Snow Leopard has a 32-bit kernel! as the default

[SnowLeopard2008]

I doubt Apple will show you all the tricks up their sleeves before actual release. Grand Central Dispatch hasn't even integrated into beta SL builds yet. Apple will ship Snow Leopard as fully 64-bit, 64-bit kernel and KEXTS. But whether they enable this for all 64-bit capable Macs is the question, not whether the beta build enable this by default or not. It's beta. Not final release.

 

[vanc]

Wrong. The official release notes are inaccurate. My 17" uMBP boots into the 64-bit kernel by default(which did surprise me). I double-checked under activity monitor and all default apps(finder, ical, etc) run under Intel(64-bit).

That's a real surprise. Although lots of people complaining about 32-bit kernel, but 32-bit kernel provides the best compatibilities with existing system software. Developers need time to make pure 64-bit kexts, especially for complicated products, such as virtualization, networking (VPN), etc.

 

[goMac]

I doubt Apple will show you all the tricks up their sleeves before actual release. Grand Central Dispatch hasn't even integrated into beta SL builds yet. Apple will ship Snow Leopard as fully 64-bit, 64-bit kernel and KEXTS. But whether they enable this for all 64-bit capable Macs is the question, not whether the beta build enable this by default or not. It's beta. Not final release.

Huh? GCD has always been in the betas. And it's already gone GM. And they're already shipping the 64 bit kernel. And they're already shipping some 64 bit kexts.

???

 

[OSXbugs]

I doubt Apple will show you all the tricks up their sleeves before actual release. Grand Central Dispatch hasn't even integrated into beta SL builds yet. Apple will ship Snow Leopard as fully 64-bit, 64-bit kernel and KEXTS. But whether they enable this for all 64-bit capable Macs is the question, not whether the beta build enable this by default or not. It's beta. Not final release.

Anyone here keeping a list of people that spew nonsense and misinformation?

 

[Scottsdale]

Huh? GCD has always been in the betas. And it's already gone GM. And they're already shipping the 64 bit kernel. And they're already shipping some 64 bit kexts.

???

I certainly wondered if I was really confused after reading that post. Thanks for some reassurance.

 

[mmoran27]

I have installed SL on my 13 MBP and the default kernel is 32-bit. Just like I said.

This is the latest MBP.

 

[zmttoxics]

This thread = *face palm*.

Even if this is the GM build, it could just be a bug or known problem. You wont known till release day.

 

[goMac]

That's a real surprise. Although lots of people complaining about 32-bit kernel, but 32-bit kernel provides the best compatibilities with existing system software. Developers need time to make pure 64-bit kexts, especially for complicated products, such as virtualization, networking (VPN), etc.

Ooooooo good point. 64 bit kernel means no VMWare or Parallels. They haven't created 64 bit kexts yet.

 

[ayeying]

Ooooooo good point. 64 bit kernel means no VMWare or Parallels. They haven't created 64 bit kexts yet.

VMWare is currently beta testing a version that allows running in 64-bit kernel. Also another reason I want 64-bit kernel to test it in.

Also a little birdy tells me Aero works too

 

[goMac]

VMWare is currently beta testing a version that allows running in 64-bit kernel. Also another reason I want 64-bit kernel to test it in.

Why would you want to test the 64 bit version? All the virtualization functionality is controlled on chip, and is definitely not going to see any performance enhancement through a 64 bit kernel extension.

 

[ayeying]

Why would you want to test the 64 bit version? All the virtualization functionality is controlled on chip, and is definitely not going to see any performance enhancement through a 64 bit kernel extension.

because this is a beta test and i'm a beta tester? Don't need a reason, just want apple to grant my wish of running a 64-bit kernel.

 

[Catfish_Man]

Why would you want to test the 64 bit version? All the virtualization functionality is controlled on chip, and is definitely not going to see any performance enhancement through a 64 bit kernel extension.

I disagree actually; Virtualization is one of the very few commonly used apps I can think of that might see a speedup on the 64 bit kernel, unless they actually manage to do guest<->host transitions without a syscall?

<edit>
ok, I thought this through a bit more, and I really don't see how they could avoid it. The need for a kext is because the virtualization layer needs to be able to pretend that the guest OS is running in ring 0, and therefore itself must run in ring 0. So there has to be a user/kernel transition to do things like interrupt handling for the guest OS. Am I totally missing something here?
</edit>

 

[goMac]

I disagree actually; Virtualization is one of the very few commonly used apps I can think of that might see a speedup on the 64 bit kernel, unless they actually manage to do guest<->host transitions without a syscall?

<edit>
ok, I thought this through a bit more, and I really don't see how they could avoid it. The need for a kext is because the virtualization layer needs to be able to pretend that the guest OS is running in ring 0, and therefore itself must run in ring 0. So there has to be a user/kernel transition to do things like interrupt handling for the guest OS. Am I totally missing something here?
</edit>

As far as I know, on modern CPU's like the Core series, context switching from the OS to a VM is handled on the CPU by VT-x, not the kernel, and this likely wouldn't show much of a 64 bit improvement anyway.

On Nehelem, the page files aren't even handled by the OS, they're handled by the processor as well.

 

[Catfish_Man]

Interesting. I'll have to remember to follow up on this once the NDA is lifted.

