Snow Leopard Seeds Use 32bit Kernel, Drivers by Default
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 18th Aug 2009 18:46 UTC
Mac OS X Even though Apple has been hyping up the 64bit nature of its ucpoming Snow Leopard operating system, stating it will be the first Mac OS X release to be 64bit top-to-bottom, reality turns out to be a little bit different so far. With the current Snow Leopard seed, only Xserve users get the 64bit kernel and drivers - all other Macs default to 32bit. By holding down the '6' and '4' keys during boot, you can to boot into full 64bit mode - that is, if your Mac supports it. As it turns out, some Macs with 64bit processors cannot use the 64bit kernel because the EFI is 32bit. Note: I should have included in the article that 64bit applications will run just fine (including benefits) on a 32bit kernel in Mac OS X. Since this was already possible in Leopard, I assumed people were well aware of that. Turns out some were not, so my apologies for that.
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RE[5]: Idiotic article
by Hakime on Thu 20th Aug 2009 06:53 UTC in reply to "RE[4]: Idiotic article"
Hakime
Member since:
2005-11-16

I didn't even think for one second to include the info about the 32bit kernel being able to run 64bit applications in Mac OS X, because as a long-time Mac user, this is something I already know, and more or less assumed everybody else did too.


I hardly believe that. If so, why did you you specifically insinuate that Apple is sort of artificially limiting the 64 bits goodies for its users? You clearly poorly understood what it was about. If i am wrong, then your phrasing was so bad that most of people reading you understood that it won't be possible to run 64 bits apps on Leopard or Snow Leopard on machines which don't boot a 64 bits kernel. And again you intentionally insinuate it, from your article:

On top of that, even if your MacBook has a 64bit EFI, you will only be able to boot the 32bit version of Snow Leopard - again because of an artificial limitation by Apple for MacBooks.


or

So, even if you have a 64bit processor, and you thought you were in the clear, Apple might not give you the option to go 64bit.


Not only those statement are wrong, they do mislead the reader unfamiliar on the matter. I mean what this statement

Apple might not give you the option to go 64bit.


is supposed to mean then?

Am i am wrong? Prove it, rewrite your article.

Also knowing that you can run 64 bits apps with a 32 bits kernel on OS X, by definition this knowledge won't bring you to such statement:

This means that while both Linux and Microsoft have more or less completed the 64bit transition because they started early on, Apple is trailing behind and still needs to wait for its driver base to update their drivers - something which has already happened on competing platforms.


Because saying that poorly fits to the reality of 64 bits computing on OS X.

This article is specifically about the kernel and drivers though, so it's all still correct


Is is not correct because again you intentionally insinuate that booting a 32 bits kernel has some drawbacks for the user, which again it is far to be the case. As i explained, a 64 bits kernel brings little to most mac users. Most mac users don't run on any sort of limitation of the address space that the kernel can map, and i doubt that a lot of them will run more than 2500 processes at the same time. Even faster system calls is not a big deal for the typical workload of the average user. On the other hand, for a machine like the Xserve, it makes much more sense to load a 64 bits kernel.

But in your article you say clearly that Apple is limiting its users with artificial limitations by not loading the 64 bits kernel on all configurations and doing so do not allow to go for 64 bits. This is plain wrong.

Prove your honesty, correct the article. Write an informative article not a trolling one.

And i am doing you a favor calling it an article.

Edited 2009-08-20 07:02 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 3

RE[6]: Idiotic article
by Thom_Holwerda on Thu 20th Aug 2009 08:29 in reply to "RE[5]: Idiotic article"
Thom_Holwerda Member since:
2005-06-29

I hardly believe that.


Then will you please leave OSNews or something? How am I supposed to have a discussion with someone who does not believe me when I specifically apologise for not including information which I believed everybody knew?

I'm just a human being you know, and I make mistakes. And if I do, I apologise. Which I just did! If you think I write just to make Apple look bad, a completely delusional idea, how on earth am I supposed to have an informed discussion with you?

The article is quite simple: Apple is currently defaulting to a 32bit kernel on everything but Xserves. Not every machine that is capable of running a 64bit kernel is allowed to do so by Apple. That is all the article states, and that is still correct. I said that Apple is doing this probably because 3rd party drivers are not yet updated. Also correct - like you reiterated.

I should have also said that 64bit applications can run on 32bit kernels. Like I just mentioned, I thought everybody knew that about Mac OS X, as Leopard could already do this too, and it was widely reported on. If you think I left that out with malicious intent, then you are even more of an apple zealot than I already thought.

