Mac OS X 10.5.3 To Fix Over 200 Bugs, Coming Soon

An anonymous reader writes "MacScoop reports that 'Apple has seeded several builds of its Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.3 update to developers during the past few weeks and just seeded yet another one numbered "9D34" earlier today.' The update fixes over two hundred bugs, weighs almost half a gigabyte and should be available soon."

Comments

Service pack 3?

[apathy maybe]

So, let's see if I understand this correctly, this is sorta like a Service pack three, but for Mac OS 10.5?

Does this just fix bugs? Or is it a feature release as well?

Can people on dial up get a free CD sent out?

(No, I don't use MS Windows, I also don't use Mac OS, though I have used it extensively at school/uni in the past and always preferred it to MS Windows. Mind you, it was a lot easy to fuck up the school Win98 machines then the Mac OS 9 ones... I use Ubuntu.)

Re:Service pack 3?

[TheRaven64]

OS X 10.5 is, in many ways, a big step up from 10.4, but it was clearly rushed to market. I've been using it since the official release, and it's felt like a beta OS for all of that time - random pauses for a few seconds, crashes every month or so, occasionally taking two or three attempts to resume from suspend and so on. It's really hard to tell whether the improvements with 10.5 outnumber the regressions at this stage, and so this is a very welcome update (although, really, this should have been 10.5.0 and the previous ones should have been betas). In general, these don't contain new features, although occasionally they will, but they will be minor improvements, while the big changes come in the major releases (the 10 isn't really part of the version number, it's part of the name).

Re:Service pack 3?

[jandrese]

Personally, I've not felt that 10.5 is that big of a change from 10.4, which has always made it extra strange that it is that buggy. The main reason I upgraded (Time Machine) has always been solid as well. I still like the 10.4 dock better, it's not quite as featurefull but it is easier to see.

Re:Service pack 3?

[bhima]

It's more like a *nix version increase than an MS service pack... sort of. Apple uses a lot of open source BSD stuff... so when they update all that stuff it has whatever the open source crowd has done, plus whatever Apple decides to do with it. I recall some new features in the 10.4 succession... so I guess 10.5.3 might contain some new features but I wouldn't hope for anything earth shattering (like ZFS). I truly wish they would fix the Bluetooth audio headphone thing but I suppose it isn't priority.

People still have dial up? I expect that Apple would ship disks on request but I wouldn't expect them for free. I've never had Apple refuse a reasonable service request but I've never asked for that. Also I'll bet you can download a PPC or X86 (or a version for a specific sort of Mac like my cube) which is substantially smaller. That universal binary thing is really, really nice (my 8 core mac pro can boot from the same hard drive as my Quad PPC G5 and my PPC G4 Cube) but it makes things twice as large.

I would say that sane Mac users will ignore this news and wait until the software update app on their Mac alerts them. Really smart users will postpone that for while to see if there are a rash of catastrophes caused by the update⦠even if there is a bug fix or update they are interested in.

Re:Service pack 3?

[archkittens]

i dunno how stable time machine is supposed to be, but it certainly isnt on the imacs we got at school for our art lab. of course, the fact that art students are the ones who keep managing to mess things up with it might have a great deal more to say about the problem...

Re:Service pack 3?

[TheRaven64]

I thought Time Machine was great when I saw the demos, but it is completely incompatible with File Vault, which means you have to choose between security and safety for your data. You can kind-of use it with File Vault, but it will only run backups when you log out (which is something I only ever do to reboot for software updates), and so is completely useless.

The biggest improvement with 10.5 is that Spotlight now actually works. In 10.4 it was so slow that I could generally find files faster without it. With 10.5 it is fast enough to be useful.

I keep my dock on the left side, attached to the top-left corner, and the 10.5 dock is about as nice as the 10.4 one, just different. Most of the visual 'improvements' make things worse. The transparent menu bar is hideous with most background colours. The larger drop shadows are okay, but they don't really make up for the fact that the new style gives less of a visual clue as to which window is raised (I've typed things in the wrong window a lot more often since upgrading). There are lots of little regressions, particularly in the text system (CoreText is definitely not ready for prime time) and especially with Rosetta.

The new Preview is very nice - I now use it exclusively, where I used to use 3 different apps for PDFs, and Quick Look and Coverflow are both nice for browsing the filesystem, although I don't use them very often. Support for ODF in TextEdit is definitely useful for small docs, since OO.o takes forever to launch.

I do, however, find I am using fewer and fewer Mac-only apps, so I am not sure if my next computer will be a Mac.

Re:Service pack 3?

[clang_jangle]

Having used Apple machines much of the time since 1987, I have long ago stopped rushing to the newest OS version. It's almost always best to wait six months to a year after a new point release, it will usually take that long to be really ready. I dislike that, but my experience with FreeBSD, Debian, and even Windows tells me that's pretty much the way they all do it.

Re:Service pack 3?

[nawcom]

Heh, the leopard dock was something I found weird. It was like they planned to make the end users figure out how to customize it or something.

http://www.innermindmedia.com/dock_doctor_app.html

http://leoparddocks.com/

Re:Service pack 3?

[sdpuppy]

Ha! Back in my day we "time machined " using tar -u -g -v -f $backup_disk/$backup_dir/$backup_name up hill both ways in 10 feet of snow and we liked it! - heck our time machine had shiny knobs and dials with detailed oak scroll work not like this cheap plastic injection molded junk and and...

hey kids, get your durn iPods off my lawn!

Re:Service pack 3?

[gullevek]

yeah, me too. Until all apps work, plugins are updated and os bugs are solved it's best to wait. I have now 10.5.2 running at office and it works nice, but for home I will wait for 10.5.3 ...

Re:Service pack 3?

[mr_matticus]

10 isn't really part of the version number, it's part of the name). No, it's definitely part of the version number, just like the leading 5 (or now, 6) in Windows version numbers. What it's not is the major release number (that's the second, just like in Windows).

The breakdown is very simple: Generation.Major_release.Minor_release, with build numbers appended to that. Windows does an almost identical pattern Win2k (5.0), WinXP (5.2), etc. MS's numbering is non-sequential, but it's not really any different. Hell, Windows 7.0 is actually being called Windows 7 for now.

'OS X' is a brand in its own right, and one Apple has spent a lot of resources and effort building. The '10' in the version number that matches the 'X' in the name isn't cast in stone, and to claim that part of the version number is part of the brand is misleading. The stupid Mac-people meme of "when will we hear about OS XI?" skips right past the far more likely case that there will NEVER be an OS XI. They will either stick with OS X as a brand and move right on to OS X 11.0, or they'll come up with something entirely new when the time comes.

Re:Service pack 3?

