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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Upgrades Apple

Mac OS X 10.2.4 Is Out 205

Posted by pudge from the going-live-with-this-as-soon-as-i-finish-downloading dept.
J. Ventura writes "Mac OS X Update 10.2.4 has been relased. The 10.2.4 Update delivers enhanced functionality and improved reliability for the following applications, services and technologies: Address Book, Classic compatibility, Finder, FireWire, Graphics, OpenGL, and Sherlock. It includes AFP and Windows file service improvements, as well as audio, disc recording, graphics, and printing improvements." Get it via Software Update.
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Mac OS X 10.2.4 Is Out More

Mac OS X 10.2.4 Is Out

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  • Watch your network settings... (Score:4, Informative)

    by cespi ( 311612 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:33PM (#5298208)
    Installing 10.2.4 screwed my network settings. I have my Network preferences panel set to "Manually" configure, but after the upgrade, OS X lost it's memory. The panel still showed the settings correctly, and I repeatedly hit "Apply," but it would not set the parameters.

    I had to resort to ifconfig, route, and hand editing /etc/resolv.conf

    Thanks Apple!
  • Installed sucessfully on my Quicksilver 867 and iBook 700. No problems thus far =P

  • Don't forget... (Score:5, Informative)

    by mgaiman ( 151782 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:41PM (#5298280) Homepage
    After the update, it is probably a good idea to fix your permissions (which can be done via the Disk Utility).

  • Yay! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by asparagus ( 29121 ) <koonce&gmail,com> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:43PM (#5298293) Homepage Journal
    They fixed the bloody bug where everything on the desktop got moved when you dropped something on the edges.

    OSeXy!

    -Brett

  • Much faster (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rouxfus ( 567556 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:44PM (#5298300)
    I was about to switch back to Eudora, which I'd been using since 1994. I gave Mail a try for the last couple of months because of the Junk mail filter, but I was starting to wonder if Eudora and Spam Sieve wouldn't give me my speedy email back. Mail was slow changing from email to email.

    10.2.4 seems to have fixed the problem - much snappier performance in Mail, and NetNewsWire (going from headline to headline was sometimes sluggish.)

    No problems on the update that I've noticed so far...

    • As far as I can tell, with few exceptions the point releases from apple always seem to make the machine work faster. This seems to be true since macos 8.

      I think the philosophy is get it out there then spend some time optimizing it.

      I still find it odd getting speed improvements without updating hardware, but I'm getting used to it.

  • solid release... (Score:2, Informative)

    by wtmcgee ( 113309 )
    nothing new or revolutionary.... but things just seem to be a bit snappier (i know most people will say, "thats just the prebinding after the install"...), mainly things like redrawing windows when i resize them, or scrolling speeds and what not. also, i'm glad they made address book act like most other os x apps, after you close the app, it still runs in the dock until you close it.

    all in all, nothing special, just seems like they squashed a lot of bugs and added some behind the scenes goodness.
    • If, every time someone said the new release was noticeably snappier it really was, then my 550MHz PowerBook would be the fastest machine on the planet. Needless to say, it's not.
      • sounds like your the exception, not the rule.

        i didn't say that all of a sudden when i use photoshop, i can apply filters at some insanely faster rate, or that iMovie rendering is 200000x faster.

        scrolling seems smoother in apps which have a scrollbar, and resizing windows is a bit snappier.
    • Ditto with iCal.
    • OK, here's my anal retentive self doing rough stopwatch timings for various application launch times under 10.2.3 and 10.2.4

      Yeah, I wanted to know if it was just my perceptions being fooled by my expectations after installing a OS upgrade or if this was indeed a real effect. Hardware: Powerbook G4 667 MHz Gigabit Ethernet,768 MB RAM, 30 GB HD

      10.2.3 => Cold Boot = 1:06, Shutdown 0:45, Login 5-7sec, Logout 6-15sec

      10.2.4 => Cold Boot = 1:07, Shutdown 0:15, Login 6sec, Logout 5sec

      The shutdown time has definitely been trimmed, but most of us OS X users will not be enjoying this speed advantage much as...we just don't have to shut down that much when the sleep/wake state is so quick and stable to use unlike my WinBlows computers.

