CGTalk - OT: John Siracusa's Snow Leopard analysis

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juanxer

09-01-2009, 01:10 PM

As is traditional, Ars Technica's John Siracusa has written a really long and deep analysis of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, 23 pages-long this time. For the ones of us that use Macs, it gives a hint of where the platform is going. near-term and long-term. Lots of interesting things regarding 64-bitness, multiprocessing strategies, the future of Quicktime and so.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars

richardjoly

09-01-2009, 03:59 PM

Thanks Juan. While some parts where way over my head, this is an incredibly informative reading.

AVTPro

09-02-2009, 09:38 PM

Thanks. I think I missed the Apple release video. I need to check that out, but I am very concerned about this.

Also, what do people thing about replacing the Quad Chips in a first gen MacPro with Octo chips? Good, bad or indifferent.

juanxer

09-02-2009, 10:38 PM

I think I remember some step-by-step photoguide for doing just that: a bit hairy for me, a piece of cake for any PC modder surely. I don't know if it would be better to get a second hand Mac Pro, say, a 2008-gen Octo: here in Spain I am seeing really good offers around (it's the crisis, I guess).

Mine is a first gen, too. It not being able to boot in 64bit kernel mode seems to be unimportant, ultimately. The real limitation was not being able to install OpenCL-compatible graphics cards. It seems ATI's latest cards are EFI32 compatible, even if Apple doesn't officially acknowledge that, so I'll keep an eye on things.

AVTPro

09-02-2009, 11:04 PM

OK. I think I really need to get up to speed to 10.6. I never say the Apple QT anouncement.

So you actually have to "boot" in 64 bit mode to using be in 64-bit Snow Leopard?? I just installed and started working again.

juanxer

09-03-2009, 07:30 AM

An EFI32 machine such as a gen. 2006 Mac Pro won't be able to boot in 64bit kernel mode (which is indifferent for executing 64bit apps, though). Apple has defaulted all Snow Leopard installations to booting in 32bit (excepting the Xserve's).

A 64bit kernel allows the OS to handle more than 16 GB of memory, which only the latest Mac Pros and Xserves are able to handle, anyway.

shoutzager

09-03-2009, 05:18 PM

It was recommended by Matt Hoffman not to boot in 64 bit mode, just to start up normally. 64 bit apps, such as Mail, can run in default mode. Check out the thread a few posts down.

S Houtzager

juanxer

09-03-2009, 06:53 PM

Apple did the prudent thing here: release the OS, have most users run in 32 bit for now and have programmers test their 64 bit device drivers and such. My guess is we'll get some boot mode Control Panel around 10.6.1 or 10.6.2, depending on how many drivers have been ported.

markalanthomas

09-03-2009, 09:13 PM

Just to clarify, even if the kernel is running in 32 bit mode, 64 bit apps will still run in 64 bit mode and will still be able to grab more than 4 GB of RAM.

AVTPro

09-06-2009, 02:19 AM

I did find the info for 64 bit mode, but I may have been in it anyway all along. My system was very snappy and everything was very compatible.

But I don't think any of my production software is 64 bit aware.

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