[demallien2]

No, the previous post was correct. The 10 in Mac OS X 10.5.3 is most definately NOT equivalent to the 5/6/7 in Windows. Think of it in terms of the names. Windows 5 = XP, Windows 6 = Vista, Windows 7 = ...
Mac:
10.3 = Panther, 10.4 = Tiger, 10.5 = Leopard.

The fact that the name changes should be a big indicator for you that this is a major release, not just a 'point' release.

If you don't like the marketting way of looking at things, think of it from the software management side of things - APIs don't change for point releases, but they do for major releases. In which case, the change from 10.4 to 10.5 is most definately a major release.

Sheesh, I don't know why we still have to explain this to people. Maybe I should have just responded with a great big fat 'TROLL'

Re:Service pack 3?

[Tangent128]

They'll probably just number it 10.10.x.

Re:Service pack 3?

[vijayiyer]

If you're always logged in, why do you use FileVault anyway? I don't think it offers much of a benefit then unless you're worried about physical theft of your hard drive alone.

Re:Service pack 3?

[nine-times]

I still like the 10.4 dock better, it's not quite as featurefull but it is easier to see.

I don't know if this will be helpful, but I found I liked the Leopard dock better after running:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock

It gets rid of the 3D look and gives the same look that the dock takes when you move it to the side of the screen.

Re:Service pack 3?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you are wrong. Windows 2000 = Windows 5, Windows XP = Windows 5.1, Windows Server 2003 = Windows 5.2. Or were those not major releases?

Re:Service pack 3?

[TheRaven64]

My screen is locked when I am not using the machine (and it's suspended requiring a password to resume when I'm carrying it). An attacker that really cared could use a FireWire vulnerability to bypass the protections and get at things in RAM, but it would be a lot of effort (and they'd have to do it before the battery went flat). File Vault is probably enough protection to get a thief to decide to just wipe the drive and sell the machine, rather than look through my files, which aren't particularly secret but do include a lot of personal correspondence and names, addresses, birthdays and so on of my friends which might well be enough for some simple identity theft.

Re:Service pack 3?

[1729]

No, the previous post was correct. The 10 in Mac OS X 10.5.3 is most definately NOT equivalent to the 5/6/7 in Windows. Think of it in terms of the names. Windows 5 = XP, Windows 6 = Vista, Windows 7 = ...
Mac:
10.3 = Panther, 10.4 = Tiger, 10.5 = Leopard. Do you remember what came before OS X? OS 9. And before that, OS 8. And before that, System (or OS) 7 . . .

Re:Service pack 3?

[demallien2]

Yes, and maybe you might want to explain why two applications with no common code should nevertheless share a common numbering system???

Re:Service pack 3?

[demallien2]

Windows Server 2003 is a different line of product, as is Mac OS X server on the Apple side. Why bring it up? As for XP/Windows 2000, How many apps written for XP didn't run under 2000. I personally never came across any. That's because there were hardly any changes to the API, and the few major changes were backported to Windows 2000 anyway.

On the other hand, just try running software written for Leopard on Tiger. Under the bonnet, these two version of Mac OS X are massively different, with the introduction of Core Animation, the Time Machine APIs, the Objective C 2.0 runtime, with it's garbage collector, the Scripting Bridge so that Ruby and Python programmers get to be first class citizens. There really wasn't a corresponding change between Windows 2000 and XP.

Re:Service pack 3?

[1729]

Yes, and maybe you might want to explain why two applications with no common code should nevertheless share a common numbering system??? Huh? Are you objecting to the comparison between Windows major version releases and Mac major version releases? The details about what constitutes a major version, a minor version, or a point release vary significantly between different software projects. However, that doesn't change the fact that all of the OS X releases are major version number 10.

Re:Service pack 3?

[TheRaven64]

What are you talking about? My File Vault disk image is 30GB (or was, before I upgraded to 10.5) and I never had to decrypt the whole thing. That's how block device encryption works - you only encrypt or decrypt the blocks you are accessing. With any relatively modern hard CPU, I/O, not encryption, is the bottleneck. On my MBP, openssl speed aes tells me that I can get about three times my internal disk's typical sustained throughput using a single core (and there's no reason why alternate blocks couldn't be encrypted in parallel on both cores).

File Vault, and the underlying cryptographic subsystems already let you access compressed images well into the tens of gigabytes with only a small performance overhead. Allowing the Time Machine target volume to use this subsystem creates no problems that do not exist already.

Re:Service pack 3?

[demallien2]

Hey, I don't know about you, but a major release of an OS for me is when the underlying APIs have major changes. If you really want to insist that major releases are when the marketting drones decide to change the first number in the release version number, knock your socks off. Unfortunately you will have lost any useful meaning in the term "major release", but if it makes you feel any better, go right ahead, I'm certainly not going to waste my time further arguing with you about it.

Re:Service pack 3?

[1729]

Hey, I don't know about you, but a major release of an OS for me is when the underlying APIs have major changes. Good, I'm glad you've settled that for all of us. Now, in the real world, it isn't so simple. What constitutes a "major change" to an API?

The project I work on the most is gcc, where a minor version release (such as the upcoming 4.4) includes all sorts of new features, some of which might be backwards incompatible. I don't know what will constitute the next "major" gcc release, though some developers advocated switching the major number to 5 to indicate the change from the GPLv2 to the GPLv3.

Re:Service pack 3?

[Phroggy]

People still have dial up? I expect that Apple would ship disks on request but I wouldn't expect them for free. I've never had Apple refuse a reasonable service request but I've never asked for that. You can also stop in at an Apple Store if there's one in your area, and they'll usually give you a copy for free, from what I understand.

Re:Service pack 3?

[delire]

I don't know if this will be helpful, but I found I liked the Leopard dock better after running:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock

With cryptic commands like these just to get basic functionality how can anyone expect Normal Users to migrate to the platform? This is exactly the kind of thing that happens when you let geeks design user interfaces!

Re:Service pack 3?

[Phroggy]

He meant that Time Machine (a new feature in 10.5 Leopard) is useless to people using FileVault, not that FileVault is useless to people using Time Machine.

Re:Service pack 3?

[demallien2]

Because you think that gcc is an OS? Weird. I mean, emacs maybe, but gcc???

I use "major changes to the API" as my heuristic for a major release of an OS because developers need a stable OS to code against. I would probably use a similar heuristic when talking about platforms in general (Java, or Flash, as examples). I make no claims about what should be considered a major release for other types of software, such as GCC, Microsoft Word, or GTA4.

Re:Service pack 3?

[Pathwalker]

If you set the OpenFirmware password, then clients connecting via FireWire are blocked from doing direct memory access.

