Apple Inc (AAPL)

[Tex]

re Tiger

Have recently installed Tiger, and was pleasantly surprised at the dramatic improvement in startup time. I wonder if the upgrade might have fixed something like a corrupt font. Also maxed out RAM to 2 gigs and that really make a difference in web browsing.

Tiger introduced multithreaded launch of startup items (including the kexts), based on the dependencies of each kext -- so startup is actually faster as a result of new-in-Tiger design changes.

To borrow form Mongo's grammar book: MacOS X like RAM.

Adding RAM is helpful for nearly anything, as MacOS X both (a) likes to fill and will page from RAM and (b) even if you're nowhere near filling RAM, some structures in the kernel are based on RAM size and have optimum sizes that aren't present without a certain physical RAM size.

Leopard should have some good performance improvements, based on the stuff being obsoleted in the kernel from beta days. The bad news is the obsolescence of kexts that depended on features deprecated in Tiger and now absent in Leopard. I want it, but honestly, not before it's ready.

Take care,
--Tex.