Re: [gentoo-alt] Preparing for Snow Leopard

[Aaron Wilson]

I'm pretty sure Tiger still had a 32-bit kernel, even though it  had  
some 64-bit support. Snow Leopard has both a 32-bit and 64-bit kernel,  
but in almost all macs it boots the 32-bit kernel by default. See here:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-336194.html

I'm on IRC as tallest.

Thanks,
Aaron


On Sep 7, 2009, at 12:23 PM, Fabian Groffen wrote:

> On 07-09-2009 23:14:47 +0900, Tobias Hahn wrote:
>> SL still uses a 32 bit kernel by default. The 64 bit kernel is
>> optional on supported hardware (hold down 64 while booting). Only SL
>> Server on an xserve uses the 64 bit kernel by default iirc. I guess
>> the reasoning is to give consumer hardware vendors a chance to write
>> 64 bit kexts. On the other hand, most applications from Apple
>> (Finder,
>> Terminal, Safari...) now support 64 bit, but obviously also only if
>> the hardware supports it (so on a core not-2 duo everything will be
>> 32
>> bit as before).
>
> Hmmm, that sounds weird, even my Tiger can do 64-bits stuff (the
> kernel
> that is).  That was the whole idea: being able to address much more
> memory.  Anyway it obviously requires some scripting.
>
> Either we default to 32-bits Prefix on Snow Leopard too, or we figure
> out a way to see if we're running on a 64-bits capable machine so we
> can
> enable 64-bits on Snow Leopard where possible.
>
> Thanks for the info!
>
>
> --
> Fabian Groffen
> Gentoo on a different level
>