(Update : Friday, November 14, 2008
I have been forced to send three more reports to Apple due to Kernel Panics. This is becoming far too regular. I can honestly say that the Windows Vista system I use is more stable than Mac OS X 10.5.5. Apple has done us a great disservice. Every marketing statement concerning stability and quality has been undermined by this oversight. Problems of this magnitude have happened in the past and will continue to happen until Apple’s Quality Assurance rises to a minimal level of expertise.
)

Since the Mac OS X 10.5.5 Update became available I have had consistent Kernel Panics and graphic artifacts issues. In fact, it is the two Kernel Panics within the last two hours that has prompted me to write this post. When will Apple fix this mistake? 

First off, the graphic artifacts appear to be tiny versions of the Desktop Picture repeated over the entirety of the display. This is annoying, but I can live through it by invoking Dashboard to refresh the display.

Secondly, and far more important, Kernel Panics have a regular part of my day.  Each time the Kernel Panic appears I have performed the same steps. I click on the Apple Menu only to find that the menu doesn’t display and instead am greeted with the Kernel Panic message. My supposedly superior quality Apple system must now be rebooted with the same regularity as Windows XP or Vista running on commodity PC hardware.  

Apple … This must stop now. For those of you who have questions, let me run through some of the answers now. 

1. No, nothing new has been introduced, neither hardware nor software, since the update.
2. No, I am not playing a game, of any sort, prior to the Kernel Panic.
3. Yes, each time I do in fact send the Kernel Panic Report and each time it lists the GPU and its dependencies in the backtrace.

This is very cursory, but the reports, the behaviors, and the information that many of you have previously been exposed to on Apple’s own support forums, suggests that a major bug was introduced in the Mac OS X 10.5.5 Software Update that causes GPU based Kernel Panics. Hopefully, Apple will correct this defect as soon as possible.  In the meantime, we’re faced with having to forcefully reboot our systems just like our Windows brethren.