Cool Mac Gear

Jaguar Discovery

From Chris Long

Hey C:

Here's another one to pile on the HEAP:

I just discovered that OSX.2 'Jaguar' has REMOVED the option available in OSX.1.5 that said "keep a window's view the same when opening other folders in the window" -- instead we now get "open new windows in column view" (or not) ...

Boggles the mind.

So, for those of us who don't want columns view (i prefer list), I have to cross my fingers every single time I double click on a folder, never knowing what view will show up in the next window.

This is stupid to the point of absurdity. I suppose NOW Apple is trying to RAM COLUMN VIEW down my throat, too? Am I missing something here? I don't think I am.

I feel like going out and buying like a dozen brand new top-o-line G4s and running OS 9 until the day I die, replacing the actual boxes over the years as needed.

Sigh.

Chris

--

PS: re; Woz's assessment of OSX -- it's in this month's Macworld Magazine, right here in front of me:

quote

"I love OSX from a feeling point of view. But from capability and readiness, I still don't rate it ready for me, I'm sorry to say."

unquote

Personally I wouldn't even praise it THAT highly, but that's my opinion.

--

pps: Something you might find interesting -- I've been using TWO Logitech 'marble mouse' trackballs simultaneously for a long time now -- helps a lot having both available at the same time, allowing me to use whichever arm hurts less at any given moment. Works great in OS9.

I've installed the drivers for these for use in OSX, but -- surprise -- doesn't work properly. I'm limited to one trackball, and I actually have to log out/reboot if I want to switch WHICH one ... UGH.

Where will it end?

Hi Chris;

Your litany of Jaguar shortcomings above reinforces my contention that OS X is not ready yet to replace OS 9.

Charles

Re: quote attributed to Woz

From Mikhial Gurarie

In your Exhaustive Musings column today, you referred to a quote attributed to Steve Wozniak. I have previously read this, too. The following quote can be found at the end of the interview at
http://www.macworld.com/2002/10/macbeat/woz.html

Do you like OS X?

I love OS X from a feeling point of view. But from capability and readiness, I still don't rate it ready for me, I'm sorry to say.

Thanks for the reference and link, Mikhial.

Charles

re: Even More Exhaustive Musings On The Termination Of Dual Booting Macs

From Mark S.

Charles,

One of the best pieces I have read about the 'state of the Mac' in awhile!

Using my iMac 400 (512mgs RAM) I switched to X last December (and stopped using Classic in April), predominantly because I loved Aqua and X eliminated non-stop online system crashes (1 for about every 2-3 hours connected in 9.04, 9.1, 9.2). But there is no question that when I go back to 9, such as for using FaxSTF (hate the X version), the speed of 9 is very noticeable, and I wish I could get it in X. But I have not looked back, as I do not use my iMac for a living, and I will not give up the two things mentioned previously.

I had planned to get the FP iMac earlier this year, but at this point I will ride out my G3 until the 'CPU-speed/OSX-performance' situation settles further.

Thanks for the posting...
Mark in MD

Hi Mark;

Glad you enjoyed my rant.

If I were using my computer only for casual and not work/production, I would spend a lot more time in X, and probably just switch. However, X just hobbles me too much speed and efficiency wise.

I share your outlook on Apple's CPU dilemma, although the death of dual-booting has altered my perspective somewhat.

Charles

I'm starting to agree with you, to a point

From Dave Clark

Hi Charles,

Nice "exhaustive" followup article on the no-boot-OS 9 issue. I'm starting to agree with you, to a point.

I'm curious what exactly you mean when you say: "First, I want to clarify that my critique of OS X relative to OS 9 is NOT predicated on the problem I personally have with OS X‚s non - support of simultaneous inputs from two pointing devices."

I guess "pointing devices" doesn't mean mice. Two mice work perfectly at the same time in OS X. Please clarify. Thanks.

Regards,
Dave Clark
http://rockymountainscenery.com

Hi Dave;

Glad you enjoyed the column.

