Anyone running Snow Leopard integrating w/ Active Directory? I have a permissions question for you.

 

Yes, it is 10.6.1. As I said, I updated several times.


I also found a special 10.6.X page on Lexmark's site since my sister is complaining that she can't do WiFi printing anymore. There won't be Lexmark drivers and suite software until 2010, and she can only use the direct USB connection to the printer and the native Snow Leopard drivers to do basic print, fax, and scan. Needless to say, she isn't thrilled by the loss of functionality after the Snow Leopard update.


This driver crap is -just- like Windows, only in the bad old days. Most manufacturers wouldn't dare to lag like this with Windows users.

 

Any new major release will have issues. Including OS X. I generally hold off until 10.x.3 or SP1 (depending on the OS). The upside is that OS X generally uses CUPS to drive the printer but I have to admit I haven't look at SL that closely.

 

You're entitled to the rant my friend and so are all of those with problems or issues irrespective of the nature of the problem, but the thing is the vast majority of SL users don't have problems and even praise the new OS.

Sorry but i seriously don't agree with you on the driver problem. There may be some isolated problems with printer drivers and other peripherals like God knows what faxes and stuff like that, but you don't have to deal with drivers for the motherboard, for the video card, for the audio card etc... So the headaches (if they appear) are not even near as close to Windows headaches.

PS: I also tried Windows 7 and i was very nicely surprised by the speed improvement, but stability wise was a big NO NO. Reinstalled it twice already in a month, since after i updated the video drivers from Nvidia i started getting blue-screens (i have 2 x 9800GX2 in SLI) and there wasn't simply anything i can do to remove the drivers or roll them back to the original windows 7 drivers (which btw worked to my surprise). That's not to say it worked with my Sony Vaio SZ4 laptop which has a 7400 Go Nvidia card that wasn't recognized by Windows 7 and the drivers that Nvidia provides on their site, despite that they say are Windows 7 drivers (32 and 64 bit), Windows fails to recognize them as the proper drivers for the OS, even in compatibility modes. So after a few hours i finally managed to find the correct .inf file and install the driver manually, all this in an effort with a 640 x 480 display.

So again, the headaches in SL (IF) are nowhere as close to the ones in Windows (Certain you'll get some, sooner or later).

 

Let me be clear.


Apple has included support for a lot of peripherals with the included drivers in SL. Since adding scanning (just an OS WIA driver), users can do that from the OS as well.

The problem for many is, this limited OS-level driver prevents you from taking advantage of the more advanced functions offered by your particular printer. This situation sits squarely on the shoulders of the manufacturer of the peripheral (Canon, HP, Lexmark, etc...). These missing functions might include being able to print and scan wirelessly, which is a big thing for people these days.


As for your Nvidia issues, Nvidia releases so many drivers all the time that it's hardly a good indicator of the stability of the OS. The OS is rock solid. I'm sure if you researched it and found which of those drivers is stable and not some bleeding edge gamer tweak, you might see better reliability. As you stated, the Microsoft Win7 display adapter driver is solid. Again, that OS isn't even released yet - so vendors have more than a month to put the finishing touches on their drivers and support for the OS.

In contrast, SL is out - and has been out for several weeks now. I stand by my belief that Win7 will come out of the gate on Oct22 with better driver support than SL.



Using the Lexmark example, their website indicates a long list of peripherals that got Win7 drivers at the RTM date (Release to Manufacture). That means the drivers have been available for over a month.

In contrast, Lexmark won't have -any- 10.6.X drivers until "2010". Win7 has the basic OS level drivers too (just like SL), so it isn't a question of need. It's a question of attention, and Apple and its users are being made to wait for things that Windows users are given promptly.

 

Drivers has nothing to do with printing wirelessly, or wired, for that matter. the drivers are implemented after a connection to the printer is made, be it USB, Parallel, Wifi, Wired, Bonjour, etc...
If unable to print when using Wifi/IP, it is either a network problem or a permissions problem, not the driver. don't blame everything on drivers.

I'm also running Windows 7 on one of my Macs. It is a rock solid OS. MS did a GREAT job on Windows 7.

The major reason why hardware vendors are slow in providing drivers for SL is rewriting the driver in both 64bit and 32bit. For example, my Logitech Mouse cannot be seen by its LCC (Logitech driver/utility) when booted to 64bit kernel, however in 32bit kernel it works fine. They've been saying the 64bit drivers will be out soon, but it's been 2 months... I have a feeling these vendors still don't know how to write Mac 64bit drivers. OR- they just don't care about Mac users.

 

I'm not sure that's accurate about the WiFi. The documentation states only print support via direct USB. In fact, this is posted on Lexmark's site:

"USB connected printers are fully supported by the drivers included on the Mac OS X 10.6 install DVD. For wireless printers you will need to download new drivers from www.lexmark.com"


I agree with everything else you've said. It's lamentable that Mac users are made to wait regardless of the reason.