View Full Version : OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion
Scott_Arm
16-Feb-2012, 15:50
Wow, Lion had a short shelf life. Here comes Mountain Lion, with a big list of new features.
http://www.cultofmac.com/146771/apple-announces-mac-os-x-10-8-mountain-lion-breaking/
Airplay mirroring to AppleTV is interesting. I absolutely hate the way Windows Media Center works on the Xbox, and I've tried all these other crappy applications for streaming to my console. AppleTV suddenly becomes a cheap and possibly nice solution.
Interesting how the handheld OS is driving so many features in the modern PC OSes. Windows 8 is going the same route as well. I had predicted this a while back...the trend would be a sort of fusion of these devices and it would be most evident via software.
I am amazed that there were no leaks or rumors at all for this.
Blazkowicz
17-Feb-2012, 10:20
it feels like the new features are for owners of iphone, ipad etc. or the appleTV.
for instance I've just learnt about iMessage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMessage), which is an IM protocol for iOS5 users (really?). OS 10.8 now supports it along a few other ones, but leaves MSN out (which is where everyone is or used to be)
everything will play well together along as you buy the full Apple stack. but likewise you could go for a full Microsoft stack instead (down to using windows home server which I guess does the same thing as rolling your own text mode debian or BSD, but you just check boxes instead of dicking around for hours in documentation and google.. tss)
or you may choose to lock up your data and identity with Google services (down to cross datamining between your searches, your youtube history and the contents of your mails).
vertical integration is not so much for me, I'll try to live good enough with ubiquitous tech such as http, webmail, dlna, NAS, usb mass storage, ssh, 3.5mm audio jack etc.
it feels like the new features are for owners of iphone, ipad etc. or the appleTV.
for instance I've just learnt about iMessage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMessage), which is an IM protocol for iOS5 users (really?). OS 10.8 now supports it along a few other ones, but leaves MSN out (which is where everyone is or used to be)
Well, considering that current iChat does not support MSN, that's not surprising at all. Basically the new "Messages" application can be seen as the old iChat plus iMessage protocol for iOS.
Pressure
17-Feb-2012, 18:37
What? People still use Messenger?
Messages support Jabber, AIM, Google Talk and Yahoo.
Many people probably use iMessage without knowing it. When I switched from the iPhone to a Galaxy Nexus, I was wondering why some people didn't seem to respond to my SMS messages. Until I had a look at my iPhone. Even though it was in a cupboard without a SIM card in it, it was still logged in through Wifi and other iPhones then default to responding to any text messages through iMessage.
There is a security bug where a stolen iPhone may still be receiving iMessages, even if it's been remotely wiped. This is a problem Apple needs to tackle with as soon as possible.
There's many bugs Apple needs to tackle but don't give a shit about because they're too busy swimming in money and laughing maniacally. For example the most important checkbox in the new OSX beta feature list isn't there; NEW FUCKING FILE SYSTEM.
Remind me again, just how old is this piece of shit really? I'm doing a secure erase of the trashbin (because my laptop HDD is encrypted). Somehow I've amassed nearly 5500 files in my trashbin, no idea how the hell that happened. I've dragged in a handful, and that's it.
5 minutes later of running with a core fully loaded the whole time it's managed to delete roughly 100 files. First time it sat there for half an hour whining with the fan going full tilt without deleting a single fucking file. I had to press and hold the power button because the erase wouldn't stop when I told it to stop, nor would the Finder shut down normally with the emptying operation still running.
OSX is a giant stinky turd. It's slow, resource-hungry, unstable, and it's an ugly piece of crap too. Everything's fucking grey and dismal and boring to look at. Fullscreen app switching by swiping is neat, but that's pretty much the only thing it's got going over Windows. Microsoft owns Apple SO BAD as an OS/software developer, and other than touch functionality (and drive encryption, which MS won't do without a "trusted" computing hardware module in the computer, even with Ultimate edition), Win7 just tramples all over the ugly hog that is OSX.
Fifteen minutes it's been going at it now and it's down to 5150 files. If I let it run all night maybe it will be done by morning at this rate...
Blazkowicz
25-Feb-2012, 22:56
this made me think of the classic macintosh troll :lol:
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac (a 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even BBEdit Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Macs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its Wintel counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 300 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine.
Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
There's many bugs Apple needs to tackle but don't give a shit about because they're too busy swimming in money and laughing maniacally. For example the most important checkbox in the new OSX beta feature list isn't there; NEW FUCKING FILE SYSTEM.
There were some rumors about Apple considering using ZFS in MacOS X, but it didn't materialize. Of course, ZFS is probably not a very good choice for a consume oriented OS. It's going to be slow and the major benefits of using ZFS are not largely relevant to a normal consumer system.
To me, as a software developer, the best things about MacOS X is actually Cocoa. It's a relatively well designed API (especially if you compare it to Win32). Microsoft is catching up with .NET and WPF though. If you consider other lower level thing, including OS kernel and driver models, Microsoft is well ahead of probably almost everyone (except maybe IBM and in some case Sun).
Ok, the WWDC OSX presentation showed a lot of rather good features actually, including some fairly heavy iCloud integration and iOS-style messaging center (massaging would have been nice to have too btw, but like new fucking file system it seems to be on indefinite hold... ;))
Airplay integration was also mighty impressive I have to say. You can't judge this stuff over a streaming internet video so I don't really know how solid and reliable the screen update rate was, but the video feed seemed sufficiently smooth and low-latency to even allow (light) gaming - the presenter claimed 1:1 pixel 1080P over what I assume is either gigabit ethernet or wifi-n; this suggest using realtime video transcode, as neither these networking standards have enough innate bandwidth to allow uncompressed video at full HD framerate.
Any more competent macheads than me out there who have any additional thoughts and opinions? IMO, mountain lion is looking like a more substantial update than lion was, because I didn't care at all about the launchpad and whatever the heck all that stuff was called.
Also... CHEAP. I'm sure there's some serious grinding of teeth up north the coast at Redmond, WA, at hearing Apple's selling their OS for twenty bucks, when MS wants to charge ten times that much for Windows 8... :lol:
Ike Turner
12-Jun-2012, 00:20
Also... CHEAP. I'm sure there's some serious grinding of teeth up north the coast at Redmond, WA, at hearing Apple's selling their OS for twenty bucks, when MS wants to charge ten times that much for Windows 8... :lol:
Service Packs are free...
Considering SPs are relatively light on new features and consist mostly of rolled-up security updates and bug fixes I don't think the comparison really is all that comparable...
Albuquerque
12-Jun-2012, 01:56
Considering SPs are relatively light on new features and consist mostly of rolled-up security updates and bug fixes I don't think the comparison really is all that comparable...
Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Hyper-V brought RemoteFX; the subdivision of the host 3D accelerator device(s) to guest virtual machines, and subsequent transmission of such accelerated graphics (whether it be 2D or 3D accelerated) over RDP to a remote client. Dividing your single 3D card into eight VM's, and then using any one (or all) of those VM's to play 1080P accelerated content over a LAN?
Yup, a service pack.
Just sayin...
I didn't say there weren't new features brought out in SP:s, so there's no need for you to give examples... :lol:
Anyhow, accelerated graphics over a LAN vs. all the new stuff that's in OSX, hm, I don't know about you but I say the two don't really compare. Apple themselves claim 200 new features.
Scott_Arm
12-Jun-2012, 03:13
Nothing really exciting. The notification center is basically covered by using Growl, but I guess their presentation for the same thing is nice. Airplay might be pretty cool.
Albuquerque
12-Jun-2012, 06:38
Anyhow, accelerated graphics over a LAN vs. all the new stuff that's in OSX, hm, I don't know about you but I say the two don't really compare. Apple themselves claim 200 new features.
Accelerated graphics shared from one physical card to multiple simultaneous virtual guests is part of OSX now? Nope. Neither is it part of ESXi. Dynamic memory allocation for guests is also a pretty powerful option that neither ESXi nor OSX can provide either, which was also part of SP1. Two rather powerful examples, but I realize it's not comparable because OSX has no server product :D
Carry on!
I realize it's not comparable because OSX has no server product :D
Don't give a shit sideways about that really; I'm just one guy here, a bachelor living by myself. I don't run a corporation.
All I know is even though I barely use my Mac, I'll be upgrading to Mountain Lion, whereas my wife is still on Vista because buying Windows 7 is too expensive.