Actually, pointing devices does refer to mice, as well as trackpads and trackballs.

The issue for me is clicking and holding with one device while dragging or highlighting with a second one. That works fine in OS 9, but not at all in OS X.

See my reply to Douglas Godfrey below.

Charles

OSX SUPPORTs simultaneous input from 2 pointing

From Douglas Godfrey

I have a PowerMac G4 Dual 500mhz system with an Apple Pro keyboard and mouse and a Logitech Trackman 3 button Trackball on a CompuCable Mini-ADB ADB->USB converter. Both input devices work simultaneously. I can move the mouse horozontally while moving the trackball virtically and the mouse cursor moves in circles.

This combination does have some problems that are caused by a bug in Mac OS X (in every version from 10.0.0 to 10.2.1). When I first boot up my machine (or logout/login), I have to move the cursor with the trackball once before the mouse will work correctly (click and drag behaves as click 10 times a second and drag). Once I have moved the cursor with the trackball, the mouse works correctly.

Hi Douglas;

Yes; what you describe works on my machine under OS 10.1.4 as well. However the issue for me is ckicking and holding with one device while dragging or highlighting with a second one. That works fine in OS 9, but not at all in OS X.

Charles

Dual-booting, round two...

From J. Clark

I agree.

It was out of fear that the next generation would not boot 9 and because of the underwhelming initial performance reviews of mirrored-door G4’s that I purchased one of the last, refurbished, Quicksilver dual 1GHz machines available at Apple’s online store in late August. I considered waiting for 2003 before purchasing a new machine, but I am relieved that I did not. My OS9 software is extensive, expensive to replace in X versions, and tried-and-true. I’ll migrate, but at a pace which reflects my needs, the ability of OS X to satisfy those needs, and the depth of my pockets.

John Clark

Hi John;

We are indeed on the same page. Incrementalism is usually my preferred mode of transition.

Charles

My 2 cents on Dual booting

From MEL

Charles, I have read your articles and many others regarding the eliminatin of dual booting into OS X and OS 9 on future Macs. Like many others I knew that this day was coming, but never thought it would be this soon. I thought for sure, if and when Macs roll out with G5 chips (or something else), then for sure Macs would be OS X only.

However I was just as shocked as you and many others when Steve Jobs announced no booting into OS 9 on future Macs that have either the G4 or G3 chip.

I do Mac consulting with a small group of clients and all of them are longtime Mac users, and most of them don't even know about this dilemma yet. For the ones who have older Macs that need replacing soon, I am recommending they buy a new Mac now before the current dual boot systems are all sold out.

For a few of my friends and associates who are on the Wintel platform and may consider a change to Mac, then for sure they should buy a new Mac now or anytime thereafter but only use OSX since they won't have to worry about any legacy applications.

Anyway, I see an impending run on all current Macs through the holiday season and after that a probable significant drop off in sales even though Apple may introduce newer models at the next MacWorld SF.

You know, I think Apple has never liked dual booting into any OS that they did not deem worthy of their hardware. Remember BeOS? Apple would not allow that to boot into their G3 and later architecture. BeOS was a fine OS that I run and still do on occasion using my old Powercenter 150 Mac clone.

Could Linux be the next OS banned from Apple hardware?

MEL

Hi Mel;

I still wonder if Be might not have been the better choice for OS X. We'll never know.

I'm doubtful that Apple would block Linux. I don't think it's perceived as much of a desktop threat, at least to Mac OS aficionados.

Charles

The Day that OS 9 died...

From Andreas Weik

Hi Charles,

I respect your opinion in this matter. There is something though, that I haven't seen so far in any of the replies listed on Applelinks. Has it never occured to you, that, because OS X has far more things to take care of and much more eye-candy (let's not argue about that), that it simply HAS to be slower than OS 9?

I wonder why everyone is so astonished about this. Was OS 7 faster than OS 6?
Was 8 faster than 7?
Was OS 9 faster than OS 8?

