“Mac OS X 10.3, better known as Panther, was released by Apple a little over two weeks ago. I’ve been using it for over a week now on my iBook and I’d like to share some of my thoughts about the changes that Panther brings to the table.” Read the review here.
Panther: One Week Later
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Samba support in Panther is VERY shaky at best. I can mount drives just fine, but copying files to/from mounted shares crashes the finder.
Other than that Panther is great.
“copying files to/from mounted shares crashes the finder.”
Thats odd… I copy files back and fourth from network Windows drives (which would use Samaba) all the time (at least 20 per day). Never has the finder crashed even once, nor has it shown even the slightest inklying of instability.
iTunes crashes when I am playing mp3s and open quicktime, mplayer or VLC and start watching an mpg at the same time. This never happened in previous versions of X. I get a complete lockup, no warning or ability to restart. Anyone else seeing this?
“iTunes crashes when I am playing mp3s and open quicktime, mplayer or VLC and start watching an mpg at the same time.”
Why are you which videos and playing iTunes music at the same time?
“This never happened in previous versions of X.”
We just tried it on 4 of our systems running Panther, the remaining two that are still running jaguar and the other 6 that are running XP and no such crash occurs when we tried it.
“I get a complete lockup, no warning or ability to restart. Anyone else seeing this?”
Apparently its just you. You must be running a VERY f-‘d up system to get a hard crash from simply running these two apps simultaneously… either that or you’re lying.
“Upgrade” installs are dirty…
“iTunes crashes when I am playing mp3s and open quicktime, mplayer or VLC and start watching an mpg at the same time. This never happened in previous versions of X. I get a complete lockup, no warning or ability to restart. Anyone else seeing this?”
I just tried this out on my 1GHz iMac and no problems whatsoever.
In response to another post, I’ve also copies many large files back and forth across my macs and windows box via samba and finder and mounted shares and I’ve had zero stability issues.
For me, Panther has been 100% stable. I have an external FW drive and no problems there either. None of my machead friends have had any issues whatsover.
In sum, Panther absolutely rocks.
Steve!
Its been a while… nice to see you. : )
I have to echo the previous posters comment about clean installs. As with Jaguar, I did a clean install of Panther and have had no problems. I back up the contents of my home folder onto a FireWire hard drive, then allow the Panther installer to erase my entire internal HD. It takes a little longer to copy personal files back over and download a few software apps, but the end result is a smooth running system. Well worth a little extra time and effort.
I did the upgrade on my PowerBook and have had this many problems:
Zero.
I think it has a lot to do with haxies and unstable software people install. Font files would usually bring down my system in years past, but no longer.
On Panther [upgrade] for 2 1/2 weeks, no issues whatsoever.
I’ve installed Panther on the following systems:
G5 1.6GHZ, G4 1.25 dual, iMac G3/350.
Had zero issues with the G5, had problems on the G4 but thats because I didn’t do a proper backup. I recovered everything except my Camino bookmarks. Everything else was recoverable and transferred over from a backup home directory.
The iMac run faster before the upgrade and could extend the life of that machine for one more year. Who knows what 10.4 optimizations will bring or if it will even support G3. I do not think Apple will support G4 in 10.5.
A good installation scheme that seems to work well is to do an archive install and if this is not possible install on to a different partition and import/export the data over.
For me the Panther upgrade was well worth it as was 10.2.
the iMac ran faster and smoother after the upgrade to Panther.
I still dislike it. It’s better, but not there yet. Windows’ explorer is better. Other than that, I love the OS. Expose is wonderful and an innovative. Xcode is nice and I’m learning it. I paid the edu price, so I don’t feel like I was raped. However, I don’t think the update warrants the full price.
I have to chip in here and admit I’ve seen this hard lock from iTunes too. I’ve not had time to investigate, but it is conceivable that it does have something about opening media in other applications at the same time. Time to dig a little deeper I think.
Let me clarify best I can. It does not happen everytime but has happened with several different videos and music files. It happaned when I did an archive and install and after a fresh install it still happens, I wiped the drive clean before installing. And since one other person said they have seen it, i know Im not alone.
