what exactly am i permitted to classify as a "modern" Mac?


Either way, my point is quite simple:


Regardless of where OS X is coming from, what it's built on top of, how much promise it holds for the future, it is creeping ever closer to becoming the default OS for all of new, beloved Mac babies popping out of Cupertino. Thus the common statement "just use OS 9" is completely bogus, not to mention incompatible with the fundamental assumption that a new product release should represent increased value/price/performance than that to which it is replacing. And please, no drawing upon the M$ analog for new SW releases - we're Mac all Mac users here right?

And now with the release of our "savior" Puma (10.1) expected to be delayed till the fall, PC boxes now doubling the clock cyles of G4s, dismal performance of OS X even three months after it's release (esp on G3 machines), and the impending threat of Win XP around the corner i think there's plenty of reason for this thread to exist.


I seem to recall Apple stating that this would be a truly modern OS that would fully harness the powers of the PowerPC processors. So again, i guess i'm just wondering when i can expect to be harnessing the power of my G4, rather than finding it to be too slow for anything other than static web/file serving and development work.


But forget about us Mac users for minute: a potential PC-using customer walks into a store in order to test the theory that Macs are 2x as fast as his P3 at home only to find even the top-of-the-line G4 poking around in OS X like his grandma wading through a pool of molasses with a pacemaker and walker.





Guess the irony of our "modern" OS running our 2x as fast G4s slower than Windows2k in VPC is a tad bit ironic to me...


Speed

[ 07-12-2001: Message edited by: SpeedRacer ]

[timster]

To that anonymous coward who so nicely responded to my post.

I presume youre speaking of Steve Jobs, not Steve Jones.

So, if I defend Apple and OSX, I'm accused of sleeping with him? Or mabye its because I do have an inkling of what developing an operating system is like, and what a massive undertaking it is. I'm giving apple a fair shake.

If. In a year, Summer 2002 - DVD support is stil lacking. If CD-burning isnt in. If the GUI is still slow - then I will say, "Ok, this is long enough. Improvements arent happening, and I will consider other options.

But expecting a 1.0 release of a truly modern operating system to meet all expectations upon release (or within months of release... OSX isnt even a YEAR old!!) to meet and surpass everything that legacy operating system thats been tweaked and refined over the span of about SEVENTEEN YEARS. Sheesh.

Of course. I'd probably imagine that some of the biggest whiners here werent born then.

If you want to improve upon OSX's flaws, submit feedback to Apple (and better yet, learn OS programming and go work for em).

You think any of Apple engineers read this forum and go "Damn! We never realized that OSX was slow! Damn, we forgot to include DVD support! Damn! We forgot to take out the GUI debugging code and include ATI Rage Pro drivers! Thank God for MacNN forums!"

Ha.

Lay off, and get a life. If OSX doesnt work for you, use a different operating system that works for you. Freedom of choice. Thats what Amercia and apple pie was built upon.


-tim

[moki]

Originally posted by Milio:
<STRONG>2. OS X is not a consumer OS. Any OS with permissions is too complicated to be a consumer OS. MS understands this which is why Win XP has a home edition which won't have complicated permissions to cause problems with the consumer market userbase. If you want more security, use the Pro version.
</STRONG>

That's actually not true -- Windows XP does have file permissions, even in the home version, just like OS X does.

[timster]

Speed Racer -

And to clarify. My posts arent entirely addressed to you. Its more of a general statement to everyone who's started up an topic complaining of OSX's defiencies in [foo] area.

But yes, youre right. You did not say that you expected OSX to run on every hardware in the last five years. I didnt say you said that. Although I didnt either say that I wasnt addressing you and all your comments directly, and I should have been more clear on that.

Regarding hardware - I run OSX daily on a dual 450 G4 with 896MB RAM, otherwise stock. So, Im hardly an "example" of the average mac user. I use my OSX box for coding web pages, java programming, developing JSP applications with Resin. OSX absolutely shines with all of those.

On the other hand. When I tried to develop graphics and compose documents in Fireworks and Word. I got tired of Classic crashing on me and messing up my work, and just rebooted in Classic to get my work done.

I'm perfectly aware that Classic isnt the best solution. I know the downsides of OSX, and sometimes its enough to make me go back to OS9....

however, I'm not bitching. I know Apple had to get OSX out. If they kept it in house, we'd be absolutely KILLING Apple in this forum saying "wheres MY OSX? I want my OSX NOW!!".

Apple cant win. So they did the smart thing. They got it out the door, and now they can continue to improve it. And they are improving it. We've had 4 updates. Theres more on the way. Jobs has said he knows we want faster performance.

Ok, give them some space. Give them some time to get it in. Improving an OS doesnt happen overnight, or over months.

Okay?

-tim

[moki]

Originally posted by neutrino23:
<STRONG>

Does anyone remember Mac OS 1.0? Don't think there was such a beast. The OS was called System xx until just recently. On our 512K Mac we ran System 4 or maybe 4.5. Was there ever a released version of system software 1.0?</STRONG>

I'm gonna date myself a bit here, but what the hell. I remember owning an old 512K "Fat Mac" -- yes, folks, this machine had a whopping (for the time) 512K of memory.

The thing is, there were no hard drives to speak of at the time, and the floppy disk drives held only 400K of data. To start your computer up you had to boot from a system floppy -- but then because the disks held only 400K, you often had to insert another disk after he system booted to save files.