Re:Service pack 3?

[1729]

Because you think that gcc is an OS? Weird. I neither wrote nor implied that.

Re:Service pack 3?

[demallien2]

Of course you implied it. I said "...but a major release of an OS for me is when the underlying APIs have major changes."

To which (it was directly quoted in your reply) you rambled on about what you have done with gcc. Now, I was paying you the courtesy of assuming that your reply was actually, like, you know, relevant. Of course, if you are now trying to tell me that your previous post was just irrelevant rambling that should be ignored, hey, fair enough. Considered it duly ignored.

If on the other hand you were actually trying to make a point, it's that you feel that gcc should be compared by the same heuristics as I proposed to use for an OS, which is what drew my response. So, either your post two back was just irrelevant rambling, or your last post was incorrect.

I'm a sucker for punishment, and kind of curious: which one is it, irrelevant ramblings or incorrect?

Re:Service pack 3?

[1729]

Here's Apple's take on this:

gestaltSystemVersionMajor
      The major system version number.
      For example, in 10.4.12, this would be the decimal value 10. Available in Mac OS X v10.3 and later.
      Declared in Gestalt.h

gestaltSystemVersionMinor
      The minor system version number. For example, in 10.4.12, this would be the decimal value 4.
      Available in Mac OS X v10.3 and later.
      Declared in Gestalt.h

gestaltSystemVersionBugFix
      The bug fix version number. For example, in 10.4.12, this would be the decimal value 12.
      Available in Mac OS X v10.3 and later.
      Declared in Gestalt.h From http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Carbon/Reference/Gestalt_Manager/Reference/reference.html.

Re:Service pack 3?

[1729]

In an earlier reply, I wrote: "The details about what constitutes a major version, a minor version, or a point release vary significantly between different software projects". (Emphasis added.) I'm writing from experience about conventions in software versioning. There's nothing special about an OS or a kernel in this regard.

In any case, Apple's documentation contradicts your claims:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=564973&cid=23560319

Re:Service pack 3?

[demallien2]

So, let me get this straight:

You make statement A:

I make statement B, which is not in rebuttal to your statement A, or otherwise linked to it.

You respond by making statement C, as a direct rebuttal to my statement B.

I point out that Statement C is irrelevant to my statement B.

You respond by pointing out that your Statement C is in agreement with your Statement A.

I'm left wondering why you would think that:
a) this would interest me, and
b) how this demonstrates that your Statement C was neither irrelevant nor incorrect.

Do try to remain coherent in your logic... it helps the casual reader.

Re:Service pack 3?

[Poltras]

Because the Windows way of going through tens of thousands of registry directory and keys to find what you are looking for is way better...

And if you say "just open a .reg I sent you", I'll happily answer "just copy/paste the command I gave you".

Re:Service pack 3?

[nine-times]

Are you kidding? This is an unsupported interface tweak-- the command line is just a quick way to make the change. There are several ways to make this change, including downloading a freeware utility that lets you tweak your system.

Personally, I think this is *exactly* the way things like this should be handled. Give people an interface for making the most common tweaks, and expose the more complicated tweaks in such a way that 3rd party developers can come up with other ways to handle it. That way, you're not cluttering your default interface with every little setting, but you're also not preventing anyone from changing the setting. If the tweak is popular, then there will probably be a few different programs that will make the tweak for you.

Anyway, the system is entirely functional for "normal users" without this tweak. And if someone really wanted to make this change, all they have to do is copy/paste the command into their terminal window and hit enter.

Of course, I don't recommend that people run random commands they see on the internet in terminal without understanding what they do. Otherwise you'll be in deep the first time you see "cd /;sudo rm -rf *" posted online.

Re:Service pack 3?

[HumanEmulator]

Personally, I've not felt that 10.5 is that big of a change from 10.4, which has always made it extra strange that it is that buggy.

The biggest improvements and changes in Leopard are all under the hood which lead to the marketing problem of "How do we sell it?" Time Machine was the answer, but it's hardly the best new feature.

Beneath the skin you have real 64-bit support and resolution independence in the system libraries, plus actual POSIX compliance. These are huge things that obviously took a lot of work and the kinks are still being ironed out.

Unfortunately, the benefits of all this forward looking support won't be realized until developers write applications to take advantage of it. Leopard was a necessary step to get us to a not too distant future of 32GBs of memory and 300 DPI monitors on the desktop and in our laptops.

Re:Service pack 3?

[mr_matticus]

The fact that the name changes should be a big indicator for you that this is a major release, not just a 'point' release. Did you not even read my comment?

I never claimed it was a "point" release or in any way a non-major release, and your "explanation" is not Apple's system of numbering.

Generation.Major_release.Minor_release

10.5.2.

Work it out. Troll, indeed. Windows 5 included several different kernels and 3 different products. The Windows 2003 base, in fact, was recycled into later XP service packs. Perhaps if you can muster the brain cells to comprehend this, you wouldn't have to be such a dick.

Re:Service pack 3?

[mr_matticus]

Yes, that's what I meant to type (e.g. 10.11.0).

Re:Service pack 3?

[bluefoxlucid]

You think that's cryptic, try this one:

`:() { :|:; | }; :`

Re:Service pack 3?

[adpowers]

That universal binary thing is really, really nice (my 8 core mac pro can boot from the same hard drive as my Quad PPC G5 and my PPC G4 Cube) but it makes things twice as large. Actually, I think it makes things for times as large: 32/64-bit x PPC/x86.

Re:Service pack 3?

[drinkypoo]

Are you kidding? This is an unsupported interface tweak-- the command line is just a quick way to make the change. There are several ways to make this change, including downloading a freeware utility that lets you tweak your system.

Isn't all this stuff just stored in an XML plist file? I haven't looked into the magical files of OSX since 10.2 and haven't used 10.5 at all really (I've seen it...) but isn't there a plist editor that works, you know, kind of like regedit? (Or like gconf-editor) So can't you do basically the same thing you'd do on Windows, too?

Re:Service pack 3?

[drinkypoo]

The really hilarious thing here is that this means of finding out what version of OSX you're running on didn't even exist until OSX 10.3. How the hell did you find out what version of the OS your application was running on before that? Bring up "About This Macintosh" from the apple menu and steal its RSRCs? :P

Re:Service pack 3?

[1729]

The really hilarious thing here is that this means of finding out what version of OSX you're running on didn't even exist until OSX 10.3. How the hell did you find out what version of the OS your application was running on before that? Bring up "About This Macintosh" from the apple menu and steal its RSRCs? :P Prior to 10.3, the solution was to use gestaltSystemVersion constant:

http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?DeterminingOSVersion

Re:Service pack 3?

