Like Yosemite or not, Icon Services Agent problems in it and El Capitan are (or have been) fixed. A lot of bugs are fixed in Yosemite, but IMHO it still looks stupid. There a subtle 3D effects in El Capitan that, at least to me, make a huge difference. That and the font changes. I can actually see using El Capitan (assuming it's reasonably bug free). I'm hoping El Capitan will be to Yosemite as Snow Leopard was to Leopard.
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Reverting Back to an Earlier Mac OS X Version
- Thread starter BradHatter
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Like Yosemite or not, Icon Services Agent problems in it and El Capitan are (or have been) fixed. A lot of bugs are fixed in Yosemite, but IMHO it still looks stupid. There a subtle 3D effects in El Capitan that, at least to me, make a huge difference. That and the font changes. I can actually see using El Capitan (assuming it's reasonably bug free). I'm hoping El Capitan will be to Yosemite as Snow Leopard was to Leopard.
My main OS is 10.8 Mountain Lion. It really isn't that I prefer it that much over the others but I have some old applications that won't work on Yosemite or El Capitan and there's a bug in IconServicesAgent in Mavericks that causes my system to waste memory. My setup is a little peculiar, and the IconServicesAgent bug is sort of obscure and can be worked around, I just don't want to bother with it.
I've had my head buried in Snow Leopard for maybe longer than I should but... it works! I have two 2008 iMacs, one with Snow Leopard 10.6 and the other running Leopard 10.5! Boot times are quite quick in my opinion, performance is rock solid - I'd say my machines run as quickly now as they did out of the box - and the UI is consistent. My main software use is Adobe CS5 and it gets some fairly heavy use. My 10.6 Mac has 6GB RAM, 10.5 has 2GB and both will run what I need very nicely indeed. Unfortunately, as mentioned several times, support for these aging systems is dwindling, so I'm hanging on by my fingertips. However, I downloaded Yosemite and put it onto an external drive to try it. I hate it! Yes - it's a hell of a jump from what I'm used to and time and technology have moved on. But I don't really notice any mind-blowing speed improvements - I don't know what the tweaks under the bonnet are meant to achieve, but to me it's real time effects are un-noticable. Unlike the UI - oh my, what happened there? When I booted it for the first time and noticed that the HD didn't have a desktop icon, I through I'd done something wrong. Yes - it's the new way of working, I guess, but no, I don't like it! It's like my Mac isn't a Mac any more. I've used Macs since System 6 and have never come across such a departure from how a Mac as I know it has always operated. I don't think I'll be using it. I'll bone up on it to get a better idea of what it does and how it does it - can't say for sure that the extra iOS integration is something I would really use, but I might be wrong. But what I DO know is that none of my main software will run on it - even with Java updates - so it looks like I'm still going to be working in the Mac equivalent of The Dark Ages for now...
Was that directed at me or the BSDGuy?
I'm assuming it's directed at me. My main OS is Mountain Lion. I now have partitions for El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Lion, Snow Leopard, and Leopard.
The Snow Leopard partition will never go away because it's got some old apps on it that are PowerPC and still work. The apps are rarely used and cost a fortune new, but work fine on that. If worse came to worse to preserve them in the event of a failure I'd probably actually go so far as getting a used old system. Replacing/updating the apps would cost well over $1000.
For the rest, the only OS I really can't stand is Yosemite. El Capitan is a cut above it and looks a little better, but we'll just have to wait and see the final release. Mountain Lion is selected because it will work properly with nearly everything I have, I can do a myriad of all types of development work on it, and it works with all apps except those relegated to the Snow Leopard system. Mavericks does too, but there's some type of bug in IconServicesAgent on it where it starts trying to generate icons from some of the other OS partitions (Lion seems to be particularly problematic with it).
If Apple made all their hardware backward compatible with earlier OS releases, like Snow Leopard, I wonder how all these newer "improved" operating systems would really fair.
That was directed at you. If people had the option to stick with one OS my guess is that everyone would still be using Snow Leopard. It was reliable and quick and "it just worked." A year after its release it appears to me that Apple finally, finally has Yosemite to a working state, but now El Capitan is coming out in a few weeks. I can boot into El Capitan and do next to nothing and see pages outs and memory compression that didn't exist before, not to mention a few more bugs.