And I can’t seem to mount my Windows shares any more. I have a win2k box with sharing set up, and my iMac wont see em. Not a big deal really, but the kernel crash with IP over Firewire is disconcerting. It only happens on my iMac, my G3 Tower is fine with it enabled. A chipset bug/driver issue most likely.
Other than that, Panther is fantastic. Much quicker, stable outside of the IP/Firewire bug. I’m sure 10.3.2 or .3 will bring full value to the platform by closing up the app crash bugs and hopefully the IP/Firewire bug that I see.
Remember if you have hacks or unsupported drivers, this can affect its stability/preformance, wait and see if third party companies have updated their drivers for Panther. Macworld magazine gave a nice check list on how to upgrade and back-up before any OS upgrades.
“I have to chip in here and admit I’ve seen this hard lock from iTunes too.”
Something tells me that this (and the first comment eluding to this) is little more than a thinly veiled troll.
Only on the very rarest of occations do OS X applications crash. Far rareer than even that does the OS have a hard crash.
But a “hard lock” of an application simply doesn’t happen. If a process within an application goes bad, you will get a spinning beach ball, and on extremely rare occations when an app is pushed arround in ways its not supposed to, you might even get a kernel panic, but NEVER will you get an application lock… meaning, the entire app freezes and you cant do anything to fix it (as is implied with the statement)
Because of this, I’m led to believe that these “locks” are mere attempts to spread FUD about iTunes.
The comments after the FUD — meant to sugar-coat the comment so as to not give away the notion that the poster is a troll only confirms this for me.
FUD IPs I’m watching:
.msy.bellsouth.net
.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net
.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk
.blackfoot.net
“And I can’t seem to mount my Windows shares any more.”
I administrate over 100 macs across our nationwide company and never have we had a single problem with regard to mounting drives. What are you doing?… or should i saw… what are you doing wrong?
I am not tryin to spread any fud. This is a forum for discussion and i am simply asking if I am the only one with the problem. I have been using macs only for the past 9 years. I never specifically said it was a problem with iTunes either. I do not use another mp3 player so I mentioned that I used iTunes. If there is a problem, which I am trying to confirm/disconfirm, it is more likely with quicktime, which handles mpg in all the programs i mentioned.
For instance I have an m-audio soundcard that the mp3s play from. Sometimes I watch videos of cars and racing. Sometimes i turn the sound on the videos or I use VLC and pump the video sounds through my headphones. I have seen 4 crashes total in a week from trying to play both mp3s and mpeg videos. If you think im such a troll, pass over my comments.
I find that most people complaining, and insisting on Clean Installs either have haxies such as Transparent Dock “Panther ate my dock!” or used a Panther beta, to which they were not allowed legal access.
Out of two upgrades, the worst thing that happened was that the dual G4 thought that another firewall was running. It would have been helpful if Apple had paid more attention to its installation scripts, but they are better than those of previous releases.
Plan before you jump!
This may be true, people with betas will most likely see problems. I am sorry if you happen to see my problem as complaining. I am in no way trying to complain. I am running a legit copy of panther and am simply asking if anyone else is seeing this. It may well be that I have other programs conflicting with my machine and that is why I am asking if anyone else has seen it.
Just two small issues with my Archive & Install on a TiBook 667.
1. X11 didn’t work. Fix was to remove all installed instances and load from the CD
2. Firewall wouldn’t start. Fixed by deleting a .plist file.
Both problems were simple to fix and known in advance. Everything else has been perfect.
I can’t believe people are being jumped on for saying they are having the odd and specific problem.
What on earth is wrong with you people!? If you’re seeing problems you’re a troll, spreading FUD, or a software pirate!? Good god.
“For instance I have an m-audio soundcard that the mp3s play from. Sometimes I watch videos of cars and racing. Sometimes i turn the sound on the videos or I use VLC and pump the video sounds through my headphones. I have seen 4 crashes total in a week from trying to play both mp3s and mpeg videos. If you think im such a troll, pass over my comments.”
M-Audio Drivers.
IIRC not compatible with Panther Yet. They are kernel extentions, and are probably causing your crashes/lockups.
P.S I really like the text system in Panther. Anyone tried Text edit and use the new shadowing capabilities? Puts Word to shame!!