Edited 2009-08-20 08:33 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE[7]: Idiotic article
by Hakime on Thu 20th Aug 2009 09:44 in reply to "RE[6]: Idiotic article"
Hakime Member since:
2005-11-16

Then will you please leave OSNews or something? How am I supposed to have a discussion with someone who does not believe me when I specifically apologise for not including information which I believed everybody knew?


Leave OSNews? You should better do it, not me. Which apologize, i can still read on the article

So, even if you have a 64bit processor, and you thought you were in the clear, Apple might not give you the option to go 64bit.


or

That table above might be a bit cryptic, but it's technically pretty simple. Only Macintosh machines with a 64bit EFI are able to boot the 64bit Snow Leopard kernel and kexts; this is an artificially implemented limitation by Apple, as 32bit EFI can boot a 64bit kernel just fine. On top of that, even if your MacBook has a 64bit EFI, you will only be able to boot the 32bit version of Snow Leopard - again because of an artificial limitation by Apple for MacBooks. Probably the harshest consequence of this is that the original Mac Pro, discontinued January 8, 2008, cannot boot the 64bit kernel and drivers.


Are you still arguing that those statement are not intentionally misleading? If really i should believe you, if you really knew what you claim you do, why did not you correct the article or add the relevant information when it was clear that most of the people reacting on the forum got it wrong? Answer to this one please.

What about those statements:

However, in what probably rivals the Amazon Kindle 1984 thing in most ironic moment of 2009, the hackintosh community has come to the rescue. With netkas' pcefiv10.1 bootloader, you can boot into 64bi Snow Leopard even on 32bit EFI Macs.


ar, it's not yet known if Apple will enable owners of machines with 32bit EFI to boot into a 64bit kernel in Snow Leopard-final; Apple might offer an EFI update, or remove the artificial limitation.


This clearly sates that users will have to live with some sort of limitation because the 64 bits kernel is not loaded. Are you still arguing that it is the case? What are the artificial limitation that you are referring to? Why do you speak then about limitations?

What about this

The same applies to MacBooks; it might be that Apple is planning on using 64bit as a selling point to drive people to buy MacBook Pros instead of ordinary MacBooks.


What it is supposed to mean? You are clearly inferring that laptop users, particularly the macbook users will see any sort of drawback of not having a 64 bits kernel. Am i inventing the quotes above?

It is amazing to see that you can't even acknowledge what you wrote by yourself. I mean come on.... this is getting ridiculous.

If you think I left that out with malicious intent, then you are even more of an apple zealot than I already thought.


Sure anyone who criticizes you is an apple zealot. The point is that you know i am right and you can't accept that someone here puts some truth in the mass of nonsense that you write. You did not have malicious intent? Prove that i am wrong, correct the article.


I was pointing on the fact that Apple was heavily avertising it as a major feature, while in fact it was mostly unused.


Wait, unused? By who? The PowerMac G5 was advertised as high end machine that can run 64 bits applications. It did so and back then running 64 bits apps on Powerpc was more about getting more addressable memory. You would not get the speed up by the additional registers as in x86_64. The PowerPC was a 64 bit design from day-one, they did not need to add more registers to support the 64 bits addressing and the additional instructions. That means few people really could see the advantage of the added addressing space. Merely only scientific apps that needed to address more more than 4 GB of memory. The PowerMac G5 with Tiger did just that, you could run any unix app in 64 bits, a ton of scientists did do, i did and still do, so don't say that it was unused. Some other major apps got 64 bits support, it was the case for example of Mathematica which used the IPC approach for binding the 64 bits Mathematica kernel to the UI.

There were people who believed that everything they were doing was in 64 bit.


Who? What can make you think that it is the case? Do you have numbers, statistics, references? How could any person think that he/she was running a 64 bits app because he/she had to use then an app which needed more than 4 GB of addressable physical memory. Back then (and still now) who are those people, besides people in high end computing who anyway knew what the Tiger 64 bits implementation was?

Now, when you actually have the possibility to go full 64 bit, Apple itself is phasing out support for these wonderful (and pricey) machines.


Here we are, typical example of the misunderstanding that the article has produced. Yes i say you again, you don't know what are you talking about. For any PowerMac G5 user, 64 bits means the 64 bits addressing for all the OS stack and the extra security features. Did you read previous posts, god sake?

We still have PowerMac G5 running Leopard in my lab loaded with 16 GB of RAM, running 64 bits custom Cocoa applications and some X11 apps, like Tecplot. Right now a tecplot run is addressing 10 GB of RAM. How a hell is Apple is phasing out support for full 64 bits with those machines then? Full 64 bits (all OS stack 64 bits) is available since Leopard.

Could people here document themselves before throwing out non-sense?

Edited 2009-08-20 09:54 UTC

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