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dwm
Joined: 20 Apr 2004
Posts: 572
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 Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:37 am Post subject: Leopard May Not Be Ready For Existing Mac Users |
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If you don't have to have Leopard's new features don't upgrade unless you intend to do a clean install. That would mean not copying files from a previous User or Network settings. Otherwise the best shot you can take to minimize issues is do a thorough house cleaning before doing an upgrade, that would include making sure permissions are correctly set. Hopefully some of the findings I report here will help make it a smoother transition.
Two key issues are causing problems, permissions and file kind settings.
There are issues with permissions that look like we've gone back to the days of Panther when they were very problematic. There are a growing number of reports on the WWW about permissions issues and related issues with applications caused by permissions. I have also found some apps having problems because of incorrect permissions setting that Leopard arbitrarily set.
In Panther I learned how to set Global permissions defaults which stopped a lot of these kind of problems. Those settings were supported by all system updates and re-installs up to including Tiger 10.4.10, they were copied to the new installs and functioned as set. In Leopard the custom permissions settings are ignored and also can't be set as such, even if the owner logs in as root. The settings register but have no affect. Trying to change them manually, for example using the change all button in a Get Info window doesn't work even with authentication. When you do this the system sets the permission to some other settings that requires authentication to change or delete the file. These settings aren't even the system defaults which make this issue very frustrating.
I have two upgrade installs of Leopard tamed but it's too messy to explain how and in many instances likely peculiar to a lot of things I do. I haven't found a way to set Global permissions defaults, there are others looking for answers but it might be that there isn't one, i.e. Apple closed this door on consumer operating systems. Apparently Mac OS X Leopard server version supports custom permissions defaults.
I've tested various Leopard install methods and there is no doubt that an upgrade method copies files over that are associated with deprecated features. They may be supported, i.e. the Arial font issue, but they may also be a source of problems, if not now, in later OS X versions. I found that when I copied an older copy of Arial to the new Leopard Fonts folder that Leopard replaces it with a different copy that has extended localization support for more than twice as many languages. There is no way to stop this because the Leopard version is buried somewhere in the system, likely as code. The problem here might be that Apple didn't change the version number of the updated version or that and the Font ID number. I don't play with Fonts much so have no idea if there is a way through Font Sync to make the old copy stick. This one issue is why I stayed with the upgrade install method for Leopard, it's the only way the older Arial version will work. I'm hoping there will be a solution so that I won't have to deal with this in future updates.
The Finder has had another major overhaul which seems to be the source of a lot of the issues reported. We've seen this throughout OS X developments. I believe the Finder was, if not entirely, or at least in part still a legacy app in Tiger. One issue with the Finder that it changes is that file kinds aren't being set correctly on some files. Today, when I updated a plain text Text Edit document by saving it to the same file the system changed it to an exec file (Terminal kind). These kind of issues go much deeper into the system. While trying to sort out why Folder Actions was dead I found that in part it was caused by hidden .DS_Store files being incorrectly set to exec kind files. Deleting them to force regeneration fixed it but I had to write a script to perform it across the entire User file system (note that MainMenu's delete .DS_Store files feature chocked on this routine). Related to this issue, Folder Actions is no longer handled by the Finder, I found that Folder Actions have to be installed in the root Library and if a Folder Actions folder exists in the User Library it has to be deleted (regular scripts can be stored in any Library > Scripts folder).
Is anyone using PathFinder? I'm going to try it to see if it's better. I usually avoid system level apps but it may be a solution to the issues mentioned here. I don't use the Apple Dock, I gave that job to DragThing which works perfectly.
