Mac OS X Snow Leopard Discussion

[Ricardo Gil]

i just ordered it, 39 bucks total with tax canadian, how could i not? Reading all over the web peoples experience with it so far and it seems pretty positive.

A lot of people seem to be having issues booting with the 64 bit kernel, mainly because their EFI doesn't support it.

To see if you mac will go into terminal and type in

ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

If it says EFI64 bit you are good to go, if it says EFI32 then it's not going to work for you.

"firmware-abi" = <"EFI64">.

Sweet :p

[Astra.Xtreme]

Did they ever say Windows 7 was supported?

i understand that technically Vista drivers work 90% of the time for 7 wich is what we have all been using for 7 but originally only XP was supported under bootcamp,

vista came later, and most machines except for MBP's,Mac Pro's and Xserves didn't have official 64bit bootcamp driver support wether they are 64bit processors not,

so i can't immagine that apple would support 7 before its official release

Everything worked perfectly on the BootCamp included with 10.5. Although I don't remember if I was running 32 or 64 bit at that point, so that is most likely the problem. There are 64 bit drivers included on the BootCamp 3.0 disc though. I just had to manually run them since the autorun would shoot an error.

[thefarewellnote]

Does anyone know if the retail disc that Apple will sell of SL require Leopard Install disc? Because it is suppose to be an upgrade retail disc.

To do an upgrade you will need to have Leopard installed (i.e. you are in Leopard and you insert the disk and it does it thing) And honestly - do an upgrade is always asking for trouble with the OS anyways

You can however have tiger installed (or leopard installed) insert the disk and reboot and hold down C to boot from the CD. Once there just go into Disk Utility and erase the disk, and install that way.

Its annoying reading the 1000s of post over at MacRumors with people saying you have to have Leopard install for the disk to boot. Such rumors.

Everything worked perfectly on the BootCamp included with 10.5. Although I don't remember if I was running 32 or 64 bit at that point, so that is most likely the problem. There are 64 bit drivers included on the BootCamp 3.0 disc though. I just had to manually run them since the autorun would shoot an error.

I have ran Windows 7 64 bit under BootCamp from the first build made available to developers after WWDC and never had a problem with it. The 3.0 drivers work very well.

[rajputwarrior]

"firmware-abi" = <"EFI64">.

Sweet :p

your lucky, my macbook 2,1 doesn't support it

[Quillz]

your lucky, my macbook 2,1 doesn't support it

Shouldn't all Intel-based Apple computers support a 64-bit kernel? I believe the earliest Intel models ran at least an Intel Core Duo, which I think was 64-bit capable.

[Vice]

Shouldn't all Intel-based Apple computers support a 64-bit kernel? I believe the earliest Intel models ran at least an Intel Core Duo, which I think was 64-bit capable.

The original Intel computers that Apple shipped were 32-bit only. The Core Duo series were all 32-bit however the Core 2 Duo was 64-bit

Which means there are MacBook Pros and iMacs floating around with only 32-bit Intel hardware.

[Snakehn]

i tried this "ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi" on my mid 2007 imac and returns as EFI64

so i guess is good to go

[Septimus]

Ordered the family pack, but slightly disappointed it isn't booting 64bit by default. I understand the issue with KEXT, but still, it seems Windows 7 64 is doing a better job of it.

[Scorcho]

Ordered the family pack, but slightly disappointed it isn't booting 64bit by default. I understand the issue with KEXT, but still, it seems Windows 7 64 is doing a better job of it.

for all intents and purposes it doesn't seem as if there's much speed gain to be had by booting x64. the 32-bit kernel can still run 64-bit applications, and there isn't the hard limit with 2-3GB of RAM that windows x86/32 has.

that said, the x64 version of Safari is a beast - ran through the sunspider JS benchy in ~350ms

[Elliott]

that said, the x64 version of Safari is a beast - ran through the sunspider JS benchy in ~350ms

Yep. Safari 64-bit rocks. :D

[cabron]

Does Safari 64bit can handle all the plugins? Like Flash & Silverlight?

[Rudy]

Does Safari 64bit can handle all the plugins? Like Flash & Silverlight?

Yes, but the plugins are running in a 32bit sandbox (unless there's a 64bit version of Silverlight available)

[cabron]

Yes, but the plugins are running in a 32bit sandbox (unless there's a 64bit version of Silverlight available)

That's pretty advanced, they was able to make Safari 64-bit but keeping 32-bit compatibility for plugins. Not even Internet Explorer 8 64-bit have compatibility with 32-bit version of Flash.

[Phantom Helix]

IE could do it to if they took the time to give it code love it needs lol

[Rudy]

That's pretty advanced, they was able to make Safari 64-bit but keeping 32-bit compatibility for plugins. Not even Internet Explorer 8 64-bit have compatibility with 32-bit version of Flash.

I really hope Firefox will "copy" this feature ;)

[Elliott]

Yea, Safari 64-bit is pretty advanced. The only 32-bit things it can't handle are InputManagers, but most of them will probably release 64-bit versions (I know 1Password already has with its beta of 3.0).

[.Neo]

Yea, Safari 64-bit is pretty advanced. The only 32-bit things it can't handle are InputManagers, but most of them will probably release 64-bit versions (I know 1Password already has with its beta of 3.0).

From what I noticed hardly any plugins / input managers / contextual menus work in Snow Leopard. No matter what I do I can't get the Toast It plugin of Toast Titanium v10 to work. :/

[giga Veteran]

You can't mix and match 32-bit plugins with 64-bit applications. Run things in 32-bit mode with the Get Info panel if needed.

[Elliott]

You can't mix and match 32-bit plugins with 64-bit software. Run things in 32-bit mode with the Get Info panel if needed.

I think you'd have to make Finder run in 32-bit for contextual menus to work. Which, I assume, is possible. Finder is located in /System/Library/CoreServices/ if you want to try, .Neo.

[Phantom Helix]

I think you'd have to make Finder run in 32-bit for contextual menus to work. Which, I assume, is possible. Finder is located in /System/Library/CoreServices/ if you want to try, .Neo.

all new 64bit system apps in SL including finder can be run in 32bit mode by checking this tickbox in the "get Info" dialog box

[Elliott]

all new 64bit system apps in SL including finder can be run in 32bit mode by checking this tickbox in the "get Info" dialog box

Yea, that's what I was thinking. And I did check: Finder does have the option just like all the other 64-bit apps in Snow Leopard. We'll just have to see if it helps .Neo any.

[hdood]

You can't mix and match 32-bit plugins with 64-bit applications. Run things in 32-bit mode with the Get Info panel if needed.

While I don't know how it is in SL, there's no real technical reason why you can't. All it takes is a proxy that sits between the 32-bit plugin and 64-bit program. You can do this with Firefox on Linux, for instance.

[giga Veteran]

While I don't know how it is in SL, there's no real technical reason why you can't. All it takes is a proxy that sits between the 32-bit plugin and 64-bit program. You can do this with Firefox on Linux, for instance.

That's how it works in Safari in 10.6. 32-bit plug-ins, like Flash Player, are run as a separate process from 64-bit Safari. Finder doesn't run its contextual menus item in a separate process though. (would be nice) Same for input managers like SIMBL.

[Quillz]

Yea, Safari 64-bit is pretty advanced. The only 32-bit things it can't handle are InputManagers, but most of them will probably release 64-bit versions (I know 1Password already has with its beta of 3.0).

Ah, this must explain why even the latest version of Saft isn't working. I guess Saft has no 64-bit version yet.

[rajputwarrior]

i am still kinda peeved at the fact my macbook won't run the OS in 64 bit mode even though i have 64 bit CPU...