10.11 is here...

[unclemac]

For those already running 10.10, should be a no brainer:


Macworld calls El Capitan "solid as a rock," noting improvements to features like Mission Control and the introduction of Split View as big positives. Overall, Macworld views the upgrade as "routine", a welcome refresh amid Apple's continued push towards performance and security improvements.

Should you update to El Capitan? Unreservedly yes--I've found it to be stable, it's free, it'll download and install itself on your Mac with nearly no intervention, and it'll bring with it improved security, speed, and functionality.The days of dramatic operating-system updates are over. El Capitan is as solid as the giant granite monolith that towers over Yosemite Valley. Upgrade, and get an improved Mac. It's really that simple.

Engadget gives El Capitan an 87/100 score, calling it a "modest update" after Yosemite last year, but with solid new introductions like multitasking and noticeable improvements to Spotlight, Safari, and Photos. In particular, the site points out the exciting possibilities that will come from the addition of third-party extensions for Photos, allowing users to take advantage of the editing tools of other photo apps within Apple's own Photos experience.

While Apple promised third-party extensions when it first unveiled the new Photos app earlier this year, extensions won't actually be available to download until tomorrow. Extensions can be downloaded from the Mac App Store, either bundled with an app or distributed on their own. Although some developers, like the folks behind Pixelmator, have gotten a head start, most developers are only just getting the chance to access these tools for the first time. So, we should be seeing more extensions hit the App Store as the season wears on. Personally, as an Engadget editor posting lots of hands-on photos, I'd really like to see one for batch-watermarking

.

The Verge commented on the small but noticeable improvements brought by El Capitan, such as the ability to pin tabs in Safari and even mute them from the address bar, which the site says should cause Google Chrome users to give Apple's browser another look. Overall, The Verge views OS X 10.11 as Apple's evolutionary in-house solution for a handful of problems and shortcomings third-party software has addressed over the years, making the update feel both minor and substantial at the same time.

El Capitan takes the sorts of things that experts have been doing with third-party apps and utilities for years on the Mac and builds them right into the OS. Spotlight is becoming more than just a simple file search box. Window management is becoming easier. Notes is more than just a raw text box. Most of it left me nonplussed because all of these things didn't feel new and different to me -- I've been finding ways to fix all of those problems for years with third party apps and add-ons. But with El Capitan, Apple's made the learning curve you usually have to climb to become a "power user" (whatever that is) much more gradual.

My first upgrade will be a 2010 MBP running 10.10.5. Nothing fancy, no bootcamp or legacy software. Looking forward to optimazation. Curious about performance on older machines with Less than 8GB of RAM.

[ricks]

Nice report. I'll be updating this week and start testing. Let you know how it goes.

Rick

[yeungfeng]

Excellent, removes all those new release concerns. I've been waiting for this, I can now update iOS9 at the same time. Well one at a time. But of course I have to backup first, and SuperDuper is El Capitan ready with it's latest update Version 2.8 (V.96). I'll be watching for thunder clouds, thrown objects and whatever. Good Night & Good Luck

[unclemac]

First upgrade:

2.4 i5, 4GB RAM, 500GB HD in a MBP running 10.10.5. Update went fine. Said it would be about 30 min, was more like 45, though I did not time it.

Curiously, the update interface was very minimal. Download and run the 10.11 app, and it reboots. Upon reboot, you see a regular startup process, Apple logo, and a progress bar (all look normal). Under the progress bar, some small text that says: Update in progress. Approximate time to complete: 30 minutes.

...Or something similar. Very low key, felt more like a small patch/update as opposed to a full OS upgrade. Just about everything feels a bit faster, more snappy. Subjective, but seems like a nice overall improvement.

Biggest new thing.....Disk Utility has been totally redesigned. Brace yourself: We can longer run the Repair Permissions script/tool.



Time will tell if this is a step forward....or back. I do wonder about all the third party tool that could also do this, from Disk Warrior to Onyx. Most I assume simply ran the same Apple CLI tool. Does it still exist? Can we run it via CLI or third party tools? Dunno yet.

[ricks]

10.11 breaks driver for Newertech eSATA card.

Can't believe anyone would update a work computer same day a new OS releases without ever finding out if the drivers they must have work or not. I can't wait for all the phone calls this breakage will lead to.

[unclemac]

Wow, considering the open beta, one would expect Newertech, Sonnett and other Mac specific hardware venders to be ready.

Have not tested the Usual Suspects yet....PCIe cards, printers, scanners, etc. I did see that CUPS went from 2.0 to 2.1......hopefully that does not break alot (...any?) PPDs for laser printers.

Dare I ask: Any news from Areca? I only see Mac drivers up to 10.10 on their site, but last update was only about 2 months ago.

[ricks]

Newertech, owned by OWCh, must not be part of Apple Developer. Their driver installer package is not considered approved by Apple software.

I'm switching the eSATA card to a new Lycom board that uses built in AHCI drivers. It is even bootable. In fact, doing my 10.11 testing on a drive connected via that excellent card. More on that later.

Have not heard anything yet from Areca. They are never first, but always soonish after an update.

Rick

[unclemac]

Areca: Would rather it be best, not first.

Sad that OWC/Newer (apparently) can't be bothered to be an Apple Dev, when it is their primary market. I get smallish/open source software devs don't want to be bothered or constrained, but one would think a hardware vendor would want their gear to work well, and the end user to be happy. More sales, less support...

I know....that's crazy talk!

