Snow Leopard observations

[phila]

Firstly it is FAST!!!!    Well at least on my 2008 MacPro (16GB RAM). The way windows, scrolling and other general Finder behaviour operate is noticeably quicker.

No obvious problems with Photoshop CS3 or Lightroom 2.2.

Canon Pro9000 - OK

Epson V700 - OK

Canon FS4000 (via VueScan) - OK

Firmtek 4-bay enclosure (via Sertek PCI eSATA cards) - OK

Canon iPF5100 - No go. New drivers required. Full 64bit driver for *000 & *100 printers (and Photoshop Plug-in) due around Oct 9th it appears.

Needed to reselect my monitor profile.

I have a SuperDuper backup (which is why I was happy to install SL so soon) I can boot into for iPF5100 printing, or if anything else rears its ugly head, but it will be a hardship to do so, the improvement is so noticeable!

By the way I did a Customised (removed non-English languages, X-11 etc) standard Install over the top of 10.5.8. I've always done Archive&Install before but was curious to see see how the default Install worked. Rosetta was installed via Software Update after the OS install. I don't know how much is due to the smaller OS and how much was the removal of incompatible software (you're told some has been removed, but not what) but I recovered 38GB of space! Note that SL has changed how space is shown. The OS now uses 1000MB = 1GB, not 1024. Also the Mac default gamma has changed from 1.8 to 2.2. It's like loosing the dogcow!  

[Josh-H]

Firstly it is FAST!!!!    Well at least on my 2008 MacPro (16GB RAM). The way windows, scrolling and other general Finder behaviour operate is noticeably quicker.

No obvious problems with Photoshop CS3 or Lightroom 2.2.

Canon Pro9000 - OK

Epson V700 - OK

Canon FS4000 (via VueScan) - OK

Firmtek 4-bay enclosure (via Sertek PCI eSATA cards) - OK

Canon iPF5100 - No go. New drivers required. Full 64bit driver for *000 & *100 printers (and Photoshop Plug-in) due around Oct 9th it appears.

Needed to reselect my monitor profile.

I have a SuperDuper backup (which is why I was happy to install SL so soon) I can boot into for iPF5100 printing, or if anything else rears its ugly head, but it will be a hardship to do so, the improvement is so noticeable!

By the way I did a Customised (removed non-English languages, X-11 etc) standard Install over the top of 10.5.8. I've always done Archive&Install before but was curious to see see how the default Install worked. Rosetta was installed via Software Update after the OS install. I don't know how much is due to the smaller OS and how much was the removal of incompatible software (you're told some has been removed, but not what) but I recovered 38GB of space! Note that SL has changed how space is shown. The OS now uses 1000MB = 1GB, not 1024. Also the Mac default gamma has changed from 1.8 to 2.2. It's like loosing the dogcow!  

Likewise have installed Snow Leopard on my Mac Pro w/ 32gig ram - and its uber FAST.

I have not yet tried printing to my IPF5100 - but sounds like a new driver is required.

I also Super Duper'd my mac before the upgrade just in case.

Edit - Confirmed - 5100 no go under Snow Leopard. Tried to print from Lightroom, but the driver is clearly inoperable as only half the needed settings show up in the print settings dialogue.

I hear the rumour is October 9th for 64 bit X100 series Canon drivers for Snow Leopard. Lets hope its before then - I have stuff to print!

[mmurph]

I don't know how much is due to the smaller OS and how much was the removal of incompatible software (you're told some has been removed, but not what)

Adobe has said they can reduce their code by more than 50% just by eliminating Power PC support.  I would assume that also accounts for a good portion of the space recovery?

Obviously a lot of other cahnges invoolved, but that may account for most of the space.

Michael

[francois]

Adobe has said they can reduce their code by more than 50% just by eliminating Power PC support.  I would assume that also accounts for a good portion of the space recovery?
…

Correct, most of the space saving comes from the removal of PPC code. Some "old" technologies have also been eliminated (ex: AppleTalk).

[ashley]

Correct, most of the space saving comes from the removal of PPC code. Some "old" technologies have also been eliminated (ex: AppleTalk).

I should be getting snow leopard delivered some time next week and I am looking forward to it. My gut feeling tells me that most things should still work pretty well and hopefully there will be a notable lift in speed, though I am sad it can't be installed on my still very usable G5. The key areas I suspect there may be troubles relate to the printer driver for my Epson R1800, so I shall certainly keep a copy of 10.5.8 backed up via SuperDuper! in the short term.

