[OB1]

First of all, I'd like to thank all you early adopters. Your experience and advice is invaluable.

I'm on 10.2.6 here and all is well, my best computing experience ever! So I'm a little reluctant to rock the boat so to speak... I'd love to use some of the new features of 10.3, can anyone offer their positive 10.3 experience to encourage me?

[chris v]

There are things I like, and things I like not-so-much. I'd call it a "mostly positive, but decidedly mixed" experience, so far.

I love Expose, and I'm getting used to the Finder sidebar, though I'm far from convinced on that one. Startup time is greatly improved-- which is good because I'm having to force-reboot like it was OS 9. I'm also seeing more "unexpectedly quit" dialogs than I have since 10.1, so it's a good thing that apps are launching faster. There's lots of little details that are really nice in 10.3, like the default behavior for resizing columns, and window prefs sticking better in the Finder. Searching rules, but iDisk access still blows 2 days out of 3. My staff artist keeps getting "out of memory" messages in Freehand MX on a box with 2 gig or RAM. (was fine in 10.2.8) Illustrator 10 now runs tolerably quickly. I've had weird audio glitches that seem to go away at random while playing with the controls in Audio Midi Setup.

Other good things: vastly improved Preview.app and Mail.app, more responsive Terminal, totally overhauled System Profiler and Activity Monitor.

I'm pinning my stability hopes on 10.3.2, as it looks to be a pretty major update.

CV

[KP*]

Panther may have a few more bugs to work out than Jaguar, but while there are some annoyances it's nothing really serious. I guess I do get a few more unexpected quits, but it's not like running Windows or anything. To me it's worth it for all the little features. Expose is nice, but I especially appreciate the less-noted features. Networking seems much more user-friendly. It's much easier to figure out why you're not connecting. One other thing I've specifically noticed is that VPC5 got a big speed boost, which I wasn't expecting, so if that's something you use a lot it might save you a lot of time.

I say go for it.

[X_Ranger]

Yes! Overall, my experience with OS 10.3 has been very positive.

Some glitched here and there. Especially networking in mixed environments. I'm expecting that 10.3.2 will resolved those issues.

[jasong]

Panther is worse than being married . . .



-- Jason

[TheTraveller]

Panther works great for me. One thing I especially love is how your finder doesn't freeze on wakeup if you were connected to a server but that connection was severed during sleep. Now you quickly get a message telling you that's what's happened and allowing you to disconnect.

And Expos� is pretty cool.

[MacGorilla]

The changes to the BSD subsystem and its APIs are annoying. A lot of X Windows stuff was broken but over all I am happy with Panther.

[wadesworld]

I'm extremely happy with Panther.

Wade

[wadesworld]

The changes to the BSD subsystem and its APIs are annoying. A lot of X Windows stuff was broken but over all I am happy with Panther.

Panther made large changes to the API's mainly to make programs easier to port. It's far easier to port a program from Linux or Solaris than it was prior to 10.3.

Wade

[cpac]

great experiences upgrading.

make a backup and take the plunge... if you've got the backup, you can always go back.

[Keiretsu]

3x ++ good!

[DaGuy]

GOOD:

- Somewhat faster
- Finder rocks
- Networking
- mail filters are much better
- Best looking OS ever
- Not one kernel panic

BAD:

- Some Finder bugs (not too anoying though)
- My optical mouse goes wako about once a week. Need to unplug & plug it back to normalize it.
- Backup screws up quite often -but fortnutely doesn't mess up already stored backups

RECOMMENDATION:

Panther is great but if you are really cozy with Jaguar then I would wait for the next update. I had Jaguar and it indeed was the best computing experience ever. Panther has the potenial to clearly surpass it but it needs a bit more maturity time -just like the first few Jaguar releases. If on the other hand, you are not making a living off your Jaguar and would like to explore many cool things while not being too annoyed by some mostly harmless bugs then why wait come join the fun!