      The following times are in seconds, timed from when icon clicked on in the Dock to when the application window was fully loaded and ready to go.
      (Task or App--10.2.3 1st run/Subsequent run--10.2.4 1st run/Subsequent run)
      Safari----11.5/03.5--14.0/03.0
      Chimera--12.0/5.1--11.0/05.2
      Mail------05.5/03.5--05.3/02.2
      Address--03.0/02.8--05.3/02.0
      iCal------04.0/03.5--04.0/04.0
      Sherlock--14.5/12.2--12.0/08.2
      Word-----05.5/02.5--05.0/03.0
      iTunes----05.2/02.2--04.5/02.0
      iPhoto----05.8/04.2--05.2/04.0
      QTPro----02.0/01.5--02.8/01.0

      Sorry the formatting is so lousy, /. won't let me do a table. Also, the errors are like +/- 0.2-0.3 sec depending on if I was reaching for my beer during the timing and missed seeing the window pop up.

      Sure it ain't scientific, but I think this update has gotten things moving along a tad faster, as have all the other .1, .2, .3 updates. Which is nice as many other OS's just seem to become more bloated with each iteration.

      DaveC

    • Yes! [apple.com]

      Address Book remains open after closing all of its windows.
      Address Book edit mode now includes an Undo feature.

  • not without issues (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:50PM (#5298341)
    hmmm... trashed my php install on my desktop machine (overwrites httpd.conf) and now my TiBook can't boot because of kernel panics.

    I thought I'd be more pissed, but frankly I've had so few update problems with OS X I figure I must be ahead.

    I
  • They did something to iChat but I can't tell what they did yet. Can anyone see what that is yet?

    It moved on the dock, that is how I can tell. I realised that it sounded like i was psychic back there.
  • Anybody know if they fixed the bug in mail where if you mistakenly create two accounts with the same email address and delete one it deletes all the associated emails?

    • Re:Mail bug (Score:5, Funny)

      by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @07:30PM (#5298628)
      Anybody know if they fixed the bug in mail where if you mistakenly create two accounts with the same email address and delete one it deletes all the associated emails?

      Actually, I fixed that bug myself.

      Here's the patch: don't do that again.

      Sorry for the flip comment, but c'mon... did you really want to test that particular 'feature' again just to see if they fixed it?

      • Re:Mail bug (Score:5, Informative)

        by itwerx ( 165526 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @09:58PM (#5299280) Homepage
        It's actually pretty easy to do if you have your own domain and have a bunch of dummy accounts setup so you can "send as" each one. Whenever you make a new one you have to put in the correct mail server info (so it will send) and it will default to the settings it already knows about from the original account.
        It's easy enough to change to something bogus for the username (since one never needs to collect through more than one account, only send) but if you forget you're hosed! The only way to undo your mistake is to backup the mail folder, do your delete and then restore it...
        A minor annoyance once one is aware of it but a bit of a pisser the first time.

        • Re:Mail bug (Score:5, Informative)

          by Onan ( 25162 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @10:51PM (#5299510)
          There's a much easier way to send mail from multiple addresses: in the account config, specify as many addresses as you like, comma-separated. They'll all appear in the account pop-up menu at compose time, using the first by default.

          It's quite useful, though I can't imagine how anyone's expected to figure out that it's there. And still not quite as flexible as being able to just edit the From: field directly, of course.

  • Changes in httpd.conf (Score:4, Informative)

    by MonsterChicharo ( 568866 ) <cesar.pinera@gmail.com> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:52PM (#5298360) Homepage
    The update replaced Apache's httpd.conf and saved the old version as httpd.conf.applesaved. The problem is that the new httpd.conf has the PHP module commented out, and apparently the PHP module is not included. Anyone else having this problem or my installation that is broken?

