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The Snow Leopard Thread (OS X 10.6)

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
M

MysticCow

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Original poster
May 27, 2013
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THE MAC OS X 10.6 SNOW LEOPARD THREAD
a user-editable wiki

10.6.0 Release Date
28 August 2009

WikiPost Last Updated
19 November 2021


SUPPORTED HARDWARE

OFFICIAL
  • iMac (Early 2006 to Mid 2011)
  • Mac mini (Early 2006 to Mid 2010)
  • Mac Pro (Late 2006 to Mid 2010)
  • MacBook (Mid 2006 to Mid 2010)
  • MacBook Air (Early 2008 to Late 2010)
  • MacBook Pro (Early 2006 to Early 2011)
  • Xserve (Late 2006 to Early 2009)
UNOFFICIAL
  • Mac mini (Mid 2011 - a how-to on installing 10.6.8 for both iGPU & dGPU models)
  • Mac Pro (Mid 2012 - with supported GPU)
  • MacBook Air (11.6" Mid 2011 - heavy graphic glitches after boot & waking from sleep, which recede gradually when using the system)
  • MacBook Pro (Late 2011 - hardware is identical to Early 2011 models)
VIRTUALIZATION
  • VMware Fusion: requires Snow Leopard Server (standard/client edition will not work)
  • Parallels: A how-to using either Snow Leopard or Snow Leopard Server (preferred)

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Minimum RAM
1 GB

Minimum Hard Drive Space / Partition Size
5.0 GB



APPLE SOFTWARE UPDATES


CLIENT

SERVER


COMPATIBLE SOFTWARE LIST

Snow Leopard Compatibility Table


AUDIO AND VIDEO

CHAT CLIENTS

GAMES



GRAPHICS AND DESIGN
  • Adobe Creative Suite CS4 (note: some components on all CS versions may be dependent on meeting hardware minimums)
    • After Effects CS4
    • Bridge CS4
    • Contribute CS4
    • Device Central CS4
    • Dreamweaver CS4
    • Encore CS4
    • Fireworks CS4
    • Flash CS4
    • Illustrator CS4
    • InDesign CS4
    • Media Encoder CS4
    • OnLocation CS4
    • Photoshop CS4
    • Premiere Pro CS4
    • SoundBooth CS4
  • Adobe Creative Suite CS5 (note: some components on all CS versions may be dependent on meeting hardware minimums)
  • Adobe Creative Suite CS6 (note: some components on all CS versions may be dependent on meeting hardware minimums)
    • After Effects CS6
    • Audition CS6
    • Bridge CS6
    • Dreamweaver CS6
    • Encore CS6
    • Fireworks CS6
    • Flash CS6
    • Illustrator CS6
    • InDesign CS6
    • Media Encoder CS6
    • Photoshop CS6
    • Premiere Pro CS6
    • SpeedGrade CS6
  • Acorn 4.5.8
  • Apple Aperture 2.1.4
  • Apple GarageBand 5.1
  • FontExplorer X Pro 3.0
  • FontExplorer X Pro 4.2.3
  • GIMP 2.8.22
  • GraphicConverter 8.8.3
  • iPhoto 9.2.3 (part of iLife '11)
  • QuarkXPress 8 (8.1)
  • QuarkXPress 9 (9.5.1)
  • SeaShore 0.5.1
  • Silverfast 8
  • VueScan 9.4.19

OFFICE, PRODUCTIVITY AND WRITING
  • Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 (9.5.5)
  • Adobe Acrobat Pro X (10.1.16)
  • Adobe Acrobat Pro XI
  • Adobe InCopy CS4
  • Adobe InCopy CS5
  • Adobe InCopy CS6
  • Adobe Reader 11.0.0
  • BBEdit 9.6.3
  • Bean 3.2.5
  • FastTrack Schedule 9
  • FileMaker Pro 11 Advanced
  • iWork '09 9.1
    • Keynote 5.1
    • Numbers 2.1
    • Pages 4.1
  • Mendeley Desktop 1.3.2
  • Microsoft Office 2008 (12.3.6)
    • Excel 12.3.6
    • Outlook 12.3.6
    • PowerPoint 12.3.6
    • Word 12.3.6
  • Microsoft Office 2011 (14.7.7)
    • Excel 14.7.7
    • Outlook 14.7.7
    • PowerPoint 14.7.7
    • Word 14.7.7
  • Nisus Writer Express 3.4.6
  • Nisus Writer Pro 2.0.7
  • Notational Velocity 2.0 beta 5
  • OmmWriter 1.0
  • Scribus 1.4.7
  • Scrievner 1.50
  • Sublime Text 2.0.2 build 2221