[rytc]

Panther has been a great update for my Clamshell iBook. All round faster and more polished IMHO. Expos� is great new feature, would have to say it's the one feature I really use the most. Networking works much better than under Jag. Can't say it's any less stable, although iTunes does seem to hang more frequently but then that's probably something that'll be addressed in a future update to iTunes.
cheers Ry

[NYCFarmboy]

Some PRELIMINARY thoughts.. it has brought new life to my old 500 mhz ibook. It really seems to work alot faster between application and just seems to be a different computer..much nicer.

Expose is cool, (but I've only had panther for 2 days). And the switching between users is just the coolest thing on earth. ...and now ichat will work with a isight video camera (something I think should be on Jaguar as well).

bad things: odd install on my ibook. the 2nd disk would never install. Said error, and to repeat. So I kept trying to repeat the 2nd disk installation and never was able to after 6 tries.

However, it seems to work just fine (I don't use my ibook to print though..and the 2nd disk looked to mostly be printing and foreign language stuff which I'd just assume leave off anyhow).

My Internet Explorer for X completly dissapeared somehow during the installation process. That is th eonly thing that dissapeared that I know of anyhow.

My Mom says that iphoto works MUCh slower in Panther though than Jaguar. Anyone else have this problem?

My preliminary conclusion: Its safe to install if you don't depend on your computer for work reasons/livelihood. If you cannot do without your computer I would wait for a few more of the bugs to be worked out (10.3.2 should do the trick).

[Moonray]

For me the larger Finder windows are annoying, it can't remember in which mode (with/without sidebar) to open them (while it still messes up folders with .DS_Store files).
Whether or not to display the status line with item count and size of networked volumes seems to be a completely random decision (besides all the other networking havoc).
And I would trade Expos� for a good windowshade.

What pleases me most is the smoother looking with less pinstripes.

-

[nredman]

no problems with 10.3 on my eMac 1ghz with 1gig of ram...one word....expose.

[Love Calm Quiet]

I almost NEVER get any "unexpected quits" with Panther. Just about all standard apps seems smoother, more stable (except some bugginess in IE in last week which may not be a Panther issue - and besides Safari is so much better now that I am seldom called to load IE)

� TiBook
� iBook G3
� Pismo G3 400MHz

[NYCFarmboy]

Originally posted by Moonray:
For me the larger Finder windows are annoying, it can't remember in which mode (with/without sidebar) to open them (while it still messes up folders with .DS_Store files).
Whether or not to display the status line with item count and size of networked volumes seems to be a completely random decision (besides all the other networking havoc).
And I would trade Expos� for a good windowshade.

What pleases me most is the smoother looking with less pinstripes.

-

Download windowshade X at:

http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/wsx/

Its 10 bucks, but well worth it, and works with Panther just fine (hint: reinstall after installing Panther)...I had it on Jaguar first and it required being reinstalled afterwords to get it going again in Panther). Works just like windowshade in os9.

(also check out cleardock which gets rid of that awful white background behind the application icons in the dock..its free!)

[malvolio]

Installing and running Panther has been a very positive experience for me.

[tdvorak]

I have had very good luck with Panther. I am thinking about putting on a BW G3/450, but am not sure. On all the G4s I have, its great though!

[SSharon]

On my dual 1 MDD 768mb Panther is faster and more stable, but the little glitches get to me. I never use the sidebar in the finder windows and icons have been going nuts everywhere, and I mean Panther is combining icons not just switching them. I put a dvd in and its icon was the AIM green cirlce for new IM, when I I get an IM the AIM icon flashes to the iMovie icon, and one file had half of the divx validator icon and half of some other icon.

Preview is great, Mail is better, Safari is better, System profiler can now load in less than 2 lifetimes = much better.

I like panther and agree that unless you need it or some specific app to work, try it out.

[andreas_g4]

Originally posted by KP*:
I guess I do get a few more unexpected quits, but it's not like running Windows or anything.

Great!

[rphtechnology]

Panther has been great for me so far. It has only crashed twice and both were related to hardware problems. Expose is great! Everyone should upgrade to 10.3.

[mitchell_pgh]

I would have to say that I've had a mixed experience. While I LOVE the new enhancements including mail and expos�, the new buts that it has introduced has been rather upsetting.

I feel like the operating system itself is less stable.

I also feel like applications are less stable.

