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It's not a lack of horsepower. It's an infuriating artificial restriction against running 64-bit Darwin kernels on 32-bit EFI. There's no technical reason why a
by bri3d 15y ago
It's not a lack of horsepower. It's an infuriating artificial restriction against running 64-bit Darwin kernels on 32-bit EFI. There's no technical reason why a 64-bit kernel can't be launched by a 32-bit EFI, but for some reason Apple has decided that 64-bit kernels will only boot from 64-bit EFI, and Mountain Lion will ship with a 64-bit kernel.
See http://netkas.org/?p=830 http://netkas.org/?p=830 for more.
edit: Oh, and as to your whitelist/blacklist point - yes, Mac OS X checks what systems it can be installed on by Board IDs stored in "InstallableMachines.plist," not by enumerating the hardware.
- daed 15y agoI can't remember where I heard this, so don't quote me, but I've heard it partially has to do with graphics kexts in some or all of those machines being 32-bit and a reluctance from Apple and the manufacturers (Intel, AMD, Nvidia) to update them. That said, I'm not sure how that would rule out the Mac Pro, then, because the chips I heard cited were the old Intel chips (950, x3100) and AMD chips (X1600). Again, don't quote me! edit: this assumes Apple is moving to 100% 64-bit.
- bri3d 15y agoThis makes sense for non-Mac Pro machines, although so far it doesn't seem to be the case as Mountain Lion will actually run on those machines if they're added to SupportedHardware.plist [0]. However, in the case of the Mac Pro it's hard to see the restriction as anything other than arbitrary and frustrating. 0: http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/18/install-os-x-mountain-lion-developer-preview-on-old-unsupported-macs/ http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/18/install-os-x-mountain-lion-de...
- feralchimp 15y agoThis is mildly depressing but highly informative. Thanks for the link.