[ricks]

Here's from OWC:

Thank you for contacting OWC. I do apologize but currently we do not have any set ETA on a new driver, we are aware of the issue with the newest OSX and the PCie cards, we are working on a solution. As soon as we have anymore information it will be released on our blog

[Damien]

OWCh Larry was always a storefront not a developer. I doubt that has changed much considering his track record (chips melting off boards etc.) He is probably waiting on whoever he outsourced the job to to finish the new drivers

I am running 10.11 with no issues but I run in a very minimalist manner. Other than Apple supplied kernel extensions I only run one other and that's the Kensington trackball extension. It did not fail, but I heard from a friend that Logitech failed but they had an update already on their site. Likely he had an older version and could have updated already.

[unclemac]

Second Mac updated. Similar to the first, 4GB of RAM, 2.53 i5 MBP, previously running 10.10.5

Everything good so far, but only a first look. This machine used to have some issues, likely software. Pauses, would get hot for no apparent reason.....likely a runaway process, ram leak, or just plain old bad software. Intentionally did not wipe it, to see if it gets worse, better, or no change.

Admittedly not scientific as it has undiagnosed issues.....but still a "real world" test. We shall see....

[unclemac]

Quick observations about printing:

1. Have a older Brother MFC-9320CW wireless color laser multi-function. With no printer driver loaded, I saw Generic PCL Driver. That seems new to me, or maybe I missed it previously. Generic Postscript has always been available, but I suspect PCL may be new, or at least it may be new that the setup assistant now suggests it

2. Loaded the Brother MFC-9320CW driver for 10.10 (noting listed for 10.11 yet), and the printer was seen via Bonjour on the default tab in the Printer Preference Pance, setup automatically, and is behaving fine. Sometimes wireless come with a few hoops to jump through, but none here.

3. Looking at the printing Pref Pane, I see a new protocol available when seeing up a printer manually in the IP tab: Air Print. The same previous options are still there: IPP, LPD, and Jet Direct.

4. The Brother Brother MFC-9320CW driver loads up in the pref pane/setup window as: Brother MFC-9320CW CUPS. Typically one sees PS (postscript), not CUPS on most Mac Laser printers. Wonder if this is something new as well..... will try to confirm. Maybe I never noticed before?

[ricks]

Damn I hate Apple and iCloud.

I made a copy of the Yose OS on Laurie's workstations. Turned off all apps and upgraded that copy to El Cap. Then I made a copy of Laurie's User drive and linked to it. Then started testing everything using those 2 drives.

Reboot to her Yose drive and all her shit is now up in the iCloud. Pisses me off greatly - I don't ever put anything on any cloud, especially iCloud. So Mail, Calendar, Contacts and so on is all gone.

Luckily I have LOTS of backups. Go to a backup from this morning, no problem. Erase her Users drive, copy her backup back on to it, relink and back running.


From now on I unplug the network from any computer I am testing on!

[yeungfeng]

Is it safe to raise my head now?

Rick, if it's any consolation, I know your pain. I've been there too man. You're not alone. We're here for ya buddy

Always seems like there's some glitch with a change in OS and it always sucks and it sucks time . . . . . I really hope you got it all fixed up or you might. . . .

I'll just keep my head down for now. Someone signal the all clear. Wonder what my glitch will be?

[rwm]

My neighbor friend went through hell with iOS9 on his iPad. Don't know if it was him or software.

I will wait a little longer and upgrade to 10.11...

[ricks]

I did get it back working fine, but it trashed the primary user directory. Had to copy it back. Unless I wanted to learn again how to undo all the shit iCLoud does to your data. I went through this waaaaay back when they first introduced the iCloud. It is not fun and should be considered a freakin BUG. Worst part is, on initial startup, when it asked for my Apple name and password I told it to skip that. HOW THE HELL does it take your data and put it *somewhere* without it has a some-friggin-place to put it?

Definition of a corporate mindset built in bug. Absolutely no one at Apple would believe you wouldn't want your data on their servers. (rented from Amazon)

/RANT

[rwm]

My brother recently had his data pics/text on a 10 year old phone transferred to a new Samsung. He was never connected to a cloud. When done every photo he'd taken... photos of inside his pocket, stuff he'd tossed... he had a small memory chip and had to keep deleting to keep newer ones. So when he had it transferred where the hell did 10 years of photos come from... not his little memory chip. Big brother has it all stored no matter if you have a cloud or not.

[ricks]

According to Areca their current drivers work with 10.11. They did release a new MRAID Utility installer today that fixes an installer issue, but if you are upgrading a system from 10.10 that already has the MRAID Utility there is no need to reinstall, the fix was in the installer script not the utility code.

Rick

[unclemac]

Sweet. Thanks for the info.

----


Been trying Utilities. All tested while booted to an external 10.10 HD, and testing/repairing internal 10.11 install -

Disk Warrior 5
Worked fine rebuilding the directory, normal report, no issues, no update required. Ran the Permissions and folders function, and ir reported that permissions were repaired. No way to see if any changes were made, as there is no output/report (weak design IMHO). Behaved normally, just don't know what?if anything?repairing permissions did.

Speed Tools 3.9
Older version (no updates available) , but seems to work fine. Did the file defrag, repaired permissions, and a some volume/HD testing. No issues, seems OK.


Onyx
No 10.11 version available; can't run the most recent version (3.0) as there is version validation. Waiting for 10.11 version.


SuperDuper 2.8
Cloned a HD to SSD with the free/limited version. Clone booted, no errors reported.


GetBackup 2.6.1
Cloned a 10.11 HD, but clone did not boot. Need to investigate, supposed to work with 10.11.


Menu Meters 1.81
Installs, but does not load the toolbar menu. Get this error, from the OS: Menu Extra Could Not Load. For instructions on enabling third-party menu extras please see the documentation. Looks like the dev will have to address this.....looks related to the Extensions Preference Pane.

Lots more to test....including the restore feature in the new version of Disk Utility.

[babbkutz]

anything on 10.11?