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msb0014 · May 3, 2005, 07:31 PM

Tiger has made my iMac G4 800 mhz flat panel run slow. Apps launch slow, the rainbow circle thing is always there. Dreamweaver MX 2004 crashes after launch.

Dashboard is cute, but not functional. So what if I have the weather, stocks and yellow pages at the click of a button.

Spotlight is useful, but how many times will anyone use it? Since I've had Mac OS 7 thru 10.3 if I needed to find something I usually knew where I put it and if I couldn't find it right away I would eventually would.

Automater is also cute, but have you tried to use it? It's not as 'user friendly' as advertised.

I'm afraid to go near Font book, as slow as it ran on 10.3, I can't imagine the delays it will bring with Tiger.

Even as I write this the rainbow circle thingy makes me have to pause my writing.

Some people would say, 'We'll Tiger was not really built for a G4, it's really built for G5 and dual G5's' - I would agree, however what are we supposed to do? Upgrade my hardware every 18 months because I need a widget? Moore's law can kiss my as-!

I have a hard time reading about how this is a major upgrade. 10.1 was a major upgrade, remember how slow 10.0 first ran? 10.1 was much faster. Apple could have just pushed this out over the software update and saved us $129.

Matt

ManOfSteal · May 3, 2005, 07:38 PM

austeros · May 3, 2005, 07:38 PM

you might want to try a clean install, something doesn't sound right

Weyland-Yutani · May 3, 2005, 07:42 PM

10.4 made my iBook 600 run fast.

So where does that leave us

Tiger is hyped, Tiger may be overrated - but it is a solid update and well worth it if you want to get the OS I would describe as the first truly Macintosh quality OS X release. I'm certain Apple will be up to their neck in bug-reports and churning out subsequent updates to 10.4 as they have done with every OS release. It is a never-ending project. Computers change, the internet demands new things and people suggest changes that are sometimes implemented into the OS.

My suggestion to you is to do a clean install and calm down. After installing just let the machine be for a few minutes in case Spotlight feels like indexing. Probably won't be necessary though.

After that, import your data and watch how 10.4 flies on your venerable iMac. It sure made my ancient iBook feel vibrant again!

Best of luck

alephOne · May 3, 2005, 07:44 PM

You know, the funny part is that I'm running an 800MHz G4 iMac and I find everything faster and more stable with 10.4. I find Dashboard incredibly useful, and I'm even working on developing my own widget. And Spotlight keeps getting more and more useful ever day. This is a major upgrade, and one that would not have been able to be deployed via Software Update due to the major changes made under the hood for Tiger.

jes · May 3, 2005, 08:57 PM

Sounds like a botched install to me.
Anyone who isnt sure about tiger should read this :
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars

The "under the hood" improvements alone make it nice upgrade.
I can see your point though, sort of. Tiger definitely doesnt have tons of eye candy and new features that jump right out and dazzle you. What it does have is some serious changes to the graphics subsystems, kernel and API's. Once 10.4.1 roles around in the next 3-5 weeks and developers start releasing app's that take advantage of these changes Tiger will be incredible. I already find it incredible. As for dreamweaver,, try reinstalling... I had the same problem and it was a license validation issue. Neither straight forward upgrades or preserving user settings seems to carry the validation over to the new system.

msb0014 · May 3, 2005, 09:02 PM

To be honest, I did a upgrade an NOT clean install. I did not feel like re-installing all my apps, setting up my wireless network, re-installing fonts, blah blah blah. This weekend I guess I'm going to do what I should have yesterday, bite the bullet and clean install.

Thanks for the feedback,
Matt

MindFad · May 3, 2005, 09:05 PM

o thx

joltguy · May 3, 2005, 09:14 PM

Originally Posted by msb0014

To be honest, I did a upgrade an NOT clean install. I did not feel like re-installing all my apps, setting up my wireless network, re-installing fonts, blah blah blah. This weekend I guess I'm going to do what I should have yesterday, bite the bullet and clean install.

Thanks for the feedback,
Matt

You should've done an Archive and Install then. Keeps your apps, keeps your wireless network setup, keeps your fonts. Moves the old OS out of the way and installs the new one.