All I know is even though I barely use my Mac, I'll be upgrading to Mountain Lion, whereas my wife is still on Vista because buying Windows 7 is too expensive.
Buying the upgrade copy you mean?
Buying the upgrade copy you mean?
Yes. upgrade to Home Premium still costs 100 Euro for the download version. That's too much.
I realize it's not comparable because OSX has no server product :D
Carry on!
http://www.apple.com/osx/server/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Server
"Carry on."
There's many bugs Apple needs to tackle but don't give a shit about because they're too busy swimming in money and laughing maniacally. For example the most important checkbox in the new OSX beta feature list isn't there; NEW FUCKING FILE SYSTEM.
Yeah. We were promised XFS what, 8 years ago?
http://www.apple.com/osx/server/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Server
"Carry on."
Actually taking a stock OSX install and making it into a Unix server is extremely simple. I'm not saying OSX server isn't a good or better product, but I can make a regular OSX install into whatever server you want in a matter of hours or less.
100 Euro for the download version. That's too much.
Have you checked out Amazon? When Win7 launched they were MASSIVELY cheaper than local retailers, and I seriously doubt buying the OS straight from MS is going to be the most cost-efficient alternative either. :) Anyway, with Win8 busy slouching towards bethlehem to be born, you may want to simply skip this generation entirely...
I wouldn't suggest holding on to vista for too long though, MS and everybody else seems so eager to dump it like it was radioactive. You better start saving up some cash methinks, or consider switching to linux maybe... :razz:
Have you checked out Amazon? When Win7 launched they were MASSIVELY cheaper than local retailers, and I seriously doubt buying the OS straight from MS is going to be the most cost-efficient alternative either. :)
IIRC that's because on the first few months Microsoft had some serious discounts for Windows 7 to encourage upgrades. These discounts are mostly gone for now.
Have you checked out Amazon? When Win7 launched they were MASSIVELY cheaper than local retailers, and I seriously doubt buying the OS straight from MS is going to be the most cost-efficient alternative either. :) Anyway, with Win8 busy slouching towards bethlehem to be born, you may want to simply skip this generation entirely...
I wouldn't suggest holding on to vista for too long though, MS and everybody else seems so eager to dump it like it was radioactive. You better start saving up some cash methinks, or consider switching to linux maybe... :razz:
Could you elaborate this point?
*Microsoft has extended support going till 2017 for Vista
*I haven't seen a single application that works in 7 but not in Vista. Mostly because Windows Vista is very similar to Windows 7 in underlying technology
*I'm having 0 problem running Vista (for a long time now). Most 'bad experiences' posted on the web can be described as follows: bad drivers from device manufacturers, people generally hate change, people don't understand how Vista memory management works (hint: it's a lot better than it was in XP), poor Microsoft marketing (they assumed everybody would upgrade without needing to properly explain why + MS pushing Vista through games with only superficial DX10 support)
Blazkowicz
14-Jun-2012, 14:35
if it's like windows 2000 vs XP, both OS will be equally supported for years, and they are like 95% the same thing. only towards the end, new APIs or drivers only supported XP SP2 or 2003 (what if you want Powershell, xbox 360 controller etc.)
but when that happens to Vista, you will be able to switch to windows 9, or just not care till EOL.
myself, I did hold out on windows 98 for an unreasonably long time, I had directX 9.0c and .NET 2.0 on it, even Cygwin. running my DOS games natively with fully working sound was just too convenient (some I had carried since 1992). I had to let it go because apps wouldn't care about the 16bit GDI resources limit and would cause graphical corruption.
Yeah, Vista SP3 is almost identical to Windows 7 internally.
Scott_Arm
05-Jul-2012, 15:29
So the feature I was most looking forward to will not work on my macbook.
http://www.cultofmac.com/177259/why-cant-macs-older-than-2011-use-airplay-mirroring-in-mountain-lion/
motherf'ers ...
Pressure
10-Jul-2012, 14:04
So the feature I was most looking forward to will not work on my macbook.
http://www.cultofmac.com/177259/why-cant-macs-older-than-2011-use-airplay-mirroring-in-mountain-lion/
motherf'ers ...
Well, should be an easy hack.
