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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Upgrades Apple

Apple Updates Panther Via Software Update 89

Posted by pudge from the and-it-softens-butter-without-melting-it dept.
arobase writes "Apple releases update to Panther thru Software Update. The build number changes from 7A179 to 7A202. Updates Mail, Exposé and iChat."
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Apple Updates Panther Via Software Update More

Apple Updates Panther Via Software Update

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  • updates to closed developer betas make news now? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RalphBNumbers ( 655475 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @12:31AM (#6422314)
    So they've updated a closed developer beta that only a few thousand people have legally, and this is news?

    If you want to talk about closed betas of Apple's upcoming updates, at least talk about the recent one that fixes the screensaver character buffer bug that got plastered all over /. a few days ago. It isn't all that important either, but at least it serves as a good followup.

  • Who cares? (Score:1, Troll)

    by GoRK ( 10018 ) *
    Of course they update it via Software Update. It is, after all, their software update service. It's not even out yet. Big fuckin deal.

  • What? (Score:5, Funny)

    by lnoble ( 471291 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @03:07AM (#6422811)
    I don't have Panther you insensitive-clod.

  • This just in! Exclusive news story! Stop presses! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 12, 2003 @06:20AM (#6423137)
    Other related breaking stories brought to you by the newshounds at Slashdot:
    • Microsoft [microsoft.com] updates Windows via Windows Update [microsoft.com]
    • Debian [debian.org] updates Linux via apt-get
    • The FreeBSD Project [freebsd.org] updates FreeBSD via make world
    • The Santa Cruz Operation [sco.com] updates SCO UNIX via lawsuits
    • Other hot upgrade methods will be brought to you by Slashdot as we receive further information from our sources here at /.

  • new update nice... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 12, 2003 @07:38AM (#6423266)
    I have the new Panther and the new update was very welcome. The changes made that I have noticed are a bit more stable (hasn't unexpectedly quit anything since, versus a couple of times before). Also, one cool feature is that in mail when you type in an email that matches someone in your Addr. Book or someone in your email list then it creates a button like image (like the new icon text with bgcolors). It makes it really simple and clean!

    Panther rocks. If you don't have it, please don't be bitter. Be patient, it will come.

  • the reason why they'd do this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by goodchef ( 213729 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @10:14AM (#6423666) Journal
    There would seem to be no compelling reason to use software update for a patch that's for a still-developers-only product. 1) It does make it easier for those developers to get it. But the bigger reason I see is that since pretty much everyone who has Panther will install this, Apple would get a decent count of the number of installed copies of Panther, and from that a fairly decent estimate of the amount of piracy.

    Personally, I could download it, but I'll just wait until August when they release it. One of the big reasons I like Macs so much is that they just work, and installing a prerelease version of an OS while they're still tweaking it and fixing bugs means goodbye to that.

    • Re:the reason why they'd do this (Score:5, Interesting)

      by soullessbastard ( 596494 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @11:20AM (#6423940) Homepage Journal
      Well, there may be more people who have Panther legally then just WWDC attendees. Apple does have a Software Seeding Program [apple.com] which has been around for years. While I don't have a seeding key to be a member of the program any longer, I expect Panther builds are part of it.

      Not all WWDC attendees are necessarily in the seeding program to download updates to prelrelease software, so there is a valid reason aside from piracy tracking to put the update in Software Update instead of just in the seeding site.

      Still, even if you are tempted to download and install illegally, or if you have it legally and are thinking of installing it on your main machine, there's a good reason not to use it except on test machines. Read the license carefully...one of the sections of the license implies that the OS and dev tools are time limited and will stop functioning after a certain date.

      The only folks I can see this hurting are those who don't heed the recommendations of putting seed software only on test machines, or those who got Panther betas illegally and didn't bother to read the fine print.

      There are also rumors that you will not be able to install 10.3 GM on a machine running one of the prereleases. A friend at a large company told me that their company recommended that their employees be very careful about where they install Panther previews and to not put it on their main work machines.

      I'd conjecture that the workaround is to go back, reinstall a clean copy of 10.2, then put GM on there (or other OS when the preview expires). But no one can be certain until the day 10.3 GM comes.

      Remember, Panther is beta software for testing purposes. Given what I've learned, I'd caution everyone to treat it as such.

      • Re:the reason why they'd do this (Score:4, Informative)

        by Shishio ( 540577 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @07:28PM (#6425622)

        But no one can be certain until the day 10.3 GM comes.

        Well, the license agreement and the instructions in the installer specifically state that the developer release will not be upgradeable to the full release. So, we can definitely expect not being able to upgrade. I still have it installed, of course, but on separate partitions on work machines and on the main partition only on a test machine.
        • i feel that the real reason Apple allowed the seed of Panther to flourish over BitTorrent is that it gives the development teama gigantic beta tester system. They pretty much know what forums to monitor for feedback , usually intelligent and insightful, as the average user has no idea of how to obtain the dev version.
          Apple benefits greatly from the distribution of the Panther builds. Of course the dev build will have to be repalced by the ultimate final release, but that's okay.
          • I suspect if they wanted to they could build a large legal testing team that had valid channels to report bugs. Does anyone else remember that OS X 10.0 Beta program [macopz.com] sold CDs to people to join the beta program for like $10-$20? It was right after DP4 (which was seeding program only, I think).

