ARM-Intel-PPC universal binaries?

[Amethyst1]

Web browsers almost have to be mini operating systems in their own right just to access it properly.

If you think about it: for many people, the browser has pretty much become an OS, 'cause they are spending all their time in it.

 

[jdw13]

I have a rather basic question, which I a sure must have been addressed somewhere. It seems rather inefficient to create a universal binary application. If one builds just a universal installer that will install the correct binary where it belongs for the running system then target binaries are correct. I suppose if you are an organization that installs from a central location, you would instead determine the correct binary for each target, but that seems that it should be simple to accomplish, too. If Apple covets determining the info, then they should provide the "universal installer."

Doing this, the average user would just need to archive the installer in chase the system changes, saving space on the running machine.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

If one builds just a universal installer that will install the correct binary where it belongs for the running system then target binaries are correct.

Well for starters, Mac applications don't traditionally use installers in most cases. An app is just a file (well, a folder, but Finder pretends they're files) that can be copied, moved, and launched just like any other type of document. You can also copy apps between computers (say, between an Intel and a PPC machine), and they still work.

And because binaries are usually less than a megabyte, the size difference is negligible.

 

[alex_free]

(Deleted)

 

[goosnarrggh]

PPC support ended with lion yes. But say you compile helloworld.c with the CFLAGS “-arch ppc -arch ppc64 -arch i386 -arch x86_64” using an old Xcode. You can run that file on Catalina and should be able to on any arm Mac using Rosetta 2. PPC is not supported, but if a supported arch is in the binary it will run.

Were there ever any versions of Xcode which would have directly permitted a 4-way universal binary with PPC, PPC64, i386, and x86_64 all in one go?

Or would someone hit a wall trying to find a single instance of Xcode supporting both 32-bit PPC and x86_64 at once?

 

[LightBulbFun]

Were there ever any versions of Xcode which would have directly permitted a 4-way universal binary with PPC, PPC64, i386, and x86_64 all in one go?

probably the one that shipped during Leopards rain given that leopard supported 64 bit GUI applications finally

both for x86_64 and PPC64 (see chess.app)

and of course it also supports i386 and PPC as well

 

[Wowfunhappy]

It has been done. https://github.com/saagarjha/dummy_thicc

The actual binary is here.

There's an open pull request to add support for the m68k and m68040 (NextStep) as well.

 

[AYates]

I just found a real world example X Lossless Decoder is deploying as a universal binary linked against PPC/i386/x86_64/ARM.

It's amazing that they put so much work into keeping that going, it works on my PPC Mac Mini.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I just found a real world example X Lossless Decoder is deploying as a universal binary linked against PPC/i386/x86_64/ARM.

It's amazing that they put so much work into keeping that going, it works on my PPC Mac Mini.

This is so cool! ❤️

 

[Dronecatcher]

I just found a real world example X Lossless Decoder is deploying as a universal binary linked against PPC/i386/x86_64/ARM.

It's amazing that they put so much work into keeping that going, it works on my PPC Mac Mini.

XLD has been my goto .flac converter for years - it converts other formats too and is wonderfully optimised.

 

[dextructor]

XLD has been my goto .flac converter for years - it converts other formats too and is wonderfully optimised.

Never knew this software existence until today. I always used xACT to convert my music files since iTunes doesn't like my FLAC collection.