Apple Fix Tiger: Waiting for 10.4.2

I just switched to apple after windows, then linux. I'd have to say its the best of both worlds. I'm surprised to see how heated these apple "fanboys" get. I have a 12" g4 powerbook. It gets really really hot. Like, egg cooking hot just running firefox. I've read a whole lot of different articles on this issue. basically, re-installing is the only way to go.

I won't comment on appropriateness of the blog, but I will say that I do not have any of these problems on a) 12" G5 800mHz PowerBook upgraded from Panther (not clean install) b) a 15" G5 PB that came with Tiger and c) a Dual 2.7Ghz G5 that also came with it. Another comment is how refreshing it is to have a completely fresh system. I know that reinstalling software can be a drag, but I just reinstall as the need arises. I realize that there were a lot of unnecessary applications and folders that I really didn't need. A fresh system is like wearing a crisp new shirt. There are no frays, no worn down parts and all the buttons are still on it. Still, there is something comforting about the faded shirt that you've gotten used to and seems to work just right. I recommend trying the new shirt on and you'll realize that the faded shirt, while comfortable, just doesn't compare. -JP

I upgraded and I'm suffering, Spotlight almost always beach balls the Finder, I have a stupid amount of stuff that would need to be reinstalled if I had to start from scratch, just thinking about it is like a knife in my guts. As someone else said the whole selling point of Apple is 'just works' 'kinda works' or 'mostly works' doesn't cut it in my opinion, why even offer an upgrade if even their own software will probably be broken? hmm while I'm ranting having my (UID under 500) hidden users show up is irritating as well... anyway I have to go force quit a broken finder again.

With all of their recent success, I hope Apple doesn't get too arrogant and forget how they got here in the first place. Microsoft went down the same path. Apple needs to focus on these errors in Tiger and strengten what is already the best OS on the market.

Funny to read about all of the people who are having so much problems with Tiger. I did an UPGRADE (You read that correctly) from Panther and I have had no serious problems with Tiger at all. There was a bug in Safari that kept causing it to crash, but that was fixed with 10.4.1. Since that patch, I have had no issues with Tiger. I use RSS daily, I do a lot of development work as well. However, I DO NOT run a lot of utilities like Menu enhancers and Keyboard shortcut modifiers that I see a lot of people using. Also, I have 1 GigaByte of RAM installed. I think the biggest problem most people have is they still run their Macs on 256MB of RAM which is just way too little.

To add to the list, I really liked playing DVDs on my iBook 900. Now DVD player gives me the ominous error that my disk can't find the right 'type'. That's under 10.4.1 - I'm sure it worked great before.

C.K. > Doing a complete erase and install is an option, but it is an impractical one for 99% of every day users and that's the problem. < This is not a good excuse . What it sounds like you are saying that people are too busy or rushed to do a complete erase and install. If so, think about that for a minute. If someone is too busy or just has to take the risk of losing both data and productivity to upgrade their OS in a _major_ way, they get what they deserve. You aren't required to upgrade to Tiger. If you are too busy, then don't! Think of of it this way. Upgrading from 10.3 to 10.4, or any major OS upgrade for that matter, is like performing open heart surgery. You shouldn't rush through it or take it lightly. The patient may very well die or suffer cronic issue afterwards. Yes Tiger and nearly every other OS has its issues. Welcome to the world of software. It has been that way since the first program was written and likely will always be an issue.

I completely agree C.K., that it is a shame that we have to resort to that if we really want Tiger to work properly. But I don't think that even knowing all of the issues (which I think are near impossible to do), updates to Tiger won't fix the problems that result from their poor upgrade process. Beachballing on Spotlight I think I can explain for you. Tiger Energy Saver defaults to put the hard disks to sleep whenever possible. Uncheck that option, and those will go right away. Some older and lower memory systems might still have slower realtime performance, of course, but that is going to be an overall problem on all parts of the system and not limited just to Spotlight. Now Safari, OTOH, has some severe problems, including a memory leak in the latest WebCore, and you have to restart Safari multiple times a day unless you have 2-3GB of RAM, and even then, I don't like letting it run away. *That* problem can be solved with a Safari update without waiting for a full system update, and I hope they choose that route as there are a variety of acknowledged bugs that Dave Hyatt even says are fixed already internally.

By saying "I love the fact that some people are having no problems whatsoever. Hooray! That doesn't really help the rest of us, does it?" you're implying that the majority of people are having problems. I'm willing to bet that is not the case. Perhaps a large percent of readers of this and other Apple related websites, however, it's safe to say that the majority of those readers do more - much more - than the average user of any computer, apple or no. i'm not arguing that it would be nice for Apple to have a flawless Archive/Upgrade and install feature, but we're seeing the same issue here as we do in PCs: as more software is developed, it becomes harder and harder for the OS manufacturers to make sure everything works with it seamlessly. It's common sense, kids, and there is a fix for most of your problems: Erase and Install. Like it or not, you can backup your stuff and come up from scratch. I'm sure you'll find that the increase in productivity from not spending your time working around problems and complaining about how Tiger "doesn't work" will be more than enough to justify the expense of backing up and doing it right.

djones, I know of two different people that have a completely virginal install of Tiger with no add ons or hacks, and they still get the spinning beach ball of death from Spotlight intermittently and the one who uses Safari for RSS has been having freeze issues with it. Doing a complete erase and install is an option, but it is an impractical one for 99% of every day users and that's the problem. To answer victor's question: I think Tiger has had much less severe problems than version .0 of previous operating systems, but I've been experiencing much more numerous small intermitenet problems that are more a bother than a real threat. Apple *should* have an installation process that works that doesn't require a complete erase and install. Apple *should* have control panels that let you turn off Dashboard / Spotlight indexing if you don't use them, or for times when you need to focus the system on a particular task.