On the up side I'm using Leopard every day, PowerCADD 6 and 7 are running with no issues, and copyCat is the same. I like Leopard, keep finding nice new features, and the issues are settling to minor ones. There are a few changes I don't like such as the downloads notice telling me I downloaded a file from the internet (really!). Every time Apple introduces something like this I always think it must have been the new person at the bottom of the food chain trying to make points with Steve Jobs. There is a way to disable this using Terminal but I haven't had time to explore it. Printing has changed again, in some ways better and not. There is only one landscape orientation option for page setup, which until I make a custom page size with the correct margins is forcing me to rotate the page upside down in Preview to stop clipping one end of the print out. This actually may be a bug, at least an oversight. Time Machine doesn't impress me, it doesn't have enough flexibility. I'm still using Synk Pro.
All the main Apple apps, Safari, Mail, Address Book and especially Preview have nice new features. I'll save that for another day.
Aside from the permissions and file kind issues there is very little to dislike. You take the good with the bad with changes but I have to feel that the permissions and file kind issues should have been history a long time ago. Unfortunately many others feel the same, that while Leopard's new features are leap forward the underpinning problems have slid into the past.
Drive safely if you must.
P.S. I found a post where someone was frustrated because after three attempts Leopard wouldn't install on their Dell computer. (I guess Windows users are confused from hearing Macs do Windows).
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Artisan
Developer of copyCat for PowerCADD
PowerCADD 6 thru 8 compatible
Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard compatible
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Chris Roehl
Joined: 13 Jul 2007
Posts: 42
Location: SW Ohio
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| Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 12:04 pm Post subject: |
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Wow.....
Am I the only person that has not had any real issues, my only complaint at the moment is my issue with Arial not being the same Arial as the past so old PCadd drawings will substitute Arial with times, but easy enough, since all my files are supposed to all be using the same font (unless it is signage) I just select everything and correct it. The only other issue is I can't install and run my Photoshop CS1 because it Leopard breaks Adobe's anti-piracy feature of checking on the network to see if anyone else has that copy running. I did a clean install on a new hard disk and used Migration assistant to bring in everything from my old Tiger install. If I'd have had CS1 installed already on that one, I'm told it would work.
I've got a couple obscure printers I can't get to work perfectly, but I didn't expect them to.
My install went smooth, I cloned the old drive as a backup, installed Leopard fresh on a new drive and migrated everything in, all in all, took about 20 minutes, and the system ran like a dream, so far the only problems I've had are what I've mentioned, I wasn't a huge fan of the translucent menu bar, but a quick terminal command took care of that.
To be honest, I've never had permissions issues....I mean EVER, in any previous installs of Mac OS X even going back to 10.1. I've talked to people that have had to repair permissions periodically, but every time I've ever checked my permissions, I've never needed a repair, so I'm either doing something really right, or I'm just lucky. I can believe that if you have had some permissions issues in the past, those issues could certainly be magnified if doing an upgrade install.
I'm still getting used to the finder, my only hang up there is connecting to a server that has more than one share, instead of mounting that share as a drive, it shows the server with ALL shares on it ( I really don't need that)
One thing I was singing praises of was when I wanted to lock all 30 files in a folder individually, I could select them all and hit "get info" and lock them all with one check box, instead of clicking it on each file separately. (Love that for sure)
After reading your synopsis of the Font issue it did make me realize that there is a systemic problem there that could really mess things up in the future, so It does have me a little concerned, hopefully it is something that gets worked out in an update.
Thanks for sharing your experiences.
We are still at the point where a lot of people aren't ready for this upgrade, but trust me, this one has gone smoother than the 10.2 - 10.3 upgrade was. |
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Greg
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 228
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
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| Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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I guess I am lucky too, as I have had a close to flawless experience so far with Leopard.
PowerCADD particularly has been running smoothly, and with the exception of the Arial font replacement issue, I have not encountered any other real problems. I noted a printer dialog issue in another post.
Uploading files to my iDisk has become incredibly s-l-o-w. It seems that Safari has not remembered all my account name & passwords, in spite of the Keychain issue supposedly having been solved.
I have not encountered file permission issues though.
