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After years of waiting, it has finally arrived. My first impression: Mac OS X is awesome,
wonderful, elegant, powerful, and it rekindles the same spirit of discovery I experienced
in my early Mac days.
Mac OS X is not for everyone just yet. Even Apple says so. There are enough pieces missing
that users should not consider it their primary OS. It will function in that role, but
there are few advantages and several nasty pitfalls. The choice of whether you can use if
full time or nearly full time depends on your specific hardware and software. So who is
this first release best suited for? Explorers, adventurers, elegance junkies,
prognosticators, pundits, professionals, and the merely curious.
The first secret: understand fully that Mac OS X is not an upgrade in the classic sense,
it is a whole new ballgame. After you install it your Mac is familiar, yet simultaneously
alien.
The second secret: make sure your hardware can support Mac OS X. If it cannot, stop right
now. Do not pass your authorized dealer and do not collect a new OS. Hardware
compatibility will flesh out in the coming months, but we still have an infant OS here,
not a full-grown adult. Forcing certain hardware configurations is akin to premature
toilet training, you'll get results, just not the healthy results you desire.
For the best experience, start with at least a G3/333Mhz Mac or better. Plenty of RAM is
also necessary. I have gotten it to work so that I can explore on a 128 MB iMac
DV, but
you really should have at least 256 MB to keep the virtual memory from slowing the system
to a crawl. As far as peripherals, some work, some don't. Experiment with what you have,
but don't depend on anything early on.
The third secret: installation technique. I strongly recommend installing OS X on a
separate partition, but not atop your existing, primary system. Back up everything,
partition your hard drive into at least two volumes, then install your daily use system on
the first partition.
On the second partition, install the version of 9.1 that comes with OS X, and install OS
X. The default OS X install will attempt to use the primary Mac OS 9 system folder on the
first partition for Classic mode, so you need to use the system settings in OS X to
explicitly tell Mac OS X to use the copy of 9.1 that is on the same partition as OS X.
Keeping Classic minimal will avoid a lot of early headaches.
The fourth secret: play. Just play. Play with every button, control, and menu that you can
find. Invoke things just to see what happens. You can't hurt anything, and playing will
give you the license to spend time learning about Mac OS X without feeling the pressure
associated with having to finish something on a deadline. Play with the new Finder. It
takes some getting used to, and it feels very strange at first, but it is a good way to
learn Aqua's interface controls. Nearly everything you need is there, just not where you
think it is. Think of these early versions of Mac OS X as training wheels.
Also remember that everyone - and I mean everyone - is still learning this brave new
landscape. This is just as new for many of the "experts" as it is for the rest
of us. Forget about prerelease stuff. Some developers had preview builds, but no one,
including the engineers who wrote OS X, has had access to the final release version for
more than a very short time (think weeks).
If you have the hardware and the inclination to learn, Mac OS X is worth exploring.
Features like instant wake from sleep and no more crashes that require a reboot are VERY
appealing. Once a few more applications have native X support there will be no looking
back.
Today Mac OS X is an infant, but you can already see what an impressive adolescent it will
become, probably later this year.
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"The Secrets of Success with Mac OS X 10.0"
