Jaguar Installation Issues |
August, 29, 2002 10:30 PM |
Tony.Scaminaci |
I don't have any yet as my upgrade hasn't shipped from our corporate vendor. But, I spent a considerable amount of time this evening on Apple's OS X discussion forum and couldn't believe the problems that people are having installing Jaguar on fully supported platforms. I keep tabs on both this forum and Apple's on a daily basis, gathering information for when my turn comes to try the installation. From what I've been reading, I think a complete backup of our currently running 10.1.5 partitions is a must. I'm thinking about doing two separate backups of 10.1.5 with Retrospect 5 before even attempting to install Jaguar on any of my systems. I'm just wondering how many of the install problems being reported in this forum have anything to do with XPF or our unsupported machines vs. the obvious bugs in the Jaguar installation program. I'd recommend reading through all of the installation problem reports on Apple's forum before attempting to install Jaguar on an unsupported machine. It seems a miracle that some people can even get it to work on unsupported machines when people with fully-supported machines can't. The best recommendation I gathered so far from all the posts I read through was that doing a clean installation with a complete reformat of the drive using Jaguar's formatter was the method with the highest chance of success. Many people reported that their drives were grayed out when attempting an archive and upgrade install, others reported that external USB or firewire drives caused the install to fail. Some people were removing internal third party cards in a futile attempt to install Jaguar. And the worst part is that those few people who reported no problems with the installation have no clue as to why theirs worked when so many other people are struggling. Those of us in this forum who are or will be attempting to install Jaguar on our unsupported machines need to be aware that the Jaguar installer is flaky. It's likely that many of the problems reported here have nothing to do with XPF, but are really Apple's bugs. Kind of makes you want to wait for 10.2.1 or 10.2.2. Tony |
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RE: Jaguar Installation Issues |
September, 02, 2002 2:46 AM |
tempest |
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From my personal experience, Mac OS X is very, very picky when it comes to SCSI termination. Don't know about ATA, but I hear that the new G4s insists drives are set to cable select. Anyway, when I tried to add LVD--LVD drives are more common in my area--drives to my 8500's internal fast SCSI bus, it didn't work when I set them to SE mode while using my old SCA/wide-to- narrow adapter originally designed for SE drives. I finally discovered that I needed to use an adapter that terminated the high-byte in order for it to work reliably, otherwise the installation would wedge at random times or the system wouldn't boot Mac OS X. Mac OS 9 is more tolerant, but one of the symptoms of incorrect SCSI termination is low throughput statistics from SCSI test programs, along with other symptoms like disk errors, inability to install Mac OS 9. FWB Hard Disk Toolkit would report a Seagate ST318436LW having peak reads/writes at 4 MB/s when using the incorrect adapter on this drive or another drive in the bus. When using the correct adapter stats went to 9.5 MB/s--close to what fast SCSI would allow. Of course, trying to get the system to work reliably could potentially corrupt your disk's contents when the data get clobbered during writes. So, the key is make _sure_ your termination is correct, and if you're sure, check again. The rules for termination changes a bit if you add an LVD drive to a bus that wasn't originally designed for them. My 8500's slots are filled and I cannot add a SCSI card: USB/FireWire; Radeon 7000; 100BaseT. Refer to the SCSI FAQ--one entry tipped me off to this pickiness of LVD drives. |
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RE: Jaguar Installation Issues |
August, 30, 2002 10:21 PM |
kbata |
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Keep in mind that most people head to the forums when they are having problems. I think that people that have good installs just get on with their work. |
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RE: Jaguar Installation Issues |
August, 30, 2002 7:57 PM |
Tony.Scaminaci |
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Speaking of 10.2.1...check out this snippet from MacOS Rumors From developer sources, a quick list of changes in Mac OS X 6D47, a preliminary build of what will shortly be released as the 10.2.1 Update: *Mail *Disc Recording *Classic *Apple File Server *ATi drivers *nVIDIA drivers *Altivec DVD acceleration *ApplicationServices and System Frameworks *OpenSSL *Numerous BSD layer and core system updates So far, users report little or no functional changes, some significant performance improvements, DVD playback improvements, improved Classic startup performance (particularly with Extensions Off), and better Junk Mail functionality in Mail. Looks like 10.2.1 may be released before I even get my Jaguar CD's. Tony |
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RE: Jaguar Installation Issues |
August, 30, 2002 12:46 AM |
dcoyle |
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I was really pumped up about Jag, especially all the noise about speed improvements even without QE. Like you, I have been reading with dismay the reports of various problems on supposedly fully supported platforms. Most likely, there are just a few bugs that Apple didn't catch that just happen to to be in fundamental parts of the OS, therefore causing the slew of reported problems. I think Apple is walking a fine line here and actually doing a pretty good job of it. They've got a temporary grace period where they can make changes to the foundations of OS X. These changes are ultimately for the better, but in the short term they cause the kinds of issues we've been seeing, such as third party drivers that no longer work, glitches in parts of the OS that worked fine before, etc. Eventually, they will be in a position where extreme changes to the system will be unacceptable to developers and users. Breaking major apps six months after they are released will cause massive defections from the platform. The trick, of course, is to have all the major work completed by that point and not be forced into supporting a kludge for the next fifteen years. Apple COULD wait until each release was much cleaner, but that would also prolong the time when third party developers are forced to rewrite their apps, drivers, and utilities. I'm not being an apologist for Apple, I'm just saying that from their perspective, they are doing the smart thing. From my perspective, I'm also going to do the smart thing and wait for 10.2.1. |
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