Of course not! Why? Because more features and more wizzbang makes for less processor power for the rest (meaning your program). This has been ALWAYS the case so far, and it always caused a ruckus with "ordinary" people.

As long as you're comparing OS 9 with X on a Pismo you won't see any benefits, why don't you treat yourself to a new and shiny (and hopefully soon to be released) 1 GHz TiBook and be happy with it? :-)

You need to compare OS 9 on the Pismo with X on a TiBook. THEN you see what OS X can do for you. Of course that doesn't help you with your two mice(?) issue. Hopefully that get's resolved pretty soon.

In respect to the other points, I would like to take the side of many of the other individuals that wrote you. You just have to adapt a little bit to the OS X side of things and move on. The classic Mac OS has been nice and dandy, but its days are counted. I'm still using OS 9 from time to time to get more speeds for the games I play, but if it won't run on the next Mac I will buy, I won't shed a tear.

And Charles, Linux???? For chrissake... ;-)

Regards,
Andreas Weik

Hi Andreas;

Can you imagine how fast System 6 would run on a G3 or G4 if it could? It would be TOOOOOOO fast! ;-)

It would be nice to have the budget to trade up to faster computers frequently, but I don't.

In the meantime, it seems nonsensical to use OS X and take a 20 percent slowdown in work efficiency for the sake of..... ????? The sake of using OS X? Seems like closed loop reasoning. To my way of thinking, there has to be a positive objective advantage in terms of efficiency before it makes sense.

Linux? It's not so bad, but I was feeling bitter at the time.... bitter. ;-)

Charles

No more dual boot

From Bernard Ducamp

Just to respond to your musings on the termination of dual-booting starting next year.

Could Apple (Steve) be saying "Here is the future, now"??

They have a lot of motivations for driving migrating to OS X. Leaving OS 9 as a boot system would slow down the migration rate.

Yes, people will be disgruntled, as you are. But at least the Classic environment is still there.

I am an everyday user, and OS X is very nice for me. I love the OS stability and the many programming and scripting tools available. I get to learn some BSD Unix. Classic handles my backward compatibility just fine.

I am an old person (55 years), so some of my satisfaction may be a different way of saying: "Hey, I may be older, but I can still adapt."

Hi Bernard;

Glad you're enjoying OS X. I'm sure its a blast for doing the things you describe.

However, when I have deadlines looming (that's virtually all the time) I want speed and efficiency, and I get both from OS 9.

Charles

More productive in OS X

From: David Findley

Charles,

Hi! Saw your rant about Apple dropping support for booting into Mac OS 9, and thought I'd write in... like so many others, apparently!

I'm almost the opposite of you in terms of adoption, as I've been using Mac OS X productively since the Public Beta, and full time since 10.0. (The PB couldn't use Airport, not without a battery sucking hack, anyway...). X saved my bacon at work by allowing me to actually KEEP my G4, as I'm a web application developer, and can now develop web apps natively. Mac OS 9 could have done this for me, not using the current crop of "open standards" for web development, anyway. And as a developer, I would crash Mac OS 9 upwards of tens of times a day. But I loved the UI and things it could do, anyway. :) For me, it was significant when X came along. At one point, I even had a 42 day uptime by ignoring a couple of updates that I didn't need immediately. And that was with doing application development!

That said, I was also a bit saddened by the announcement of the loss of Mac OS 9 booting, as I quite enjoyed using and developing on it, regardless of how much I crashed it. I completely agree that Mac OS X is slower on equivalent hardware than Mac OS 9 is, sometimes by a lot, as you've noticed.

My "main axe" is a Pismo 400, which I absolutely ADORE. 10.2 doesn't bring OS 9-like performance back, but it is nearly there for the things I do, and for me, 10.2 opens capabilities that 9 never did. I've even passed up _three_ opportunities to get a TiBook, in favor of expanding this one. I've got 576MB of RAM and I just put in a 40GB hard drive. I've got dual batteries for incredible time away from the power cord.

