Is Apple's Leopard still in beta?

Mac users are hitting problems galore in Mac OS X 10.5

Even a casual glance across the Mac web in the last few days will reveal a litany of problems faced by users upgrading to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Problems range from application crashes to login problems, lost data and even a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) - something normally only found in the Windows world.

Of course, any update to a new operating system is fraught with problems - just ask old Mac System 7 users, or Windows Vista users come to that. It's becoming increasingly apparent though that Leopard is causing more than its fair share of problems.

With Leopard, Apple has introduced a new version of FileVault - the 128-bit file encryption system for Mac OS X. Users of the previous version on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger have experienced problems when they install Leopard over the top of the old OS.

Apple recommends that you turn off FileVault before you upgrade, but it can take a long time and isn't always practical. Turning off FileVault actually creates an unencrypted duplicate account that you may not have physical space on your hard drive for.

FileVault also doesn't play nicely with Time Machine, Apple's automated back-up program. To back-up a FileVault account you'll have to create an unencrypted account and then log into that to create a Time Machine archive.

Blue Screen Of Death

Thousands of Mac users have experienced an uncharacteristic Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) when installing Leopard on top of Tiger. Essentially Leopard asks you to reboot once installation is complete, and then your Mac just sits there with the blue logout screen until you force it to reboot. We experienced this for ourselves on our Power Mac G5 install last Friday.

Apple says the problem is caused by 'haxies' - third-party system hacks such as Application Enhancer. Haxie developer Unsanity has in turn hit back at Apple. None of Unsanity's hacks currently work under Leopard. This may be a problem for owners of Logitech mice - Logitech uses Unsanity hacks for Mac OS X installation.

The BSOD problem is so serious, Apple has actually issued a support document on it.

Crashes, performance issues

While many Leopard users are apparently sailing along with no problems at all, others are experiencing problems of nightmare proportions. We have some sympathy with that.

To give you one example, Derrick on the MacObserver forums complains: "I am having no fun so far... my PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0 now crashes repeatedly, drives do not mount... cannot shut down without powering off."

http://www.tech.co.uk/computing/mac/news/is-apples-leopard-still-in
-beta?articleid=630727076