I follow closely forums on individual apps though, and it is interesting to monitor other's experiences... |
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dwm
Joined: 20 Apr 2004
Posts: 572
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| Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 6:57 pm Post subject: |
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I don't mean to scare anyone away from Leopard, it is a great leap forward. I just hope the info is useful to help sort out any issues they might run into.
I've had zero problems with printing too. Another nice benefit is that my Plantronics headset is better supported. When I turn it on the system asks me if I want to set the sound connection to use it. And it automatically resets sound back to the previous setting when I disconnect. It Makes using it with Skype a lot simpler.
I'm still very much on the plus side with Leopard. Since PowerCADD is running smoothly it's perfect. I wish I could find more time to play with the new features. Maybe see if I can get Spaces working?
| Chris Roehl wrote: | | . . . I wasn't a huge fan of the translucent menu bar, but a quick terminal command took care of that . . . |
Myself, and a few others I've read on the web, don't care for it either. Care to share the shell command, or should I go digging  One person said they added a 22 point high white bar to their desktop image. It might work but not an ideal way. Maybe Apple's intention is more a practical one to minimize screen burn in. I notice that I'm getting a faint line down one side because I always have Finder windows open at the same size.
Glad to hear you guys are having good luck with Leopard.
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Artisan
Developer of copyCat for PowerCADD
PowerCADD 6 thru 8 compatible
Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard compatible
copyCat |
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Greg
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 228
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
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| Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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The freeware app TinkerTool now has an option to return the 3D dock to the same 2D look as when it is on the side of the screen. I actually like the dark translucent background better than the Tiger dock.
I created a solid dark blue background with the white strip along the top to cancel out the transparency of the menu bar as I just found the contrast was reduced (aging eyes perhaps!).
The donationware app HierarchicalDock now enables adding a hierarchical item to the dock (like Tiger). I did not find the Leopard popup folders useful at all, but maybe others like them. |
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Ed J
Joined: 30 Apr 2004
Posts: 80
Location: Riverside, CA.
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| Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 9:02 pm Post subject: |
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I had 3 issues with my PowerBook G4:
1. I became a 'standard' user instead of administrator. Had to reboot from root, allow myself admin privelages and then log out root.
2. HPIO trap monitor warning window kept popping up. Dumped that folder in the trash and rebooted.
3. Eudora doesn't work for my wife, and she's not happy . . .
Overall it just doesn't run as smooth as Tiger did, for me. As my bro in law, the Mac guru at UCR told me 'Every time they upgrade the OS, you can expect about a 10% loss in speed simply because they glomp more stuff on. This is why they have to make computers stronger and faster.'
On the Imac dual processor, no problems whatsoever.
Special Ed |
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dwm
Joined: 20 Apr 2004
Posts: 572
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| Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 7:22 am Post subject: |
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| Ed J wrote: | | I had 3 issues with my PowerBook G4 |
I don't find the speed an issue on the Mac Pro 2x Dual-Core. Some aspects of graphics handling feel smoother, cover flow is amazing. A clean OS install is zippier but it's a lot of work to reset everything, otherwise copying old files over will probably end much as it would have doing an upgrade install. The only advantage might be cleaning out old left over file from other apps no longer in use.
I time tested some intense graphic manipulations in both PowerCADD 6 and 7, the results were as good or slightly better than Tiger.
There is a little sluggishness in the Finder using windows in column view. Since the Finder has had a major overhaul I expect that performance will be improved in later updates.
| Ed J wrote: | | I became a 'standard' user instead of administrator. Had to reboot from root, allow myself admin privileges and then log out root. |
I had a similar situation with one install. The login didn't recognize my name and password, I couldn't get back in. I thought I was toast, but fortunately I could use the option key on reboot to get into another startup disk.
This is what bothers me about the permissions issues. That install was done the same as others and yet got different results. That inconsistency appears to be a common problem.
