Does Snow Leopard work on a G4?

[paulwgraber]

I was just wondering if Snow Leopard works on the G4 PPC? I have heard some people say it is only Intel based while others has said it was the last one based on PPC. I thought 10.5.8 was the last one but if 10.6 is then I might as well upgrade to that maybe. Thoughts?

Leopard runs great, would there beany reason to go to Snow anyway??

G4 1.25 GHZ Dual Boot.

 

[bunnspecial]

Snow Leopard is indeed Intel only-there is no way to make it work on PowerPC hardware.

Leopard is the newest version of OS X that will run on a G4.

 

[orestes1984]

I was just wondering if Snow Leopard works on the G4 PPC? I have heard some people say it is only Intel based while others has said it was the last one based on PPC.

Your confused... Snow Leopard is the last Mac OS that can run PPC apps for OS X through Rosetta. It will run PPC apps but it will not boot on a PPC machine. The kernel doesn't support it and even if you did rebuild the kernel and enable PPC support, there would be a whole bunch of dependencies that just wouldn't work.

The PPC binaries that are required to boot and run OS X on PPC are just not there in Snow Leopard, the GUI support for PPC is also not there and would need to be recompiled and then some of the remaining portions of the OS are simply hard coded for Intel CPUs only specifically apps and system resources where the source code is completely unavailable where the code itself would have to be completely rewritten.

It cannot realistically be done even if you overcome the first hurdle of recompiling the kernel so it boots to the command line. It will panic as soon it goes to load the desktop.

What you'd try to achieve is what ReactOS is trying and failing miserably at, and that is completely rewriting an operating system practically from the ground up.

 

[poiihy]

Your confused... Snow Leopard is the last Mac OS that can run PPC apps for OS X through Rosetta. It will run PPC apps but it will not boot on a PPC machine. The kernel doesn't support it and even if you did rebuild the kernel and enable PPC support, there would be a whole bunch of dependencies that just wouldn't work.

The PPC binaries that are required to boot and run OS X on PPC are just not there in Snow Leopard, the GUI support for PPC is also not there and would need to be recompiled and then some of the remaining portions of the OS are simply hard coded for Intel CPUs only specifically apps and system resources where the source code is completely unavailable where the code itself would have to be completely rewritten.

It cannot realistically be done even if you overcome the first hurdle of recompiling the kernel so it boots to the command line. It will panic as soon it goes to load the desktop.

What you'd try to achieve is what ReactOS is trying and failing miserably at, and that is completely rewriting an operating system practically from the ground up.

If they rewrite Snow Leopard, then it would be just like Leopard. It's pointless.

 

[redheeler]

Your confused... Snow Leopard is the last Mac OS that can run PPC apps for OS X through Rosetta. It will run PPC apps but it will not boot on a PPC machine. The kernel doesn't support it and even if you did rebuild the kernel and enable PPC support, there would be a whole bunch of dependencies that just wouldn't work.

The PPC binaries that are required to boot and run OS X on PPC are just not there in Snow Leopard, the GUI support for PPC is also not there and would need to be recompiled and then some of the remaining portions of the OS are simply hard coded for Intel CPUs only specifically apps and system resources where the source code is completely unavailable where the code itself would have to be completely rewritten.

It cannot realistically be done even if you overcome the first hurdle of recompiling the kernel so it boots to the command line. It will panic as soon it goes to load the desktop.

What you'd try to achieve is what ReactOS is trying and failing miserably at, and that is completely rewriting an operating system practically from the ground up.

Even if someone did get Snow Leopard working on PPC somehow, there still wouldn't be the app support which is the main reason for switching to Intel Snow Leopard.

 

[orestes1984]

If they rewrite Snow Leopard, then it would be just like Leopard. It's pointless.

Yes correct, you'd just end up with a slightly more modern version of an obsolete operating system for an obsolete architecture. I mean, I think its cool and all that hobbyists and enthusiasts keep using PPC, but OS X on PPC is now obsolete.

If you want a modern and secure operating system your only choice now is BSD Unix, or Linux.

 

[roadbloc]

You have more chance of waking up on the moon tomorrow morning.

 

[MrPilot]

Your confused...

I don't think he seems all that confused to me. He heard two different stories and wanted it straightened out. No need to patronize.

Snow Leopard is the last Mac OS that can run PPC apps for OS X through Rosetta. It will run PPC apps but it will not boot on a PPC machine. The kernel doesn't support it and even if you did rebuild the kernel and enable PPC support, there would be a whole bunch of dependencies that just wouldn't work.

Yes, that is because you'd be trying to run an intel-compiled OS using a modified kernel as a translator. This wouldn't happen on a re-compiled (PPC/UB) OSX 10.6. The big hurdle would be in this case to re-write parts of the SDK, xcode to compile fully 10.6 for PPC. including driver support and API's such as DVDecoder, etc.

The PPC binaries that are required to boot and run OS X on PPC are just not there in Snow Leopard, the GUI support for PPC is also not there and would need to be recompiled and then some of the remaining portions of the OS are simply hard coded for Intel CPUs only specifically apps and system resources where the source code is completely unavailable where the code itself would have to be completely rewritten.

You're overthinking this whole thing a bit, you either get the OS running on PPC or you don't.

It cannot realistically be done even if you overcome the first hurdle of recompiling the kernel so it boots to the command line. It will panic as soon it goes to load the desktop.

Yes, running darwin 10.0 won't do much...
you can check this site HERE and download v10

What you'd try to achieve is what ReactOS is trying and failing miserably at, and that is completely rewriting an operating system practically from the ground up.

MorphOS seems to do fine tough?

 

[MrPilot]

Yes correct, you'd just end up with a slightly more modern version of an obsolete operating system for an obsolete architecture. I mean, I think its cool and all that hobbyists and enthusiasts keep using PPC, but OS X on PPC is now obsolete.

If you want a modern and secure operating system your only choice now is BSD Unix, or Linux.

incorrect. we would have hardware accel. video playback

 

[Imixmuan]

The best long term hope...

...for your old Powermac is this:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ubun...owerPC-Support-Dust-Your-Old-Mac-467813.shtml

This is early days for this, but Ubuntu MATE (pronounced Ma-Tay-don't ask, its a flower or something) is lighter in weight and works better than many desktop environments on old hardware. MATE is like the old GNOME 2, which worked very very well on my Titanium G4 running Ubuntu 10.04 in 2010. 14.04 LTS has support till, umm, I think 4/2019, and that is a long time from now, and the newest Powermacs will be like 13 years old. That's old, dog.

If you install this, don't expect a Mac OS X smooth experience. This is BETA. There are crap tons of bugs and quirks with PowerPC linux, but read the PowerPC known issues thing on the Ubuntu forums, don't put it on a production machine, and accept that there is no, nor will there ever be, any flash for PowerPC Linux. And you'll be fine.