On Friday, January 24, 2003, at 01:11 AM, Randolph Peters wrote:
Thanks Darcy for your detailed response. A big part of my problem with OS X is that I DO have a beige G3 that has been upgraded with a G4 zif card.Aha. Then (if you ever decide to go back to OS X on this computer) you definitely want to get the freeware app XPostFacto -- technically it is a utility which allows you to run OS X on "unsupported" machines, but it contains a replacement for Apple's Startup Disk control panel which actually works on "old world" hardware like our beige machines.
Many of the problems associated with the G3s still exist even with a faster processor--no SCSI support on a beige G3,Actually, SCSI is definitely supported. Like I said, it works fine for me. In fact, my SCSI Zip drive worked as far back as OS X 10.0! So I don't know why you were having SCSI problems -- what devices were you using? (Remember that OS X is picker about proper device termination than OS 9.)
Also, if you were still using the stock video card with your beige machine -- and I assume you were -- than OS X will be *extra, extra* pokey. I have a similar setup to yours, although I've overclocked my G4 ZIF to 583 MHz (which makes a little difference, not a huge amount) and, most importantly, upgraded the video card to an ATI Radeon. OS X really needs at least 32 MB of VRAM, and the Rage Pro that comes with the G3 is woefully inadequate -- it has just 2 MB VRAM. The Radeon makes a huge difference both in snappiness and in image quality.
Again, not true. Holding down option while restarting puts you in OS 9, while just booting normally puts you into OS X. In fact, this is the preferred way to go back and forth between the two OS's, since the Startup Disk control panel/preference pane doesn't work correctly on beige machines. (Like I said, use XPostFacto instead and all is fine.)option-key restarting not available,
the need to install X on the first 8 GB of the master volume (taking up half of my first drive!)You can make the partition smaller if you want! The only rule is that it can't be *larger* than 8 GB, and most people complain (myself among them) that it's too *small*! It's not a huge deal, as I just offload most things to the other partitions, but it is annoying, definitely. Unfortunately, that's the cost of running OS X on hardware that wasn't designed for it.
Actually, the PowerLogix software I use with my card is not any more complicated than the equivalent for OS 9. And there's even a free 3rd party app for enabling the backside cache on any brand of ZIF -- Cache Control X. Someone even told me that as of OS X 10.2 you don't even need a 3rd party cache enabler for a ZIF upgrade, but I haven't felt like uninstalling the PowerLogix software in order to verify this.and other work-arounds needed to use an upgraded card.
I don't know what happened to my system 9 partition, but it was murder getting it to work again. (I could boot from a CD, but not my master drive.)If you could boot OS 9 from CDs, you should have been able to tell whether your OS 9 partition still contained a valid system folder, run TechTool Pro or Norton or whatnot, etc. You could also have (instead of reinstalling everything from backups) installed a new "clean" System Folder (leaving your old one untouched) and booted from that. It's almost never necessary to reinstall *everything* from scratch. But ah well, it's water under the bridge now.
Under missing functionality I did miss QuicKeys (although I think they make an X version,
Yep, one of the first apps out for OS X.
Are you sure about that? I haven't upgraded to QuicKeys X yet (since I only use QuicKeys in conjunction with Finale), but you'd think they would allow you to import shortcuts from earlier versions.but no easy translation of the 100s of macros I use)
and I noticed that many of the key commands for programs and macros are taken over by the system anyway. And why can't you drag and drop onto the Dock? This seems like a major oversight! Perhaps a future release will take care of that.Uh, *of course* you can drag and drop onto the Dock. I don't know how you managed to not get this to work, but under normal circumstances it works just fine. [shrug]
Some of the gimmicks in X can be turned off, such as the animated morphing tricks,If you get TinkerTool, you can customize the eye candy even further. But the eye candy is much less sluggish when you have a proper graphics card in your box.
but you are right about everything feeling sluggish. When I got back to System 9 it felt like a huge relief to have windows open and close quickly.Well, that doesn't bother me so much because I don't really open and close a lot of windows -- that's kind of the point of OS X, is that you only need a maximum of 2 windows open at any given time (especially if you use column view). Slow window resizing *is* a problem and is still sluggish even on the quickest machines. This is something Apple needs to fix. It's a byproduct of all that Quartz antialiasing, which is pretty but slow (and by the way, having used my dad's WinXP machine over the holidays, I gotta say, whoever claimed that Windows XP antialiasing is just just as good as Quartz in OS X was smoking a big bowl of crack). Anyway, this is something that is slowly getting better with each release, and Apple is surely aware that the sluggishness of the new OS needs their continued attention.
Anyway, I think you are quite correct to be skittish about OS X on your hardware. I empathize, as I run similar hardware, but I spent a fair bit of money upgrading almost everything in it, in order to run the new OS more smoothly. But like they say, there's only so much blood you can wring from a stone. After all, these beige machines are only half-supported in OS X. However, by the time you are ready to purchase new hardware, I think you will actually be pleasantly surprised at how well OS X runs. (At least, I *hope* so -- otherwise, Apple's in trouble.)
- Darcy
-----
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Boston MA
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
