Has anyone leaped to Leopard?

Has anyone made the leap to the Leopard operating system at their school? If so, what compatibility issues have you found with software, if any? How easy was the shift for teachers? Any glitches in the system? Any tips? I have not heard or read anything good about 'Stacks'. Any thoughts/comments are appreciated.

Tags: leopard, macintosh

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Permalink Reply by pete whitfield on November 30, 2007 at 12:52am

Some staff at my place have switched - they are mostly using web and music programmes (like Logic) and I've not heard of any glitches BUT I'm still waiting a while before I do it myself.

Permalink Reply by Eric Hileman on December 1, 2007 at 7:02am

Spaces are great in theory, but I think it hogs systems resources. I've limited mine to two spaces. As far as stack, I actually like them. I can create a microsoft stack and place it in the dock, or a PIM stack and place calendar, addressbook, and mail as group.

Permalink Reply by Robin Martin on December 2, 2007 at 6:26pm

I leaped on my home computer and after a few days had a LOT of freezing. As it turns out...Apple suggested 1GB of RAM an I only had 512. Be aware of that issue!

Robin

Permalink Reply by Carol Broos on December 10, 2007 at 5:49pm

I met a few of my early adaptors at the apple store to get Leopard. Then we talked at school about the problems and cool features. I always test out my home computers first.. I know we are going to Leopard next year and think it is important technology teachers use the software first at home, then at school. At home you can see the problems.

Permalink Reply by Robin Martin on December 11, 2007 at 12:10pm

Carol, I totally agree if you have the right set up! I just got a laptop this year from school, so I test most software there before installing in my lab. I have over 300 computers in our building to keep up to par, so we try to go slowly.

Permalink Reply by David Kapuler on December 11, 2007 at 10:48am

I made the switch to Leopard a week after it came out. Being the tech facilitator/network guy at the school I wanted to test it out well in advance before switching any users. The install itself went w/out a hitch, it took a good 2 hours to do. 1 hour for the install, but then spotlight gets updated and indexes your machine for another hour depending on how much you have on there. While you can use your computer while that is going on, it does slow things down and causes it to act "glitchy". I recommend only using Leopard by following Apple's requirements or it will slow your machine down.

As far as moving the whole school over that we'll wait for summer at the earliest. Leopard Server is a whole new "beast" to tackle. I've seen it in use and it has some really cool features, such as mail merge, ical server, wiki server, etc.

Permalink Reply by Yancy Gunhammer on December 13, 2007 at 4:06pm

I have switched over to leopard around a month or so ago. I love it. I have a Mac book Pro and did an archival install. My Network person did a complete install on her Macbook Pro and is having some printer issues. I did have one issue with firefox but updated to the new firefox version and it cleared up. I also loaded 14 of 25 Mac servers with Leopard and I love the new feature. The Server System Preference limits some of the server options so we can use these servers as internal wiki, blog, ical and webmail all in one simple package with out much intergration.

The hardest thing I am coming up on is the Podcast producer which requires a little (it looks like xml code or rss feed code) to get implemented. I am going to work on this during the xmas vacation. Over all, I have been happy with the new os x - spaces is great and the new preview in the finder is very cool. I also loaded Ilife 08 and Iwork 08 they have educational site licsense at very reasonable prices.

I did not move some of the servers from tiger due to third party software called orchard on them. I am waiting to here from their tech support before I attempt to move these units over.

I would wait about two to three month to work on the software glitches or bugs before rolling out the os x to the individual machines. I did experience some problems with the acitive directory integration with open directory. (users are getting timed out or taking to long to authenticate.)

Permalink Reply by Carol Broos on December 13, 2007 at 8:20pm

I just spent the day at an Apple conference concerning Leopard server. I am extremely excited about Podcast producer. If you have any pointers, please let me know. I won't get my hands on it until summer.

Permalink Reply by Yancy Gunhammer on December 14, 2007 at 8:08am

Podcast Producer is a little tougher than I initially though, but I will give you an undate of how it is going for me. I would love to get some of the concerts, and athletic programs on our server at least internally. You can download an administors guide to podcast producer at apples website. That is what I am using to setup my server.

Permalink Reply by Bob F. on December 25, 2007 at 6:39am

I purchased Leopard for my home G5 and my school issued MacBook. I'm not usually an early adopter but I took the plunge this time. I also know that I'm going to have to work with it sometime at school (I'm the techguy) so I wanted an early start in preparation fro when we get new computers with new systems.
Installs went fine, had a couple minor glitches at first, but can't even remember what they were now.
One major issue I had at school; I"m the lone Mac school in a PC district. Our file servers are all Novell. Connecting with afp didn't work. It has something to do with cleartext passwords or such. The solution was to connect with smb.
I've had no other issues with Leopard.

Permalink Reply by Lucy Gray on December 30, 2007 at 2:35pm

Hi Everyone -

I upgraded a few weeks ago and have had no problems. I haven't explored all the features, but I have to say that iChat AV Theatre is AMAZING. Sharing desktops and documents is fabulous. I even shared a Keynote preso with a friend... she could see all my slides, including embedded videos, and here me narrate my preso at the same time. If anyone wants to try this out, find me via iChat. My AIM user name is elemenous.

Permalink Reply by Helen Mowers on January 17, 2008 at 9:18pm

We haven't made the shift as a district, but I and a couple of people I know have and the transition was very easy. I recently did the Archive and Install and had no issues at all. I haven't run across any apps that used to work and that don't work in Leopard.