TOOLS AND UTILITIES
  • AirDisplay 2.0
  • Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.7
  • ClamXav 2.7.5
  • Cocktail SLE 5.1
  • coconutBattery 2.8
  • Color Oracle 1.1.4
  • Data Rescue 3.2.4
  • DiskTracker 2.4.7
  • DiskWarrior 4.4
  • EyeTV 2.5.3
  • Flux 36.6
  • Geekbench 2.4.3
  • Hardwaremonitor 4.99
  • Hardwaremonitor Light 4.99
  • IceClean 3.4.8
  • iStat Menus 4.2.2
  • iTerm 2.1.4
  • Keka 1.0.4
  • Little Snitch 3.3.4
  • Mactracker 7.4.1
  • Monolingual 1.4.5 SL
  • OnyX 2.4.0
  • Pacifist 3.2.17
  • Retina DisplayMenu 0.2
  • ScreenRecycler 1.39
  • SMARTReporter 3.0.3
  • StuffIt Archive Manager 15.0
  • SuperDuper 2.7.1
  • Trim Enabler 2.2
  • Turbo Boost Switcher 2.9.1
  • The Unarchiver 3.10
  • Toast 11 Titanium

VIRTUALIZATION, EMULATORS, REMOTE CONTROL

UI/UX

USENET

WEB BROWSERS, E-MAIL CLIENTS, AND FTP CLIENTS

[link to separate MR wiki: “Web Browsers for Early Macs”]


NOTES

This is a WikiPost. Feel free to add any software or additional OS info that you find. Add new categories if you feel your software does not fit under any current category.
 
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mdgm

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Nov 2, 2010
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This is the last version of OS X that's able to run PowerPC apps. As PowerPC machines get older and harder to maintain with spare parts harder to come by, Intel machines able to run Snow Leopard should become more popular with users that still need/want to run PowerPC apps. At this point that would be the main reason to run such an old version of OS X.

If a machine shipped with Snow Leopard you'll need the DVD that shipped with the machine to install it.

If a machine shipped with an older version of OS X then a standard Snow Leopard DVD would be needed.
 
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M

MacFoxG4

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Nov 22, 2019
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mdgm said:
This is the last version of OS X that's able to run PowerPC apps. As PowerPC machines get older and harder to maintain with spare parts harder to come by, Intel machines able to run Snow Leopard should become more popular with users that still need/want to run PowerPC apps. At this point that would be the main reason to run such an old version of OS X.

If a machine shipped with Snow Leopard you'll need the DVD that shipped with the machine to install it.

If a machine shipped with an older version of OS X then a standard Snow Leopard DVD would be needed.
Click to expand...
Snow Leopard is good with PPC apps. If a PPC app doesn't work with Snow Leopard, I recommend trying Leopard instead if the Mac is old enough. I once had a PPC native app that refused to run in Snow Leopard, but would run in Leopard on my 2006 MBP.
 
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Project Alice

Project Alice

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mdgm said:
This is the last version of OS X that's able to run PowerPC apps. As PowerPC machines get older and harder to maintain with spare parts harder to come by, Intel machines able to run Snow Leopard should become more popular with users that still need/want to run PowerPC apps. At this point that would be the main reason to run such an old version of OS X.

If a machine shipped with Snow Leopard you'll need the DVD that shipped with the machine to install it.

If a machine shipped with an older version of OS X then a standard Snow Leopard DVD would be needed.
Click to expand...
I wish I had a machine that came with SL to test this with. As far as I know the retail version should work on most Macs. Unless it shipped with a newer version of SL than the later retail DVD came with.

I think my Mac Pro 4,1 is the only machine I have that shipped with it, but it won’t boot it with the GPU it has. I’ve been able to install SL on both my 2009 MacBook and Mac Mini using a retail image; those shipped with either Leopard or Snow Leopard GM depending on time of purchase.
 
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Project Alice

Project Alice

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Amethyst1 said:
My 2011 MBP shipped with a custom 10.6.6. A 10.6.3 retail disc immediately KPs.