[Tgrain]

If you're still running Tiger no need to pay $169 for the "pack".  The $29 Snow leopard install disk worked perfectly on my intel imac previously running  Tiger 10.4.8

[francois]

If you're still running Tiger no need to pay $169 for the "pack".  The $29 Snow leopard install disk worked perfectly on my intel imac previously running  Tiger 10.4.8

Snow Leopard will even install on a freshly erased drive  

[John.Murray]

A bit of a train wreck for me so far ......

A few things I absolutely depend on are broken:

Cisco VPN Client
HP Z3100 Printing
HP B9180 Colors are wrong
Apple's Server Admin Tools no longer work (!)

Obviously, things will get sorted soon, this *is* a new O/S, kinda reminds me of my experience with Vista.....

[knweiss]

Cisco VPN Client

I'm not using Cisco VPN Client by myself but SL now includes native support for Cisco IPsec VPN connections
(the VPN Type is called "Cisco IPsec" in the Network Preferences). So you should not need the Cisco VPN client anymore.

[BernardLanguillier]

More info here:

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....rt=#entry305846

As of now:

- DxO, Autopano Pro 2.0, Capture NX2 all have issues,
- Apps like Photomatix, Bento, Scrivener,... all need available updates to be fully usable,
- It seems that Atto now has SL compatible drivers and flash update utility for their SCSI cards.

I am currently delaying installing SL on my prod machine, works fine on the family iMac.

Cheers,
Bernard

[John.Murray]

I'm not using Cisco VPN Client by myself but SL now includes native support for Cisco IPsec VPN connections
(the VPN Type is called "Cisco IPsec" in the Network Preferences). So you should not need the Cisco VPN client anymore.

One of my clients uses an RSA "thumbdrive" keygen, this access type is not support by any "generic" VPN client, including Windows.  FWIW, I had the same issue when Vista was released...

[Colorwave]

A few things I absolutely depend on are broken:
HP Z3100 Printing
HP B9180 Colors are wrong

I haven't upgraded yet myself, but I'm curious if you have downloaded the new drivers from Software Update (not the HP site).  Others have reported that working for them, although I haven't heard much about the B9180.  I have both printers, so I'm following this with interest.

[francois]

Apple has updated the Server software tools: http://support.apple.com/downloads/Server_Admin_Tools_10_6

[BernardLanguillier]

Open/Save issues found with PS CS4...

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/

Crash at save is the worst possible bug, it should make migration to SL an absolute NO GO for now.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Dave Dunham]

Open/Save issues found with PS CS4...

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/

Crash at save is the worst possible bug, it should make migration to SL an absolute NO GO for now.

Cheers,
Bernard

[BernardLanguillier]

Yes, I am totally amazed that Apple doesn't stress this issue more.

Mac World is also totally silent about it... great to see independant press at its best.  

According to Adobe, the problem is widespread and not limited to Adobe applications.

Having issues is understandable, but not communicating openly about an issue of this importance makes me deeply question my commitment to OSX as a platform. This is totally irresponsible and would make the first page of the New York Times if MS did half of that.

Cheers,
Bernard

[digitaldog]

Open/Save issues found with PS CS4...
Crash at save is the worst possible bug, it should make migration to SL an absolute NO GO for now.

Not crashing for me. And yes, as posted, SL is really fast!

[Josh-H]

Not crashing for me. And yes, as posted, SL is really fast!

Not crashing for me either. No problems saving files in CS4 *touch-wood*

[BernardLanguillier]

Not crashing for me either. No problems saving files in CS4 *touch-wood*

It is probably a combination of factors.

Cheers,
Bernard

[ashley]

On the whole Snow Leopard is working out pretty well for me since I first installed it on Monday. Most of it seems very much the same before, however certain Apple optimised applications are now greasy fast. This bodes well for CS5 when it's eventually released.

A few 3rd party options I had have mysteriously been deleted such as one that was used to cancel the start up sound. Very strangely and rather annoyingly it also removed my canned Epson printing profiles which were bang on the money for colour accuracy with my R1800 and better than some custom profiles I had made. I looked in Time Machine but anything done before the upgrade to snow leopard has disappeared. Epson had some profiles on their site, but the names have changed and for whatever reason there appears to be a small difference in the results I am seeing which are now a little darker. I also had to recalibrate my monitor following the upgrade.

For the space saving, installing Snow Leopard reclaimed a whopping 58 gigs of hard drive. I shall have to give it all more time but on the whole it's looking good and dare I say it, what Leopard should have been like when it was released. I have experienced crashes though while exporting PDF files from Pages and when importing messages from Entourage into Mail.