What do you think are the essential system (hardware) requirements for developing in Cocoa? I’m using a PowerMac G4 500 with 768 MB ram (on 10.3), but I’m finding that InterfaceBuilder slows down to a crawl with even a moderately complex nib file open. Is it a lack of RAM, or should I be looking elsewhere to eliminate this slowdown? - NateClinton
I’d consider that about the low end of a usable system. Your IB slowness is probably just the system, but max out the RAM anyway.
I’m running on an iMac 700MHz flat panel with only 256 MB of RAM and I haven’t had a problem with IB slowing down. I would think 768 MB of RAM would be plenty. – RyanBates
I’m running it on an iBook 600 with 384 megs with no real problems. So I guess it’s really the CPU, or maybe your graphics card. I have a Rage 128 Mobility, what does yours have? – UliKusterer
A TiBook 500 with 512mb of RAM is more than powerful enough to do a lot of Cocoa programming. I upgraded to a gig of RAM because I was doing a client gig with an app that slung around a lot of data, but this is the main development machine for everything I do. ++MarkDalrymple
I use a G4/400 with only 256 RAM, and it works just fine. –OwenAnderson
I’m running Mac OS X 10.3.2 off my iPod, booting up on a 450mhz Sage iMac, 190mb ram, and XCode, and IB run perfectly. – JoshaChapmanDodson
You do know that Mac OS X’s big harddisk activity can kill your iPod?
Yeah, running the OS off of an ipod is pretty dumb. Get one of those outboard firewire hard drives and boot off of that if you have to dual-boot. In the long run, cheaper than replacing the iPod.
And then starts the spray-paint campaign “Apple unfair to people booting os x on ipods” and get a lot of media attention.
Well it won’t necessarily kill the iPod, it will kill the battery though.
Huh? The battery is in a charged state when plugged in as an outboard disk. The battery is fine. The iPod will indeed be killed because the very small (physically) hard drives in there are not built to remain on for extended periods of time and under heavy use. Plus the iPod’s heat dissapation is not designed for continual hard drive usage (the hard drive in normal iPod use is usually off except when its memory buffer gets empty)
The hard drive is rated for that type of activity. Lithium Ion batteries on the other hand slowly but surely are destroyed from heat ranging above 55C, which is easily produced inside a permanently on iPod. The hard drive was never intended to be turned on and off like it is, it was intended to be a standard issue hard drive which could take a constant pounding, much like the ones inside your Mac.
Hey… how did you get Panther on your iPod? Last I heard CCC couldn’t do that yet. Not that I intend to run Panther that way, but it would be awful nice to have a known working, bootable version in case I b0rk my system. [ edit : nevermind, I just checked out the CCC site and there it is. ]