Mac OS X 10.5.3 To Fix Over 200 Bugs, Coming Soon 165
An anonymous reader writes "MacScoop reports that 'Apple has seeded several builds of its Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.3 update to developers during the past few weeks and just seeded yet another one numbered "9D34" earlier today.' The update fixes over two hundred bugs, weighs almost half a gigabyte and should be available soon."
I hope it's true (Score:3, Insightful)
Will they fix Spaces? Make X11 usable?
Once upon a time, you could buy an Apple product and expect it to work. Then the common wisdom became "as long as you don't get revision A, it should be okay". Now I'm to the point where I'm not even expecting the fucking fourth revision to work properly.
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What's wrong with Spaces (Score:5, Interesting)
If I already have a Terminal window in space 2 and want to create another one, this fact doesn't help because Spaces keeps track of the space the front-most window of an application is in. So even if there is a Terminal window in space 2 but a Terminal window in space 1 is more "front-most" than the one in space 2, then when I Command-Tab to switch to Terminal, I'll be brought back to space 1. Again, this isn't what I wanted.
The current behavior of Spaces whereby it auto-switches spaces or changes what the front-most app is (presumably to be "helpful"), IMHO, makes Spaces broken and unusable. Spaces should never automatically switch spaces nor change the front-most app no matter what (or at least have a Preference to make this the case).
I've been an Apple fan-boy since my Apple ][plus, but Leopard is the first version of OS X that I thought wasn't very compelling (and kind of broken) on release.
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Are you suggesting that the OS should focus some unknown windows on another desktop that's not currently visible to you? Such that if you were to switch to Terminal and start typing, you would be blinding typing into some unknown window?
Or are you suggesting that some new application behaviour should be created in which an application can be topped in some general
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Yes. However, it's not really a totally new application behavior. In most apps, I can have them front-most even if the app has no windows at all.
Re:What's wrong with Spaces (Score:5, Informative)
I think Anonymous Grump is referring to a hidden preference:
Disable Space switching on Command-Tab in 10.5.2 [macosxhints.com]
That might solve your problem of Command-Tab'ing to an application without changing Space. For me, I tend to open applications with the mouse. It'd be nice if I could tell Terminal and Camino to default to opening a new window on the current Space rather than transporting me to an open window on another Space. But I'm slowly forming the habit of opening new windows with right-clicks instead.
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Re:I hope it's true (Score:5, Informative)
1. Turn on full screen visualization in iTunes
2. Stop the music (or otherwise have iTunes to nothing)
3. Allow the computer to start the screen saver (or turn off the monitor )
4. Wake up the screen
If will now be exited from the visualization but the dock will be missing. My guess is that starting a full screen app sets a flag to hide the dock and the method I describe bypasses setting it back.
I was able to get the dock back by going into full screen visualization and then exiting it.
(* trying it again right now to make sure I'm not a liar)
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I would hope that Apple is rolling up the recent work on Xquartz so that X11 actually works. The Xquartz devs echo this hope, but don't seem to know anything.
Big Creepy Crawlies... (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps it will roll out piecewise like Vista SP1 and take only 65Mb to download on your average machine.
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Re:Big Creepy Crawlies... (Score:4, Interesting)
Vista/XP does very aggressive patching on windows update. If a Mac general end user who kept his/her system up to date with software update sees 10.5.3 , it will be almost 5x smaller (or even less) than the 500 mb you see.
Also, "Developer Seeds" may have symbols, debug stuff implemented on them, they are intended for developers and never cleaned up like end user shipments. It is never a "lets download, copy the what's new and leak to some site" kind of file release
I don't want to get in too much details but the Apple's userbase are known to change icons, remove/add languages thanks to unique HFS+ filesystem. On Mac land, you can only trust to binaries to patch. It is another reason why Apple or any Mac software vendor can't ship pure patches except binary patchers. For example, people keep changing safari.app icon, it is trivial on OS X since only the resource portion is changed or they remove languages (not good on Leopard btw) from their applications.
Re:Big Creepy Crawlies... (Score:5, Informative)
Rollback (Score:2)
Which, seems to me, is one of the reasons why rollback is non trivial. I think I might rather give up the delta and take larger files. With issues like 10.5.2 presented, it really seems better to either wait until the late dot releases or have some method of rollback available....
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Apple does do delta updates.
Which, seems to me, is one of the reasons why rollback is non trivial.
No, because updates with entire files are also available. Rollback is non-trivial because Apple is still busy with reinventing the functionality which already exists in most package management systems. Its current installer doesn't even fully support a plain uninstall operation (you can force it via the command line, but it still has several limitations), let alone rolling back an OS upgrade (although you could perform rollback already using Time Machine, I guess)
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The ability for software update to use delta updates was introduced in Mac OS X 10.3.4, as the support document I linked to implies (it's not li
Scanning... (Score:2)
Airport Scanning? (Score:2, Funny)
Leopard has been fine for me (Score:5, Informative)
I've been using 10.5 on two different machines for quite some time now, and I have had not had very many problems at all, and none since the 10.5.2 update.
