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I'm surprised that Rosetta 2 isn't installed by default. It seems that for the next couple of years the vast majority of people will need at least one x86 app.
by kevincox 6y ago
I'm surprised that Rosetta 2 isn't installed by default. It seems that for the next couple of years the vast majority of people will need at least one x86 app.
I guess split-architecture applications were also not foreseen as it is clear that the auto-install prompt doesn't work very well in that case.
- cududa 6y agoI wonder if it has anything to do with licensing costs of everything that went into Rosetta? I imagine they owe someone royalties and licensing costs on some components in it, saves some pennies to dollars to only install it as needed
- SloopJon 6y agoCould be. I suspect that's a factor in the fonts available for download or document support in Catalina and Big Sur: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210192 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210192 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211240 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211240
- kitsunesoba 6y agoFeels like a bit of a nudge to developers to not take x86 compatibility for a given… kind of, "it's there if it's truly necessary, but you really should port that plugin/daemon/etc".
- kevincox 6y agoI suspect this as well. But it seems so obvious that it is necessary for a while that I doubt that anyone takes it seriously.
- geerlingguy 6y agoI believe the Mac OS Classic environment wasn't installed by default in the early OS X days.
- sjwright 6y agoThis is both correct and incorrect. This is correct if you refer to how early versions of the Mac OS X installer was packaged. The Classic environment framework was always installed but a copy of Mac OS 9 was also required to be installed on the system volume as well—and this wasn't included when installing a fresh copy of Mac OS X from a CD. There was a limited period of time when Apple shipped and installed both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X on Macs—so for those people, the Classic environment was "effectively" installed by default. Though to reproduce this you'd need to run the Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 installers from their respective CDs.
- SahAssar 6y agoMac OS Classic (running OS 9 apps on OS X) is more like a VM than a translation layer. The better comparison for rosetta 2 is rosetta 1.
- glandium 6y agoIt's even worse. It's uninstalled when upgrading macOS.
- r00fus 6y agoWhat does this mean, for dot releases? There's only been one release with Rosetta2 enabled.
- saagarjha 6y agoWell, it's OS-version specific…
- glandium 6y agoIt could be upgraded rather than uninstalled.
- Steltek 6y agoIt should be expected that during this transition, everyone will have one x86 app or another. An upgrade breaking nearly 100% of users is a laughed-out-the-door bad user experience.
- macintux 6y agoThe point to Rosetta this misses, however, is that for the vast majority of use cases it’s silently re-installed on demand.
- r00fus 6y agoThe best case is you need no x86 apps. Bought an M1 Air for a kid - as soon as Zoom was native they didn't need Rosetta.
- rkangel 6y agoGiven the sibling comment "It's even worse. It's uninstalled when upgrading macOS." does it also give a way of monitoring emulation usage without violating privacy too much? "X% of machines have installed Rosetta on this version of MacOS" would be a useful number without measuring the specific executions.