Worked like a charm for me, and my iBook G3 600MHz (same as Weyland-Yutani) is much happier with Tiger.

hldan · May 3, 2005, 09:20 PM

Yeah, on a major OS upgrade you have to erase and install for proper performance. I did archive and install on my iMac G4 and Tiger ran horrible. The Dock stuttered and the apps dragged and I had to keep doing a hard reset.
I though Tiger was too advanced for my iMac and decided at the last minute to do erase and install and all is well. Feels like a brand new iMac and faster responses.

drainyoo · May 3, 2005, 09:24 PM

Originally Posted by msb0014

Tiger has made my iMac G4 800 mhz flat panel run slow. Apps launch slow, the rainbow circle thing is always there. Dreamweaver MX 2004 crashes after launch.

Dashboard is cute, but not functional. So what if I have the weather, stocks and yellow pages at the click of a button.

Spotlight is useful, but how many times will anyone use it? Since I've had Mac OS 7 thru 10.3 if I needed to find something I usually knew where I put it and if I couldn't find it right away I would eventually would.

Automater is also cute, but have you tried to use it? It's not as 'user friendly' as advertised.

I'm afraid to go near Font book, as slow as it ran on 10.3, I can't imagine the delays it will bring with Tiger.

Even as I write this the rainbow circle thingy makes me have to pause my writing.

Some people would say, 'We'll Tiger was not really built for a G4, it's really built for G5 and dual G5's' - I would agree, however what are we supposed to do? Upgrade my hardware every 18 months because I need a widget? Moore's law can kiss my as-!

I have a hard time reading about how this is a major upgrade. 10.1 was a major upgrade, remember how slow 10.0 first ran? 10.1 was much faster. Apple could have just pushed this out over the software update and saved us $129.

Matt

If Tiger isnt working well for you, maybe cause you didnt install it properlly, dont tell people its overrated cause its definitely not. Its huge step up from Panther. 2 different OS in my opinion.

wowway1 · May 3, 2005, 09:37 PM

My only gripe is that it won't see my 2nd internal SATA drive (scratch drive) that worked fine under Panther. I know that if I format it'll work, but that's hardly a solution.

Otherwise, it's spiffy!

MrForgetable · May 3, 2005, 09:40 PM

there are some bugs but I will work through them. overall a good update.

NeXTLoop · May 3, 2005, 09:48 PM

On my 1.5GHz PowerBook, Tiger is faster and more responsive than Panther. Not as big of an update as 10.2 was to 10.1, or 10.1 to 10.0. But definitely a solid update that offers some nice refinement, speed enhancements, and a few good additional features.

It sounds like something is messed up with your install. Think about a Clean Install.

jeepandmacfan · May 3, 2005, 10:05 PM

I upgraded from Panther to Tiger (with the Upgrade option, not archive, or erase) and had good results. I ran XBench before and after to see what it would have to say. Check these numbers out!

All Scores Panther/Tiger
Overall CPU Score: 45.93/56.95
CPU Test: 23.85/47.06 (wow!!!)
Thread Test: 48.3/62.04
Memory Test: 25.98/27.61
OpenGL: 75.4/80.82
User Interface: 101.67/121.11

I think those numbers speak volumes about where Apple put some of there effort, and this is on a G3 chip!

IonCable · May 3, 2005, 10:12 PM

thanks for your opinion.

I love tiger, thank you very much. I suggest to the readers upgrade it's worth it.

Dex13 · May 3, 2005, 10:12 PM

it made my imac 400 snappy� again

striker100 · May 3, 2005, 10:13 PM

I did a clean install of Tiger on my 700MHz 15" flat panel iMac. It actually feels kinda like a processor upgrade that's how much better Tiger is than Panther. Everything just feels "snappier".

fisherKing · May 3, 2005, 10:17 PM

i just spent 9 hours installing tiger, all my apps, all my work, on a new hard drive.
much to my surprise, everything works so far (ie logic, reason, indesign, photoshop...plus shapeshifter, cleardock, etc etc)

overall a little buggy but...faster than 10.3, stable (so far).
spotlight is impressive, and am finding the widgets i can stand (& use) in dashboard (including a very-cool fedex-ups tracker, weather, etc)

there will always be stuff to fix, hence, updates.
but think it's a great os...

MacPeople1 · May 4, 2005, 01:36 AM

Originally Posted by msb0014

Tiger has made my iMac G4 800 mhz flat panel run slow. Apps launch slow, the rainbow circle thing is always there. Dreamweaver MX 2004 crashes after launch.