Several 3rd party programs already enable AirPlay functionality in Mac OS X.
Scott_Arm
11-Jul-2012, 17:25
Well, should be an easy hack.
Several 3rd party programs already enable AirPlay functionality in Mac OS X.
Well, this is interesting. Airplay mirroring does not work as I thought it would. It relies on the GPUs H.264 encoding, to compress the frames before they're sent to the other device, and older Macs do not have H.264 encoding hardware on the GPU, so they'd have to do it on CPU. So basically it turns the framebuffer output into a compressed video stream and sends it to the other device.
http://www.cultofmac.com/178460/the-real-reason-why-macs-before-2011-cant-use-airplay-mirroring-in-mountain-lion-feature/
Pressure
16-Jul-2012, 23:17
Well, this is interesting. Airplay mirroring does not work as I thought it would. It relies on the GPUs H.264 encoding, to compress the frames before they're sent to the other device, and older Macs do not have H.264 encoding hardware on the GPU, so they'd have to do it on CPU. So basically it turns the framebuffer output into a compressed video stream and sends it to the other device.
http://www.cultofmac.com/178460/the-real-reason-why-macs-before-2011-cant-use-airplay-mirroring-in-mountain-lion-feature/
It actually uses Intel QuickSync :-)
That's why only a limited number of Macs will support it with Mountain Lion.
Scott_Arm
26-Jul-2012, 01:22
Just installed. No issues with installation to report. Haven't toyed to find the differences. Anyone else with yays or nays yet?
Pressure
26-Jul-2012, 08:48
I'd recommend you read John Siracusa's review of OS X Mountain Lion at Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/os-x-10-8/).
He is always very thorough about even minor changes and differences.
The only issue I have is that it doesn't support Cumulus 7 anymore because it ditched all 32-bit .kexts ... bummer.
seems pretty minor (Glad it looks like they havent gone all IOS on us)
for anyone thats used it
did they fix finder?
and for Xcode users, does that semi-work now? (I know working completely would be a huge ask but is it like say MSVC from 1999 i.e. massive improvement), how the hell the programmers that work on XCode get to walk around apple company without getting pelted with fruit is a mystery (perhaps they dont say, I know theres a culture of security at apple, but I thought that was external not internal)
edit - I'll update after the first or second bug fix i.e. 10.8.1 or 10.8.2
Pressure
26-Jul-2012, 09:28
did they fix finder?
Fix what exactly?
Scott_Arm
26-Jul-2012, 14:34
I'm having some strange lock-ups that I haven't been able to figure out. Once I quit Google Chrome, and the toolbar(?) at the top of the screen and the dock were frozen and would not respond to clicks. I had to press my power button and got the shutdown prompt to come up, which responded normally. Another time I was playing a game in Steam, and the game froze completely. At first it would freeze for 10 seconds every minute or so, and then it just locked up completely.
Pressure
26-Jul-2012, 14:52
Must be something with your setup. Have it running on my home computer as well as a work computer, no issues.
What Mac and did you do a clean install of Mountain Lion or upgrade? Reset PRAM and repair permissions?
Scott_Arm
26-Jul-2012, 15:20
I have a late 2008 macbook pro. It is a supported machine. While it's running, it seems to be very snappy. I just get the odd lockup on a program, which I never experienced in Lion.
I did an upgrade install after reading about it a bit. They said upgrades are not an issue anymore. Maybe I should have gone the clean install route instead.
What's the PRAM? Are you referring to file permissions? Haven't done either of those two things.
Edit:
Btw, thanks for the tips. I'm going to try both of those when I get home. Worst case, I back things up and do a clean install.
What's the PRAM? Are you referring to file permissions? Haven't done either of those two things.
PRAM is like the CMOS data:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
Scott_Arm
26-Jul-2012, 16:07
PRAM is like the CMOS data:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
Resetting this will not affect Boot Camp in any way, will it?
Is Mountain Lion available on USB key (yet)?
Downloading the OS all over again should I ever need a reinstall would get supremely tedious...
Scott_Arm
26-Jul-2012, 20:27
Is Mountain Lion available on USB key (yet)?
Downloading the OS all over again should I ever need a reinstall would get supremely tedious...
