[Composer] OS Images and iLife '08 (iMovie)

[Ernst, Craig S.]

Hello All,

I apologize if everyone knows this stuff and I'm just a fool so far behind
in the times, but I wanted to share some information. Sorry if it's a bit
long winded...

A shiny new 20" iMac came into our office so I loaded up my current 10.4.9
image built on one of the newer Santa Rosa laptops (the newest hardware at
the time). I wanted to find out if I was going to indeed need to build some
updated images or not. NetBoot worked so the image loads so I figured I was
all good...until I loaded iLife '08 for packing.

As it turns out iMovie specifically looks to see if the video/graphics has
Quartz Extreme supported. With the older image, even though it booted fine,
had no idea how to recognize the newer hardware (my guess). This also
translates into not seeing any of the available software updates for the
newer hardware like the 'iMac Software Update 1.0' when it checks, even
after patching to 10.4.10. It also meant it didn't know that the graphics
supported Quartz Extreme and iMovie throws that error at you.

Long story short, as usual, you should create updated images on the newest
hardware with the install discs that came with it. Creating a 10.4.10 image
on the new 20" iMac, and applying any currently available updates, worked
fine on the new iMac, a newer MacBook pro, and older MacBook Pro, and an
older core duo Intel mini so far. All of them showed Quartz Extreme as
supported properly. On the newer Santa Rosa MacBook Pro systems that had a
separate update to deal with video (MacBooK Pro Software Update 1.0, which
there is now 1.1 that replaces it) the updates available for that hardware
showed up in software update correctly, and unlike last time my display
didn't get scrambled on my older MacBook Pro.

Might not want to go hog wild on new images if you feel 10.4.11 will be
released in short order. 10.4.10 still has issues related to dock items
showing up as question marks in the dock, but the sweet folks at JAMF
created a new verb "fixDocks" if you read the current release notes in 5.03
(not listed in the current jamf binary help) that will fix this issue for
your 10.4.10 images if you just can't wait. I wasn't sure how many read the
release notes so I thought I would mention it. The latest developer build of
10.4.11 seems to have this issue resolved, but that was only one test image
thus far.

That is all...have a nice day. =)

Feedback: If you thought this was helpful information please let me know and
drop me an email: ernstcs at uwec.edu

Craig