Radsoft
 About | Buy | News | Products | Rants | Search | Security
Home » Resources » Red Hat Diaries

Red Hat Diaries/005d

Jaguar 10.2.1

Within a month of its fanfare release, Jaguar (Apple OS X 10.2) had its first update. As can be seen on the right, it was not trivial - 16.9MB.

At the same time an update to iTunes - from version 3.0 to version 3.0.1 - was offered. Together the updates were nearly 23MB.

There is still an issue with Software Update, an issue often reported in the Mac-related forums: namely that Software Update doesn't really understand when a download has completed successfully.

I didn't have a great day when I tried the downloads - our carrier kept disconnecting me. (We've written to them about us, but in typical fashion not received a reply. Maybe it's because we begged them to not assign an idiot to the issue and please not ever again ask us to RIGHT CLICK ON MY COMPUTER.)

After several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to start first with the iTunes download. This download seemed to take forever, but at least it was not interrupted. Then after an eternity of classical patience, Software Update told me there had been an error with the download. Cursing and screaming so as to wake the good people asleep in the next county, but undaunted and far from giving up, I decided to try the Jaguar update this time instead. That was good luck for me, as you can see below.

The Jaguar download proceeded exactly as the iTunes download had - silently, and at the end reporting an error. This time I screamed louder than before, but after a brisk walk to clear the senses, set back to it again, clicking the 'Install' button seen in the lower right hand corner of the illustration.

This is where I lucked out, for both downloads had been successful, and it was only Software Update which was confused. Out of nowhere, things started to spin, and Software Update started 'installing' the downloads.

An 'optimisation' phase for downloads of this size can take quite some time. As far as I can understand, this is the process of binding the executables to the local machine architecture - a procedure I recommend software authors never do on their own, as they cannot know what architecture their users will have, and as under this OS the procedure adds several kilos of fat to each file.

But after all these abers and traumas the procedure was complete.

A few more caveats to Apple:

  • The Jaguar 10.2 boot procedure, as opposed to previous boot procedures, is faulty, and it is still faulty in this 10.2.1 update. Machines not connected to a LAN will take a long time - or forever - to come up. The secret seems to be to MOVE THE MOUSE as soon as you see it, and before the initialisation procedure begins. Otherwise the machine can hang forever.
  • The 'are you sure' screen you get when you want to shut down your machine is annoying, and it cannot be configured away. Nasty.
  • Why does the modem disconnect up to three times before settling down? Apple has ostensibly had trouble with this module before; it might be good to point out that they are having trouble with it again.

Click here »

About | Buy | News | Products | Rants | Search | Security
Copyright © Radsoft. All rights reserved.