I know it won't help with incompatibilities, but for speed, Mac OS X needs quite a bit of RAM, almost all of it for the buffering of windows, otherwise it hits the drive a lot. I've even thought about expanding the Pismo to 1GB on occasion, though it isn't officially supported, but I've not run up against the 576MB limit often enough for me to break out my wallet. I just get by with closing some of the apps that I have open that I haven't used in a while. I've even thought about getting the G4 Pismo upgrade, but I don't have $300 worth of speed complaints yet.

Mostly what I was writing for was to set your mind at ease about no "dual-booting" allowed. I can guarantee, as a developer, 100%, that not only will dual-booting be allowed, but multi-booting will be allowed. That facility exists at the very core of Open Firmware, and will be going nowhere, especially since Open Firmware is actually the "nice" name given to "IEEE-1275 Standard for Boot (Initialization Configuration) Firmware: Core Requirements and Practices." (The ONLY reason you won't be able to boot into Mac OS 9 is because Apple will stop writing drivers to support the new hardware.) If Apple took out the multi-boot capability, suddenly you'd lose the following:

1) CD-ROM boot, making it a bit inconvenient to install Mac OS X in the first place. :)
2) Network boot.
3) The ability to boot from external FireWire drives.
4) Open Firmware itself, as Apple would no longer be following the IEEE standard. And you know how Apple is about standards these days... and they'd have to write a replacement boot manager, to boot. :)

You get the idea. You'll always have that safety net of another partition (or drive) to boot from in the event that your main partition gets hosed. It's just that your other "safety OS" will be Mac OS X, and you'll be able to perform whatever repairs you need from there!

In my Pismo, which is limited to booting from the first 8GB, I've got the following partitions:

1) 5.5GB - Mac OS 10.2, Mac OS 9
2) 2.5GB - Mac OS 10.1 (partially for safety, partially because I need to make sure that software I write still works on 10.1, at least for a while...)
3) 30GB - My home folder, photos, music, etc.

Don't despair. I do think Apple could handle things more gracefully, but at least they have backed down somewhat when we made a lot of noise... :) And if you think X is clunky compared to 9 (and it is, I agree), you'll _hate_ Linux. ;)

Keep up the good work. I really enjoy reading your columns.

Thanks,
David Findley

Hi David;

Thanks for the report and the encouraging words. No argument. OS X is best for what you do. I hate crashes. I just don't get many ( and I usually keep 20 or so applications running). OS 9 is stable for me.

I have 640 MB of RAM on my Pismo, and I still find X slow, although that much RAM is luxurious in OS 9.

I had Linux installed on my late WallStreet. I didn;t hate it, but I didn;t use it much either. ;-)

Charles

OS X on two partitions

From Scott Newman

Mr. Moore,

Regarding your [rhetorical] question about whether it's possible to install OS X on two disk partitions...

I have OS X on two partitions. The second was created by using Retrospect Express to make a complete duplicate of the original. I didn't think it would work, but EVERYTHING was copied--invisible files, symbolic links, etc. It's easier to sleep if one has a 100% duplicate of everthing and I can boot from the second copy and use Norton Speed Disk to defragment and optimize the original. Once the duplicate was created, which took quite a while, it only takes Retrospect Express 3 or 4 minutes to update the copy with any changed files.

By the way, one my Macs is a beige G3 desktop. I've installed a Sonnet 500mhz G3 ZIF card, a Sonnet ATA/100 PCI controller, an ATA/100 hard drive, 640MB RAM, and a 100BT ethernet card. I already had the beige G3, which was purchased used 2.5 years ago. Thus the additional hardware cost did not seem to be all that much. My point is the with the additional hardware, performance with OS X 10.1.5 is certainly acceptable--much better than I ever anticipated. You might consider this upgrade route given how inexpensive the beige G3's are now.

As an aside, the performance difference of the ATA/100 controller and ATA/100 drive was unbelievable as compared to the original controller and hard drive. When I first installed it.

Regards,
Scott Newman

Hi Scott;

Thanks for the info.

