@ChrisH
Quote:
Original by ChrisH:
I'm installing the Enhancer Software for the first time, and noticed various smaller & bigger issues: I was expecting it to be difficult to tell which software would replace existing OS4 components (which I wish to avoid as an OS4 beta-tester).
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it will presumably warn that I am replacing existing components
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the software you are (un)ticking will replace standard OS4 components.
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While I think that keeping the OS "up-to-date" is basically a good idea, I nevertheless would like to point out that this also may cause problems.
Firstly I have to say that I have near to no experience with OS 4.x.
Though I have an "experimental install" of OS 4.0 classic on my A4k with CSPPC, I rarely used it, as OS 4.0 classic does not support my given hardware config as good as OS 3.9/WarpOS does.
Back in October 2011 I read about
Grunch.
I thought it is a good idea to have the latest versions of my installed software, including the latest versions of e.g. libraries, dosdrivers etc.
So I installed Grunch and tested it. It worked as advertised and updated a lot of stuff on my system.
Initially I was happy, but then I detected that more and more programs stopped working, which worked flawlessly before.
Why?
The problem was that Grunch updated some components of OS 3.9 with files that were provided by third parties and were not 100% backwards compatible.
As I wanted to avoid such problems, I deleted Grunch frommy system fairly quickly. I tried to track everything that had been "updated" by Grunch and to reinstate the original state - but with moderate success.
I still had some progs that continued to refuse working.
Then, some months ago, I read about Chris's NetSurf port for AOS 3.x.
As I wanted a more up-to-date browser on my system than my AWeb- and IBrowse versions, I decided to download and test it.
But every time I tried to start NetSurf, my system crashed. With the help of Chris I tried to figure out what exactly the problem is. At some point we came to the conclusion it would be best to make a clean re-install of OS 3.9 and the corresponding official BoingBags I & II, to make sure that only the original system components are used.
After that, starting NetSurf still resulted in a system crash, but a bit later. Now I can at least see the splash screen before the system crashes...
So there still are issues - caused by this infamous "Grunch" packet manager.
So now my conclusion is NOT to use "Updater"- or "Enhancer"-software again, unless it is guaranteed that only officially certified and backwards compatible software will be used to replace system components.
It simply is too much work to get back a "clean" system, once the damage is done by some "updates"...
It's a real pity, as it basically is a good idea to have a "up-to-date" system - but only as long as it can somehow be ascertained that the software used to update the system is really compatible with the previous versions.