    • It now includes Apple's mod_rendezvous (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 13, 2003 @07:30PM (#5298626)
      Check out my HOWTO [against.org] for enabling PHP (written for newbies) and some (scarce) info on Apple's mod_rendezvous.
      • Yes, your information was rather scarce. As you had posted on your site, the entry in the httpd.conf looks like:

        <IfModule mod_rendezvous_apple.c>
        RegisterUserSite all-users
        RegisterDefaultSite
        </IfModule>

        Quickly looking at /usr/libexec/httpd/mod_rendezvous_apple.so, looks like it has the three following options:

        RegisterDefaultSite
        Optionally, specify a port or keyword main; defaults to 80
        RegisterUserSite
        Specify a user name or the keyword all-users, optionally followed by a port or keyword main; default is 80
        RegisterResource
        Specify a path and a name under which to register, optionally followed by a port or keyword main; default is 80

      • Very helpful. Thanks. I ended installing PHP 4.3 though.

    • Re:Changes in httpd.conf (Score:3, Informative)

      by tweder ( 22759 )
      Updating to 10.2.4 replaced my Apache config file too, but simply uncommenting the PHP module in the new httpd.conf fixed it for me.

      I'm still running Apple's default PHP build rather than a new compilation.
    • Reverting the 'new' apache config back to my old apache config with:

      cp httpd.conf.applesaved httpd.conf

      then restarting apache did the trick.

    • . . . the update also modifies your syslogd.conf file without creating a backup for you . This is for the 0.002% of you out there, like myself, who might be doing some extra logging or just diverting firewall information to its own log file.

      Cheers!

  • short list of bugs? (Score:5, Informative)

    by cpeterso ( 19082 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:53PM (#5298362) Homepage
    I've always been impressed that Apple's patches for Mac OS X fix such a short list of not-too-serious bugs. Microsoft's Windows service packs, on the other hand, often fix hundreds of serious bugs. And Windows service packs seem to get increasingly unstable in later service packs.
    • I have IE 5.5 on my system. Every time I go into "Windows Update", the system says that "CRITICAL UPDATE: You must upgrade to IE6", but then they don't say WHY this is a critical update, other then it supports the MS marketing machine.

      I'll upgrade to 6 when it's a little more mature, thank you very much.
      • Um... granted, IE6 isn't really a revolutionary leap from IE5.5 (i.e. it doesn't add very many useful features), but how is it not "mature"? The image resizing shit that comes default is like the most retarded feature ever, but that can easily be disabled. After that, it's pretty much exactly the same as IE5.5 for most intents and purposes. What exactly is holding you back? How does Microsoft wanting you to upgrade from your free browser to a newer, presumably better version of your free browser support the Microsoft marketing machine? It's just a software upgrade.

    • Re:short list of bugs? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:32PM (#5298985) Journal
      Note that Apple don't appear (to me at least) to tell the truth about what bugs they've fixed. I think 10.1.2 was really buggy for me. It used to kernel panic, fail to wake up from sleep and generally be unreliable. With 10.1.3 these problems went away. No mention of any of this in the detailed description of what they'd fixed.

      • Re:short list of bugs? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bo-eric ( 263735 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:53PM (#5299099)
        If you want the really detailed changelog for why kernel panics go away, check the Darwin cvslog.
      • No mention of any of this in the detailed description of what they'd fixed.

        The gritty details generally are left out of any end-user documentation. For any complex system like a UNIX kernel, there will be hundreds or perhaps thousands of bug fixes from one release to another. Even Solaris, among the top ranks of UNIX, has many many fixes listed in their patch reports. It's just that Solaris is mature enough that very few people actually see those bugs, and Max OS X is on its way towards that sort of maturity--it'll just take some time.
  • "Rendezvous-enabled computers that have Personal Web Sharing turned on appear in the Safari Rendezvous bookmark collection."