I'm tempted to soup up my old UMAX tower as a second computer. Glad to hear that your upgrade project was successful.

Charles

Free to Choose

From Marvin Price:

"...I completely agree with you, MacOS9 is the best OS ever in terms of user interface, it is a very sad day indeed, and there is no technical reason. Steve Jobs is forcing us to MacOSX. Imagine I own more than 30 commercial apps. Now I'm forced to upgrade more than 6000 USD in software. Why?..."

That's just it, Octavio isn't being forced to upgrade! No one is holding a gun to his head and saying BUY ALL NEW APPS NOW OR ELSE! The farm of computers he has there will continue to run OS 9 forever, as long as they are maintained.

He is free to upgrade to OS X and new apps when HE chooses. Sooner or later he'd have to buy upgrades for his software anyway.

re: OS X complaints

From Joe C. Carson

Mr. Moore,

I am glad that you did mention the computers that yopu are using. After seeing what old boxes you are trying to run OS X 10.2 on I can understand both your frustration and the sources of the problems.

All of your mentioned computers use RAGE 128 or lower graphics processors. These processors cannot run Quartz Extreme due to bugs in the design that were not corrected until the RADEON series appeared. You need to use a computer with at least a RADEON 7000 or higher, or an NVIDIA graphics processor. With any of the ATI RAGE series of processors you will see *NO* visible speedup of apparent performance for the simple reason that they cannot render QE graphics. OS X is forced to dump the processing onto the main CPU and that destroys performance.

Methinks that you need to dump your antiques and get something a little more modern.

Joe C. Carson

Hi Joe;

Actually, I have not installed 10.2 on any machine yet. Aside from a copy of the public beta I had on my Cube, the only machine I've personally had OS X on is this Pismo PowerBook, which is currently running 10.1.4.

I do intend to upgrade to 10.2 at some point, but I'm in no rush.

Hmmm. This Pismo is just short of two years old -- one of them in my possession. "Antique" has taken on a new and peculiar connotation in the computer context! My objective remains to do a major CPU upgrade only at three year intervals or longer. It is difficult to justify on rational grounds doing it more frequently. I got more than 3 1/2 years out of my WallStreet 233, and would still be fairly happily using it if it hadn't died.

Charles

Exhaustive musings

From Craig McClurg

Hi Charles,

I enjoy reading your articles on Applelinks. I appreciate your always thoughtful insights.

I myself am not worried about the seeming sluggishness of OS X. I made the transition in May when I handed my Pismo down to a co-worker and upgraded to an 800 MHz TiBook. I'm a graphic artist and I use Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign every day. OS X allows me to run all three (Granted, the Ti came with more RAM than the Pismo) without crashing... So for me the slower finder isn't much of an issue.

Regarding the demise of dual boot in 2003, I think you still have some more time to wait for OS X to mature. You could upgrade to the latest PowerBook that boots in OS 9 come next January and be good to go for at least 18 months. That gives you around 2 years for OS X to mature before you may be forced to boot into OS X...

I don't know if that gives you much comfort, but I thought I'd add my two cents.

Sincerely,
Craig McClurg

BTW Mac OS Rumors is reporting that a very slim version of OS X may be made available to Symantec and the like to create bootable OS X CD's for Norton Utilities, etc.

Hi Craig;

If I was doing the sort of stuff you use your computers for, I don't doubt that I would opt for OS X too.

I hope the rumor about the "slim" OS x build is true.

Charles

re The Mac OS Is Dead Letters

From Judson

Charles,

All any of us has is anecdotal evidence of this or that. There is no universal experience of computing. I am fortunate to have been 'raised' on a mac including it's os evolution. OSX is just simply the most intuitive and rational entry into computing for anyone NEW to computing. That's who it's for. Apple didn't make this for us old faithful users, they need new crop of tentative entry level users. I'm thinking of a lame metaphor like phones..cord or cordless? Cut the cord!

thanks,
Judson

Pismo Upgrade

From Jason Lamb

Charles,

After reading through the letters you received about OS 9's early departure and your responses, I got to thinking about something. Most of your complaints about OS X stem from its speed (20% downgrade in productivity) or lack thereof. I also remember you mentioning that a G4 upgrade wouldn't make any sense for you because none of your applications were "Altivec Aware." Well, the one place it would make perfect sense is in speeding up OS X itself.

