OS X updates

[geoffry]

With AAPL seemingly abandoning the previous OS X for "service packs" would that mean that the earlier versions of OS X have a good chance of being less secure?

I checked wikipedia and there were no additional 10.4.X after 10.5.1 was released.

So either 10.4.11 is bullet proof or it is being ignored, which is it?

I use leopard on my iMac but don't have a DX 10 GPU so I'm not sure I would get too much of a speed boost out of Snow Leopard but if they abandon Leopard for security updates they pretty much force you to upgrade, MSFT doesn't do that.

Thanks in advance.

 

[aphex]

Once Apple releases a new OS, the updates for the older OS dry up fairly quickly. As you noted, only one update for 10.4.x came out after 10.5.1 was released. I wouldn't say its either bullet proof or ignored, its just reached its EOL. The OS will still work fine and still be as secure as it was before, they just no longer update it.

Security is a different animal with OS X than it is on its Windows counterparts. The OS is arguably more secure and is attacked significantly less, so less security based updates are needed. Would I feel comfortable with 10.4.11 on a everyday system? Absolutely.

 

[TheStu]

It doesn't matter what DX level your GPU is in OS X since OS X doesn't use DirectX (the proprietary Windows technology that it is). They use OpenGL.

As far at 10.n.X updates go, they cut those off, but they do still push Security Updates I believe, just no more major bug fix updates and whatnot (that is what the n.X updates are for the most part).

 

[geoffry]

Originally posted by: TheStu
It doesn't matter what DX level your GPU is in OS X since OS X doesn't use DirectX (the proprietary Windows technology that it is). They use OpenGL.

As far at 10.n.X updates go, they cut those off, but they do still push Security Updates I believe, just no more major bug fix updates and whatnot (that is what the n.X updates are for the most part).

But would OpenCL GPU acceleration work on a 7600 gt? And even if it does, its probably not any faster than my CPU.

The reason I said DX10 GPU was because thats where the shaders became much more programmable. I'm not sure the 7600 GT shaders are worthwhile doing anything besides gaming (and I don't even use it for that, just office work)

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: geoffry

Originally posted by: TheStu
It doesn't matter what DX level your GPU is in OS X since OS X doesn't use DirectX (the proprietary Windows technology that it is). They use OpenGL.

As far at 10.n.X updates go, they cut those off, but they do still push Security Updates I believe, just no more major bug fix updates and whatnot (that is what the n.X updates are for the most part).

But would OpenCL GPU acceleration work on a 7600 gt? And even if it does, its probably not any faster than my CPU.

The reason I said DX10 GPU was because thats where the shaders became much more programmable. I'm not sure the 7600 GT shaders are worthwhile doing anything besides gaming (and I don't even use it for that, just office work)

Well, I think that the 7 series of cards might not be as ideal for OpenCL as say... 9 series or better (where they started throwing lots of parallel cores onto the cards). But at the end of the day, GPUs are still fantastic at lots of parallel processes, so one way or another, your CPU+GPU is going to outperform your CPU alone.