            I expect they don't shut down the torrents not because they want beta testers, but just because the distributed nature of torrents makes them hard to shut down without a very active team of people trying to always f

          • "They pretty much know what forums to monitor for feedback , usually intelligent and insightful,"

            You gotta be shittin me!

            Which forums would these be, pray tell?

      • Wish it were so (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Lysol ( 11150 ) *
        I'm part of the seeding program and I can guarantee you 1000% that neither Apple's Xcode nor Panther are available on the ADC or via the developer DVD - last one I just got was for July '03.

        As I understand it, the *only* people that got copies of Panther, possibly besides corporate partners, were people that attended the WWDC. After watching the keynote at the Apple store in SOHO, I was bouncing off the walls for weeks trying to get a copy. But now, even tho it's avail as a torrent, it's like, meh, I'll wa

    • Re:the reason why they'd do this (Score:5, Insightful)

      by phillymjs ( 234426 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMstango.org> on Saturday July 12, 2003 @02:07PM (#6424624) Homepage Journal
      There would seem to be no compelling reason to use software update for a patch that's for a still-developers-only product.

      How about this reason: To test the new Software Update control panel?

      I have only given my downloaded copy of Panther a cursory playing-with on my spare G4, but I can tell you that Software Update is quite different from the one in Jaguar-- you can opt to have the computer automatically install "important" updates, and there are a few other changes that have been made.

      ~Philly

    • Re:the reason why they'd do this (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I thought about this before installing the update... But then I just decided to install it anyway. I am a member of apple's developer connection, but not a paid member. I wish there was a way to get in on the Beta program without paying $1500, because I've found several bugs with it that I have not been able to find anyone mention on the message boards.

      I fully plan on buying Panther when it's released, but I wish Apple would allow me to contribute to their product to help track down bugs.
    • wait until August when they release it

      Where did you get that information? I was told by 2 Apple reps that there was no release date, only that it would be ready by the end of the year. After running the beta for a few weeks August seems a little optimistic.
  • Does this fix the Exposé issues on the G3? I had panther, but decided it was too early to really use properly.. Also can you any of the mozilla variants?
    • I am using Expose on a G3 with no problems. As for mozilla, I don't know, with Safari I have no need to download mozilla.
      • Did you have a problem originally...? I have a g3 600mhz imac... and exposé did not fully work... so the question is did you have a problem before and have the update fix it? or are you just giving me useless info?
        also another issue is mame doesnt work properly, neither does snes9x... add to that the mozilla issue, inability to backup and a handful of other minor issues, im very weary in trying to reinstall this.

        • Re:Exposé on G3's (Score:2, Insightful)

          by neverkevin ( 601884 )
          I have never had a problem with expose or any other Apple program on my 600mhz iBook. However, the Cisco VPN software is really buggy in 10.3b and I have had 2 system crashes pre update (1 crash toasted a few files on the harddrive). I talked to the local Apple rep about 10.3, he said they are still very much in the development process and that Apple know how buggy this release is. He also said they expect it to ship by the end of the year, so being about 5 months away from ship date, you can't really expec

  • Setting the Software Update Timing? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NaugaHunter ( 639364 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @11:28PM (#6426369)
    Has anyone found a way to manually set when the update will check? If you check manually, it sets itself forward by day/week/month according to your setting but at the current time. The problem is occasionaly I'll be surfing at an odd hour (read: 3AM Saturday), see that an update has been released, and kick off the updater. It then resets itself to check the following Saturday, 3AM. I've looked through various preference files and a couple of sites I thought might have something.

    For the record, it is possible to change the time to the current time by changing the Daily/Weekly/Monthly option and changing it back. Unfortunately this resets the counter - I tried it know and even though it last checked 4 days ago it now won't check until next Sunday morning.

    So if anyone has found this, or is better at looking, I'm betting I'm not the only one that would like to know. (I tried looking for files that changed today with the time I changed it, but either a) I did my search poorly or b) it's saved in a system file with other preferences that doesn't get updated immediately.) I suppose it's possible it's only saved in PRAM, but I'm not sure how to find that how - maybe someone with more Developer access could ask around.

    And yes, changing the current date/time, moving the D/W/M setting, and then resetting the time would work. But that's crazy talk. I can appreciate the logic that Joe User will most likely check the first time at a time they'd normally be on, but not all of our usage schedules are that orderly. It wouldn't have hurt them to give the option of specifying it exactly, so you can check manually occasionally but not reset the automatic scheduling.
    • You could do with with cron and the command line software update program. But the time it checks shouldn't really matter, it will cache that there are new updates and bug you the next time you login or the next scheduled time. If your computer is off when it was scheduled to run it will check as soon you login. You shouldn't miss anything.
  • Its a good thing I have 10.3...

    Oh, wait...

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