[daves666]

I've been waiting for the kinks to get ironed out of Panther before upgrading. What's the consensus on this board: is it generally a safe update now?

Any advice on things to do before updating to ensure smooth sailing? I'll be going from 10.2.6 on an old Yikes G4.

Thanks!!

[-Q-]

Supposedly 10.3.3 is in the works. You might want to wait for that. I'm still having some oddball networking issues. Otherwise, I've been very happy with Panther, but connecting to my work SMB network has been challenging at times.

A number of versions of 10.3.3 have been seeded to developers so it's supposed to be a matter of days before that's released. That may be the best version to make the jump to.

[Dale Sorel]

Hey, I hear OS 8 is real stable

Gotta climb out from under that shell sometime

[Appleman]

Other than the above mentioned SMB which is reportedly fixed in 10.3.3, I can't see much to not install Panther.

[echosphere]

Don't be an ass Dale Sorel.

Daves666 has a legitimate question about upgrading from Jaguar. The old adage "don't fix it, if it ain't broken" especially when it may break things even more is very much valid here. Especially when you are upgrading an old (OS troublesome) Yikes machine.

Though it would be nice if Daves666 gave some specific problems/concerns to address.

I have 10.3.2 on a Al 15" 1.25Ghz machine. And it's flaky sometimes with slow boot up, keyboard backlighting issues, Soundsticks USB cutting out on sleep, and "sizzling" sounds from graphics card (prob from hardware though..). I don't do much networking, so can't comment on that. Mail.app is slow as hell, but it was the same in Jaguar for me.

[echosphere]

Though, I gotta admit that you have a cute kitty!

[Person Man]

Originally posted by daves666:

Any advice on things to do before updating to ensure smooth sailing? I'll be going from 10.2.6 on an old Yikes G4.

I would recommend doing an Archive and Install (or even better, backup and reformat and install from scratch) instead of just installing on top of 10.2.6, as that may cause some other problems. My brother installed 10.3 over the top of his previous installation and had problems that went away after he backed everything up, reformatted and reinstalled a fresh copy of the operating system.

Also, repair permissions after installing and before applying any updates, and when you're done, repair them again.

[Appleman]

Originally posted by Person Man:
I would recommend doing an Archive and Install (or even better, backup and reformat and install from scratch) instead of just installing on top of 10.2.6, as that may cause some other problems. My brother installed 10.3 over the top of his previous installation and had problems that went away after he backed everything up, reformatted and reinstalled a fresh copy of the operating system.

Also, repair permissions after installing and before applying any updates, and when you're done, repair them again.

As stated before in another thread, I installed Panther over Jaguar and ran into lots of problems. On another Mac I ran it on a clean, erased virgin harddisk, and it ran almost flawless.

So yes, backup and install is much better than any other option. Get rid of silly small programs that aren't compatible anymore with Panther, get rid of settings which aren't necessary in Panther anymore, etc.

On the other hand, if you have a smoothly running Mac and depend on it in a certain way, why do an upgrade if you can do what you want it to do, other than the many niceties Panther has?

Good luck though, in my opinion Panther is worth the upgrade.

[Dale Sorel]

Originally posted by echosphere:
Don't be an ass Dale Sorel.

Hey...

Originally posted by echosphere:
Though, I gotta admit that you have a cute kitty!

Oh, OK, I guess we can be friends

[Turias]

I'm running 10.3.2 on an old Yikes! G4, like yours. I haven't experienced any problems. Upgrade!

[Appleman]

Originally posted by Turias:
I'm running 10.3.2 on an old Yikes! G4, like yours. I haven't experienced any problems. Upgrade!

Even running 10.3.2 on an iMac Bondi Blue (the original whopping 233 MHz G3!) works OK

[Turias]

Originally posted by Appleman:
Even running 10.3.2 on an iMac Bondi Blue (the original whopping 233 MHz G3!) works OK

Define "OK".

[::maroma::]

NOOOO!! DON'T INSTALL IT PANTHER!!!

IT WILL DELETE ALL OF YOUR DATA!! FRY YOUR MOTHERBOARD!! BURN OUT YOUR MONITOR!! CALL YOU NAMES!! KICK YOUR DOG AND SPIT IN YOUR FOOD!!

Just kidding. Go ahead dude.. install it.. I DARE YA!

[MountainMac]

I have 10.3.2 installed on 6 "Sawtooth" G4 towers and it runs smoothly, as smoothly as Jaguar did. Networking is the only thing that's flaky, as has been stated (many times) before.

Worth the upgrade, IMO.

MM

[pat++]

Originally posted by Turias:
Define "OK".

