On Stability of XTension

[Brian Williams]

Wow! I've been reading the discussion of this particular theme, and am left
wondering if I am interpreting correctly; most importantly, this input from
Michael:

Quote:

" All of this brings up an old saw of mineŠ I've suggested this and still
believe in it.

Put XTension on an older Mac.  A Mini ? Settle on an Mac OS that you're
happy with.  (This can be headless, as even an iPad can VNC to it.) Buy at
least one identical spare Mac. Maintain a complete set of backup drives.
Dedicate a closet or corner shelf to it.

I don't even suggest that you run things like a music server etc on that
mac. Don't put anything on it that you might want to continue to upgrade.

And yes, that just perfectly squashes any kind of continuing profit we might
make, and I know that there are a lot of folks out there who are still
running XTension for OS9, I'm suggesting itŠ

The hardware is so much less reliable today.  And the more we reduce the
'die size', the greater possibility for anomalous events.

And I just won't get into the subject of what's happened to the OS.

Now don't believe for a moment that James and I don't ever have real world
failures, and we are certain that there are still bugs in the system, but
we're still here, and very much addicted to our systems :)

Michael"

End quote:

I have been heading in the direction that Michael seems to be advising
against.

Yes, I was happy with Xtension running as it had been on an old MacBook
under an OS about 3 generations old, but then new things started popping,
like Web Remote. I believe that there have been statements that the latest
evolutions of Xtension aren't being compiled to necessarily run on older OS,
hence Build 841 was the end of the line for that older system. To quote:

  On 7/31/2013 9:30 AM, James Sentman wrote:
> What OS version? The web remote requires an Intel processor and while I'm not
using anything that specifically requires anything newer than 10.5 it may not
run prior to 10.6. I can't build with earlier compiler versions or settings for
this unfortunately, it's only supported on newer systems.


And on

On Aug 23, 2013, at 3:02 PM, Brian Williams <brwill at me.com> wrote:

> I recall an earlier message regarding the minimum OS X that will support all
the features of Xtension, and specifically XWebRemote (sic). Where do we stand
with Build 846? Is 10.5.8 too old?

10.5.8 remains an excellent stable platform for XTension, web remote may, or
may not run on that though. I had no luck with previous builds and had no
way to go back. An Intel processor is required for web remote though
XTension itself remains compiled for both PPC and Intel.

Thanks,
     James

End quote:

I am wanting my iPad to become a significant controller and reporter
vis-à-vis my home automation, and Web Remote seems the right vehicle for
that.

Also, I have extended my Barionet network, adding an R6 and an IO12 to the
current Barionet 100. These necessitated a couple of minor 'fixes' in
Xtension, so I am operating on beta Xtension s/w. The changes demand that I
evolve my host hardware and host software (i.e. Mac OS).

So, I made a change, and it is everything that Michael seems to recommend
against. I installed a current-model Mac mini (Mountain Lion) to host
Xtension, I have made it my iTunes library (Home Sharing), and have hung 4
external hard drives off it - one to serve as the disk space for iTunes, and
three to serve as backup (Time Machine) repositories for the Mac mini and a
couple of Macbooks. I made the full switch over this past weekend, and
everything seems to be running well. I am running it headless and manage it
using screen sharing. It is put away in a cabinet, along with its own UPS,
which serves only the Mac mini and its peripherals.

This note is not intended to counter anything that Michael wrote, as quoted
above. I am just sharing my current experiences, and look forward to the
continuing evolution of Xtension, especially the evolution of Web Remote.

Regards,  Brian