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Running 146 days
without a restart.

A Survivor’s Guide To OS X by Jack Shedd

Apparently, I’m just not a forward thinker.

Or, so numerous emails and message board posts have told me. It seems that asking Apple to stick by the Mac interface is, and I quote here,

“ ...completely ass-backwards and ignorant of you. “

Of course, this comes from an email where, within the next few breathes, the author tells me that, again, quoting,

“...Mac SO X gives you the option to use the platinum interface if you want to.”

Now, while I won’t name names, this email, as well as the other 50 or so, noted a pattern in OS X “ forward thinkers”. Most of them have never used OS X, in any of its forms. Using the rather vague and obscure propaganda from Apple, these users have begun to look forward, and defend, and OS they have no experience in. Their faith in Apple is so undeniably firm, that if Apple were to hand them DOS, they would call it intuitive.

Then again, I’ve only used OS X for a few short hours at a time. On each developer release I loaded it, used it, and went back to OS 9. Did I ever really give the OS a chance to find its way into my cold, cold technical heart?

I thought about this for a few long hours on Monday evening, and, after about 3 litters of Dr. Pepper and two runs to Taco Bell, I decided to do what any self-respecting geek would do; I’d live in this new OS.

This is an official experiment.

First, I picked the machine to use.

Now, Apple says the new OS will run on any Apple G3 machine. Now, being a pundit of the Mac that I am, I have four different machines I could use. One is a beige G3 tower with 256 MB. While this would test Apple’s system requirement specs, I remember what Windows 95 ran like with 16 MB of RAM on a Pentium 66.

I’ll avoid that.

Next, there’s a G4 450 Sawtooth with 312 MB of RAM and an DMA 66 40 Gig in it. Ha, Apple, I’m sure you’d love me to test on this badboy. OS X would fly. But, how many people actually have these beasts? Not bloody many.

Then, there’s a 4400 with a G3 upgrade card. Technically, Apple does not support my 4400 frankenstein, so no to that.

Now, last on the list, a Powerbook G3 Lombard with 128MB of RAM. Perfect.
This is about the middle of what Apple’s specifications allow for, and, for a power user like me, this is what I will need to get things done.

Machine chosen, I then begin the install process. First, I’ve decided not to use the Classic environment. At all.

Now, while Classic support is a big apple push, my opinion stands that the Classic environment is still essentially emulation. I hate emulation with a bitter passion. No Classic.

If I am to experience OS X, I will experience only OS X enabled Applications.

I start up from an OS 9 CD to format my drive, since Apple’s lovely Mac OS X CD does not boot you into a Desktop, but instead, simply into an installer. You can format through this, however, the first three times I tried this, the installer errored out on me. After hovering over my computer with a gallon of kerosine and a match, I decided to try this route.

Wiped my drive, formatted with HFS+.

Okay, back to the installer. I start up from the OS X CD immediately after restarting from my hard drive format. I never boot into OS 9I installed the whole thing in about fifteen minutes. I’m still peeved that OS X PB does not support my Lombard’s SCSI port, however, this is a Beta, and I will let it slide. I have other SCSI machines at my disposable, and I have a network.

OS X installed.
OS X Booted.

Next, we run the lovely setup assistant.

Enter in all my information.

Note on the setup assistant; these things have always annoyed me. This one doesn’t. It’s fast, fairly good descriptions, and options for unusual setups.

With the parameters installed, I boot into OS X fully.
First things first, I get everything setup the way I like it.

I tweak the dock to a smaller size, with medium magnification. After all of Jobs hype for this, I’ve decided to use it, though, and I’ll admit this, it’s mostly for show. Everyone whose seen the Dock gives a type of “wow” expression; nice to have. Impresses the ladies.

Now, before I did all of the above, I dumped all of my files across to a network drive. I realize now that about 90% of my documents are in Word 98 format. Microsoft’s Office (even 2001) is not carbonized. Hmmm...

I run over to my 4400 and load MacLink Plus, and batch convert everything to AppleWorks. I’m sure this will cause me problems later, however, for now, this will work.

Back on track, I begin to install the applications I need.

I hit an ouch factor with my Lotus Notes. I can’t use it. I’ve configured web access on my Domino server, so, in theory, I can use it through IE 5.

Nope.

Java in IE 5 is about as reliable as a mechanic hepped up on crack trying to change my tire; I need another solution. I download OmniWeb 4.0.5 and install it.

OS X’s installer goes beyond just nice. This is how all installers should look and behave. It’s simple, and fast. Thumbs up.

Notes still isn’t running it’s Java Applets in OmniWeb. Anger.

%$^& it. I’ll use a POP client, and ignore my schedule.
I set notes to email me when someone schedules me for something, as well as email alerts, and configure Apple’s Mail application.

Mail works flawlessly as a POP client. It’s IMAP client could use some serious tweaking, as I could never get it to properly pull mail. POP is not my favorite, as I get huge attachments, but, it will do.

Next, I install AppleWorks 6.0.4. Now, AppleWorks does not feature an OS X installer, so, instead, I install it onto my 4400 and drag it across. It seems to work, however, unlike many of the other applications in OS X, it is not “bundled”.

A downfall, but an understandable one, as this was designed to run under OS 9.