Dashboard is cute, but not functional. So what if I have the weather, stocks and yellow pages at the click of a button.

Spotlight is useful, but how many times will anyone use it? Since I've had Mac OS 7 thru 10.3 if I needed to find something I usually knew where I put it and if I couldn't find it right away I would eventually would.

Automater is also cute, but have you tried to use it? It's not as 'user friendly' as advertised.

I'm afraid to go near Font book, as slow as it ran on 10.3, I can't imagine the delays it will bring with Tiger.

Even as I write this the rainbow circle thingy makes me have to pause my writing.

Some people would say, 'We'll Tiger was not really built for a G4, it's really built for G5 and dual G5's' - I would agree, however what are we supposed to do? Upgrade my hardware every 18 months because I need a widget? Moore's law can kiss my as-!

I have a hard time reading about how this is a major upgrade. 10.1 was a major upgrade, remember how slow 10.0 first ran? 10.1 was much faster. Apple could have just pushed this out over the software update and saved us $129.

Matt

Matt

Something is not right. I have Tiger running on a G4 20" iMac 1.25 GHz/1 GB RAM and a G4 17" PowerBook 1 GHz/1 GB RAM and both are running fast and sweet. I didn't go the Clean Install route, though I did back up everything first, so even using the more problematic UPGRADE option did not cause me any issues on either machine. What's more is I know of a dozen or so fellow MUG users who have made the jump and all are extremely pleased even though only 4 have G5 Macs.

Do a complete backup and then try a Clean reinstall. Check for software updates for your apps. I am assuming you have enough memory but if you have anything less than 512 MB you need an upgrade. Tiger is definately a hungry beast so the more resources you throw at it the happier it is.

As for the features they may take some time to grow on you but you will find yourself using Dashboard more and more as you get used to it. FWIW load any widget you may even think you might use and remember the F12 key is the shortcut. I tend to use Stickies a lot so it is handy to always have it there waiting. As for Spotlight I am one of those compulsive/obsessive types when it comes to organization and still there are times where I misplace files or can't remember filenames. Spotlight fixes that in a hurry especially if you download esoterically named files or PDF's from the Net and need to find them again.

Obviously the real impact of Tiger is felt most on a G5 Mac and as always the price is too high but so far I am pleased with Tiger though I do feel like maybe I should have waited till the first major upgrade to it before buying it. I have this feeling Apple left some features out on purpose to create future buzz.

Good luck.

alphasubzero949 · May 4, 2005, 02:04 AM

Archived and installed over here. Removed problematic stuff in /Library/StartupItems and all is good now.

THE MAC GOD · May 4, 2005, 02:38 AM

Sorry... but I hated FB in Panther... It's actually usable and NICE in Tiger... Being in Print... this was a huge boon... and, it's FAST.

Also, ONLY DO WIPED DISK CLEAN INSTALLS of any OS... period. That's what partitioning is for.

Chuckit · May 4, 2005, 03:36 AM

"That's what partitioning is for"? I didn't see the word "suckers" anywhere in the previous sentence.

Archive and installed here. Speedy as anything.

dillerX · May 4, 2005, 03:50 AM

Originally Posted by MindFad

o thx

man of few words say so much.

VValdo · May 4, 2005, 04:01 AM

Originally Posted by THE MAC GOD

Also, ONLY DO WIPED DISK CLEAN INSTALLS of any OS... period. That's what partitioning is for.

Yer nuts. I've archive & installed from 10.0->10.1->10.2->10.3 and will do the same for 10.4. Never had a problem.

After a few weeks, when I'm satisfied the new OS is working, I just chuck the archived directory and I'm good to go.

W

(okay, okay. I admit it. I can't remember exactly what method I upgraded from 10.0 to 10.1 with that update CD they gave you.. but if archive&install was given as an option, I used it.. it may have just had "update". In any event, I know I didn't do a wiped-disk clean install, that's for damn sure..)

Xeo · May 4, 2005, 04:07 AM

Originally Posted by THE MAC GOD

Sorry... but I hated FB in Panther... It's actually usable and NICE in Tiger... Being in Print... this was a huge boon... and, it's FAST.

Also, ONLY DO WIPED DISK CLEAN INSTALLS of any OS... period. That's what partitioning is for.

