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MBA 2011 OK with 10.6.8 ?

Macintox

Macintox

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 14, 2009
93
2
is anyone of you running his new MBA with SL 10.6.8 ? or has started from an extrenal HD using SL ?
I badly need rosetta so I am thinking to leave the orginal Lion on a reduced partition and install a clone of my actual HD on a new partition .
Feedback welcome
 
MacRumorUser said:
You can't run Snow Leopard on it...
Click to expand...
that is bad news ... i thought these MBA had been developped with SL and had been waiting weeks in stock to ship with Lion.
Isn't Lion an upgrade of SL ? even necesary to have SL in case of reinstall ?
 
SL does not have any drivers etc whatsoever for the 2011 Mac Mini and MacBook Air, so you won't be able to run SL on it. It's been like that forever.
 
strange

an MBair owner in France just tells me he can start his new 13' i7 with an external USB HD running 10.6.8 and all is working perfectly, programs, rosetta, printing etc..???
that is why I was asking if anyone of you has "tried it " specs from Apple are one thing reality is sometimes different . exp I can run Tiger and leopard on my actual MBair 2010 !!!
 
^ he's fibbing. Either he gas a 2010 MBA or he is just making it up.

It can not be done. The drivers are not in Snow Leopard.

Even the App Store version of Lion does not load on the new Mac Book Airs, because it's version is newer than that in the App Store.


And no you do not need SL to restore on the new MBA's. They have a Lion Recovery Partition.
 
I'm also interested in running 10.6.8 on the new macbook air as it will be a work machine, and a lot of software does not properly support lion yet.

Hardware wise, the new mba has the same graphics and similar sandy bridge processor as the 13" mbp, so these should work at least. Maybe you can bring a snow leopard usb install to the mac store and test :), at least they should have an answer to it.
 
bilinsky said:
I'm also interested in running 10.6.8 on the new macbook air as it will be a work machine, and a lot of software does not properly support lion yet.

Hardware wise, the new mba has the same graphics and similar sandy bridge processor as the 13" mbp, so these should work at least. Maybe you can bring a snow leopard usb install to the mac store and test :), at least they should have an answer to it.
Click to expand...

Similar is not the same, so no, it will not work.

Your only options are to buy a 2010 MBA or wait for companies to update their software for lion and for Apple to release the necessary fixes for the bugged aspects of the OS.
 
It's exactly the same cpu architecture on the mbp and mba, on what technical grounds do you mean it won't work?

As long as you boot the 64 bit kernel in snow leopard you should be able to copy the required kernel extensions from lion into snow leopard and make it work, if drivers are needed for sound etc., but I doubt it.

It's an easy test to boot an external disk.
 
just try ?

if one guy in France says he could start his MBair 2011 on an extrenal USB HD running 10.6.8 . Why one of you who owns such a new machine and probably a backup of his old computer on 10.6.8 . Do not try it ? it is so simple and will give a definitive answer to this recurring question.
10.6.8 has been reported to work OK on MBpros ( logical since nothing has changed at hardware level) just need to be cloned on a new partition , it does not isntall from SL DVD .
 
Macintox said:
is anyone of you running his new MBA with SL 10.6.8 ? or has started from an extrenal HD using SL ?
I badly need rosetta so I am thinking to leave the orginal Lion on a reduced partition and install a clone of my actual HD on a new partition .
Feedback welcome
Click to expand...

If you can find a copy of Snow Leopard Server (they are about $200 on eBay), you can install it in a virtual machine in Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion. Only the server version will work (not the regular Snow Leopard).
 
Posting from the future....perhap MRU you don't know as much as you think.
10.6.8 will run okay on a 2011 Air and I have been doing so for years.
I use one to be compatible with my old web app.
Just to put this old thread to bed with correct information.

Oh BTW - you are wrong about Target mode as well....it's available via Thunderbolt cable.
 
Just because it doesn't officially support 10.6.8 I don't see the reason why it shouldn't be possible to run it. People have been using Hackintosh on hugely different-specced PCs for ages without issues. I'am guessing that official 10.6.8 will either work straight away, or you will have to manually copy some additional files like drivers or services to restore the proper functionality.
 
Yup - there are many many machines that don't officially support 10.6.8 but run fine it. It might not let you install but in most cases it just runs without issue.
USB 3.0 is a barrier tho.
In the 2011 Air the screen redraw is dire for 10.6.8 but it does function fine for my purposes and I just use El Cap on a different partition.
On 10.6.8 the trackpad is slow but useable..I switch to a mouse if I need extensive use.
 
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