How to make a bootable disc or usb key of Mountain Lion:
http://www.cultofmac.com/180925/how-to-make-a-bootable-disk-or-usb-drive-of-os-x-mountain-lion/
For a clean install, would I be able to restore my personal files easily from Time Machine? I backup to Time Machine fairly regularly, but I've honestly never spent time restoring any files to know how good it is for restoring particular files. There are probably some installed apps (Steam + games) and obviously my personal docs that I'd want.
Scott_Arm
26-Jul-2012, 23:27
Reset PRAM and used disk utility to repair permissions. It found quite a few files that needed their permissions corrected. I'll see if it helps out.
Pressure
27-Jul-2012, 00:52
Reset PRAM and used disk utility to repair permissions. It found quite a few files that needed their permissions corrected. I'll see if it helps out.
Remember that Apple has removed all 32-bit .kexts, so if any old applications use these they may cause the crash.
Have you seen the crash log?
~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports
The library folder is hidden by default but you can get to it from Finder. 'Go' -> 'Go to Folder' and copy paste the line above.
To make the folder permanently visible open Terminal and type the following:
chflags nohidden ~/Library
Scott_Arm
27-Jul-2012, 02:05
Remember that Apple has removed all 32-bit .kexts, so if any old applications use these they may cause the crash.
Have you seen the crash log?
~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports
The library folder is hidden by default but you can get to it from Finder. 'Go' -> 'Go to Folder' and copy paste the line above.
To make the folder permanently visible open Terminal and type the following:
chflags nohidden ~/Library
Good to know. Seems like there aren't any crash logs on my system. The applications weren't crashing, they were just freezing indefinitely and I'd have to force quit, and in the case of the dock and menu bar (or whatever it's called) I had to restart my Mac.
Scott_Arm
27-Jul-2012, 02:28
So, Dungeon Defenders just locked up on me the same as yesterday. Maybe it's some kind of campatability issue with Mountain Lion. It's very strange though. It just totally locked up. I'm looking at my GPU/CPU temps, and I'm not overheating or anything.
Pressure
27-Jul-2012, 14:35
Oh, you can restart Finder without restarting the computer.
Just Command+ALT+Escape and pick Finder.
Not sure what's wrong with Dungeon Defenders though. Really annoying.
Work case scenario I would try a clean reinstall of Mountain Lion to see if it alleviates some of the problems experienced.
Scott_Arm
27-Jul-2012, 16:05
Yeah, I think I'm going to try a clean install this weekend, but I have a feeling it's an issue with the game and not my OS install. Thanks for all of the help. Learning lots of tricks I didn't know about. My laptop, besides having some overheating issues, has been rock solid software-wise, so I never had to learn much in the way of trouble shooting.
Did the upgrade, fonts look a bit messed up, more than before but that could be some setting that got reset. Upgrade went without issues but just now tried to minimise the Mail window, and it just ... doesn't. Minimize window button stays pressed, nothing happens. Safari minimised without issue.
Scott_Arm
29-Jul-2012, 01:43
I haven't noticed fonts looking weird, but I'm not sensitive to that sort of thing.
Haven't tried mail. Dont have an account set up in it. Haven't noticed any problems since I followed Pressure's suggestions. Only problem I have is Dungeon Defenders locking up. Still haven't tried other games.
Overall, I guess I'm reasonably pleased, but don't noticed much difference in day to day use. I think it starts up a little quicker, and I used to have twenty seconds after logging in where loading an application would take a while, but that seems to be gone.
If my macbook supported airplay mirroring, I'd probably be thinking about an apple tv.
Anyone know if Mountain Lion supports TRIM on more SSDs?
Fix what exactly?
are u serious? but if you are, well most things
* resize the window or change icon size and the icons move around so theyre in the window & it works 100% of the time
* being able to delete stuff out of the trash (eg useful when u want to use a memorystick)
* rename multiple files at once
* ability to swap between 2 directories quickly
* ability to hide .ds_store
* more file info options
* search will list the path as well
I literally can type an hour about whats broken or badly designed
did they fix the cursor bug, i.e. when I click the mouse I want it to click on exactly whats under the corner point, not ~6 pixels under it, ive gotten used to it now but still its an obvious bug that should of been picked up day 1, @ 8.05am
Im gonna wait until the first service pack before I install mountain lion
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