[nine-times]

Yes, it's just a plist file, but I don't think editing it is any easier than running the command. The command just writes the setting to that file and restarts the dock. If you don't know enough to run the command, there are a couple different apps that can do it for you.

IMHO, it's better than how this sort of thing works in Windows. In Windows, it's usually in the registry, which is a big ugly file that's dangerous to screw around in. OSX has individual files for each program, and if you mess something up, you can usually just delete the file and it will write a new one next time you run the app.

Re:Service pack 3?

[Confuzzled]

This is wrong, please mod it down. The best way to get discs is to call them up (1-800-APL-CARE), it's about 10$ per disc.

Re:Service pack 3?

[Stormwatch]

I still like the 10.4 dock better, it's not quite as featurefull but it is easier to see.

Use DockTweak to change the Dock's looks.

Re:Service pack 3?

[mollymoo]

Far from all of what makes up an application (on any platform) is executable code, which is the only thing which is duplicated in a Universal Binary. There's a lot of resources - GUI layouts, help files, localisations etc. which are not duplicated, so the overall size change depends very much on the nature of the app. As a couple of random examples, the Chess app is 4.1MB, of which about 800k is executable code. Cadintosh is 20MB, of which 2.3MB is executable code (lots of illustrated multi-language help). OK, they're both going to have lots of resources by their nature. DivX Converter is at the other end of the spectrum with a lightweight GUI and minimal help, 9.2MB with 7MB of code.

Re:Service pack 3?

[ubrgeek]

Every time you put an Intel Mac to sleep, it writes the contents of RAM to /var/vm/sleepimage in the clear.

So disable safe sleep.

Re:Service pack 3?

[clang_jangle]

By "point release" I of course mean that I am still using Tiger. The number after the second decimal point indicates the update for the point release.

I hope it's true

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

Will they fix Spaces? Make X11 usable?

Once upon a time, you could buy an Apple product and expect it to work. Then the common wisdom became "as long as you don't get revision A, it should be okay". Now I'm to the point where I'm not even expecting the fucking fourth revision to work properly.

Re:I hope it's true

[Pope]

The "Don't buy Rev A." only applied to hardware. Me, I don't see any advantages over 10.4, so I'm sticking with that as long as I can.

Re:I hope it's true

[mortonda]

Could you clarify what's wrong with them? I use both all the time with no problems.

Re:I hope it's true

[XxtraLarGe]

Did you ever use OS X versions 10.0 or 10.1? Those two versions of the OS were absolute nightmares. I couldn't recommend OS X over OS 9 until 10.2 came out. I've been using 10.3.9 for quite some time now, and it has been extremely stable. Now we just got a 24" iMac last week and it seems to behave pretty flawlessly EXCEPT my wife's dock seems to disappear every once in a while under her account. I can't duplicate the problem under my account, but I'm hoping this problem will be fixed in the update.

Re:I hope it's true

[Anonymous Coward]

For usable X11, install the latest Xquartz.

Re:I hope it's true

[the_B0fh]

Have someone show you Time Machine. Play with it for 15 minutes.

Re:I hope it's true

[mmkkbb]

I fixed Spaces by not enabling it :)

I would hope that Apple is rolling up the recent work on Xquartz so that X11 actually works. The Xquartz devs echo this hope, but don't seem to know anything.

Re:I hope it's true

[corser]

I had a similar issue. I could duplicate it by the following
1. Turn on full screen visualization in iTunes
2. Stop the music (or otherwise have iTunes to nothing)
3. Allow the computer to start the screen saver (or turn off the monitor )
4. Wake up the screen
If will now be exited from the visualization but the dock will be missing. My guess is that starting a full screen app sets a flag to hide the dock and the method I describe bypasses setting it back.
I was able to get the dock back by going into full screen visualization and then exiting it.
(* trying it again right now to make sure I'm not a liar)

Re:I hope it's true

[corser]

Guess I'm not a liar. It might not be the same cause as GP but the last part about bringing it back might work for you and your wife.

Re:I hope it's true

[allenw]

ZFS was good enough for me.

Re:I hope it's true

[XxtraLarGe]

Please mod parent informative, they deserve a point for finding a good work-around ;-)

Re:I hope it's true

[ArsonSmith]

I like Time Machine, but what exactly am I playing with for 15 minutes? First it actually has to back some stuff up. Then I have to actual lose something.

Re:I hope it's true

[c_forq]

As another poster said, try time machine. In addition, use spotlight in 10.5. Since upgrading I have yet to install quicksilver.

Re:I hope it's true

[pasamio]

Whilst not as integrated as Time Machine, WD Anywhere Backup does a similar job under 10.4 and I got a copy of it with a Mac branded WD external hard drive. Appears to do the job nicely.

Big Creepy Crawlies...

[kiwioddBall]

Thats some patch! Nearly 500Mb - With 200 bug fixes thats 2Mb or so a bug.. Them bugs are big 'uns! Surely that figure is inaccurate?

Perhaps it will roll out piecewise like Vista SP1 and take only 65Mb to download on your average machine.

Re:Big Creepy Crawlies...

[je ne sais quoi]

They might be replacing binary files that they can't run a patch on, or maybe there's some other reason... but regardless you can be reasonably assured that they won't just put 500 Mb download for no good reason.

Re:Big Creepy Crawlies...

[Halo1]

Apple does do delta updates.

Re:Big Creepy Crawlies...

[corser]

You have two copies of every "patch" for PPC and Intel so that doubles the size automatically. I think it would be 3-4 copies. 32-bit and 64-bit for each architecture. I say 3-4 cause I'm not entirely sure they have 32-bit PPC.

Re:Big Creepy Crawlies...

[Ilgaz]

It is "developer seed" and "combo". It means, it is not end user version and in mac land, combo means "zero patch, all files updated since 10.5.0 with all language resources".

Vista/XP does very aggressive patching on windows update. If a Mac general end user who kept his/her system up to date with software update sees 10.5.3 , it will be almost 5x smaller (or even less) than the 500 mb you see.

Also, "Developer Seeds" may have symbols, debug stuff implemented on them, they are intended for developers and never cleaned up like end user shipments. It is never a "lets download, copy the what's new and leak to some site" kind of file release :)

I don't want to get in too much details but the Apple's userbase are known to change icons, remove/add languages thanks to unique HFS+ filesystem. On Mac land, you can only trust to binaries to patch. It is another reason why Apple or any Mac software vendor can't ship pure patches except binary patchers. For example, people keep changing safari.app icon, it is trivial on OS X since only the resource portion is changed or they remove languages (not good on Leopard btw) from their applications.

Re:Big Creepy Crawlies...

