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Rosetta downloadable for Lion?

M

meli

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 3, 2004
92
0
I was in the Apple store today (Upper West Side, NYC), and two different salespeople told me that I could download Rosetta and install it with Lion. They said Rosetta isn't bundled with Lion, but it still runs under Lion.

Is this correct? That wasn't the impression I got from the news stories.
 
Rosetta does not run under Lion. There is no download for it to run under Lion. It will never run under Lion.
 
That's what I thought. One of the salespeople even told me that it would download automatically.

The problem Apple now faces is that some (though not much) of the software they sell on the shelves won't run under the current operating system. When I pointed that out to a salesperson, they did not really understand what I was talking about. Hopefully, not too many people will get burned by the misinformation.
 
meli said:
That's what I thought. One of the salespeople even told me that it would download automatically.

The problem Apple now faces is that some (though not much) of the software they sell on the shelves won't run under the current operating system. When I pointed that out to a salesperson, they did not really understand what I was talking about. Hopefully, not too many people will get burned by the misinformation.
Click to expand...

Just curious, but what software on the Apple Store's shelf won't requires Rosetta?
 
It was an old "Dora the Explorer" game. System requirement of 10.4 or later. Maybe it's a Universal Binary, maybe not. There didn't seem to be any way to tell from the package.

edit: I just checked Amazon. I think it was "Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom". Amazon's site states that its Universal, but a few of of reviewers say they can't get it running with their Mac.
 
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Rosetta allows software designed for PowerPCs to run.

Macs with PowerPC CPUs have not been offered for years.

The only major software vendor which stuck with PowerPC code until recently was Quicken. Boo, Quicken.

Aside from Quicken, I'd be amazed to learn if there were other applications on the shelf of the Apple Store that still required this long-obsolete architecture.

Personally speaking, my only important Lion-incompatible software was my eight-year-old version of Microsoft Office. I upgraded for about $100 (or less than $150 for a family pack). Well worth it.

Meanwhile, you will never see Rosetta on Lion. Rosetta required PowerPC or Universal capabilities to be interwoven throughout all of OS X. Lion is considerably trimmer for having jettisoned all that excess baggage.
 
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The game I saw (I can't be sure) may have been "Dora the Explorer: Lost and Found Adventure". According to the publisher's website it requires a 10.4 or later and a G5.

http://usa.novadevelopment.com/company/resources/specsheets_enduser/doraLFA.pdf

You can buy it new right now via Amazon. So some of the old software is still out there.

I'm not sure if I'd call PowerPC "long obsolete", maybe for professional use. But I'm using a G5 right now. You could buy a new PowerPC mac five years ago. Many people keep their computers longer than five years.

But I bet you're right. The game I saw was probably a Universal Binary, though it wasn't marked as such.
 
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It's no longer on shelves and this is why Lion hurts me most: Adobe Golive CS2 is PowerPC. Adobe used to sell - downloadable only - a Universal build but has quickly discontinued its selling. I missed buying it because I was hoping a boxed version would be available!

I have other older Adobe packages I still must use. Not to count the many very useful utility app I have. And I don't want the counter-productive Office 2011 new UI too!

I don't own an iPhone, I don't need an iPad and I don't care for Lion's "goodies". I'm 14 hours/day in front of a Mac.

To me, this is the worst regression in functionality an OS upgrade has ever done to its users.

I pray my 4 years old MBP will not fail on me before this incredible situation gets cleared up.
 
meli said:
That's what I thought. One of the salespeople even told me that it would download automatically.

The problem Apple now faces is that some (though not much) of the software they sell on the shelves won't run under the current operating system. When I pointed that out to a salesperson, they did not really understand what I was talking about. Hopefully, not too many people will get burned by the misinformation.
Click to expand...

References in the Lion kernel to /usr/libexec/oah where Rosetta sat in Snow Leopard go to RosettaNonGrata. To get this to run in Lion you would have to recompile the kernel at a minimum.

It might be doable now that the Darwin sources are out, but not without a fair bit of work and it still might not work.
 
My personal upgrade cost is much higher than $100. Wayyyyy higher.

Some of it I could circumvent and replace hardware, but I hate the thought of doing that when I have perfectly working stuff right now. What a waste!

I'd give anything to be able to snag a SL machine up right now.... But can't.
 
One would think the Apple store people would at least know that Rosetta doesn't work on Lion. It was an option in Snow Leopard and would download if needed, but is gone in Lion.
 
tvnshack said:
It's no longer on shelves and this is why Lion hurts me most: Adobe Golive CS2 is PowerPC. Adobe used to sell - downloadable only - a Universal build but has quickly discontinued its selling. I missed buying it because I was hoping a boxed version would be available!

I have other older Adobe packages I still must use. Not to count the many very useful utility app I have. And I don't want the counter-productive Office 2011 new UI too!

I don't own an iPhone, I don't need an iPad and I don't care for Lion's "goodies". I'm 14 hours/day in front of a Mac.

To me, this is the worst regression in functionality an OS upgrade has ever done to its users.

I pray my 4 years old MBP will not fail on me before this incredible situation gets cleared up.
Click to expand...

I would think that in the future you could use a desktop virtualization product like parallels just fine (virtualbox is even one good that is free) to install a snow leopard with rosetta. So no need to keep up with the times you can still use those old programs.
 
Frosties said:
I would think that in the future you could use a desktop virtualization product like parallels just fine (virtualbox is even one good that is free) to install a snow leopard with rosetta. So no need to keep up with the times you can still use those old programs.
Click to expand...

The OSx EULA prohibits virtualization of Snow Leopard, except Snow Leopard Server.
 
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