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MacFixIt Details Mac OS X 10.2.8 Bugs
mneptok writes "Premier Macintosh troubleshooting site MacFixIt has just posted a detailed report on the bugs and broken features in Apple's latest point release for MacOSX. As reported previously on Slashdot, the 10.2.8 update was released and pulled within hours earlier this week. Many users upgraded before the update was pulled and are being bitten, and MacFixIt has run down the behavior you can attribute to Apple's goof."
My software update has been coming up for weeks saying there was a 10.2.6 update (which I haven't applied yet because I'm leery of all the problems others have had with point updates). The last time it popped up was a couple of days ago, but it still didn't say anything about a 10.2.7 update. And now there's a 10.2.8 that's already been pulled?? I was hoping they'd get their act together by now. They're practically making Windows Update look good by comparison.
So what should they do? Shut-up about it?
Come on people, apple is a cool company but you don't have to make excuses for their mistakes.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
I think the point was not to trivialize or minimize the severity of these problems, but to show that this behavior is not widespread. Many news sites are acting as if this is some massive problem that a high percentage of users are experiencing, but in reality it's maybe a couple percent if that. That couple percent is too high, yes, but don't be mistaken about the relatively low percentage of users that this has actually happened to (as upsetting as it is to those users).
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Yeah, it's really funny to watch this repeated update fiasco and see how almost nobody even utters a peep of anything negative about it. If this were Microsoft making all these screwups with point updates you know we'd be all over them, tearing them to pieces. I've made comments a few times and gotten zero attention and no responses.
;)
I see a lot of comments from people like "it worked with my system" or "it's only a few people that are affected" or "most of the affected systems had third-party software/hardware installed, they should have known better". It's all so idiotic.
It's really not the number of affected systems that keeps me from installing my own update, it's the severity of the symptoms. Apple keeps releasing these updates that are supposed to fix things, and then it's like, "Oh by the way, there's a small chance that this will hose your system so bad that you won't be able to boot up anymore or repair your system with the CD repair tools or uninstall the update, and the only way to repair your system will be to reinstall the OS from scratch from the CD . You won't even be able to boot into "Safe Mode". But that's ok, right, because you all have spare huge-ass hard drives that you can use solely for backing up your entire main drive, and you'll do that before you try this update, just in case something goes wrong." I've literally seen dozens of people on the Apple discussion forums saying exactly that, "Just back up your whole drive with Carbon Copy Cloner or something before you do any sort of update, and everything will be cool. No problem."
Huh? How is that acceptable? No way to uninstall if you have problems? Systems hosed so bad they can't be repaired by any known method short of a complete reinstall?
Microsoft is bad enough, but I don't recall a lot of their updates causing people to need to reformat and reinstall from scratch once a month. To this day I can't understand why Apple isn't getting ripped to shreds for these terrible update problems. Is it just because only a few people are affected and everyone else just doesn't care? If you don't believe me that the problems were that bad, you just need to spend some time checking out the discussion forums on Apple's website, and probably other Apple discussion websites, where they talk about the 10.2.1-10.2.8+ updates.
Oh, and I see you've gotten a "Troll" rating already. Congratulations. That's what you get when you buck the tide, buddy. We'll show you. Maybe this post will bring in my first "Troll" rating. Keep your fingers crossed.
Combine that with a coding team doing two OSs. 10.2.8 and working towards the golden master of Panther (10.3) within a month. Resources are stretched thinner.
It doesn't forgive the problems, but it may explain them
It sounds to me a lot like you're looking for X - your "real work done" comment just shows that your version of "real work" is different from a lot of people's. I've used X desktops for a while, and switched to a Mac with OS X. I've found that most 'new' X desktops that try to be cute and modern really are just flashy icons that never realy work exactly like they should... I realize that they're a work in progress, and that the're perfect for many uses... but not for everyone.
I personally find Mac OS X better for getting "real work done" - when I've got a lot of windows open, lots of graphics, lots of text, I find that Aqua buckles a LOT less than X. The X11 architecture is seeming more and more ancient -- sure, multiple desktops can be nice, and being able to run programs across a network was an idea WAY ahead of it's time - but X is starting to show it's age.
I thikn that's the root reason that you can't run Aqua ('regular OS X') apps through X - it'd mean basically doing a total screen redraw from Aqua (PDF-based) to X - and that would be S-L-O-W. And it's not very reasonable to ask for programs that were never designed to work with X11 to magically work through X11 - there are PC X11 servers, you don't expect to be able to run WinXP apps through them. What OS X _can_ do is (using Apple's relatively good X11 server) run pretty much any X11 app under the sun - a number of apps (including the Gimp and (IIRC) Open Office) have been ported to the OSX-X11 combo - while still using Aqua for all your other apps. And for most of us, Aqua is fast enough, efficient, and 'lickable'.
But if you want a pure Unix-like set up (X11, boot into console, etc.), then OS X isn't for you - it's got the power 'under the hood' but you clearly want the engine exposed. Fine. You're right, the hardware is amazing.
Tim
This might be the easiest way to make a massive
Apple worm infestation. Did this "utility" get
audited? By whom?
The 10.2.8 update seemed to break ethernet support on early G4 ("Sawtooth" and some later) systems. I think reverting to the earlier (10.2.6) version of the ethernet driver fixed this problem. This is the biggest problem with the 10.2.8 update.
;-)
On another not, for the first time I can remember, I did not apply this update to my "Sawtooth" G4 and so did not have a chance to experience this annoying problem. The reason for this was that I really couldn't be bothered since I've been playing a 10.3 beta and it runs beautifully. Seems its less buggy than the release version of 10.2.8!
This is a pretty sad scenario considering that only have one platform to take care of. Not like they have to run around and check bug fixes, enhancements with other OEM's
You're smug now about not having any issues, but you wouldn't be if you were one of the people affected.
I felt good about myself too after upgrading my 2002 Quicksilver with no problems, and then soon moved to update my 800mhz iBook. After rebooting my battery time was cut in half. If I boot into OS 9, power levels are at their usual (4 hours on a full charge).
My friend has a 867mhz Powerbook and the same exact thing is happening. The issue is widely reported on the Apple discussion boards too.
Fact is a significant minority of people are experiencing problems, and they need to be addressed. If even 10% of the people who applied the patch are having problems it's too much.
I usually apply updates blindly, but this time I skipped 10.2.8 when it first appeared in the update list. I somehow felt uneasy, and it may have been because of the rumor on MacFixIt, I do not know.
I mostly agree with you. I would like see a separate patch for a security problem rapidly. And for the feature enhancement, updates should first appear as release candidates, so that brave users can try them on a non-production Mac but at their own risk.
I do not see why Apple wants to put all patches into one big update.
I certainly hope Apple doesn't get paranoid about the release of new software to paying seed developers, but this is just another reason that the scale may be tipping toward the paranoid, closed-testing route than the limited open-seeding way it is today.
I'm confused. Wouldn't this incident tip the scale in the opposite direction? Perhaps the problem would have been caught sooner if more people had looked at seed builds before the official release. How would not releasing builds to developers have helped Apple in this case?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Isn't one of Apple's selling points that since they control both the OS and the hardware, there isn't supposed to be this kind of problem?
I'd say the it's only a minority of Mac users who are actually zealots.