[HumanEmulator]

Apple does do delta updates.

The term "delta updates" is being confused here...

Apple refers to "delta updates" meaning a system update that only works on the previous release of the system. For ex: You can download a delta update that updates 10.5.1 to 10.5.2, but will not update 10.5.0, because it only has the files that changed from 10.5.1 to 10.5.2. The full updater (which Apple usually calls a "Combo" update.) can take any version of the major release it was made for to the new version. So 10.5.0 or 10.5.1 could be updated to 10.5.2. These updaters are bigger because they have to include every file that has changed since the first version of the major release.

The previous post was talking about "delta updates" meaning a download that includes a list of changes to files instead of complete files. Apple doesn't do these kinds of delta updates. Their updates almost always include the full files. I don't think this is a bad thing, but plenty of people would debate it.

Re:Big Creepy Crawlies...

[Halo1]

No, there are three possible versions of most updates: combo updates which can be applied to any previous version (with the same major version number), regular updates which update Mac OS X a.b.m to a.b.n, and delta updates which do the same as a regular update but which are smaller (due to the use of binary patches rather than including all replaced files in full).

The ability for software update to use delta updates was introduced in Mac OS X 10.3.4, as the support document I linked to implies (it's not like before 10.3.4 you only had combo updates).

Re:Big Creepy Crawlies...

[pasamio]

32-bit PPC would be a G4

Re:Big Creepy Crawlies...

[Halo1]

Concrete example:

10.5.3 combo update: 536 MB
10.5.2 -> 10.5.3 update: 420 MB
10.5.2 -> 10.5.3 delta update: 198 MB

Scanning...

[sarabob]

Well, if it fixes the airport scanning problem then I'll be a happy bunny...

Leopard has been fine for me

[Thornburg]

Just to contrast the "great, because 10.5 has been so buggy for me" posts:

I've been using 10.5 on two different machines for quite some time now, and I have had not had very many problems at all, and none since the 10.5.2 update.

Re:Leopard has been fine for me

[thegnu]

I had it locking up pretty severely on my newly purchased MB, but I employed a solid 30 minutes of JFGI'ing, and found some thread with the command that resolved the issue.

Since then, it's locked up maybe once a month. Which happened more regularly on Linux because of flash and firefox, anyway. Among other things. And actually, NEVER happened on my Windows XP SP2 (and pre-WGA) box, though every time I used it, it made me die a little inside.

All in all, Leopard is pretty freaking sweet.

Re:Leopard has been fine for me

[fermion]

I installed 10.5 the week it came out. I don't normally do this, but I had ne machine was really getting bogged down on the original 10.4 install, and 10.5 was a good excuse to give it a fresh install. Given that it had been three years since the last update, I thought it was a good risk.

Overall things worked ok. X windows was more or less down, but that is has been a common problem, and I have moved away from depending on X. That said, I don't think 10.5 was functional until 10.5.1. We will see what 10.5.3 has to offer.

OTOH, I saw 10.5.2 as a minor issue, on that actually broke the DVD player on a powerbook. Thankfully VLC is there to fullfill all my video playing needs, without the complications of DVD player. Therefore, i am not sure what to expect from 10.5.3. Will it fix problems, or merely make the PPC even more obsolete. Who knows. I would now comment about the need for Apple to think of a new OS, but I still like my PPC machines. The next OS, and set of apps, will sure be Intel only.

Re:Leopard has been fine for me

[corser]

10.5.2 has been 90% fine for me. Occasionally, it won't wake up from sleep for a few minutes and there are weird graphical glitches in Safari when I run off battery.

Re:Leopard has been fine for me

[Neko-kun]

Oh, that problem is specific to the 12" Powerbooks due to some bug with the Quartz drivers and the graphics card...

Aluminium Keyboard Update Bug

[neoform]

I know I'm not the only one with this bug, but Apple still hasn't responded to this problem. My software update *always* lists the "Aluminium Keyboard 1.0 Update" as being ready for install, no matter how many times I install the update. It's very annoying.

Re:Aluminium Keyboard Update Bug

[Rob_Bryerton]

Select the update, hit delete, then confirm that you don't want to see it anymore. Problem solved.

Re:Aluminium Keyboard Update Bug

[FrankDeath]

I had the same problem. You're not actually completing the installation. Download the fix from Apple's download page (http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/) and run the update manually.

Re:Aluminium Keyboard Update Bug

[xlogan]

I had the same issue with the MacBook firmware update. You have to actually go the file that is downloaded and manually run the update. I believe the link is http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303364.

Just 200 bugs?

[grikdog]

Which 200 bugs are they talking about? Why do they know about 200 bugs? Does that mean 200 users of Mac OS X 10.5.3 have been screwed, if each bug is sufficiently obscure? What is the average user footprint of each of these ten score bugs? Isn't progress wonderful? Now we use statistics and databases to decide how many bugs HAVE to be flushed before users balk and refuse to buy. In the old days, bugs were personally embarassing to the poor sap who perpetrated them during development. I guess we have Bill Gates to thank for "Good Enough" programming, 'ey? What a champ!

Re:Just 200 bugs?

[0100010001010011]

OS X uses quite a bit of OSS stuff. There's a good chance that a good portion of these bugs aren't theirs.

http://httpd.apache.org/security/vulnerabilities_20.html
I see 3 vulnerabilities in Apache 2 right there.

My Leopard install is showing "OpenSSL 0.9.7l 28 Sep 2006" while my Debian machine is showing "OpenSSL 0.9.8g 19 Oct 2007". I imagine there might be a few bugs there, and it's late enough that it wouldn't have been released close enough to be included in 10.5.0.

Lets see in /usr/(s)bin, zip, gunzip, tar, efax, cron, ip6config, postfix, cups. No chance they had any bugs. They're good open source software.

Responding to you and the guy below, the reason that these bugs are 'so big' is that Apple isn't sending out a bunch of .diff files as updates. If they're upgrading Apache 2 they have to recompile as a universal binary and send out that entire file.

Re:Just 200 bugs?

[Paradise Pete]

Which 200 bugs are they talking about?

Here is a list

Re:Just 200 bugs?

[pyite]

My Leopard install is showing "OpenSSL 0.9.7l 28 Sep 2006" while my Debian machine is showing "OpenSSL 0.9.8g 19 Oct 2007". I imagine there might be a few bugs there, and it's late enough that it wouldn't have been released close enough to be included in 10.5.0.

Actually, the bug there is in Debian, not OS X. It's rather serious, too, so you might want to check it out. If your machine is publically exposed and running SSH, it might have already been rooted.

