Got the new G4 I bought around the beginning of the year. Love it. Now I hear that there’s a new version of Mac OSX out.
Anyone played with it any? Are the new features and such worth my cash? Any opinions (except from those who just drop in to insult Macs) are appreciated!
Being that the going rate for it is $120, I’d have to say “nope”. Sure, it’s a little more polished and a little zippier, but I don’t think it’s 120 bucks zippier. Were I you, I’d wait for the next upgrade and buy that one instead.
Unless you just gotta use iCal.
It depends what you do. It has iChat, iCal, a handwriting recognition app, a synchronizing app for PDAs and other devices, and upgrades for Sherlock, QuickTime, and the Finder. It claims to have 150+ new features.
This page describes the update: http://www.apple.com/macosx/
Still on v.10.1.x here and happy, though I am interested in how 10.2 is.
I like OS 10.2. Of course, I didn’t use OS X all that much before a few months ago, so I can’t really compare it to any other version of OS X. But I like Jaguar just fine, and am glad that I have it. It runs fabulous on my 533 MHz (“Digital Audio”) G4. Also, reports I’ve heard from other Macheads is that it runs faster than previous versions of OS X.
How much RAM do you have? I hear that 512 megs is good for OS 10.2—it does like the RAM. But that should come as no shock to you. (I have 1.12 GB of RAM on my Digital Audio, and 512 MB RAM on an older “Yikes” G4, and Jaguar runs fantastically on both of them.) Can’t speak for how well Jaguar would run on 256 megs or less, but I’d think that it would start to crap out after you had more than one or two apps open.
Since you have a new(er) G4, you’d most assuredly be able to enjoy Jaguar’s Quartz Extreme, which I hear is fabulous. Since I have the “educational configuration”, my G4’s video card isn’t up to snuff (it’s only a 16 MB 128 ATI Rage) and I don’t get any of the advantages of Quartz Extreme. Bummer, man.
Depending on when the new update to OS X comes, you might want to wait—or not. If a major update is any further away than, say, 9 months, I’d go for it now. But that’s just me.
Between iChat, the improved Mail client, the new Search capabilities built into the Finder, the general speed improvements, various interface tweaks et al, I’ve been extremely pleased with Mac OS X Jaguar. I highly recommend it.
Kirk
I’m holding off on it. It breaks a LOT of stuff that works under 10.1.x, and my graphics subsystems aren’t robust enough to benefit from the Quartz Extreme video acceleration. The one thing that may push me over into 10.2 anyway is my need for an X-compatible CardBus card for a 2nd screen (extended desktop, not mirrored video). Margi Systems FINALLY released an OS X driver and the damn thing requires 10.2 :mad:
There’s another contender but no it isn’t available until December and there’s no information on whether the driver for that one also requires 10.2 or not.
In case there are Mac using teachers out there who didn’t know…Apple is giving away copies of Jaguar to teachers.
http://www.apple.com/education/macosxforteachers/
FWIW, I qualified for the $29 Jaguar update since I purchased a Quicksilver in August. I’m pleased (for the most part) with 10.2
AHunter, what do you use that breaks? None of my applications broke, and I use Adobe Design collection stuff, Microsoft Office, AppleWorks, several web browsers, BBEdit, etc etc.
Kirk
FileMaker: X-native version exhibits lots of display weirdnesses and printing weirdnesses; also the modifier keys that you hold down to bring up the password dialog rather than going in with the default password–those no longer work. In layout mode, some people report option-drag behaves like drag, shift-option-drag and shift-drag likewise. Oh, and even in Classic environment within Jag, odd things happen in layout mode.
XDarwin apps / Fink apps: Most of them have to be compiled from scratch, i.e., start over. Things got moved to different folders in the underlying BDS system architecture, so the old paths are broken.
Sendmail: Has to be set up again, with a lot of ‘your results may vary’ reports from people who’ve been there and done that.
Duality: Themes may or may not work
FruitMenu: At first, didn’t work; later release works under Jag but is reportedly buggy.
X-Assist: broken, I believe. Almost anything that draws its own widget in the menubar had to be redone, and I’m not sure X-Assist was redone.
Running Dockless: You can still run without the damn Dock but you have to work harder to set it up that way. Sorry, can’t find link, will add later.
VPN?
Here is the link pertaining to additional difficulties encountered by Dock-haters under Jaguar.