> I'm writing to ask if anyone is having problems using OS X 10.1.5. My > mother-in-law was having some problems with her computer either after > upgrading or after a failed upgrade to 10.1.5.
Yes, I and many others have noticed a lot of problems after 10.1.5, you're not alone. > Apparently she took the computer in to the Apple Store yesterday and one of > the techs there told her that 10.1.5 "has too many bugs and conflicts right > now" and that "the most stable version right now is 10.1.4." When I heard > this I thought to myself "what a bunch of boloney!" *intentionally > misspelled*. T hat is a pretty cool tech, I'd go back there. :) > If I recall correctly there was a bunch of messages on various > lists and websites proclaiming that 10.1.4 had done this or the other and > that it had slowed their machine considerably. From what I've experienced, > most people were downgrading back to 10.1.3. A lot of people did do that, I don't know about the "most" part. A lot of people also found for some reason a lot of apple's software updates don't "take" very well, especially through software update, but that if they reinstalled from scratch, then applied the update via software update or via a standalone installer things were ok, minus known bugs. Most of the really bad stuff from 10.1.4 if I remember hit the portables. > I want to know if anyone is having problems because I've been running 10.1.5 > on my Pismo, an iBook SE, and an iLamp since the day after it came out and I > have yet to get a kernel panic in this time from this. On a bunch of different machines (ibooks, g4, g3, etc, etc) I was doing really well... Had most of the kinks worked out that weren't known bugs- but with the 10.1.5 update I actually started getting kernel panics again out of the blue, and total lockups (the wheel is turning but the hampster is dead). Probably the scariest one I've seen with it is on a friends tibook- he had a very stable system, and twice it has now not woken from sleep and twice when it did wake from sleep the screen went psychotic- the whole thing was squiggly. I've had it happen once on an ibook. The biggest 10.1.5 things I've heard have been in those areas- waking from sleep, display issues and the ever present sound issues. > What's more is they gave her the upgrade CD to 10.1.4 and told her to do a > clean system install by wiping the drive and starting over. Sucks, doesn't it? Mac users are back in windows land in some ways with OSX. The tech told you the right thing though, even if it sucks. > No huge problems > there but, isn't this UNIX? From the little I know of it so far, it was > designed to be a modular system and I could take and add parts as I go, > breaking some things possibly but the core OS should remain intact. *nods* OSX is a variant of unix, and in theory you are right. The kernel should not be affected by user processes. Unless for a bunch of reasons that process is given space in the kernel or allowed to operate within it for speed reasons. There are different types of kernels in the unix world- OSX is kind of a bastard, really incorporating parts of a micro and monolithic. A lot of people (especially in the mac press) brand OSX as a micro kernel... When it isn't quite... It is kind of both. Basically a micro kernel has a very, very small kernel just handling the basic OS tasks, with everything else running on top of it. Everything. Rocks from a design/development/stability stand point, but in real life performance it can leave a bit to be desired. It instead runs mach, with BSD on top of it, but both in the same space so they don't have to pass messages through a separate layer. To simplify- if OSX were a pure microkernel, generally if there was a major bug in the BSD layer or something bad happened it could restart it and things would be fine... But with the way it is with OSX, if something happens to the BSD layer it affects the whole kernel. You're still safe from user processes, such as itunes going crazy or something of that sort- but it is why due to a bug in firewire you can kill your whole system just by copying a large file... Freaks out BSD, which freaks out the kernel. Hell, I've caused a kernel panic by plugging in headphones. :) > wonder > what on Earth could have gotten so screwy from a single attempt at > installing an APPLE UPDATE that would have hosed this entire system to this > point of no return? I know certain 3rd party extensions have been reported > to cause kernel panics but I don't believe there were any installed on her > machines. Wish it worked that way. In some places, it can... Especially true micro kernels. But the 10.1.5 update is an OS update, so it does modify the kernel (which interfaces with all the different extensions and parts) and hence its a new game. Basically though, apple has their software. They get a list of bugs and feature enhancements to fix for the next revision. The coders go through their code, make the changes they think will stop the bug, compile, and test. If the bug doesn't show up, they consider it closed... But they can always introduce new bugs if a) their QA process isn't very thorough or b) their coders aren't very good or c) their coders for any reason are not allowed the time to debug properly, which ties into QA but usually involves marketing. Basically, if 10.1.4 is running ok with you, and 10.1.5 does not have something you really need (such as anti aliased text in carbon apps) or a specific bug fix... Don't upgrade. :) Michael Bryan Bell ------------------ ICQ: 16106263 Yahoo: mhbell1 No Link for you! AIM: drunkenbatman -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... 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