Bugs in Software Update

[vapspwi]

I recently upgraded my MacBook to 10.5, and have been regretting it. I only use some of the new features (don't really care about Time Machine, one of the biggies), and a lot of stuff that used to Just Work (wireless networking) has become problematic.

The biggest problem I had, oddly, was with downloading software updates - the downloads would mysteriously stop after a few seconds or minutes (and not due to loss of network connectivity - a Windows box on the same network was able to download stuff rock solid, at the same time), and would never resume. Had to do some kind of Mac voodoo (Restore Permissions, or something like that) to fix it. So I'm a little concerned about even being ABLE to download a 500 MB software update, due to bugs in the software...

JRjr

Re:Bugs in Software Update

[Ilgaz]

If you have a broadband connection, act like us, old fashion guys.

Run Terminal (if you don't want to buy a dl manager), get the "combo" with curl (all OS X 'es have it,pre installed) or use a user friendly extension to firefox like "flashgot" which can use curl. Just launch the installer from DMG.

The good thing is, you can write it to a CD-RW or USB Key. I always keep last "combo release" on a backup disk replacing the previous one. It is also a great favor to Mac using friends if they come by.

Another thing before I forget: It is NEVER 500 MB for all updates installed end user. If you have 10.5.2 installed, it could be 60-70 MB download for software update. The "combo" won't be 500MB too. It is the developer "seed" they talk about/leak.

Fixes

[WilyCoder]

Here is a compiled list of fixes in 10.5.3.

Re:Fixes

[oahazmatt]

Interesting. The Safari bookmark/.Mac Mail account bug is so important they fixed it twice.

Re:Fixes

[starglider29a]

I read the list, and my eyes glazed over. I run PShop, Parallels, MSOffice, InDesign, RDC to my server. I thought I worked this poor 24" iMac to death. But I don't even know what 99% of those bugs are. Never been near them.

What I have seen more of is "Identity Crisis" as I run Parallels, Spaces and RDC. Keyboard shortcuts that do one thing in one environment, do something else in another. Try running IE in Parallels and press F11 to go full-screen. Exposé takes over and ZOOP! Everything heads to the margins. Or do a Ctrl-Left Arrow on a text field in a browser and ZOOP! Spaces takes you to Frame #4.

These aren't bugs, just conflicts. Good problem to have.

Re:Fixes

[lpontiac]

Ooh, nice..

BSD Kernel and unbuffered i/o no longer hangs

My understanding is that this is a major factor in miserable performance when starting and stopping virtual machines.

Re:Something's fishy....

[Goaway]

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=564973&cid=23555707

Re:A few corrections to OP

[dolphinling]

Not if you have do download it over a per-megabyte connection.

Re:A few corrections to OP

[gullevek]

Go to the next starbucks and do it there ... Seriously, where in the more or less developed world where people can afford Macs do you still have a per megabyte limited internet.

And if you use your mobile phone for dial up, there are much cheaper alternatives, even for minimal daily browsing ...

Audio Problems in 10.5.2...

[weston]

Some recent discussion on audio in Leopard:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/tag/leopard/

Now, note in particular that Digidesign's struggles aren't limited to Leopard (see, for example "Digidesign and M-Audio Drivers Fail to Keep Pace with Vista, Leopard, and XP SP3") -- I personally think Digi as a company has a problem. But they're not the only vendor mentioning audio issues in 10.5.2, and there are others like MOTU who haven't been explicitly complaining but have had product release delays (DP 6 was supposed to be out Q2).

Re:A few corrections to OP

[tepples]

Go to the next starbucks and do it there Pretty tough to get an iMac in there, no?

Seriously, where in the more or less developed world where people can afford Macs do you still have a per megabyte limited internet. Residential Internet connections in at least New Zealand and Australia still have low monthly caps (by world standards) on bandwidth to the American and Eurasian continents.

Re:Time Machine

[Paradise Pete]

Time Machine alone makes it worth the upgrade.

I'll second that. It's amazing how easy it is to browse through the history and find exactly what I'm looking for.

I bet one of them

[Shivetya]

is that bug which requires me to reboot my iMac after every iTunes and/or Quicktime update.

Re:I bet one of them

[Onan]

It's frustrating to reboot after quicktime updates, but there is a good reason for it. The whole point of quicktime is that it's a library used by many applications. Changing it out underneath them would, in the worst case, cause inconsistent or unpredictable behaviour, but even in the best case would not give them the benefits of the update.

Would you rather reboot or have your still-running browser continue to be vulnerable to a security vulnerability that you patched in quicktime months ago?

Friendly Reminders

[Spencerian]

Being an Apple technician, my natural tendency is to avoid new Apple products since they often get a little rushed to market. But yes, some software and some hardware updates later, all is good. My first generation MacBook was a mess. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it...er, bought it. It's a fine system now, 10.5 installed, and one logic board later.

The biggest problem anyone will have with an 10.4 to 10.5 upgrade is installing 10.5 over the 10.4 installation. Welcome to Pain, here's your pitchfork. Don't EVER do this, even if Apple supports it, when moving from one reference release (10.4.0) to another (like 10.5.0). It might work with Windows migrations, but not so much here.

It's not the system level parts that cause issues, but applications that worked OK in 10.4 and user account data will fight with the new 10.5 settings. Making a clean install and transferring your user account with the Migration Assistant might be OK, if you are careful.

Those new to Macs will be happy to know that Apple tends to have the serious bugs squashed flat by the ".3" updates or so. Luckily, Apple also rolls out these counterparts to Windows Service Packs with greater frequency, keeping you from gnashing your teeth for very long.

Re:Friendly Reminders

[ratbag]

And as an anecdotal rebuttal to all that, I've personally updated two machines from Panther -> Tiger -> Leopard and my family at large has done Jaguar -> Panther -> Tiger -> Leopard on G5s, PowerBooks, MBs, MBPs and MacPros, using a wide range of software (we're all photography buffs, one of us is a designer, two of us are developers, one MacPro is still running Tiger). Backup, upgrade. If you have problems, do a clean install. But so far we've done just fine with upgrades, thanks.

Re:Friendly Reminders

[Ilgaz]

The only issue with 10.4-->10.5 on my 2 Macs was basically Apple hiring everyone with some good CV and Unix background. Looks like they have never thought of tradition of keeping home directory on external firewire/secondary internal disk while implementing such a massive change (Netinfo).

It can be fixed with "Repair ACL permissions" implemented on the "reset password utility" on Leopard boot DVD easily but that is one thing I figured they aren't very selective hiring people. They should hire people who actually knows how Mac users use their systems. Most pro photographers/DTP guys I know has their home directories in Firewire external disks or secondary internal hard disks. They have very good reasons too. All of them got into massive panic when they saw Desktop etc. missing :)

Lets not forget the PPC/Intel Mini users, most of them buy a good Firewire external HD (Lacie even released a model for it) and get rid of that horrible internal laptop thing for booting. I think Apple doesn't know how their products are used.