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Since then, it's locked up maybe once a month. Which happened more regularly on Linux because of flash and firefox, anyway. Among other things. And actually, NEVER happened on my Windows XP SP2 (and pre-WGA) box, though every time I used it, it made me die a little inside.
All in all, Leopard is pretty freaking sweet.
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Overall things worked ok. X windows was more or less down, but that is has been a common problem, and I have moved away from depending on X. That said, I don't think 10.5 was functional until 10.5.1. We will see what
You don't do any audio then. (Score:2)
It introduced noise when trying the get any echo and/or reverb and generally screwed up recording from my Samson C01U USB microphone.
Its more of a PITA than anything else. I keep spares of working environments around. (I'd've been screwed if I hadn't learned something in 30 years of doing IT. [Don't trust 'em.])
Aluminium Keyboard Update Bug (Score:3, Interesting)
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Just 200 bugs? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Just 200 bugs? (Score:5, Informative)
http://httpd.apache.org/security/vulnerabilities_20.html [apache.org]
I see 3 vulnerabilities in Apache 2 right there.
My Leopard install is showing "OpenSSL 0.9.7l 28 Sep 2006" while my Debian machine is showing "OpenSSL 0.9.8g 19 Oct 2007". I imagine there might be a few bugs there, and it's late enough that it wouldn't have been released close enough to be included in 10.5.0.
Lets see in
Responding to you and the guy below, the reason that these bugs are 'so big' is that Apple isn't sending out a bunch of
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Actually, the bug there is in Debian, not OS X. It's rather serious, too, so you might want to check it out [debian.org]. If your machine is publically exposed and running SSH, it might have already been rooted.
Audio Problems in 10.5.2... (Score:4, Informative)
http://createdigitalmusic.com/tag/leopard/ [createdigitalmusic.com]
Now, note in particular that Digidesign's struggles aren't limited to Leopard (see, for example "Digidesign and M-Audio Drivers Fail to Keep Pace with Vista, Leopard, and XP SP3") -- I personally think Digi as a company has a problem. But they're not the only vendor mentioning audio issues in 10.5.2, and there are others like MOTU who haven't been explicitly complaining but have had product release delays (DP 6 was supposed to be out Q2).
Re:Just 200 bugs? (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a list [apcmag.com]
I bet one of them (Score:2)
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It's frustrating to reboot after quicktime updates, but there is a good reason for it. The whole point of quicktime is that it's a library used by many applications. Changing it out underneath them would, in the worst case, cause inconsistent or unpredictable behaviour, but even in the best case would not give them the benefits of the update.
Would you rather reboot or have your still-running browser continue to be vulnerable to a security vulnerability that you patched in quicktime months ago?
Bugs in Software Update (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggest problem I had, oddly, was with downloading software updates - the downloads would mysteriously stop after a few seconds or minutes (and not due to loss of network connectivity - a Windows box on the same network was able to download stuff rock solid, at the same time), and would never resume. Had to do some kind of Mac voodoo (Restore Permissions, or something like that) to fix it. So I'm a little concerned about even being ABLE to download a 500 MB software update, due to bugs in the software...
JRjr
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Run Terminal (if you don't want to buy a dl manager), get the "combo" with curl (all OS X 'es have it,pre installed) or use a user friendly extension to firefox like "flashgot" which can use curl. Just launch the installer from DMG.
The good thing is, you can write it to a CD-RW or USB Key. I always keep last "combo release" on a backup disk replacing the previous one. It is also a great favor to Mac using friends if they come by.
Another thing
Fixes (Score:5, Informative)
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What I have seen more of is "Identity Crisis" as I run Parallels, Spaces and RDC. Keyboard shortcuts that do one thing in one environment, do something else in another. Try running IE in Parallels and press F11 to go full-screen. Exposé takes over and ZOOP! Everything heads to th
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My understanding is that this is a major factor in miserable performance when starting and stopping virtual machines.
Critical bug (Score:4, Funny)
Thank Jobs, they fixed this:
Text-to-Speech and Hysterical voice no longer causes hang
Now my business can finally make the switch to 10.5.
Friendly Reminders (Score:2, Informative)
The biggest problem anyone will have with an 10.4 to 10.5 upgrade is installing 10.5 over the 10.4 installation. Welcome to Pain, here's your pitchfor
Re:Friendly Reminders (Score:5, Informative)
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It can be fixed with "Repair ACL permissions" implemented on the "reset password utility" on Leopard boot DVD easily but that is one thing I figured they aren't very selective hiring people. They should hire people who
One Fix is for 802.1X (Score:2, Informative)
Wonder if it'll be Hackintosh-ready? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmmm, I hope this update works with my Thinkpad T60p Hackintosh! I will of course play it safe and let some other sucker^H^H^H^H^H^H brave soul try it on their box first...