This, then, began the "floppy swap tango" that many grizzled users know well: you'd eject the System floppy, insert your data floppy, it'd write a little bit, then decide it needed the old system disk back aagin and put up an alert asking you to inside the old disk. This would go back and forth for quite some time befoer it settled down.

It was maddening... but there was something special about the Mac that made it all worthwhile (DOS was just not an option). The day I got a second disk drive (one for the sysyem, another for data, there was much rejoicing.

[jonshier]

Whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine.
Geez, don't you people shut up. And anyone with a G4 that says that OS X is slow is full of it. It fairly flies on my iMac 500 w/128, so bite me. Instead of filling a BB full of your useless ranting, why don't you develop all those "missing apps" you keep crying about. I've already written a program to calculate the positions of the planets (accurately, using NASA derived equations and data) and it only took me a night. And anyone who complains about the state of the G4 hasn't read any of the latest news at Mac OS Rumors or any on the articles about G4s being faster than Cray-90 nodes (Apple's Advanced Computation Group

[Doyle Creighbaum]

Originally posted by mumble:
<STRONG>

Erm, how about Launcher ?

First thing I delete on any Mac, but it is there.</STRONG>

No, is it on & ready on the demo machine at the store.
It is not a startup item

Is it an Obvious launcher?

No.

[CharlesS]

Well, if you don't like permissions, you can just turn them off. Just do a Get Info on your drive and click on Ignore Permissions.

I happen to think that permissions are a good thing for new users. It allows me to say, "Try stuff, click on stuff to see what it does, explore. No matter what you do, you can't blow up the system," knowing that even if they intentionally tried to mess with critical files necessary for the system to work, they wouldn't be able to change or delete them, because of permissions.

[moki]

...which reminds me. NeXT was one of the few computer systems I can remember to ship with pre-release System Software. I can't even remember the version number, I think it was .91 or something like that (I'd have to look it up in my NeXT book).

I believe it stayed at various pre-release versions of system software for a while, too (they didn't get to 1.0 until many months after the computers shipped). Looks like Steve, Avie et al have been doing this for some time, but they decided to call it 1.0 this time (OS X) instead of being honest about it!

(Note: I do love OS X and run it daily; couldn't think of being in OS 9 unless I had to -- but let's be honest, it isn't finished, and it is too slow).

[ 07-13-2001: Message edited by: moki ]

[Han's Hands on Leia]

Originally posted by jonshier:
<STRONG>Geez, don't you people shut up. And anyone with a G4 that says that OS X is slow is full of it. It fairly flies on my iMac 500 w/128, so bite me. Instead of filling a BB full of your useless ranting, why don't you develop all those "missing apps" you keep crying about. I've already written a program to calculate the positions of the planets (accurately, using NASA derived equations and data) and it only took me a night. And anyone who complains about the state of the G4 hasn't read any of the latest news at [/URL]</STRONG>

Now that's funny.

[MacGorilla]

Mac OS X is not finished, that is what some people are missing here. I thought I'd never say this but Mac OS 9.x looks ugly and clunky in comparison to Mac OS X. I'll never go back.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally posted by MacGorilla:
<STRONG>I thought I'd never say this but Mac OS 9.x looks ugly and clunky in comparison to Mac OS X. I'll never go back.</STRONG>

It still looks better then Windows and the OS9 runs real well with lots of apps available. I will take that over pretty, slow, few apps and buggy any day.

I agree with the above criticism of OS X. The only reason I bought a Mac was to run OS X. That Mac was an original iBook 300, well, to make a long story short, when OS X, I tried it...
The performance was so abysmal that I bought a new machine (a pismo with 384 MB RAM) and my performance was still horrible, thus, I swallowed my pride and returned to OS 9.1.
Now, if a PII 400 MHz laptop with 256 MB RAM can run Windows 2000 at a very acceptable level, then Apple really dropped the ball with OS X if it will not run on a G3 400 with 384 MB RAM.

And please, no responses from people with 733 G4s with 768 MB RAM saying "OS X is great, I have no performance problems whatsoever, honestly, if you want OS X to work, buy a fast new G4."

[moreno]

if apple wants early adopters...go.. spend money with beta testers...

[schwa]

Why are people so obsessed with boot and app launch times? Unless you're running a machine that needs to have uptime (i.e. a server), whether your machine takes 45 seconds or a minute and a half really shouldn't matter. If that extra 45 seconds is really that important for you, your priorities are out of whack. Besides, what's the point of OS 9 booting faster if you have to reboot more often? (Incidentally, on my DP G4/500, OS X seems to boot just as fast, if not faster).

It's the same with app launching. Sure, apps take a little longer to launch under OS X, but they don't take up the every system resource while they're doing it. I just set all my "everyday" apps to launch at login. Even if I'm not using them right away, they'll just sit happily in memory, not sucking up resources, and they're ready at a moment's notice. I never need to "pick and choose" which apps I can have open at any given time, like in OS 9.

I use OS X as my regular OS, only going to 9.1 to play Unreal Tournament (mmm... TacticalOps...). Yeah, it's got its annoying quirks, but you know what? It never crashes. Multitasking works really well. Chicks dig it

Does anyone remember NT 3.51? It's arguably Microsoft's 1.0 release of that product, and it really sucked. We used it for web/app servers, and that "crashproof" OS crashed all the time, and the tools were so immature we often couldn't figure out why. You know what? It got better.