I have a feeling that the golden rule to no problems is "don't modify permissions" and "leave the computer on overnight to let it do it's own maintenance routines". There have been a lot of posts in this forum over the last couple years that point to this. It bothers me that Apple gives us such options, they seem to make good sense, but in the end should have left well enough alone.
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Artisan
Developer of copyCat for PowerCADD
PowerCADD 6 thru 8 compatible
Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard compatible
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David Scott
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 210
Location: Orkney Islands, Scotland
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| Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 8:01 am Post subject: |
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I have Leopard on my G5 iMac at home and Tiger at work. I have to say the unified look in Leopard is soooo much nicer when you're using both. The only issue I've had is Classic not being supported. I have an old scanner that I had to use with an OS9 driver, but I have a good excuse to buy VueScan now.
I read a lot of gripes about the menubar, but I'm happy with it. I can now appreciate that when you look at the whole thing, the menu bar AND the menus are all more translucent than before, but the trend now is to use inspector windows (iWork) to make changes, not menus. EngSW should be looking into this.
I did an upgrade install, and everything's tickittyboo. I hardly ever check permissions. For me it's a trouble-shooting tool. Some people think the whole repair permissions before & after, is like changing your oil, before and after you put your car in for a service. Just to make sure.
There are two major things that would cause me to recommend everyone to upgrade: Spotlight, and Quickview. Spotlight is lightning fast, you can do string (quotes) and boolean searches, and it works with network volumes. Using Tiger Spotlight at work is infuriating! Quickview, I use absolutely all the time at home. Email attachments: click Quickview, and there it is. Select any file and hit the spacebar, and there it is: photos, movies, Word docs, Excel sheets, MP3 files, Powerpoint, PDFs: virtually anything. EngSW just HAS to develop a plug-in for this. Coverflow view is nice, but Quickview works in any view window.
I've tried using Spaces, but it's off now, because there's a bug that makes the Dock do strange things when Toast8 is running, but I think Apple has some things to sort out with it too.
All in all, I don't see any particular slow-down, although the 3D Dock sometimes is a wee bit choppy (single processor G5 remember), otherwise, I'm really glad I upgraded, and I'm trying to persuade our IT (we don't do OS upgrades like Vista and Leopard unless we really need to) department to deploy it at work.
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dwm
Joined: 20 Apr 2004
Posts: 572
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patrickm
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 414
Location: santa barbara, ca
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| Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2007 8:31 am Post subject: |
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| dwm wrote: | | SheepShaver, a PPC emulator, is working fine on Leopard. I use it to run my MYOB accounting software in Mac OS 9. |
That is great to hear -- I am using SheepShaver to run FrameMac on my intel powerbook under OS 10.4.11, and was afraid it would fall off the back of the wagon with OS 10.5... |
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Chris Roehl
Joined: 13 Jul 2007
Posts: 42
Location: SW Ohio
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| Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 9:46 am Post subject: |
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| dwm wrote: | | Care to share the shell command, or should I go digging . |
sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer 'EnvironmentVariables' -dict 'CI_NO_BACKGROUND_IMAGE' 1
To turn it off repeat that command and set the "1" to "0" |
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Alfred Scott
Joined: 15 Apr 2004
Posts: 771
Location: Richmond, VA
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| Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 11:41 am Post subject: |
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I've now moved to Leopard and it's been a very smooth transition so far.
One thing I've noticed is that SnapZ Pro does not work when you set it to use the F7 key. I see that there's a system preference for Keyboard Shortcuts under Keyboard & Mouse. I've turned off Save picture of screen as a file which used F7, but SnapZ Pro doesn't work. Anyone know how to get this working?
I'm also curious about Time Machine. On both of our machines here at the office, we have two internal hard disks and use Synchronize Pro X to create a bootable disk copy of the first hard disk on the second hard disk. It isn't clear to me whether Time Machine backs up the second hard disk or whether it only deals with user-specific information.
