10.4 vs 10.3.9

jason314 - 07:10am Oct 11, 2005 PST

Recently I upgraded from an old G3 iMac running 10.3.9 to a mini running 10.4.2 and I'm not sure that I'm impressed.

The mini came pre-installed with 10.4 and through softwareupdate I've upgraded it to 10.4.2 but I have a few issues which are making me consider downgrading it to 10.3.9 and am wondering what people's experience/advise is? Are there specific reasons that people running 10.3.x have not upgraded and those that have what do you think of 10.4.x as opposed to 10.3.x?

I mainly use only 4 applications on my mac, iMovie, iDVD, iCal and mail. I also use iTunes but only because the mac version can more reliably import certain CD's than Winamp.

I am not interested in the look and feel of applications running under 10.4 as opposed to 10.3, being primarily a Windows user with a few linux boxes I'm used to applications that don't look and feel like the apple ones, as long as I can make them do what I want I don't care.

My first gripe with 10.4 is iCal. I use a Sony Ericsson cellphone and sync it with iCal. On the phone when I set up a TODO item (called tasks on the phone) I can set a reminder. Under 10.3.9 when I created a task with a reminder on the phone and synced it to iCal, iCal would pop up the alarm box with the TODO in it at the appointed time. Under 10.4, iCal pops up a blank alarm box and then I have to try and work out which TODO it's associated with. Initially I was unable to Sync at all and had to patch iSync to make it compatible again. What's with that?

Another problem that I have (which may have existed under 10.3 but I didn't have wireless so don't know) is that Bonjour upsets my ADSL router. I've had to turn off the DHCP on the router and manually assign IP addresses to all boxes connected to it. I initially thought that this may be to do with iTunes 5 because windows users that have upgraded to iTunes 5 have reported the same problem so I was trying to avoid getting iTunes 5 but accidently got it through software update. I found some instructions via Slashdot to turn off Bonjour under 10.4 but after I did what they said the mini would no longer boot. This is becoming a real problem because instead of using the machine name/UNC path to connect to another machine, I have to use the IP address. I have tried using the machine name but because each machine has been told the IP address of my ISP's DNS it uses that and tries to resolve the names on the internet.

My other major complaint is dashboard, in it's current configuration I find it rather gimmicky and with little practical use. I was looking forward to OS X 10.4 after going to a pre-relase demonstration not long after it was announced. At the demonstration dashboard looked very cool with widgets popping up on the main screen with a sort of ripple effect. I have neither been able to find out if this is still an option in the actual release or where to turn it on if it still does exist. As for the widgets, why would I want to move my mouse to the dashboard icon, then click the iTunes widget which has very limited control? It's quicker and easier to go directly to iTunes or get out my phone and use Salling Clicker (which incedintly gives more information than the iTunes widget)

If I go ahead and downgrade to 10.3.9, can anyone tell me if I will be able to access all more stored e-mail messages, I suspect not because after importing all my settings from the G3 during 10.4 setup, I remember something about mail wanting to "upgrade" the mailboxes (can't remember the exact phrasing it used). I take it that this is irreversible. Also, does anyone know if iMovieHD and iDVDHD run under 10.3.9? If necessary (& possible) I will run a dual boot 10.3.9/10.4.2 just to use iMovie and iDVD. (Hard Drive space is not an issue, the mini has an 80Gb internal drive and I have 400Gb external storage space) Also, when I'm using iMovie I tend to quit everything else anyway. With the G3 I used to even have to turn the screensaver off while importing or else the camera and iMovie would get out of sync and cry.

The mini is such a nice box, it's a shame the the OS isn't just as nice, or maybe I've just been a windows user too long and am used to more configurability. (Granted I may just not know how to hack OS X as well as I do Windows 2000 or XP)