The G4 gives OS X a great boost in scrolling, menus, window opening, and everything else that has to do with on screen drawing. Due to the complexity of OS X's window and screen manager, one almost "needs" the help of an onboard DSP (Digital Signal Processor) like Altivec. Actually, newer MACs take this one step further and use the Video Card's GPU in a similar way. A video card is basically a huge DSP specialized for video.

I have used my mothers 400Mhz DV iMac and my old 450Mhz G4 cube side by side in OS X. Let me tell you, the Cube was much more responsive. This was back when 10.1 first came out...so things could only be better in Jaguar.

I bet a combination of Jaguar with a G4 upgrade would change your tune with regards to speed. Of course, you might feel (rightly so?) that upgrading your machine to achieve speed parity is silly. I would agree. However, I have always believed that OS X was meant to run on a G4 (or greater). That is my reason to believe that a full switch to OS X wouldn't effect too many people...it will run like a cat.

Jason Lamb

Hi Jason;

Except for all those folks with non upgradable iBooks. :-(

I don't disagree with you on the G4 /OS X point. The OS X beta on my former Cube seemed pretty lively, while the speed of 10.1.x has been disappointing on this Pismo that I replaced the Cube with, even though it has a slightly higher clock speed.

Charles

Two follow up thoughts

From Duncan Holley

Hi Charles,

1) Wow, you got to work fast today, I sent that email this morning, and bam, it's on the web this afternoon. Most impressive.

2) Steve did say, that no NEW macs released after January 2003 will have OS 9 support, right? Would you consider the current G3 Imacs new? I wouldn't. Mayhap they'll continue selling the legacy models with OS 9 still available. I know it's a matter od semantics, but in this case, it could be a very big one. I didn't see the original press release though, so, I'm only guessing.

BTW, even someone such as myself, who uses X exclusively, thinks this is an absurd thing to do if there's no technical reason. Frankly, I was stunned by how many web reports I've seen that support the decision. As you said, if it's for a new chip architecture, I'm on board, but otherwise, I'm disappointed that they'd use this tactic to flush out over stock inventory; which is the only "good" non-technical reason I can think of.

Cheers,
Duncan

Hi Duncan;

Here's what the press release said verbatim:

"Apple today announced that starting in January 2003, all new Mac models will only boot into Mac OS X as the start-up operating system, though they will retain the ability to run most Mac OS 9 applications through Apple’s bundled “Classic” software."

Now that you mention it, that's pretty vague wording. One could interpret it either way. perhaps they did this deliberately to see how the announcement played before commiting themsleves to blocking OS 9 on legacy models.

Charles

Re: What lack of speed?

From anonymous

Charles,

Well that's interesting comment coming from Siracusa. Jaguar is faster both on my Powerbook G3 233 and my Flat Panel iMac. The real speed difference is that you can launch applications simultaneously on Jaguar without one launching application interfering with another. I don't have to wait for an application to launch to start launching another.

I've heard of one thing that has caused people some consternation with Jaguar's speed, and that's running an old version of Windowshade for X. Updating the Windowshade for X fixes the problem.

I have not seen the slowly resizing windows. It sounds to me he didn't do a clean install. Either that or his hard drive is so badly fragmented he needs to reformat it before installing X. And scrolling is just as fast.

I found that you increase the speed of X by making sure it has enough room to have its swapfile dynamically move about which is 1 GB + the amount of RAM installed. Meaning if you have 768 MB of RAM, you should leave at least 1.7 GB of hard disk free after installing X. If you don't it will slow down getting into its own swapfile. Turns out that's the case with 9 too if Virtual Memory is on. What people fail to realize is that Virtual Memory is always on in X. And not giving it enough room to breath will make it slow down just as 9 would if Virtual Memory was on.