Do these guys even get it? Are they deliberately trying to embarrass themselves? Do they like seeing 1 star ratings showing up on their OS reviews in the app store?
What is it with the one operating system per year logic? Is there logic behind this?
Good question. I have wondered same thing myself.
My guess is one of these reasons: 1. Lower support cost for Apple. 2. Compatibility with iOS releases and devices (I couldn't care less.) 3. "New is always better" mentality in customers which drives sales of new Macs because latest OS X is too slow on older hardware.
Personally I hope Apple changes release schedule and only releases new versions when they are ready. I am fed up with half baked releases that are only usable year after release (Yosemite I am looking at you).
My guess is one of these reasons: 1. Lower support cost for Apple. 2. Compatibility with iOS releases and devices (I couldn't care less.) 3. "New is always better" mentality in customers which drives sales of new Macs because latest OS X is too slow on older hardware.
Personally I hope Apple changes release schedule and only releases new versions when they are ready. I am fed up with half baked releases that are only usable year after release (Yosemite I am looking at you).
I've read good things about Snow Leopard and that makes me want to revert to a previous OS version other than Yosemite. Everything I've read seems to point to SL as the one stable and entirely customizable OS that far out ranks Mavericks or ML. I'm thinking of splitting my 512 SSD in two and allowing one partition for newer releases and the other just for a customizable OS that I can customize as I see fit. Yosemite is nice but doesn't allow me to change much beyond icons and simple colors. To to fully customize I think I should go back to SL. Damned if I won't try it pretty soon.
MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012)
You can't put any version of OS earlier than 10.7.4 Lion on that computer.
Snow Leopard isn't any more or less customizable than any other version of OS X.
Ok, thank you. Didn't realize SL isn't compatible with my machine. I do wish that I could do more in Yosemite by way of changing colors and themes and whatnot, ala Flavours. But Flavours2 doesn't allow the creation of new themes. I seem to remember being able to use it in many previous versions of OS X.
ThemeEngine is excellent software, but having to change so many colors and images - as well as having to reboot very often to see if you like your changes or if you've even changed the correct thing - is a daunting task to say the least.
Latest Snow Leopard compatible Macbook Pro model is Early 2011, if your looking for secondary Mac it might be suitable...
Snow Leopard isn't easily customisable but personally I think its the last great OS X version, afterwards Apple has taken OS X too much into iOS direction for my taste.
Snow Leopard isn't easily customisable but personally I think its the last great OS X version, afterwards Apple has taken OS X too much into iOS direction for my taste.
I'm guessing Apple is now being pushed by Wall Street, and Wall Street likes gimmicks. After a year, IMHO, Yosemite is now stable. I have a partition with the GM release of El Capitan on it and it has obvious, major bugs or performance issues that would have told me this is a beta version, not a release candidate, yet here we are, September 30th, and it's supposed to be released today.
I guess Apple thinks really negative feedback in the App Store is a good thing.
Slightly off-topic, but not really.
On Nov. 24 2014 you said:
"I do software development so I have a multi boot system that has Leopard through Yosemite on it. I also have, in case of that really, really odd emergency, multi boot PowerPC systems that have Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, and Leopard on them."
I am interested in being able to boot multiple OS's on a 2011 Mac Pro (currently running Snow Leopard, but soon to be upgraded to Yosemite). There are several programs I need for my work that will be orphaned on this machine, once a new GPU is installed that must be run on no earlier than Lion.
Could you please describe your "multi boot" system and how you accomplished it? I'm just a dumb artist, and have tried to figure out Virtual Box, to no avail. If you would rather discuss this offline, please feel free to PM me.
Thanks,
MG
Just create a seperate boot partition for each OS to be installed on, use an option-key boot to select which one boots.
One of my company's development system has 8 different operating systems on it. Needless to say it uses a big fat hard drive and not an SSD (could you imagine the price!) All booting is done via System Preferences. On Windows there are tools available (the name eludes me now) that allow the system to come up and display which OS to use prior to booting. Too bad the Mac doesn't have something like that. Holding the option key down at boot doesn't count, but it is in some ways similar.