Disagree. It's a waste of time in most circumstances. I would, however, never recommend to someone that they upgrade over archive and install/clean install. The first post of this thread shows that upgrading causes more problems than it solves. It is one thing that Apple should just leave it out or make it usable. The number of support calls they get from botched upgrades must be pretty high.

That said, the only things Archive and Install can do that will mess you up is having certain old-OS things in your home directory that start up or preference files that it doesn't like, or something. Everything else gets moved safely out of the way. Usually this can be remedied with some Library maintenance. That said, I did not have that problem with this upgrade. I just wouldn't be surprised if others did. I'm sure there are a few others ways Archive and Install can cause problems, but certainly not enough that I would tell someone to "always wipe".

Randman · May 4, 2005, 04:13 AM

Partitioning is a Windows mindset. 95% of all Mac users don't need to.

Thorin · May 4, 2005, 04:31 AM

I did an Archive & Install, and I haven't seen the performance improvement that others have. I have a lot of hanging and freezing, a huge amount of beachballing and a generally sluggish and fairly unresponsive mac. I'd assumed something has gone wrong having read others great experiences here though, so I'll be doing a clean install next week (first chance I'll have to spend all that time sorting everything out).

Randman · May 4, 2005, 05:29 AM

Thorin, you repaired permissions?

Thorin · May 4, 2005, 05:34 AM

Yup. Repaired permsisions, rebooted, spotlight had finished indexing before I did any of this.

I'm just putting it down to bad luck to be honest. I must have had something (or things) somewhere that upset Tiger.

pete · May 4, 2005, 06:41 AM

Although I think spotlight is very useful and use it all the time already, I think I'd have to agree that Tiger is not a major upgrade for the average consumer. I mean, there's not much there that you couldn't have through freeware or shareware, even if the implementation is nicer in Apple. I think Spotlight is by far the most useful feature. Dashbord, while nice, feels kind of clumsy to me although I haven't thought of a better way to do it.

Anyway, it feels stable (a little buggy, too) and fast and is a great OS. But is it worth it? I'm inclined to say no for the average user with an average amount of money to spend....just my opinion.

moki · May 4, 2005, 09:05 AM

All other things being equal, Tiger should run faster than Panther on any machine... I echo the comments of others here that something appears to be amiss with your install... or perhaps Spotlight was still indexing?

In any event, some of the coolest things in Tiger are things you'll never see... immediately anyway. Apple has provided some absolutely stunning tools for developers in CoreImage and numerous other technologies. You'll see the payoff in some very cool Tiger-only programs, I reckon.

But from the point of view of what you get right out of the box, I think Apple has done a compelling job there as well. Use it for a week or two, and I think you may revise your opinion.

theolein · May 4, 2005, 09:18 AM

Originally Posted by Randman

Thorin, you repaired permissions?

I don't mean to flame you, mate, but the "Did you repair permissions" question is not exactly indicative fo you knowing what you're talking about. While there are numerous things in an OS that repairing permissions will fix, there are far more that have nothing to do with that.

Randman · May 4, 2005, 09:34 AM

No worries. But RP can solve problems in a new install. Especially on an archive and install.

scottiB · May 4, 2005, 09:42 AM

Just updated last night on an iBook/700. Not my main machine, more of a large PDA, but runs fine. Safari seems to be faster and am digging Spotlight. Love it.

Thorin · May 4, 2005, 10:50 AM

Ok, I downloaded the Tiger version of Cocktail and ran the thing in pilot where it does 'everything' (daily, weekly, monthly maintenence scripts, cleans out caches, repairs permissions, all that jazz), and then I shut my machine off and left it off for a couple of minutes and turned it back on. Everything look much better so far, but I'll not get too excited just yet!

I found the Cocktail and shut off for a few minutes suggestion on the Apple Discussion Forums

msb0014 · May 4, 2005, 11:02 AM

Wow, I've never had a thread go this in depth.

I appreciate everyone's comments and feedback. O.K. maybe I was frustrated at the time and the use of the word 'overrated' was loose, sorry if I offended. Tonight I am going to reinstall - clean. But before I do I am going to run XBench to see if the problem was just upgrading the OS rather than a clean install.

I'll upload my results when done.

