In an update to my previous post on my install of Tiger here are a few more of my observations.
After leaving the PowerBook running overnight, and re-starting it this morning it is now running at ‘normal speed’ again. That is, it is no longer noticably slower than it was before the upgrade.
Most of my applications seem to run fine (including Desktop Manager – the virtual desktop application for OS X which I posted about last week – although, to be fair, I downloaded the latest development build before the upgrade).
Spotlight appears to work quite well now except that it tries to find what I’m typing in too soon! It will start the search after the first three letters. This means I can no longer type in more letters while the laptop struggles to find everything associated with those first three letters. It might work better if it waited for a pause in typing before starting the search. (my PowerBook is a Ti G4 1ghz with 1gb of ram so it shouldn’t be a resource issue).
Dashboard is a real disappointment. It was totally over-hyped, as I mentioned previously. In a preview of Dashboard on the Mac site they looked way cool – but the ripple effect displayed there is not present on the version I received. Accessing the preferences for Dashboard (open the System Preferences and choose Dashboard and Expose or right-click on the Dashboard icon in the Dock and choose Preferences) is no help either, the only setting you can change here is the keyboard key for displaying widgets.
More observations as I come across them.
Hmmmm,
I haven’t had the three letter Spotlight lockup myself, I’m thinking that might be something addressed in the first Software Update. And yes Dashboard is a load of nonsense, the default widget set is so boring it’s almost criminal.
It actually starts to lock up after the 2nd letter is typed – now that I look again. Possibly the fact that you are on a G5 is helping you?
Also having all sorts of freaky problems with mail – you noticing anything odd with Mail on your install?
Tom
Nothing wrong with mail.app, besides screwing up the figures in the number column, (The last mail received before the upgrade is now listed as “1”, with the first mail received after the upgrade being the increment of the total number of mails in the inbox.), but I just tried Spotlight again and you’re right. It hammers on the index the moment it gets the second character. Looking at it in the Terminal there’s a noticeable CPU spike, 25% of my Dual 2.5GHz CPUs and Disk I/O gets thrown around the place too.
Yes it’s snazzy to see it find something before you’re done typing, but obviously if you don’t have the grunt of a PPC 970 behind you’d rather it would search upon hitting return.
I’d consider it’s current behaviour to be a bug.
Good,
glad to hear I’m not the only one experiencing that with Spotlight. My Mail is atarting to settle down now, I hope. I was having a crazy situation where I’d have to re-start Mail anytime I wanted to send or receive emails!
It seems better now. If it recurs, though, I’m going for a clean install and migrate in the mails etc.
Tom
I’m having no problems seeing the Dashboard ripple effect. But, i also have a 20″ iMac G5. It is possible that there is a graphics card requirement or restriction in place. I will update my PowerBook on Monday and let you know if I see anything different.
I think you are right James, it is probably something like that. Shame really – I mean my PowerBook is a 1ghz Ti PowerBook – it is not that old! A lot of people are going to miss out on that effect, if that is the case.
Great, thanks James. I appreciate it.
Tom
anyone notice that software update and opening system prefs is slow. i am using mac mini with 1 gig memory. also getting no ripple effect.
gdog,
I haven’t noticed any increased lag in opening time for System Preferences or Software Update on my PowerBook (1ghz and 1gb).
Tom
There is no ripple effect because there is no support for core image in the mac mini and i guessing this is the case for the Ti Book as well