    Taking a quick look at the Rendezvous bookmarks on Safari, I see a bookmark for each user made on my mac ("User's website") and then the one made by Eric Christopher [mac.com] is still present. Admitabally, it doesn't seem that they used Eric's mod, but I can't be 100% about it.
  • I've been encountering a problem in the Applications folder where, if I'm using the icons view style and I ask it to arrange the icons, it puts a large block of empty space between the top 2/3 and bottom 1/3 of my icons. Sometimes there's an app in the empty space, mostly not. Anyone know if this is a bug or just an undocumented "feature"? In any case, are there any workarounds?
  • Everything went smoothly I'm happy to report. I'm still going through my personal list of bugs to see how many of them were fixed, but it appears to be a solid release!

  • Bluetooth Serial Utility (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @07:18PM (#5298553)
    ... is included. Handy.
  • I did a remote/command line update and held my breath to see if the box would come back. It came up ok a few moments later. Apache seems ok...PERL is ok...PHP is broken. Nothing I can't fix.

  • What about laptop power management??? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm getting kind of tired of my iBook bitching at me that it's running on reserve power, when the battery is at more than 75% full. Even worse when it just goes to sleep with NO WARNING shortly after the spurious battery warning, and won't wake up until I plug it in.

    I know I'm not the only one who has seen these kinds of problems with OS X-- the iBook power management was rock-solid in OS 9.x.
  • How about fixing the random closing of connections to AFP Servers? Every install that I have seen seems to do this. I know that Apple is trying to phase out AFP, but shouldn't they support their own protocols?
  • Sigh...

    OS X Updates always kill PHP. I wish they would stop overwriting my httpd.conf and killing off my PHP setup.
  • No more beachball of boredom! Wheeeee!!!!!
    • Could you be more specific about the exact finder ftp bug of which you speak?

      I find that accessing ftp sites using the "connect to..." option is slow, and will only allow me to download (no uploads).

      I can't find any documentation anywhere about the OS X Finder's ftp functionality and what I should and should not be able to do. Any advice would be much appreciated.

      BTW I have not yet installed 10.2.4 (I'm not at my own machine right now), but if anybody could offer me any insight into this I'd be most grateful.

    • ...The Beachball of Rumination.

      You can't be bored when the beachball is spinning, just amuse yourself while it's working by making the dock animate. Magnify it, drag icons around, but don't drop them making the other icons slide around underneath.

      Sometimes I find myself doing it just for fun, and the next thing you know it's dawn, the birds are chirping and you've missed out on 6 hours of sleep.
  • Doesn't seem to break the third-party utils I use (FruitMenu and WindowShade X [unsanity.com] and LaunchBar [obdev.at]). Also doesn't restore my iBook 500 to pre-10.1.5 performance levels, but I need an excuse to get an AlBook anyway...
    • Anyone know if it breaks IOXperts USB webcam or 802.11b drivers?

      • I gave up waiting for a reply so I went ahead and loaded it. So to answer my own question in case anyone else was wondering... It runs perfectly fine with IOXperts drivers.
  • Maybe something is wrong with my Software Update, but it's not showing that there's an update available for OS X. It didn't show yesterday's Safari update, either--I had to download that from Apple's Web site manually.

    Or maybe it's the fact that I'm running OS X Server--does anyone know if the update to Server has come out yet?
  • This update doesn't appear in my Software Update preference pane. Nor did yesterday's Safari update. Is anyone else having this problem? Is it a problem with my Software Update, or is it the fact that I'm on OS X Server? Is the update for 10.2.4 Server not out yet? That still wouldn't explain the problem with the Safari update.

    Perhaps I should trash my Software Update prefs and try again.
  • Well, I just finished applying a bunch of system patches to my 2K box at work (no choice), and have witnessed, much to my dismay, the return of what I call the 'Instant Death' bug. I click, or open one of two applications (my two 'big' apps), then watch the memory count up on a black screen, with an energy star logo for entertainment. This happens 5-10 times a day, for the last 2 days since I updated.

    I just installed OS X 10.2.4 at home, and surely will do so tomorrow on the (good) machines at work! As per the usual with these things, I don't really notice what it did. And that is good.

    I mean really, since when should a system update f&#k so badly with the (presumably) graphics subsystems that it breaks, and breaks really, really badly, apps that have gotten along just fine for about a year?

