Apple Leopard OS Install Problems Reported.

[salop75]

Had some time today to re-install Leopard on the G4 from scratch rather than as an upgrade. Seems a lot happier, no more halting after ten minutes. Really hammered the cpu by letting spotlight run its initial indexing while installing iLife/iWork and watching Top-Gear re-runs on "Dave" on EyeTV. And i can report everything is fine.

Except for after a reboot the audio goes choppy in EyeTV - strange, a quick look in the System Preferences shows the Audio panel showing the iSub device, then its not there, then it is, ad infinitum. Unplugging brings the audio back on as normal through the pro speakers minus the iSub. Seeing as the iSub is meant to be officially supported hardware i'll raise a fault with Apple.

After two weeks of using Leopard i've come across a few bugs, so looking forward to 10.5.1.

Anyone here found any interesting bugs yet?

[Simon]

Although not yet an owner of an Apple Mac, I'm reading all information regarding Leopard and Macs in general with great interest.

Seemingly there are problems (as with anything) but I've yet to come accross series of webpages reporting hundreds of problems, incompatibility issues etc that as a Windows user I have become acustomed too. So - I ask - are these initial install problems just minor teething problems of the new OS and will be ironed out in due course or do these sort of problems occur all the time and would therefore burst Apples bubble of "It just works"...?

[salop75]

Originally Posted by Simon D

Although not yet an owner of an Apple Mac, I'm reading all information regarding Leopard and Macs in general with great interest.

Seemingly there are problems (as with anything) but I've yet to come accross series of webpages reporting hundreds of problems, incompatibility issues etc that as a Windows user I have become acustomed too. So - I ask - are these initial install problems just minor teething problems of the new OS and will be ironed out in due course or do these sort of problems occur all the time and would therefore burst Apples bubble of "It just works"...?

Well the truth is that Apple users tend to get quite passionate about Apple hardware and software so tend to create the impression that Apple kit and OS X are perfect, perpetuating the "it just works" fable. All computers and their software suffer problems, as long as humans are in the loop they always will.

In m experience, in general use, Apple "just works - more often than alternative operating systems/platforms". It's easier for Apple, they own the hardware, they only support a minor set of hardware drivers, they keep tight control over the programming standards(in theory), whereas Microsoft have the problem of supporting thousands of drivers and poorly written software that ignores their standards. For example under XP a simple memory allocation function has to have extra code to make allowances for hundreds of badly written applications that don't allocate memory in accordance to the standard set by microsoft, this greatly complicates the base operating system. Why do MS do this, because people blame MS whenever any software goes wrong and because the developers are lazy and don't fix their code.

I recommend Mac's especially as second machines for existing PC owners, because it gives you choice, run OS X, or run Microsoft XP/Vista, or even Linux, theres a lot of flexibility.

If you can, get to an Apple store or find a friend with an Apple and have a play, you will be pleasantly surprised with the ease of use and thought that has gone into the user experience.

But Apple do get things wrong, and sometime like MS overlook minor issues, but generally issues such as those that are cropping up since the rollout of Leopard are fixed fairly quickly - very quickly when compared to MS.

[Simon]

Thanks for your input Salop. I managed to have a play (two hours worth in total ) earlier this week at an Apple store. I got talking with the shop people and asked them all sorts of questions I had and I found that I was extremely impressed with both Leopard and the iMac I was playing with.

I believe a Mac will do everything that my PC currently does for me - and in most cases will do it even better. The one question I can't seem to find an answer to is the audio output capabiltites of the new iMac's. The rated digital optical output through S/PDIF TOSLink according to Apple's website is 24-Bit but I can't find much in the way of supportive evidence for this. For example, on my Soundblaster preferences on my PC I can set it to either 16-Bit or 24-Bit output but I can't seem to find any documentation relating to similar on the iMac. Does anyone know if the iMac is natively 24-Bit output via the S/PDIF TOSLink...?

[salop75]

Well the input sampling rate is effectively set by the device sending the digital audio, as for the output i'd guess (as i don't know) that its as simple a setting the output rate in the software application.

This might be of use: http://devworld.apple.com/documentat...ection_15.html

Although this refers to the G5 cpu model imacs, the underlying interaction of the hardware must be similar if not the same as the current intel iMacs as the functionality is effectively in the Core Audio framework.

Hope this helps.

[BMC123]

Not sure what you want to do? but we never use any onboard sound on any of our computers (Mac or PC) in the studio, everything runs through pro tools and external M-audio gear

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=...6a5377d29c4eb5

[GreyGhost]

Simon

You should find any and all information you require here:-
http://images.apple.com/support/

Type in you search then on the results page select technical documents or whichever section you require.