Alfred |
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dwm
Joined: 20 Apr 2004
Posts: 572
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| Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 5:56 pm Post subject: I'm shelving Leopard |
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I'm shelving Leopard until its permissions issues are resolved.
That may just mean being better informed but when I see Unix gurus perplexed by some the issues they are finding, and I also have had all of them and more, my conclusion is there is something wrong. This issue has to be resolved before I trust any file changes to it.
I jumped into Leopard because I have to keep up with the changes, but this time I'm wishing I hadn't. I've tried every possible scenario to get a Leopard install without permissions issues. I've tried Clean with no migrated files, Clean and migrated and the upgrade methods. I tried adjusting permissions using NetInfo Manager in Tiger to match what Apple has done with the Group settings, that doesn't work either. trying to tackle it with Terminal and TinkerTool System just makes things worse.
The underlying problem is that Leopard has full time ACL's (Access Control Lists) that immensely increase permissions control, almost 100,000 variations are possible. They were optional in Tiger since 10.4, now they are default, you can't disable them in Leopard.
What's happening in Leopard? First, group names and group ID's are not matching what they were in Tiger. If you try to change them in the get info you end up with a group name "(unknown)", and the Finder appears to crash (I think it's just restarting). The "(unknown)" group occurs because the group name under Tiger had no name (realname). Some think adding a name (called realname) is the solution, it doesn't work.
Trying to change these issues with Terminal or TinkerTool System is fruitless. Every time you think it's fixed it's not, and usually worse. Making changes can end up locking you out, requiring authentication. This happens because ACL's take priority over standard permissions, those that were commonly used in Tiger. The newly added ACL permission moves to the top of the list, the rest basically remain what they were. This alone tells me Apple didn't deal with these possibilities during testing.
If you want to read the gory details Google "Leopard unknown group". Keep in mind that any posted solutions don't work, they weren't tested thoroughly. Apparently MacFixit has a solution but you have to pay for it, (I'm not paying anyone to fix an Apple mistake even if they can).
If you think you've been lucky to not have permission issues your luck just ran out. I don't intend to be crass about this. It's a shameful situation that looks like a classic example of Apple going too radical with changes. They could have at least given us the option to disable ACL's.
This is just a very small introduction to a very complex issue.
I still don't think this OS is ready for existing Mac users. It's not ready for me.
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Artisan
Developer of copyCat for PowerCADD
PowerCADD 6 thru 8 compatible
Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard compatible
copyCat |
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Derek
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 601
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 3:53 am Post subject: |
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This is all bad news David.
I have always had to fight with permissions and it sounds like Apple is making it harder rather than easier.
I suspect those who are fortunate enough to only have one user account on each of their Macs don't know the pain and frustration these things cause.
I'm not going near Leopard. Not for a long time. Probably not until I hear of some software that lets me circumvent Apple's new rules. Please keep me informed. Shit, I might even buy a cheaper wintel machine next where I KNOW there are many third party solutions to overcome the shortcomings of the OS!
Sad, sad times indeed. Gee I hope I'm (you're ) wrong.
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jasonlocher
Joined: 14 Apr 2004
Posts: 650
Location: Austin, Texas
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| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 7:39 am Post subject: |
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| Derek wrote: | This is all bad news David.
I have always had to fight with permissions and it sounds like Apple is making it harder rather than easier.
I suspect those who are fortunate enough to only have one user account on each of their Macs don't know the pain and frustration these things cause.
I'm not going near Leopard. Not for a long time. Probably not until I hear of some software that lets me circumvent Apple's new rules. Please keep me informed. Shit, I might even buy a cheaper wintel machine next where I KNOW there are many third party solutions to overcome the shortcomings of the OS!
Sad, sad times indeed. Gee I hope I'm (you're ) wrong. |
I'm in the same boat. The pitfalls of upgrading are too great for me. I'd have to completely rebuild my rumpus WFM file server, purge Arial out of my drawings... those 2 things alone would take days.
somebody row this thing! |
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