Whoa! That's a long time between posts.
Of course something significant must be happening to generate another post and as the title of this post indicates it's Snow Leopard. As you're probably already aware Snow Leopard is due to hit tomorrow - Friday 28th August 2009, up to a month before most developers expected it. Snow Leopard is expected to be a significant polishing exercise for the OS and the user experience - so it means there will be software that doesn't work in Snow Leopard. To avoid the problems many people experienced upgrading to Leopard I thought I'd better recount my efforts todate.
Now for most major applications the transition should be relatively painless especially if they're up-to-date. However, it wasn't the front of screen applications that brought down users upgrading to Leopard nearly 2 years ago. It was a system extensions/hack that really made a mess of things for some people.
To start off the most publicised problem people experienced with the release of Leopard occurred when they tried to install over a system that had Unsanity's APE installed. This problem was compounded by the fact that many people had the Logitech Control Centre installed which "secretly" installed APE - bad form really - as covered on DaringFireball.
There were two ways to avoid this 1) not have APE installed or 2) do a clean install of Leopard using "Archive and Install". Of course if APE was up-to-date the problem wouldn't have occurred - which is why secretly installing and notupdating a system hack is a bad thing.
Of course the logical thing to do prior to installing Snow Leopard would be to check your system extensions compatibility. Given how much trouble a system hack gave last time - I decided to check the non standard System Preferences installed on my Mac's. Some companies will be proactive and provide a compatibility page for you to quickly check - for example Unsanity. Of course some compatibility pages make no mention of Snow Leopard at all and haven't been updated for a while.
Other's you may have to search for, here's ones I've found during my preparation.
Perian (currently 1.1.4 -> 1.2 for full Snow Leopard compatibility)
[From cocoaforge • View topic - What do I have to do to get ready for Snow Leopard?]
Perian is partially compatible, at least that's the impression I get from reading the forums however 1.2 will apparently bring full compatibility, and they're aiming to get it out Friday.
Growl (currently 1.1.6 -> 1.2 for full Snow Leopard compatibility)
"Is Growl compatible with Mac OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard?
Growl: Growl itself should work just fine.
[From Growl - Frequently Asked Questions]
Growl preference pane: Somewhat. It works, but you need to restart System Preferences into 32-bit mode.
GrowlMail: No.
Growl framework (for developers): It should work, but it's 32-bit only."
Flip4Mac WMV (currently 2.2.3.7 -> 2.3.0.7 for full Snow Leopard compatibility)
"Flip4Mac WMV Support"
[From Telestream Flip4Mac - Support Center]
Flip4Mac 2.2.3.7 is currently not completely compatible but they're working on it - sign up for the Beta of 2.3.0.7 if you like. The Beta also brings fixes for the issues with Safari 4's updated plug-in API.
MacFUSE (currently 2.0.3.2 -> 2.1.5 Beta is experimental Snow Leopard compatibility)
MacFUSE is used by a few different products including some that offer vm services for running other OS's - that's why I've got it.
At this point in time the FAQ doesn't currently have any information on Snow Leopard compatibility, and the change log only a a few reference back in December 2008 that are marked as [Experimental] or [Highly Experimental].
- "Feature: 64-Bit Support. The entire MacFUSE software stack: the kernel extension, the MacFUSE user-space C library, and the Objective-C framework now also come in 64-bit versions. You must be running Leopard or above for this. Naturally, you also need 64-bit hardware to make use of these capabilities. [Experimental]
[From FAQ - macfuse - Frequently Asked Questions (and Answers) - Project Hosting on Google Code]
- Feature: Support for Snow Leopard. You can now install and use MacFUSE on the latest Snow Leopard developer seed. [Highly Experimental]"
You can get the 2.1.5 Beta by enabling the "Show Beta Versions" in the MacFUSE System Preference and proceeding from there, however this may not work.
At this writing the thread on the MacFUSE forum about "Snow Leopard status" is basically unanswered.
MediaLink (currently 1.72 -> Snow Leopard status unkown)
"WHAT'S NEW IN V1.7?
[From Nullriver Software : Products : MediaLink]
Fixes major video streaming bug when using a high speed connection (Caused random errors during streaming)
Adds automatic garbage collection on Mac OS X 10.5 or later"
Wacom Drivers 6.1.1-2
"This driver supports beta versions of OS X v.10.6 in 32-bit emulation."
[From wacom]
Unfortunately there is no other information for this product so like me you will just have to suck it and see.
Xmarks 1.2.2 (honestly, folks just un-install this)
"Honestly, we've not yet had a chance to test against Snow Leopard, so Xmarks for Safari isn't yet guaranteed to work there."
[From Snow Leopard Error]
Given that it's stopped syncing for many users of Safari months ago you may as well pull this one until they get around to it.
In the meantime for more information on upgrading and the compatibility of user applications may I recommend:
- MacWorld's Snow Leopard Compatibility Wiki
- Lifehacker's "Prep Your Mac for Snow Leopard"
- Wired's "6 Things You Need to Know About Mac OS X Snow Leopard"
- The "Snow Leopard Wiki" (although this appears to be down at the moment)
I'm sure a lot more will appear over the next few days.
I've been described as a lost technocrat or a wondering luddite, personally I just like everything that takes us forward.