I just got a new MBP about 2 weeks ago. I love it, absolutely the best laptop I have ever owned, and the FASTEST computer I do own. But here's my question. I have a '09 Mini with 2.0Ghz C2D running 10.5.8. So the only difference is 400mhz, and the OS. But my MBP just seems significantly faster in ever operation. I'm doubting it has anything to do with the processor speed. So is Snow Leopard really that much more speedy?
I just got a new MBP about 2 weeks ago. I love it, absolutely the best laptop I have ever owned, and the FASTEST computer I do own. But here's my question. I have a '09 Mini with 2.0Ghz C2D running 10.5.8. So the only difference is 400mhz, and the OS. But my MBP just seems significantly faster in ever operation. I'm doubting it has anything to do with the processor speed. So is Snow Leopard really that much more speedy?
To people who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about this is FUD. To anybody who actually thinks about it, it is making a lot of sense. OS X does not have any uninstallers, it's up to the software builder to include something like that and most don't. This will cause a lot of pollution because things like launchagents, pref files, etc. are not removed upon deleting the application. When using things like macports this can cause additional pollution of the filesystem (check the manual, there is an autoclean option). Such leftovers normally don't cause any problems, they just sit there taking up space. Sometimes those leftovers can actually harm the system and cause some problems (which you can check in Console).
The main reason why those tools exist is for paranoid people. Leaving those preference and plist files there will not "rot" your system which is what the person I replied to was talking about. If cleaning OSX was so mandatory like removing these plist files then Apple would have included a tool that would do so. They might take up a decent amount of space which could lead to low space on the HDD, but other than that they have no harm on the operating system performance. The only way they could lead to some sort of negative OS performance is if they are always running, and even then you can easily check what is and isn't running.
What part about the daily, weekly and monthly maintenance script did you not understand? Those are OS X's own scripts that run to do some system maintenance. You need to have to run those because one of the things it does is rotate the logfiles. If you don't do this you'll end up with huge logfiles that hog down the system.
It has a monitoring process running in the back that monitors the system for deletion of apps. Whenever you delete an app it will locate corresponding files and prompt a dialog where you can deselect everything you do not want to remove (so if you want to leave the plist files simply deselect them). When you confirm the selection it will put everything that was selected in the trash. The automation is the monitoring process running in the background.
Cloning installations and putting them on new hardware is quite known for things like that, especially when you've cloned the installation a couple of times. You might call that OS rot too. A fresh install might do wonders in this case. Whenever I get a new machine I see this as a great opportunity to check my current installation and do a bit of a cleanup. Mostly I'll partially restore the system (applications and settings, sometimes just applications) and go from there.
AppDelete is as much garbage as AppCleaner because all of these apps leave things behind. That's why the corresponding developers put a warning about this in their disclaimers. However, AppCleaner is freeware, AppDelete isn't. Since these applications never cleanup everything there is, it's a bit of a waste to pay for it. The reason why they leave files on the system has to do with things like filenames, the information they have about what files went where and user rights. Those apps are not foolproof.
If these were mandatory scripts to use every week Apple would've made their existence more apparent. Rotating log files will not improve performance as drastically as the OP was talking about anyway.
In the SSD age Apple should have TRIM support so this wouldn't be a problem. Anyone buying an SSD that plans to run it on Mac OS X is just wasting their money, the drive will die sooner than later regardless.
Logs, application support folders and plist files will not "rot" the system. They will take up space which *could* lead to slowness, but other than that they are harmless to the systems performance.
AppDelete is the best of these uninstaller apps, you get what you pay for. The only time I've had AppDelete miss something is for a couple of oddly named application support folders. When I used AppCleaner prior it left so much **** behind it was useless. Oh and even specific application uninstallers can miss ****. Glims is one example.
From a lot of experience I can tell you that cleaning up logfiles has a huuuuuuge impact on things like disk space and performance. I've seen servers refusing to work just because logfiles grew out of proportions. In case of a problem somewhere on the system this can cause logfiles to be filled rapidly. If logfiles are indeed a problem on your Mac you should investigate a little bit further because mostly it is caused by some sort of problem that is filling up the logs.
There is no need for TRIM. I don't think TRIM is the proper solution, the NAND Launderer that is used before it even became available should be the way to go. Why? Because it is an OS independent system inside the ssd that always works. TRIM is part of the ATA spec and you need hardware and software to implement the new ATA spec. It just depends on too much stuff. TRIM is not a silver bullet as you seem to think. In fact, TRIM is worse than the NAND Launderer in some cases. In the end TRIM and NAND Launderer can not and will not stop or prevent the ssd from slowing down. If you fill the ssd it will be slow no matter what technology is being used. It is simply a defect in the current memory chips which can not be overcome. We need a redesigned memory chip, not TRIM or NAND Launderer to solve this problem.
Unfortunately performance problems are not directly caused by such things. Logfiles and plists can cause other problems which in turn can cause other things which in the end can cause performance problems as well as a lot of other things. Performance is not the only problem you get from OS rot. Also, files that no are no longer needed litter the OS, that alone can account for OS rot. The upgrade from Tiger to Leopard a lot of people tried to do mostly ended up in a lot of trouble due to OS rot. People had a lot of leftover plists, launchagents, etc. that caused a lot of troubles because they were incompatible with the new OS. One of the main causes was an application called APE. Some apps installed APE as a dependency but didn't remove it if the user uninstalled the app. APE was incompatible with Leopard and caused a lot of trouble such as system lockups. They could cause similar problems with other software (aka interfere with other apps).
Yep, there is no fool proof application which is what I already stated. That's why paying for such an app is not something I'd do. Most apps only have a plist and just the .app dir. Delete those and it's gone. Apps that use an uninstaller are hard to remove because things can be in use and you may need to authenticate. Such things can not be removed by applications like AppDelete or AppCleaner, paying or using such apps for this would be completely pointless.