What's wrong with Spaces

[pauljlucas]

Suppose I have Terminal windows in space 1 and Safari in space 2. I'm currently browsing in space 2 and I now want another Terminal window here in space 2. I Command-Tab to switch to Terminal. I'm immediately brought back to space 1 which isn't what I wanted. I'm forced to create the new Terminal window in space 1 and move it to space 2. Note that if instead I immediately switch back to space 2, Terminal will no longer be the front-most app.

If I already have a Terminal window in space 2 and want to create another one, this fact doesn't help because Spaces keeps track of the space the front-most window of an application is in. So even if there is a Terminal window in space 2 but a Terminal window in space 1 is more "front-most" than the one in space 2, then when I Command-Tab to switch to Terminal, I'll be brought back to space 1. Again, this isn't what I wanted.

The current behavior of Spaces whereby it auto-switches spaces or changes what the front-most app is (presumably to be "helpful"), IMHO, makes Spaces broken and unusable. Spaces should never automatically switch spaces nor change the front-most app no matter what (or at least have a Preference to make this the case).

I've been an Apple fan-boy since my Apple ][plus, but Leopard is the first version of OS X that I thought wasn't very compelling (and kind of broken) on release.

Re:What's wrong with Spaces

[porcupine8]

The weirdness of Spaces is one of the main reasons I haven't had my department upgrade my laptop yet. Desktop Manager (from berlios.de) pretty much gets it right in all the important ways - why was it so hard for Apple to do the same? I also don't know what I'd do without the mini-outlines in my menubar - it's amazing how much info you can get just from glancing at tiny outlines of the shape of the windows. I can't always remember what I put in each desktop, but glancing at that and I can easily see which are pdfs in Preview, which are terminal windows, etc, and click on the one I want on the first try most times.

Re:What's wrong with Spaces

[AlpineR]

I think Anonymous Grump is referring to a hidden preference:

Disable Space switching on Command-Tab in 10.5.2

That might solve your problem of Command-Tab'ing to an application without changing Space. For me, I tend to open applications with the mouse. It'd be nice if I could tell Terminal and Camino to default to opening a new window on the current Space rather than transporting me to an open window on another Space. But I'm slowly forming the habit of opening new windows with right-clicks instead.

Re:What's wrong with Spaces

[Onan]

I'm curious as to what it is you feel would be the more correct behaviour when foregrounding an application whose windows are on another desktop.

Are you suggesting that the OS should focus some unknown windows on another desktop that's not currently visible to you? Such that if you were to switch to Terminal and start typing, you would be blinding typing into some unknown window?

Or are you suggesting that some new application behaviour should be created in which an application can be topped in some general sense, but with none of its windows focused? I have a hard time imagining many cases in which that would be anything other than the exact opposite of what a person would want. "Yes, I want to talk to this application. Yes, I want to talk to an actual fucking window this application has open, that's why I fucking switched to it!"

I've been an obsessive multiple desktop user for fifteen years now, and I have found Spaces to be the best implementation I've ever seen on any platform. I'm sorry that it makes you less happy.

(Oh, and for the particular case of wanting to create a new terminal window in your current space: right-click the terminal in the dock, and select New Window. It shows up where you are, no switching.)

Re:What's wrong with Spaces

[pauljlucas]

I'm curious as to what it is you feel would be the more correct behaviour when foregrounding an application whose windows are on another desktop. ... Or are you suggesting that some new application behaviour should be created in which an application can be topped in some general sense, but with none of its windows focused?

Yes. However, it's not really a totally new application behavior. In most apps, I can have them front-most even if the app has no windows at all.

I have a hard time imagining many cases in which that would be anything other than the exact opposite of what a person would want. "Yes, I want to talk to this application. Yes, I want to talk to an actual fucking window this application has open, that's why I fucking switched to it!"

That's why I suggested it should be a Preference. You want it one way and I want it another.

I've been an obsessive multiple desktop user for fifteen years now, and I have found Spaces to be the best implementation I've ever seen on any platform.

The only other OS that I've used that has the ability for multiple desktops is Linux/X11 with a window manager of my choice running in point-to-focus mode. In non-Mac Unix environments, apps like XTerm are one window per process as opposed to one process for all windows (like Terminal). Hence, switching desktops under X11 doesn't suffer from the problem I described since (a) each XTerm is its own process and (b) it's point-to-focus.

(Oh, and for the particular case of wanting to create a new terminal window in your current space: right-click the terminal in the dock, and select New Window. It shows up where you are, no switching.)

That doesn't work since "New Window" has a submenu from which I have to select which type of new window I want. It's not exactly convenient or fast to do all those mouse motions when all I want to do is Command-N.

Airport Scanning?

[Tangent128]

You mean a software update that masks nail clippers?

One Fix is for 802.1X

[Greatmoose]

I know at least one of the major fixes is an 802.1X implementation that actually works without having to install the Internet Connect App. It's finally going to correctly support 802.1X PEAP w/WEP and WPA, something the previous version of 10.5 did horribly, if at all. Installing the Internet Connect app from 10.4 was a useful workaround, but seemed like a pretty stupid thing to have to do, especially for an apple product. But, as along as 10.5.3 works, my clients should be hapy (if a bit annoyed that it took so long).

You don't do any audio then.

[crovira]

I've been dual booting from a 10.5.1 drive since 10.5.2 because GarageBand's audio processing of effects is all screwed up.

It introduced noise when trying the get any echo and/or reverb and generally screwed up recording from my Samson C01U USB microphone.

Its more of a PITA than anything else. I keep spares of working environments around. (I'd've been screwed if I hadn't learned something in 30 years of doing IT. [Don't trust 'em.])

Re:I hope they finally fixed IPv6 now...

[shani]

Too bad Apple does not believe in DHCPv6.

But really, why not simply use auto-configured addresses?

Who to blame?

[http]

If I recall correctly, it was VisiCalc who first said, "Here's our spreadsheet software. And if anyone dies because some engineer actually trusted the results, don't come running to us." I'm open to correction on this.

Re:I hope they finally fixed IPv6 now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as Anonymous Coward because I've already modded this thread and don't want to waste the mod points, but I also want to be helpful.