...as long as they fixed the AirPort problems... (Score:2)
--Tomas
Re:Service pack 3? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Service pack 3? (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest improvement with 10.5 is that Spotlight now actually works. In 10.4 it was so slow that I could generally find files faster without it. With 10.5 it is fast enough to be useful.
I keep my dock on the left side, attached to the top-left corner, and the 10.5 dock is about as nice as the 10.4 one, just different. Most of the visual 'improvements' make things worse. The transparent menu bar is hideous with most background colours. The larger drop shadows are okay, but they don't really make up for the fact that the new style gives less of a visual clue as to which window is raised (I've typed things in the wrong window a lot more often since upgrading). There are lots of little regressions, particularly in the text system (CoreText is definitely not ready for prime time) and especially with Rosetta.
The new Preview is very nice - I now use it exclusively, where I used to use 3 different apps for PDFs, and Quick Look and Coverflow are both nice for browsing the filesystem, although I don't use them very often. Support for ODF in TextEdit is definitely useful for small docs, since OO.o takes forever to launch.
I do, however, find I am using fewer and fewer Mac-only apps, so I am not sure if my next computer will be a Mac.
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Transparent Menubar (Score:2)
Fortunately you can disable this from the Desktop & Screensaver preferences in 10.5.2 and later.
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What are you talking about? My File Vault disk image is 30GB (or was, before I upgraded to 10.5) and I never had to decrypt the whole thing. That's how block device encryption works - you only encrypt or decrypt the blocks you are accessing. With any relatively modern hard CPU, I/O, not encryption, is the bottleneck. On my MBP, openssl speed aes tells me that I can get about three times my internal disk's typical sustained throughput using a single core (and there's no reason why alternate blocks couldn
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http://www.innermindmedia.com/dock_doctor_app.html [leoparddocks.com]
http://leoparddocks.com/ [leoparddocks.com]
Re:Service pack 3? (Score:5, Funny)
hey kids, get your durn iPods off my lawn!
$backup_disk? (Score:2)
Re:Service pack 3? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know if this will be helpful, but I found I liked the Leopard dock better after running:
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock
It gets rid of the 3D look and gives the same look that the dock takes when you move it to the side of the screen.
Re:Service pack 3? (Score:4, Funny)
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And if you say "just open a .reg I sent you", I'll happily answer "just copy/paste the command I gave you".
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Are you kidding? This is an unsupported interface tweak-- the command line is just a quick way to make the change. There are several ways to make this change, including downloading a freeware utility that lets you tweak your system.
Personally, I think this is *exactly* the way things like this should be handled. Give people an interface for making the most common tweaks, and expose the more complicated tweaks in such a way that 3rd party developers can come up with other ways to handle it. That way, yo
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Are you kidding? This is an unsupported interface tweak-- the command line is just a quick way to make the change. There are several ways to make this change, including downloading a freeware utility that lets you tweak your system.
Isn't all this stuff just stored in an XML plist file? I haven't looked into the magical files of OSX since 10.2 and haven't used 10.5 at all really (I've seen it...) but isn't there a plist editor that works, you know, kind of like regedit? (Or like gconf-editor) So can't you do basically the same thing you'd do on Windows, too?
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`:() {
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Personally, I've not felt that 10.5 is that big of a change from 10.4, which has always made it extra strange that it is that buggy.
The biggest improvements and changes in Leopard are all under the hood which lead to the marketing problem of "How do we sell it?" Time Machine was the answer, but it's hardly the best new feature.
Beneath the skin you have real 64-bit support and resolution independence in the system libraries, plus actual POSIX compliance. These are huge things that obviously took a lot of work and the kinks are still being ironed out.
Unfortunately, the benefits of all this forward looking support won't be realized u
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Using a lower-level snapshot (block/stripe level) would be more useful, as only the changed blocks/stripes would need to be stored. And more advanced volume management lets you br
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10 isn't really part of the version number, it's part of the name).
No, it's definitely part of the version number, just like the leading 5 (or now, 6) in Windows version numbers. What it's not is the major release number (that's the second, just like in Windows).
The breakdown is very simple: Generation.Major_release.Minor_release, with build numbers appended to that. Windows does an almost identical pattern Win2k (5.0), WinXP (5.2), etc. MS's numbering is non-sequential, but it's not really any different. Hell, Windows 7.0 is actually being called Windows 7 for now.
'
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Mac:
10.3 = Panther, 10.4 = Tiger, 10.5 = Leopard.
The fact that the name changes should be a big indicator for you that this is a major release, not just a 'point' release.
