[Macpartners] Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" Release Announcement

[Albert Willis]

Good morning,

Information Services and Technology is pleased to announce support 
for Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger." Tiger provides many new features, 
including Spotlight, Dashboard, Automator, QuickTime 7, Safari RSS 
and many more. See http://www.apple.com/macosx/newfeatures/ for more 
information.

Information Services and Technology recommends that administrative 
users, especially those that depend on SAPgui for Mac OS X should not 
upgrade to Tiger at this time. No version of SAPgui functions 
properly on Tiger currently--some transactions don't work or can 
cause SAPgui to crash or corrupt data.

We are optimistic that Apple will release an operating system update 
that will enable a new version of SAPgui to run on Mac OS X 10.4 
within 30 days. Some SAP users can use SAPweb or Citrix (to access 
the  Windows version of SAP) until the updated version of SAPgui is 
available; please see the Mac OS X release notebook 
(http://web.mit.edu/swrt/releases/macosx10.4/) for additional 
information and known issues.

In addition, departments, labs and centers that rely on Kerberos 
authentication at login or OpenAFS should not upgrade to Mac OS X 
10.4 at this time, as these applications and features don't currently 
work and we don't have a timeframe when they will.

Obtaining Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger"
-------------------------------
Confirm the Macintosh you wish to install Mac OS X 10.4 on is 
eligible to be upgraded. In order to provide the most value to MIT, 
we suggest that you only request licenses for machines that are 
expected to be used through FY2006 and meet the following hardware 
requirements:

* A Macintosh desktop with a 800 MHz or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor
* A Macintosh laptop with a 800 MHz or faster PowerPC G4 processor
* at least 512 MB RAM
* 3GB of available hard disk space (4GB if you install the developer tools)

These licenses are for use on MIT-owned equipment only--personally 
owned machines are not eligible.

Users wishing to upgrade their machines should first check with the 
software liaison in their department regarding obtaining a license 
and installation media for Tiger. The list of liaisons is located at 
http://web.mit.edu/ist/services/software/msca-osliaisons.html.

Users also have the option to request licenses, download ISO disk 
images from the new Mac OS X order site at http://macosx.mit.edu/ 
from which installation media can be created. Note: the first 
installation CD must be created on a Macintosh using Apple's Disk 
Utility program so that it boots, which is required to install Tiger.

We have a limited number of OS X 10.3 "Panther" licenses available 
for faculty and staff who need to upgrade from Mac OS X 10.2 but are 
not ready to upgrade to Tiger.  To request a license and media, 
please contact <vsls-macosx at mit.edu>.

Upgrading
---------
Apple provides step-by-step directions on upgrading from a previous 
version for Mac OS X to Tiger at 
http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/. IS&T strongly recommends users 
make a complete backup of their hard drives before attempting to 
upgrade.

Getting Help
------------
The Mac OS X 10.4 page is located at http://itinfo.mit.edu/product.php?vid=686.

If you have a question or need assistance, please contact the 
Computing Help Desk at computing-help at mit.edu or x3-1101. Support 
from the Computing Help Desk consists of assistance for getting 
connected to MITnet and basic configuration issues.

Best regards,

Al Willis, for the Mac OS X 10.4 release team
   Deb Bowser
   Joey Gottinger
   Jonathan Reed
   Lee Ridgway
   Helen Rose
   Matthias Thorn
   Karl Witt



______________________________
Albert Willis
Macintosh Platform Coordinator
Software Release Team
MIT Information Services & Technology