You can quite easily configure static IPv6 addresses via System Preferences. It's not all that hard. Here's how:

1. Open System Preferences.
2. Click on the Network preference pane. (Optionally, select or create a location from the Location drop-down.)
3. Select the network interface you wish to assign a static IPv6 address.
4. Click Advanced...
5. Depending on the interface (e.g. Airport), you may need to select the TCP/IP tab, if it is not selected by default (e.g. Ethernet).
6. Change the Configure IPv6 drop-down from Automatically to Manually.
7. Input your settings for Router, IPv6 Address, and Prefix Length.

That wasn't so hard, now was it?

Use an encrypted disk image

[rhombic]

File vault is way overkill, and not the most useful way to protect your data on a laptop. Why encrypt your browser cache? Or your iTunes library? No need to take the performance hit on those.

One (I think better) way is to use disk utility to create an encrypted disk image (AES, 128 or 256 bit key), using a fully random password. Mount the disk image, type in the password, store all your confidential documents in it. When you're ready to pack up & move, eject the drive & it goes back to being a fully encrypted file. No logging out necessary, time machine will back it up just fine (as long as you've shut it).

$backup_disk?

[1729]

Ha! Back in my day we "time machined " using tar -u -g -v -f $backup_disk/$backup_dir/$backup_name $backup_disk? Come on, kid! In my day, we backed up to tape and we liked^H^H^H^H^Htolerated it.

Critical bug

[AlpineR]

Thank Jobs, they fixed this:

Text-to-Speech and Hysterical voice no longer causes hang

Now my business can finally make the switch to 10.5.

Wonder if it'll be Hackintosh-ready?

[What'sInAName]

Hmmm, I hope this update works with my Thinkpad T60p Hackintosh! I will of course play it safe and let some other sucker^H^H^H^H^H^H brave soul try it on their box first...

Transparent Menubar

[Slur]

The transparent menu bar is hideous with most background colours.

Fortunately you can disable this from the Desktop & Screensaver preferences in 10.5.2 and later.

Re:I hope they finally fixed IPv6 now...

[Just Some Guy]

That wasn't so hard, now was it?

Not at all! It'd be even easier if that actually worked. Here's the entirety of my bug report to Apple (#5604804 if you have access to such things):

16-Nov-2007 06:48 AM Kirk Strauser:
Summary:

Although I have IPv6 configured in the Network pane, those settings are not applied to my network interface.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Open the System Preferences -> Network pane
2. Select advanced settings
3. Enter my IPv6 router, address, and prefix values
4. Apply the settings

Expected Results:

I expected my internal Ethernet adapter to be configured with that address and for the default route to be added.

Actual Results:

No IPv6 addresses are added to the adapter.

$ ifconfig en0
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 10.0.5.130 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.5.255
ether 00:0a:95:d5:10:f2
media: autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex,flow-control>) status: active
supported media: none autoselect 10baseT/UTP <half-duplex> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex,flow-control> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex,hw-loopback> 100baseTX <half-duplex> 100baseTX <full-duplex> 100baseTX <full-duplex,flow-control> 100baseTX <full-duplex,hw-loopback>

Regression:

I did not experience this problem with any version of OS X prior to 10.5.

Notes:

According to a post on Slashdot, some people are having the same problem but others are not:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=362151&cid=21373619

As a workaround, the interface can be manually configured:

$ sudo ifconfig en0 inet6 add 2001:470:1f01:383:1::67/80
$ sudo route add -inet6 default 2001:470:1f01:383:1::1
$ ping6 www.kame.net
PING6(56=40+8+8 bytes) 2001:470:1f01:383:1::67 --> 2001:200::8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085
16 bytes from 2001:200::8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085, icmp_seq=0 hlim=54 time=261.627 ms
16 bytes from 2001:200::8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085, icmp_seq=1 hlim=54 time=263.454 ms

28-Feb-2008 07:36 AM Kirk Strauser:
Still unchanged as of 10.5.2 as of 2008-02-28 with all updates applied.

Rollback

[namespan]

Apple does do delta updates.

Which, seems to me, is one of the reasons why rollback is non trivial. I think I might rather give up the delta and take larger files. With issues like 10.5.2 presented, it really seems better to either wait until the late dot releases or have some method of rollback available....

Re:Rollback

[Halo1]

Apple does do delta updates.

Which, seems to me, is one of the reasons why rollback is non trivial. No, because updates with entire files are also available. Rollback is non-trivial because Apple is still busy with reinventing the functionality which already exists in most package management systems. Its current installer doesn't even fully support a plain uninstall operation (you can force it via the command line, but it still has several limitations), let alone rolling back an OS upgrade (although you could perform rollback already using Time Machine, I guess)

...as long as they fixed the AirPort problems...

[SmoothTom]

...I'll be happy.

--Tomas

Re:I hope they finally fixed IPv6 now...

[Imagix]

So how do you use Stateful Autoconfiguration (aka DHCPv6) in Leopard? I was rather disappointed that they didn't include it in 10.5.

Re:Time Machine

[profplump]

Hard links aren't as nice as a good block/stripe-level snapshot system, but the essentially are a filesystem-level snapshot, sans the non-atomic nature of their creation. Frankly I don't see how a filesystem-level snapshot would help with large files. Each snapshot with a different file version would need a copy of the entire file.

Using a lower-level snapshot (block/stripe level) would be more useful, as only the changed blocks/stripes would need to be stored. And more advanced volume management lets you break free from the archaic partitioning scheme used for block-level access, which is also a good thing. So if you wanted to complain about how Apple should support something like linux's LVM I'd be with you 100%.

That being said, Apple does have some support for advanced volume management -- disk images are treated as full-fledged block devices, and can be used with all the standard tools, including software RAID and the like. And they also support shadow-writes, so you can mount an image read-write using a secondary file to store overrides without touching the original data. And you can save the override files between sessions to support multiple versions. I'm even pretty sure you can mount the same image with concurrent sessions using different override files. So the volume-access layer in OS X already supports about 85% of what you'd need, it just doesn't support it for real (non-image) block devices, or merging old snapshots back into the main data set.

Insightful First Post

[krischik]

I would like to congratulate you for creating a "First Post" which is clearly not a quick hack of random words but truly insightful. Something not often seen on /.

Apart from that I moved from SuSE Linux 10.3 to Mac OS 10.5.2 and I don't have the feeling of using a beta OS. In my long SuSE Linux History from 5.1 to 10.3 I have seen far worse. And I am not even talking about my experiences with various OS's from Redmond...

Still, a fix pack is always welcome news.

Martin

Re:A few corrections to OP

[gullevek]

Perhaps I got to spoiled here in Japan. I am sorry. I remember back, 5 years ago in Austria we had 4GB limit and if you download the 10.5.3 update (as a delta to 10.5.2) your need to get 198MB ...

Only option would be to download it somewhere and make a CD ...