 

[iJed]

I doubt Apple will show you all the tricks up their sleeves before actual release. Grand Central Dispatch hasn't even integrated into beta SL builds yet. Apple will ship Snow Leopard as fully 64-bit, 64-bit kernel and KEXTS. But whether they enable this for all 64-bit capable Macs is the question, not whether the beta build enable this by default or not. It's beta. Not final release.

If Grand Central Dispatch isn't in any of the betas then there must have been a serious problem with using the new Cocoa Finder since it extensively utilises GCD. This is even mentioned on the the new features public page.

It looks like the 64 bit kernel will be enabled by default on only one Apple product line: Xserve. However, as I've said before, I expect it to be further enabled as default in point releases or even in 10.7. It really all depends on third part driver support.

 

[Thermonuclear]

Apple promised ...

Apple promised in the SL specifications that the kernel will be running in 64 bit mode as well as will (nearly) every Apple-supplied application.

Core Solo or Core Duo -> Only 32 bits for you.

Core 2 Duo or Xeon -> 64 bits; can still run 32 bit applications.

PowerPC -> Tough luck, buddy; enjoy your boat anchor.

Yes, it's that simple.

 

[maverick808]

Apple promised in the SL specifications that the kernel will be running in 64 bit mode as well as will (nearly) every Apple-supplied application.

Core Solo or Core Duo -> Only 32 bits for you.

Core 2 Duo or Xeon -> 64 bits; can still run 32 bit applications.

PowerPC -> Tough luck, buddy; enjoy your boat anchor.

Yes, it's that simple.

No it's not that simple. The very latest 13" MBP can NOT run 64-bit kernel. Doesn't matter if you change the boot plist, hold 6 and 4 on boot, or lipo the 32bit code out the mach_kernel, it still will not run in 64-bit kernel.

The official documentation does not list the 13" MBP as a supported machine. So why is that?

 

[mmoran27]

The 13 MBP can run the 64-bit kernel.

It just does not by default. That was the point of the post.

Apple is not going to ship the 64-bit kernel because of driver issues mainly with 3rd party drivers.

You can enable the 64-bit kernel by holding down 6+4 DURING boot or editing a plist.

I am running the MBP 13 with the 64-bit kernel. What you mean it does not work. Sure it does.

I blanked the serial number for obvious reasons.

 

[bcaslis]

Apple promised in the SL specifications that the kernel will be running in 64 bit mode as well as will (nearly) every Apple-supplied application.

Core Solo or Core Duo -> Only 32 bits for you.

Core 2 Duo or Xeon -> 64 bits; can still run 32 bit applications.

PowerPC -> Tough luck, buddy; enjoy your boat anchor.

Yes, it's that simple.

No they did not promise the kernel would run in 64 bit mode. They promised all the apps will run in 64 bit mode and they do even if you are running the kernel in 32 bit mode. That's what most people are missing. If you run the kernel in 64 bit mode, you are going to have driver and kext compatibility problems like people complained about in Vista. That's the reason it's running in 32 bit mode, for compatibility. Once better third party driver support it's pretty simple to turn the 64 bit kernel mode on unlike Windows which requires a separate 64 bit OS install.

 

[mmoran27]

That is only part of the problem

The real answer is that Apple itself hasn't written drivers for its own hardware. Like the Intel GMA macs.

 

[maverick808]

It just does not by default. That was the point of the post.

Apple is not going to ship the 64-bit kernel because of driver issues mainly with 3rd party drivers.

You can enable the 64-bit kernel by holding down 6+4 DURING boot or editing a plist.

No, it can't. The 13" MBP can not run 64-bit kernel at all with this version of Snow Leopard. I'd love to be proved wrong so if anyone has a 13" MBP and has got it working then please let us know how.

 

[trondah]

No, it can't. The 13" MBP can not run 64-bit kernel at all with this version of Snow Leopard. I'd love to be proved wrong so if anyone has a 13" MBP and has got it working then please let us know how.

Edit: 13" is not listed as supported, but has the same hardware as 15" so is obviously capable.

$ uname -a
Darwin amaterasu.local 10.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 10.0.0: Fri Jul 31 22:46:25 PDT 2009; root:xnu-1456.1.25~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

It boots into 64 bit mode using any of the methods suggested in the seed notes.

 

[belvdr]

Completely false. The 13" MBP is listed as supported and I'm writing this on mine in full 64 bit glory.

http://bildr.no/view/470915
http://bildr.no/view/470916

$ uname -a
Darwin amaterasu.local 10.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 10.0.0: Fri Jul 31 22:46:25 PDT 2009; root:xnu-1456.1.25~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

It boots into 64 bit mode using any of the two methods suggested in the seed notes.

Your images didn't work.

By the way, I noticed you typed that twice as fast.

 

[Carlos E]

I can confirm Snow Leopard runs on the 64-bit kernel on a 17" Unibody (July '09) by default.

I installed the latest Snow Leopard releases and it does not boot 64 bit by default. It boots 32 bit. I had to hold down the number 6 & 4 key at boot up to get it to boot 64 bit.

 

[maverick808]

Completely false. The 13" MBP is listed as supported and I'm writing this on mine in full 64 bit glory.

http://bildr.no/view/470915
http://bildr.no/view/470916

$ uname -a
Darwin amaterasu.local 10.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 10.0.0: Fri Jul 31 22:46:25 PDT 2009; root:xnu-1456.1.25~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

It boots into 64 bit mode using any of the two methods suggested in the seed notes.

Doesn't work for me, and the seed notes only list the 15" and 17"...