    Now I am likely going to have to install 2K again from the CD, losing huge chunks of my preferences, hacks and such that had been running (stably ??) for the year, like the ones that disabled that horrid windows key that always to masquerade as an apple key (I do have a nice keyboard ; ) and made a control key like it should be (email me for this one, it is incredibly nice). Well, if I don't lose 'em, at least I am going to have to find every, single, bloody one of them that made that horrid os tolerable (though still not by choice).

    Just to bring things full circle, I did once have to re-install jaguar after having screwed pretty badly some of the boot files (completely my bad). I remember the horror when I realised that the only hope was a reinstall. I also remember the sheer joy as I discovered that every bloody single preference, login item, font, and what-not was exactly as I left it, and functioning perfectly.

    I always get excited at mac update time : )

    --

    "It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety." -- Isaac Asimov

  • 10.2.4 startup panic FIX (Score:5, Informative)

    by punka ( 81040 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @11:01PM (#5299560) Homepage
    Those of you that installed Apple's preview IP over Firewire drivers back in the day might have the same problem I did:

    Kernel panic upon reboot.

    Apparently they broke the kext's support in 'updating firewire'

    Just reboot holding down apple-s , that'll drop you into single-user mode, run the obligatory /sbin/fsck -y then /sbin/mount -uw /
    then get rid of the FirewireIP kext by
    mv /System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireIP.kext/ /
    Trash it or do what you will with it after you successfully reboot.
    Hope this helps!
  • 10.2.4 comes with AppleAirPort2.kext version 3.0.3. This version appears to perform an extra check designed to thwart those of us who have managed to get the 3.0.1 version of the driver to talk to Linksys WPC54G and WMP54G cards.

    If you have used this (admittedly unsupported) hack to get 802.11g for older hardware, you might want to move the 3.0.1 kext out of the way and put it back. At least until this extra check is found and neutralized.

  • It's the Sound Card Support I'm Interested In (Score:3, Informative)

    by Spencerian ( 465343 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @09:17AM (#5301434) Homepage Journal
    I haven't been able to confirm this beyond announcements and bits of scanning, but Mac OS X 10.2.3, and likely 10.2.4, adds basic driver support for the SoundBlaster Audigy and Extigy PCI sound cards.

    Some of you may remember that support for the Mac SoundBlaster Live card for OS X has been long in coming. But, perhaps, I'll be able to go home and toss in my SoundBlaster card and get 4.1 surround sound back.

    Or, if I had money, I'd just pick up an Audigy card normally branded for PCs, toss it in my Mac, and live the dream, baby. We'll see. Has anyone tried SoundBlaster cards with 10.2.3 or later?
  • After grudgingly downloading this via Software Update (network congestion?)... this installed nicely and blew away a list of bugz that I had personally.

    I am running a G3/300 Beige MT with 768MB RAM and OS X is (so far) running very nicely.

    So far so good... I too get excited when there are new Apple releases. :)

  • Civ players take note (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TravelSizedMonkey ( 585629 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @09:57AM (#5301753)
    From the "Other Enhancements" section:

    Improves compatibility with Firaxis Civilization III when the application's "Quartz text rendering" option is enabled.

    And who says Apple doesn't care about making the Mac a gaming platform?
  • Never saw the bug this update mentions fixing in the Finder, but it appears they've just replaced it with another one:

    Step 1) untar a set of files to your desktop via the terminal (possibly using GUI app too?).
    Step 2) single-click on one of the files to "verify that it's really there"... it is and is highlighted
    Step 3) perform exactly the same untar operation from the command line again
    Step 4) single-click on one/any/all of the files to "verify they're really there"... poof! it/they disappear, never to be seen again unless it is via the terminal (or you relaunch the Finder). This also happens if you click-drag to move them or click-drag to highlight multiple, as soon as you release the mouse-click... poof!
    Step 5) You're not insane, 'ls' from the terminal and sit back in awe.

    biting quips fail me on this one.

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