Anyway to have Snow Lep on NEW Mac Air?

[fyrefly]

Couldn't agree more!

Mothballing Snow Leopard is one thing but actually disabling it from being retrofit into the new 'Lion'-preinstalled MBA should the user so choose, is a short-sighted and stupid decision.

It's not so much that Apple *disabled* Lion from installing on the 2011 Machines, it's just that the 2011 machines have new hardware in them (different Thunderbolt Chip, Different Bluetooth chip among others) that has no support in Snow Leopard, 'cause there were never SL-capable machines that had that hardware.

Of course Apple could release a SL-patch (10.6.9 anyone) to include support for the BT 4.0 and smaller thunderbolt chip, but why waste precious resources on supporting newly-Obsolete Software on new machines?

 

[mickier]

Of course Apple could release a SL-patch (10.6.9 anyone) to include support for the BT 4.0 and smaller thunderbolt chip, but why waste precious resources on supporting newly-Obsolete Software on new machines?

The best reason for them TO release the driver(s) is that LION boots and runs software SLOWER and more clumsily than the 2010 MBA running SL... I have both the 2010 and 2011 and I just hate the feeling of sluggishness on the 2011 MBA which really has significantly higher specs...

I hate to say it, but in some ways, it makes me remember the release of Vista..
[oh NO - did I actually say that? I apologize!!]

I only hope that a future update will help LION to pick up some speed...

 

[ZBoater]

I only hope that a future update will help LION to pick up some speed...

Wow. I guess I'm in luck never having used SL. I think Lion is crazy fast on everything it does. I guess speed perception is relative.

 

[jameslmoser]

As long as I can remember apple has always prevented macs from running older OSs then what was delivered. So in this case SL won't run.

I can see why, Lion is the future, SL is now obsolete and it lacks the drivers/kexts needed for the new MBA (Which they'll not provide)

Snow Leopard is far from obsolete... and until Lion is stable (or fixed, which isn't going to happen), Snow Leopard should be an option for any mac user, especially ones that just spent the money on a new mac.

 

[KPOM]

Snow Leopard is far from obsolete... and until Lion is stable (or fixed, which isn't going to happen), Snow Leopard should be an option for any mac user, especially ones that just spent the money on a new mac.

That isn't Apple's way. They are unlikely to change now. The rumor is that they specifically delayed the release of the 2011 MacBook Air until after Lion was released because they didn't want it going out with Snow Leopard. Apple tries to avoid the "XP Syndrome" that plagued Microsoft (they are still trying to kill off XP 2 years after Windows 7 was released).

Anyway, some more fixes will be out soon. 10.7.2 is necessary to run iCloud, and Apple has thrown in some bug fixes, too. By and large, Lion isn't broken. There are some changes to the UI, but they are intentional. There are some bugs, but there also were with Snow Leopard and Leopard upon initial release.

 

[Gregintosh]

Lion is the future, its best to get on board and get used to it. It isn't Apple's way to support legacy OS's for decades like Microsoft because there's too much dead weight.

That's what helps Apple make clean and efficient systems (for example, dropping Rosetta code to keep things small and clean), where as Microsoft is bloatware full of code dating back to the 1980s (Windows 3.1 programs can still run on Windows if needed).

All future iterations of OS X will build on Lion, and that includes things like Mission Control, Launchpad, etc. It will never go backwards so sooner or later you are going to have to switch. Might as well jump on board now and start enjoying the new features (and they are enjoyable once you get a hang of things).

As far as bug fixes, waiting a couple more months for a few more updates will help resolve some of those, but no system is perfect.

I see 0 difference between Lion and Snow Leopard in terms of speed. But then again I also don't have Apple OCD. I think people who say its slower are either experiencing OCD, have really old hardware where minor differences are really amplified, or maybe they have a messy installation after an upgrade (versus a clean install).

But on new machines (2009 or later for sure) it runs exactly the same.

 

[monkeybagel]

Has anyone got this working correctly? After some kext manipulation i have snow leopard running but without graphics accelleration.

If you don't mind - how did you get local video working? All I have is the external display and have not gotten as far as you. I haven't tried external acceleration, but will.