[geeks] OS X 10.5 tid-bit

[Mark]

On 25 Sep 2007, at 00:58, Lionel Peterson wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> Just came across a bit of Apple info, thought others here might be  
> interested in - it seems many think that Apple will not support any  
> PowerPC systems with CPUs less than 867 MHz...
>
> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/09/24/ 
> updated_leopard_requirements_to_exclude_800mhz_systems.html

It's something I've discussed at length with many angry Mac-heads  
recently. The move is more to limit the combination of CPU speed, RAM  
capacity and overall architecture required to run the OS to later  
machines. Althoug on the surface 10.5 doesn't look much different o  
10.4, under the hood the Core Image, Core Graphics and Core Animation  
technology have been vastly enhanced. However this has come at a cost  
for low-end G4 users as the CPU and GPU requirements are much higher.  
As I have intimated elsewhere Apple have only put this restriction in  
place in order to insure people have the best possible experience  
with 10.5. It also prevents it being run on anything less than a  
Radeon 7500 or a GeForce 2 MX. I don't suppose for a minute either  
will fully support the new Core visuals (lack of pixel shaders for a  
stater) but you've got to draw a line somewhere. I'm not a fan of  
these arbitrary forced obsolescence moves but I firmly believe Apple  
did the right thing here to push stuff forward, and really that a  
400-500 G4 with a Rage 128 or a Radeon 7000 will choke itself on the  
OS (much the same as my G3/500 iBook does on 10.4).

Also remember the specs are not official (I know they are in the  
Beta, but that doesn't make them official *yet* :) ). There was a  
load of scaremongering that 10.4 wouldn't support G3s at all when it  
came out that turned out to be unfounded. Apple do this with Betas to  
gauge public reaction to the requirements sometimes. All I can say to  
the current 867MHz borderline is 'LOWER!! LOOOWERR!!!' :)

> Oh well, I guess I kenw my 550 MHz G4 PowerBook wouldn't run the  
> latest OS forever...

Yep, also my G4/800 iMac, which I paid Top Dollar for only 4 years  
ago has finally dropped off the OS X radar too. It's slightly  
irritating, but Apple's track record for supporting their previous OS  
version is pretty good. OS X 10.3.9 is still supported currently and  
will continue to be until 110.5 launches next month. Not exactly a  
Sun-like record but if you consider the pace that OS X has developed  
at since then it's not so bad... I suppose :)

> On a related note: I just got a new HD for my Core 2 Duo PowerBook  
> - 250 Gig SATA laptop drive for $159 at Microcenter.com, giving me  
> plenty of room for x86 VMs ;^)

<Steve Fit>It's a MacBook, get it right dammnit!</Steve Fit> ;)

I just ramped my Mac Pro up to 2GB - it's a different machine - I  
swear! Having all 4 channels of the 4-lane FB-DIMM bus populated on  
an Intel 5000X chipset, as well as the extra elbow room for stuff  
like Parallels and Aperture, makes a big impact on performance (in a  
positive way, obviously!).

-- 
Mark Benson

My Blog:
<http://mdblog.68kmac.org>
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Visit my Homepage: <http://homepage.mac.com/markbenson>

"Never send a human to do a machine's job..."