That being said, I'm happy with it, and haven't had major problems. I can't wait to get back to the 10.2.6 stability because I love the new tricks.

[booboo]

Plus:
A little snappier�
Expose
Fast User switching
Labels
Installation was painless.

Minus
Many glitches and bugs with pro-audio app's, some still unresolved.
FruitMenu still incompatible.
Metal Finder (+ loss of functionality on non-metal view)
A few unresolved bugs and incompatibilities here and there. A little pointless re-arranging and combining of pref-panes . . .

[typoon]

Panther is Worth the upgrade. As everyone has already said it's faster than 10.2.x

Also I love Expose, the new Finder, Fast User switching, the new Mail, the New Addressbook,

[allap]

I get more unexpected quits as well, but overall it's a pretty solid package.

[JKT]

Originally posted by booboo:
Minus
Many glitches and bugs with pro-audio app's, some still unresolved.
FruitMenu still incompatible.
Metal Finder (+ loss of functionality on non-metal view)
A few unresolved bugs and incompatibilities here and there. A little pointless re-arranging and combining of pref-panes . . .

Er... the Metal Finder is a big plus in Panther. Not the appearance per se (which is a matter of personal taste), but the big improvements in functionality over Jaguar such as SLF working the way they should, the sidebar, the eject icons for unmountable media, info panes remembering your viewing preferences, previews of PDFs being faster (due to Preview itself being much, much better) etc.

FWIW, an update to FruitMenu has been released today if you use it.

[mac-kerouac]

I've had a good experience so far. Seamless networking and file sharing, the finder side-bar is excellent. And Expose makes my 12" G4 seem panoramic.

[platan0]

im lovin` it
only thing i dont like about it is
the long wait between entering your password and the desktop loading

and also, when i come out of the screen saver, takes longer for the password thingy to come up when on 10.2 it was instant

but overall thumbsup

those are just small things

[absmiths]

Originally posted by jasong:
Panther is worse than being married . . .



-- Jason

That's definitely true for me, since I have had a great time being married, but I only have so-so fun with Panther. User switching is priceless, but iPhoto is much slower; VPC 5 sucks (took about 5 hours to start a PC, not in Jaguar), but VPC 6 is super fast; the Finder is great, but still hangs when a network drive disappears; Internet sharing remembers settings (finally!), but USB audio has problems.

The "look" of Panther is also much more pleasant. I am running both at home and I vastly prefer Panther.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by MacGorilla:
The changes to the BSD subsystem and its APIs are annoying. A lot of X Windows stuff was broken but over all I am happy with Panther.

Actually, that was one of my incentives. I much prefer the updated subsystem.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by JKT:
. . . but the big improvements in functionality over Jaguar such as SLF working the way they should . . .

What are SLF?

[vboccio]

I had no problem with panther at all. I had no problem installing learning or using it. It went better than expected, maybe because I installed it before reading all the horror stories about what it does.

[kcmac]

I can't think of anything I liked better about Jaguar.

Expos� is something I now could not do without.

I use Mail and AddressBook extensively and they both are much improved.

Panther is well worth it. (Of course, I will immediately upgrade to 10.4 when it hits the streets. I like new stuff from Apple.)

[Keda]

I love using Panther!

Exops� alone is worth it. But the new finder kicks a$$ aas well as all the little improvements.

[Ron Goodman]

No problems at all with Panther. Don't get too concerned by all the doom and gloom stories you read here. Problems get publicity all out of proportion to their seriousness.

[spiznet]

Panther is great. Faster than Jaguar.

I had to install new version of more compatible ASM, otherwise dock disappeared, but thats the only problem I had and was easily resolved.

-Mark Scott
Director of Technology
J/B Woolsey Associates

[typoon]

I love it. So far some Very great Experiences with Panther

[::maroma::]

Panther is better than Jaguar. No major problems, and very few minor problems with Panther.

Panther =

[Buck_Naked]

10.3
SOLID

[KidRed]

Not sure the topic subject, I haven't had a NEGATIVE 10.3 experience.

[Dale Sorel]

If you're having a negative 10.3 experience, me thinks you need to learn how to work a computer