OK = everything but networking (just a guess )

[wtmcgee]

everything is great for me. but if you've waited this long, why not wait for 10.3.3?

[cpac]

there's nothing that's any worse than things were in 10.2.6, and many things that are much better, though if you're extremely nervous, you might want to wait until 10.3.3 anyway.

Also, you should know you should do an "archive & install" or a clean install when you upgrade to 10.3 - not merely an "upgrade install" for best results. (Some people upgrade with no problem, but others had problems that were only fixed by a reinstall/archive & install)

[Love Calm Quiet]

How about the fix for the 10.3.2 issue with slow reboot? I've been hanging back at 10.3.1 to avoid having to hack that, as I toy around with things frequently requiring reboot. Is THAT supposed to be taken care of with 10.3.3 ?

[CharlesS]

I'd be careful. Studies have shown that 10.3.2 can cause impotence.

Oops, never mind, that's actually just the fact that we computer nerds don't get dates. My bad.

[dru]

Originally posted by daves666:
I've been waiting for the kinks to get ironed out of Panther before upgrading. What's the consensus on this board: is it generally a safe update now?

10.2.8 is more stable I think.

Panther has Finder issues and I'd avoid using haxies. They're trouble some on Panther even updated. Avoid Safari and use FireFox instead.

[Millennium]

Unless you are one of a very small minority of users who are having problems, it's safe. Unfortunately, there doesn't yet seem to be any to predict whether you'll be in that minority, so it's a gamble. Nevertheless, the risk is really no lower than 10.2 was.

[osiris]

It's a great upgrade. There are many eye candy features that are great, but this OS is without a doubt faster. OpenGL draws are up +20% on my aging G4, bandwidth on a DSL line has increased by ~15kbps, and my teeth are whiter.

The only issues I'm having are networking:
1) the Finder hangs on startup if no ethernet network is available (didn't happen in 10.2.8 on my G4; My G5 is fine and doesn't have this problem, so it must be the G4)
2) Windows network access is flaky (sometimes folders don't appear inside a mounted network volume, or they do so slowly)

Take the plunge!

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
I'd be careful. Studies have shown that 10.3.2 can cause impotence.

Oops, never mind, that's actually just the fact that we computer nerds don't get dates. My bad.

My wife is happy on both counts, no dates, no kids !!! I can't afford anymore computers for the kids I have, and the last iMac went to an old girlfriend.
She is worried what will happen when 10.4 comes out, however.

[Appleman]

Originally posted by Turias:
Define "OK".

It works good, flawless. It probably doesn't scream as it will with a G5 dual, because otherwise everybody would look for the good old Bondi

[jasong]

10.3.2 is no more safe today than it was when it came out weeks ago.

-- Jason

[daves666]

Thanks for all the advice you guys. Sounds like the best plan is to wait for 10.3.3 and install onto a virgin disk.

D666 out

[mikemako]

I installed 10.3.2 on a FW 800 MDD Powermac and it runs really well. I haven't had problems networking or the boot-up time increase. I waited until 10.3.2 had been out for a while before I installed it though, so maybe Apple fixed the boot-up problem in the current 10.3.2 upgrade?

The only thing that I don't like about 10.3.2 is that if I accidently (or purposefully) move the mouse around as I am logging out it will completely freeze the cursor until I restart the computer. Didn't happen in 10.3.1. Hopefully 10.3.3 will fix that bug.

[Love Calm Quiet]

CharlesS:

There was a typo in the report you read:

STUDIES cause impotence.

10.3.2 causes importance.

[MUGlover]

Love Calm Quiet:

There is a fix for the 10.3.2 slow startup. It takes a while because it is expecting to find a file (bootCache?) that is in the wrong place. Search macosxhints for two methods of solving the problem. You can either copy the file to its desired location, or make a synthetic link to it. The copy method is what I used - quick and reliable.

[benb]

Originally posted by daves666:
Thanks for all the advice you guys. Sounds like the best plan is to wait for 10.3.3 and install onto a virgin disk.

D666 out

Some of the more unsavory internet web sites will give you money if you tape the event.

[Gavin]

Don't do it.
Those web sites may sound good to begin with but they will just exploit you.
Getting paid for you first experience can cause corruption and lead to immoralities like upgrading to every version that comes along, experimenting with Linux, installation parties, and even doing 2 OSes at the same time.

Save it for when you feel it's right.

[Person Man]

Originally posted by MUGlover:
...or make a synthetic link to it.

make a SYMBOLIC link to it. It is a "real" link after all, not a fake one.

[barbarian]

>Topic: Is 10.3.2 finally safe to install?

It's been safe from the beginning!