Geeklawyer has a dual screen 24″ iMac. When it was running Tiger it was rock solid. After Upgrading (?!) to Leopard he has been plagued with instability and crashing not seen since he ran Windows 98. The screen will lock up for 15 minutes on end - though background processes appear to be working.
In the belief that having done an upgrade over Tiger was the problem he just wiped and reinstalled, only to find exactly the same problems. There appear to be nVidia video driver issues. Oddly Tiger was stable until the last few updates when it started behaving the same way - although to a far lesser degree.
Leopard on Geeklawyer’s black Powerbook is fine - not a single issue - so the moral appears to be leave Leopard well alone if you have an old iMac.
GL… I am truly sorry you are having problems with your Leopard. It is, it has to be said (as I sit in my Staterooms enjoying a glass of Rioja) ironic that you, of all people, should have a few issues with software and computers. Have you resolved the problems of having to reinstall your blog every couple of weeks?
What do you do to your computer and your blog presentation widget when you get back late at night? I think we need to be told. I may have to make an application under The Freedom of Information legislation.
I, on the other hand, have absolutely no problems with Tigers or Leopards this evening… although I am a bit concerned about 2 CD-ROMS which I found in the green re-cycling bin outside my front door upon my return from The Bollo. They appear to contain details of just over 25 million British people with children.
I am using them profitably. One as a coaster for my glass of Rioja… the other, I have placed on my radiator to warm it up and I have turned it into a very useful ashtray. I watched Blue Peter as a child.
Whats wrong with Panther? I use it on my Mac Powerbook; it works so well I am loathe to upgrade to Leopard because the improvements offered by the new package seemed only minor and bieng a bit of a software luddite I’m of the opinion that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…..
Thats is a very very sensible policy. But it just isn’t the geek way: except where there is a compelling reason not to all toys must be the latest.
In truth Leopard is a terrific operating system - most of the changes are invisible to end-users and to do with very important changes to the internal architecture. The 300 published features are not that substantial for an end user like you (& to a lesser extent I). It will however be a pivotal “must have” change in a year or so since hot new software will come up that will only work with Leopard.
I am just a bit twisted my drivers ae fucked up: when Apple will get around to dealing with it I have no idea. I suppose I could flog it and get a new iMac or a Mac Pro
But isnt reliabilty the key until Apple sort out all the glitches with Leopard (eventually)? I’d be loathe to shell out the wonga until I could be sure that everything is going to work properly. Much like you, I adore having the very latest technotoys but when I cough up I fully expect value for money, i.e. a glitch free secure OS that can take all manner of software. ( O my GOD, Im turning into a nerd…….)
I have the suspicion that this is an issue related to video drivers on the iMac - in my case this is nVidia but on older PPC Powerbooks I don’t know. My Black Powerbook has Intel graphics. As long as you back up you should be OK if you have to reinstall Panther.
But like you didn’t say if it ain’t broke you’re not playing with it hard enough.
You could Google to see if anyone has installed Leopard on your model and broken it.
I had the 4th Apple 28k Mac imported into Britain… purchased from Studland Street in Hammersmith - 1984… Yes… 1984!… the salesman made a point of telling me that. (Even then salesmen talked shit)… but I was an ‘early adopter’.
I remember getting very excited when the Mac went to 516k and I could run the ‘Jazz’ software.
I still have my first Mac… black and white…and it still fires up. TGakes a bit of time… but it does work.
Macs do, of course, ‘rock’. (Unfortunately… I also have three PCs…. dull machines…. but I have to have them because the rest of the world still uses them)
I edit all my television / radio / web / photoshop output on a Mac. I may even get an iPhone…. if I can find a relative who is still alive to include me in the will.
I’d skip the iPhone until next summer - then you’ll get 3G 16 gigs of memory and third party applications. It may be worth it then but at the moment it’s a crapPhone.
[…] was whinging the other day about Leopard. Having bought the Apple line it was a brilliant OS (yea stupid Apple […]
leopard is the shit! (to put it in modern parlance)…but unfortunately I have vista- although not by choice. A leopard rip off. And spot on on the iPhone- I am not just lawgirl but gadget girl and the iPhone does not yet tempt me to part with my hard earned cash- too finicky in places, shockingly bad camera and forgive me, but I am one of those who needs a few keys…an all touch screen, once you drop it enough, will really fuck up. Especially if you are lawgirl who drops her phone on a twice daily basis.
I may be more tempted on the iPhone if it gets 3G and an external SD card: but you’ve still got a crap camera no GPS no kosher thirds party apps (till Q2 next year). Sucky.
I just bought someone an MP3 player and eschewed iPods because they suffer from the same high price high hype poor spec problem.
BTW I figured out it was a USB problem with Leopard using USB video devices.