If you don't like the marketting way of looking at things, think of it from the software management side of things - APIs don't chan
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Mac:
10.3 = Panther, 10.4 = Tiger, 10.5 = Leopard.
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Yes, and maybe you might want to explain why two applications with no common code should nevertheless share a common numbering system???
Huh? Are you objecting to the comparison between Windows major version releases and Mac major version releases? The details about what constitutes a major version, a minor version, or a point release vary significantly between different software projects. However, that doesn't change the fact that all of the OS X releases are major version number 10.
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Hey, I don't know about you, but a major release of an OS for me is when the underlying APIs have major changes.
Good, I'm glad you've settled that for all of us. Now, in the real world, it isn't so simple. What constitutes a "major change" to an API?
The project I work on the most is gcc, where a minor version release (such as the upcoming 4.4) includes all sorts of new features, some of which might be backwards incompatible. I don't know what will constitute the next "major" gcc release, though some developers advocated switching the major number to 5 to indicate the change from the GPLv2 to the GPLv3.
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I use "major changes to the API" as my heuristic for a major release of an OS because developers need a stable OS to code against. I would probably use a similar heuristic when talking about platforms in general (Java, or Flash, as examples). I make no claims about what should be considered a major release for other types of software, such as GCC, Microsoft Word, or GTA4.
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To which (it was directly quoted in your reply) you rambled on about what you have done with gcc. Now, I was paying you the courtesy of assuming that your reply was actually, like, you know, relevant. Of course, if you are now trying to tell me that your previous post was just irrelevant rambling that should be ignored, hey, fair enough. Considered it duly ignored.
If on the other hand
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In any case, Apple's documentation contradicts your claims:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=564973&cid=23560319 [slashdot.org]
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You make statement A:
I make statement B, which is not in rebuttal to your statement A, or otherwise linked to it.
You respond by making statement C, as a direct rebuttal to my statement B.
I point out that Statement C is irrelevant to my statement B.
You respond by pointing out that your Statement C is in agreement with your Statement A.
I'm left wondering why you would think that:
a) this would interest me, and
b) how this demonstrates that your Statement C was neither irrelevant nor
Re:Service pack 3? (Score:5, Informative)
The major system version number.
For example, in 10.4.12, this would be the decimal value 10. Available in Mac OS X v10.3 and later.
Declared in Gestalt.h
gestaltSystemVersionMinor
The minor system version number. For example, in 10.4.12, this would be the decimal value 4.
Available in Mac OS X v10.3 and later.
Declared in Gestalt.h
gestaltSystemVersionBugFix
The bug fix version number. For example, in 10.4.12, this would be the decimal value 12.
Available in Mac OS X v10.3 and later.
Declared in Gestalt.h
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The fact that the name changes should be a big indicator for you that this is a major release, not just a 'point' release.
Did you not even read my comment?
I never claimed it was a "point" release or in any way a non-major release, and your "explanation" is not Apple's system of numbering.
Generation.Major_release.Minor_release
10.5.2.
Work it out. Troll, indeed. Windows 5 included several different kernels and 3 different products. The Windows 2003 base, in fact, was recycled into later XP service packs. Perhaps if you can muster the brain cells to comprehend this, you wouldn't have to be such a dick.
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On the other hand, just try running software written for Leopard on Tiger. Under the bonnet, these two version of Mac OS X are massively different, with the intro
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And if you use your mobile phone for dial up, there are much cheaper alternatives, even for minimal daily browsing
Re:A few corrections to OP (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Service pack 3? (Score:5, Interesting)
People still have dial up? I expect that Apple would ship disks on request but I wouldn't expect them for free. I've never had Apple refuse a reasonable service request but I've never asked for that. Also I'll bet you can download a PPC or X86 (or a version for a specific sort of Mac like my cube) which is substantially smaller. That universal binary thing is really, really nice (my 8 core mac pro can boot from the same hard drive as my Quad PPC G5 and my PPC G4 Cube) but it makes things twice as large.
I would say that sane Mac users will ignore this news and wait until the software update app on their Mac alerts them. Really smart users will postpone that for while to see if there are a rash of catastrophes caused by the update⦠even if there is a bug fix or update they are interested in.
Re:Service pack 3? (Score:4, Informative)
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But really, why not simply use auto-configured addresses?
Re:I hope they finally fixed IPv6 now... (Score:4, Informative)
Posting as Anonymous Coward because I've already modded this thread and don't want to waste the mod points, but I also want to be helpful.
You can quite easily configure static IPv6 addresses via System Preferences. It's not all that hard. Here's how:
That wasn't so hard, now was it?
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That wasn't so hard, now was it?
Not at all! It'd be even easier if that actually worked. Here's the entirety of my bug report to Apple (#5604804 if you have access to such things):