Matt

Simon Mundy · May 4, 2005, 11:02 AM

Wow, Tiger is REALLY slow. Feels like it's running in slow-motion...

Oh wait - I was holding down the Shift key

Randman · May 4, 2005, 12:19 PM

Originally Posted by Simon Mundy

Wow, Tiger is REALLY slow. Feels like it's running in slow-motion...

Oh wait - I was holding down the Shift key

milhous · May 4, 2005, 12:30 PM

you gotta know your machine's limits. period. just because it runs doesn't mean it's going to be great. it "runs" on my 500 mhz powerbook and all i can say is that i'm glad it runs rather than refusing to install at all. i live with it and you should too. on my 1.2ghz ibook g4, it runs great and i'm glad i got it.

also please note that we've yet to get to 10.4.1 which will bring fixes and possible performance enhancements.

Thorin · May 4, 2005, 12:33 PM

Originally Posted by milhous

you gotta know your machine's limits. period. just because it runs doesn't mean it's going to be great. it "runs" on my 500 mhz powerbook and all i can say is that i'm glad it runs rather than refusing to install at all. i live with it and you should too. on my 1.2ghz ibook g4, it runs great and i'm glad i got it.

also please note that we've yet to get to 10.4.1 which will bring fixes and possible performance enhancements.

I can't speak for the thread starter, but people with machines comparable to mine have been saying that Tiger has improved performance relative to Panther, whereas my experience has been that performance has degraded. This makes me think something's gone wrong with my installation!

Hi I'm Ben · May 4, 2005, 12:50 PM

In all honesty Tiger doesn't make my system feel much faster. Nothing superb there. Then again, I did an upgrade. Hell I haven't even did a fresh install since i got the factory install on my iBook!

I'm a tad lazy, I think i'll get around to it in a few days but overall, no actual problems. Just no huge OMG speed boosts.
1.2G4 768 ram

Eug Wanker · May 4, 2005, 01:11 PM

Tiger feels faster on my Cube 1.7 and my TiBook 1 GHz.

Originally Posted by Randman

Partitioning is a Windows mindset. 95% of all Mac users don't need to.

Huh? Yeah, most users don't need to partition, but that has nothing to do with being a "Windows mindset".

Uday · May 4, 2005, 01:22 PM

I installed Tiger on my childrens iMac (800Mhz, 1GB RAM and Superdrive). I had to do an erase and install as there appered to be a problem with the hard drive. Having done so, I didn't have to say a thing. My wife noticed the increase in performance immediately - go figure!

themexican · May 4, 2005, 01:41 PM

on my machines tiger has made life easier by making the finder faster and more responsive and by allowing us to search mountains of data very very fast in spotlight. Also safari is faster/more robust. I think the quality of the bump depends on the machine you have. Our G5s with plenty of RAM seem like new machines. Our G4 and G3 ibooks are about the same (although much better with VM).

Agent69 · May 4, 2005, 01:42 PM

I did a clean install of Tiger on my SP 1.25ghz MDD last night and I would say that it is just an itsy bit faster than Panther was. Spotlight works very well, although I wish it would let me finish typing before trying to preset its results to me. Safari's RSS reader is nice. Mail's new interface is horrible.

typoon · May 4, 2005, 02:52 PM

I've noticed an increase in speed as well from the OS. It just boots so much faster and is much more responsive. I must be one of the few people that doesn't seem too bothered by the new Mail.app interface.

Zimphire · May 4, 2005, 03:01 PM

msb0014 the problem isn't Tiger.

It sounds like a BTKAC error.

Of the 1D10T kind.

msb0014 · May 4, 2005, 04:06 PM

Yeah, I'm the idiot.

My Mac runs slower, apps don't open and I don't spend my life posting 28,486 messages on a Mac news site. But I'm the idiot.

Zimphire · May 4, 2005, 04:20 PM

Originally Posted by msb0014

Yeah, I'm the idiot.

First step is admittance.

(BTW the post above was a joke lighten up)

My Mac runs slower, apps don't open

I doubt it's Tiger's fault. Something was done wrong. As MOST people who have installed Tiger have had nothing but IMPROVEMENTS in speed.

and I don't spend my life posting 28,486 messages on a Mac news site. But I'm the idiot.

Post count, and intelligence don't go hand in hand. I've seen idiots with post counts as low as... well.. yours.