EDIT: Updated compatible and supported hardware list in first post.
Click to expand...
I didn't realize any 2011 Macs came with SL. Interesting. I checked Mac Tracker and they shipped with as late as 10.6.7
I should acquire that image, it would be easy to white list any SL compatible Mac and have a newer installer than 10.6.3
 
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retta283

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The sad thing about Snow Leopard is that the Web performance is pretty much equally as bad on the slowest SL machine as it is on the fastest SL machine. Personally, other than more RAM available, the performance is identical between a Core Duo MacBook and an i7 iMac. Just Web-side limitations I presume.
 
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retta283

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Also, don't forget about Target disk mode to install SL on 2010 and 2011 Macs that shipped with it, and even some of the unofficially supported ones. This is very easy, just install it on a supported machine with the newer Mac's drive as target, boot up, install 10.6.8 and you're golden.
 
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Wowfunhappy

Wowfunhappy

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I don't use Snow Leopard but I'm surprised you're having that much trouble, when from what I understand TenFourFox works pretty well all the way back on Tiger. Have either of you tried the Intel (!) builds of TenFourFox to see if its more performant?
 
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wicknix

wicknix

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Added Boxer to the emulators list, and added links for dosbox, seashore, and some console emulators.

I find browsing on SL just as fast, if not a tad faster than Lion and El Cap on the same machine. The browsers aren't that old (2018 code base for some of them) and 95% of the web still works fine. Even FF 78esr on El Cap gets the finger from some sites because it isn't "chrome".

Cheers
 
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B S Magnet

B S Magnet

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23:58:30. Unceded Treaty 13 lands of N Turtle Isle
• Mac mini (Mid 2011 - models without dGPU only)
Click to expand...

Up until this line right here, I never knew there were mid-2011 Mac minis which could not boot into SL. Has this been definitively verified by anyone here?

EDIT: I added a link on a how-to for running SL on all mid-2011 Mac minis (assuming you aren’t migrating a Carbon Copy Cloner/Super Duper-cloned 10.6.8 already in use on another 2011 Mac, such as an early or late 2011 MBP).
 
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MBAir2010

MBAir2010

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there
last year my spare macbook air ran snow leopard for graphic design using CS4 and much digital scanning with a canon scanLTE30 amd HP deskjet932 and i could run Opera to browse the web until september when loading a page was like pulling teeth. In2019 i could still use icloud and sync some ipads, ipods and an old itouch. Today (ithink) nothing works cloud-wise and the OSX is kinda lost.
if we get rain, i might fire up the spare MBA and see what SNOW LEOPARD can do Today.
 
Wowfunhappy

Wowfunhappy

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MtLoin2020 said:
i could run Opera to browse the web until september when loading a page was like pulling teeth. In2019 i could still use icloud and sync some ipads, ipods and an old itouch. Today (ithink) nothing works cloud-wise and the OSX is kinda lost.
Click to expand...

Yeah, because Opera for Snow Leopard is ancient, don't use that. Go grab a copy of Interweb, which will work with many more sites. And then maybe set up this proxy so that https will work in older apps like Apple Mail.

"The cloud" will mostly work well enough.
 
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B S Magnet

B S Magnet

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E

Eccofonic

macrumors newbie
Dec 29, 2018
21
2
MysticCow said:
THE MAC OS X 10.6 SNOW LEOPARD THREAD
a user-editable wiki

10.6.0 Release Date
28 August 2009


SUPPORTED HARDWARE

UNOFFICIAL
  • Mac mini (Mid 2011 - a how-to on installing 10.6.8 for both iGPU & dGPU models)
Click to expand...
There's a link on the "how-to" page to the fixed drivers for the mid-2011:

www.box.com

NFG_Mac_Mini_2011.dmg | Powered by Box

www.box.com www.box.com

But no matter what browser and/or O.S. I use, the site won't let you download the file.

Is there another link to the drivers file somewhere?

Thanks in advance...
 
E

Eccofonic

macrumors newbie
Dec 29, 2018
21
2
Amethyst1 said:
Nope. Works just fine here so not sure what's up on your end.
Click to expand...
I get the same thing with each browser I use:

1st time I visit the site, the download button doesn't do anything. So I quit the browser.

2nd time I visit the site, when I hit the download button, a box pops up and says "your download is in progress", but nothing actually happens.
 
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