Snow far Snow Good (Snow Leopard)
 

This morning, Apple released the newest operating system for Mac computers and hackintoshes everywhere: Mac OS 10.6, Snow Leopard. Whereas normal new operating systems bring with them boatloads of new features, Snow Leopard is more about refinement. From the time I double-clicked "Install" this morning to the moment my computer restarted was less than 1 hour. When the computer was booted up, instead of more space being eaten up by the operating system, I had 7GB back (from about 28GB free to about 35GB free). There are new features, of course—the final version of Safari 4, brand spanking new Quicktime X, new features for Expose and Stacks, and a slightly improved Preview—the real meat and potatoes of Snow Leopard is in software based performance improvements.

My Mac mini (1.83GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB ram, 8GB 5400 Hard Drive), shuts down and restarts substantially faster, Mac applications open and run much more quickly and smoothly, Time Machine backs up more quickly, and my OS is running at full 64-bit computing. It's the biggest improvement in performance I've ever seen without upgrading RAM or the hard drive rotation speed.

Considering it's only $29, it seems totally worth it so far. I'll post updates if I run into any hiccups.

It sounds like it does as advertised.

I'll get this eventually.

I should also include the fact that as soon as I restarted after finishing installation, my Software Update prompted me about downloading Rosetta. DO IT. Rosetta is an application that allows you to run PPC applications on an Intel Mac flawlessly (I've been running Adobe CS2 InDesign all day without any trouble). I'll admit I was concerned about compatibility issues considering Snow Leopard is the first Mac OS that's designed specifically and only for Intel Macs, but so far Rosetta has compensated.

I want to upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard.

I might do this in a couple months depending on how life goes until then.

I'm going to wait.. I have an internal 250 anyway...and I don't want to lose any downtime on Maya or AE.. I want to make absolutely sure SL is going to work as expected before I put it on the MBP.

Good news. Though users of older Intel-based Macs were led to believe they would have to spend $169 to migrate from Tiger to Snow Leopard, new reports state the $29 upgrade disc will work just fine.

Is there some indication that you are running Rosetta, or which apps still require it? I have no idea if any of my software is still PPC.

Also, does anyone know if AppleJack is good to go on 10.6? I can't find any definitive information on it.

I don't see any indication.

I downloaded and installed AppleJack, but I've never used it before and the finder isn't telling me where it's located.

You have to restart in single user mode to get the prompt, and type 'applejack'. Most people type 'applejack auto restart' to just let it do its thing. But, I wouldn't risk it without a perfect backup until we hear if it works or not.

For those that run .mkv files and want to use Quicktime X, download this (warning, this will start a download). Run it once and QTX should work with mkv perfectly.

Applejack is now listed as "broken". Oh well.

Preview is acting a bit funny. When I open multiple .jpg files, normally they would open in the same window with a directory on the right side, but now some of them are opening up in new windows. I'll let everyone know if I find a fix.

I ordered Snow Leopard the other day. I'll get it sometime after Sept. 11....

It won't let me know, right?

My upgrade went reasonably smoothly. The Super Drive in my older (pre uni-body) MacBook Pro is a little iffy, and actually pulling it from disc took probably four times as longer as advertised. I should get that looked at before my Apple Care runs out. Once I got the install actually done, it was butter. Things are fast and reliable--and the thing actually shuts down now, which it had quit doing a few months ago!

ok so.. if you are using Maya or other Autodesk stuff.. don't upgrade to SL yet. It won't work.

glad I waited.. I would have been one extremely pissed off fanboi.

I had a false attempt at upgrading my Macbook a couple of weeks ago.

It seemed to install fine, but a day later it started acting up. Ultimately, it wouldn't boot: it kept failing to boot to the login screen and would shut down.

I'm holding off until at least the next major update.

If you don't have a particularly quick Mac (say, for example, you have a crappy video card and a lower performing core 2 processor) ad Safari's been a bit sluggish, you may want to run Safari in 32-bit mode. Close Safari, open the applications folder, highlight Safari, cmd + i on, then click 32-bit and rosetta. Restart Safari and it will run a lot quicker.

I noticed that they released 10.6.2 yesterday, with a bunch of bug fixes. I'm contemplating another attempt at upgrading this weekend. I'm going to look into it...see what the forums/support are saying.

I'm still waiting on Maya support before I upgrade.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure 10.6.2 doesn't support Maya any more than 10.6.1. You should email Maya to see if they're working on it.

BTW, 10.6.2 bricks hackintoshes that run on atom processors. If you've got a Snow Leopard netbook, beware.

They're workin on it.. not sure what the hangup is

I've tried the install again, with the most recent update, and it seems to be working fine. *Knocks on wood*

The one problem I've found, however, is I just discovered that my Lexmark P3150 isn't compatible with the OS, despite Apple releasing a bunch of printer drivers for the system, in addition to Lexmark releasing some. It simply isn't compatible. It's one of the handful of Lexmark models that doesn't have support, and there is no indication it will down the road.

It might be because of the age of the printer. It's probably around 7 or 8 years old. I'm not sure what the typical lifespan of printers is, but that's what I have. Either way, this kinda sucks.

It's one of those all-in-one jobs: printer/scanner. It's an inkjet, however. And I've occasionally thought about getting a laser printer, but I've found that there is so much difference between printers that I don't know where to start. All I know is that I don't want to spend very much money. I don't do a very high volume.

Any thoughts?