Sincerely,
anonymous

Re: Apple Announces Mac OS X-Only Booting For 2003

From Mike Webb

Charles, this is the second time I've seen this tidbit of information disseminated, and there's something I've read that might be a "work-around" for people who aren't planning to buy a new Mac right away, but might during 2003. I'd be interested in learning what you know of how the OS X-only feature works and whether this other report (I don't remember where I read it, sorry) is accurate.

>From what I read, the OS X-only feature is turned on by something in the next revision in OS X. It's not built into the firmware of the computer itself. That would make sense, unless they are intending to disable the ability to boot into ANY other OS, such as PPCLinux.

If this information is correct, it would seem to me that if someone bought Jaguar and installed THAT as their OS when they bought their new Mac sometime next June, they could continue to use Mac OS 9 in a multiboot fashion. The alternatives, of course, would be either for someone to hack the activator or for the Classic environment to get good enough to be depended on.

Do your sources have any knowledge of how the OS X-only boot feature works?

Thanks!

Hi Mike;

You know more about this than I do, but thanks for bringing it up.

It would be great if the dual boot block was only in the OS 10.2.whatever software and not in the firmware, but I'm not optimistic. Apple has a history of sabotaging uses that don't fit their agenda (remember the blue & white G3 tower firmware upgrade that (temporarily) blocked processor upgrades?

I do hope that the block will prove hackable.

Charles

If you are still getting a spinning beachball and need to get out of it in a jiffy

From anonymous

Charles,

Get Escapepod:
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/freebies/

Freeware that makes control-option-delete force quit the currently open application immediately.

If you run it at login (use the Login panel), you'll always have it on and in the few instances I have seen the spinning cursor I was able to escape the program causing the problem.

Sincerely,
anonymous

Cool! Thanks. I'll check it out.

Actually, I don't get the SBB a whole lot, but it's frustrating when you do.

Charles

Booting OS9.x

From Curtice Wong

Charles,

When I bought my Cube, OS X was very new and I had to do the install myself. I never did get the box to boot properly. The folks at Apple suggested that I partition the disk and install OS 9 on a second partition. The setup has worked flawlessly. Do you suppose it might be possible to do the same with next year's Macs? I'm sure that some inventive software engineer will make a boot loader for OS X if it isn't.

Sincerely;
Curtice Wong, MD

Charles

What lack of speed?

From anonymous

Charles,

You must be running some system draining application to cause speed issues with Mac OS X Jaguar. I have had zero speed issues with Jaguar. Scrolling issues are solved. Window resizing issues are solved. If you are having speed issues, either you are using the bare minimum amount of RAM which is not recommended, or your hard drive directory hasn't been rebuilt or fsck -y in a long time. You may want to do a clean or archive and install of Jaguar instead of just an upgrade install. The upgrade install is buggy. The Archive install lets you keep your user and network settings alone.

I have both a Powerbook G3/233 with 192 MB of RAM and a 5200 RPM 12 GB hard drive, and a Flat Panel iMac with DVD-R with 768 MB of RAM.

What speed issues?

Sincerely,
anonymous

Hi a;

I ran fsck -y recently, and it reported a clean bill of health.

I'm not running Jaguar yet. I'm using 10.1.4. When I get Jag, I'll take your advice and clean install.

I'm basing my speed evaluation on a direct comparison of doing the same things, with the same software in native versions on either platform respectively, on the same computer, back to back. And in comparison with OS 9.2.2, OS X 10.1.4, which is the version I have installed currently, is slow.

Charles

RE: Firewall Information

From Joseph DiMattio

Hello Charles,

Please pass on my sincere thanks to those who provided such great information about firewalls for the Mac. I think this gives me more than enough information to make an informed decision!

Best regards,
Joe DiMattio

The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here:
http://www.applelinks.com/news/odyssey/

CM

Charles W. Moore