Now, with all the above, I have my basic applications ready to go.

I still need graphic apps though, as I often have to help the designers. I find Stone Design’s Super Seven Suite, download and install. Not the best thing in the world ( I spend a good hour just figuring out how to use Create properly ), however, this will do.

Next, I copy across my MP3’s and create a playlist in Apple’s Music Player. Music Player works next to flawlessly as a multithreading App. The only hiccup occurs for about a second after an application begins to draw its windows.
Not perfect, but it works.

So, here I am, battling OS X, and only OS X. No Classic apps. Only carbon and Cocoa, meaning all those people who are going to tell reviewers the Classic is the fault of developer's unwilling to transition to Carbon can not bother me.

What do I think?

Overall, it’s a 50/50 sliding scale. I understand it’s a beta, so I slide it some slack on bugs. The speed is decent, although the window resizing is consistently sluggish. I notice the genie effect seems to cause more slowdowns then the effect is worth. I remember in DP4 you could turn in off by editing the Docks plist. In the Beta, however, there is no bundled application that can edit plist documents (they’re pure XML). I’ll have to track down my DP4 disk, so I can borrow some applications off of it.

I’m waiting for Apple to update their Cocoa IDE, so, right now, I’m forced to use Applescript to build basic automation utilities. Also, Macster’s installer isn’t an OS X installer, so, I’m forced to install it, again, on my 4440 hundred. Built a simple script to watch my MP3 folder, and add new files to a playlist. Applescript is great in the OS. I don’t notice a hiccup, or a pause, when running scripts. A thousand times better then OS 9, and it’s lovely pause before and after running any script.

I’ve already began to hack away at the system. A major downside is the forced-read only privileges in the System folder. I popped over to a BSD forum and grab some UNIX commands to overwrite it, pop into Terminal, and try it. They don’t seem to work. Any one else find a work around?

Here’s something bothering me. In Windows, you can install a shell replacement utility for Explorer. I run LiteStep myself, however, I know there are other alternatives. Now, I’m noticing the desktop is a application. Perhaps a similar application to LiteStep can be written for OS X. It would have to be Cocoa based, and I imagine, fairly well-planned. If anyone knows of someone working on this, let me know, as I would love to help.

Now, the bundles reveal a few things to me. One, the docks little poof animation is stored in a PDF file. I’ve already replaced this with a PDF animation of my own, of Homer Simpson falling down. It’s not perfect, but I’ll keep tooling. Once I have a definite answer, I’ll probably post it over at ResEdit.

I’m not sure what you could hack the dock to do. I’d like it to be on the side of my screen, as apposed to the bottom. I’m sure this is set in it’s plist, but, again, I can’t open it.

The desktop works similar to OS 9’s, save for your main hard drives. You can only drag out symbolic links of these.

Note: If you format under UFS, this won’t work. Also, Stuffit Expander has problems finding folders, and expands things onto the root of your hard drive.

Other things of Note:

  • AppleTalk only works with OS 9.0.4 machines running TCP/IP filesharing.
  • IE does not have Java turned on by default.
  • After all the Java hooplay, I can not find an Applet runner in the Public Beta.
  • Multi-threading works like a dream. Although most applications take between 5 and 20 seconds to open, the fact that you can, say, keep typing in AppleWorks while IE5, and Music Player are opening, is, in my opinion, worth it.
  • Some Stuffit Archives continue to try and open Classic. This is an problem with Stuffit Deluxe Archives only.
  • IE 5 is faster under OS X. I assume this is due to the new TCP/IP stack under the BSD subsystem.
  • Pasting icons on your hard drive (and some folders) only works if you paste, and then log in, and log out.
  • Some documents only appear after you’ve logged out as well.
  • The live window dragging works well in the Desktop. Not so great under QuickTime. It’s my understanding that this is not the case in G4 machines.
  • G3 will not run quicktime movies during the genie effect transition.
  • The FTP function of Desktop does not work. Use Transmit 1.6 for FTP
  • Apple’s MP3 player stores its appearance in icns files. Easy to hack. I assume positioning is again, based on either plist, or rsrc files. Anyone wanna hack this?
  • Process Viewer takes up an annoyingly large % of the CPU when it’s running. Not a big deal, still, it would nice if it was small enough to run in the background.
  • You can quit the dock. I’ve tried replacing the Dock with NeXbar...didn’t work. Anyone get something similar working, please let me know.
  • You can, although you shouldn’t, quit the Desktop. This really frees up CPU time, but, makes everything unstable.
  • Built in support for two buttons in all apps. Wheels work in some, although not all. Seems all cocoa based apps function with the wheel, Carbon does not.
  • Slow-Mo genie effect: Hold down shift while Clicking minimize window.
  • Program switching is flawless, although a bit slower then in other UNIX based OS.
  • Shell works well, most common BSD calls included. Remote telnet works as well, although pretty useless.
  • NetProbe; bundled network utilities, NICE.
  • OmniWeb is so much slower then IE, it’s unbearable.
  • AppleWorks 6 seems to work fairly well. However, it’s alert boxes are not tied to the window.

Okay, that’s everything I know on OS X.

And the experiment continues...

That’s all,

Jack Shedd

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