back to article Snow Leopard redumps Intel's Atom

Now that Apple has released the final version of Mac OS 10.6.2 Snow Leopard into the wild, it appears that the shipping version does not support Intel's Atom processor after all. But according to Apple, it does fix the home-directory-eating Snow Leopard bug that has plagued many a fanboi in recent months. In recent days, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    No biggie!

    They'll find a way to hack it...and God Bless 'Em for it!

    OS-X on netbooks is a great advert for Apple's baby, unofficial of course, anything that encourages people to realise the potential of OS-X is nothing but a good thing!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Badgers

    So what?

    Other than the usual flame/link bait editorial rhetoric, I cannot see how this is really all that relevant. Apple do not make any devices that use the atom processor. They have also stated time and time again that they aren't going to cannibalise profits for 'market share' by selling cheap net books, so again, other than the people that are running OS X unlicensed (you may well have paid for it, but the license agreement is still being broken), who cares? Oh. It gives the usual regtard a chance to beat their chest and show tell world how evil Jobs and his gang are and how much better they are than everyone else because they haven't been fooled by Jobs' RDF. No, just Gates' or Stallman's one...

  3. Annihilator
    Paris Hilton

    Kill switch - how?

    Any details on how they've managed to kill Atom, when Atom is presumably still an x86 compliant chip? Is it the case that they've deliberately put a check into the kernel to halt on certain CPU families (or specifically, proceed only on known hardware variants)?

  4. Jacqui Smith's DVD Collection!
    Thumb Down

    boooo

    clearly done on purpose, I guess I will be sticking with the near identical 10.5.8...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    what's this about ?

    I thought only the big evil Microsoft released security and bug fixes. Mac's are immune from the real world? No, well then shut the fcuk up then fanboi's about Microsoft's software.

  6. ThomH

    @ Annihilator

    Apple don't support every possible combination and permutation of x86 device, only those they've shipped hardware based around. It could easily be that they're now assuming the presence of, I don't know, VT-X or something else that Intel consider an optional instruction set extension. That said, I'm being extremely charitable towards Apple in making this suggestion...

    I'm not sure about the accuracy of this:

    "But according to Apple, it does fix the home-directory-eating Snow Leopard bug that has plagued many a fanboi in recent months."

    Definitely looks like it was thrown in as flamebait. The conditions for triggering that bug seem to be quite obscure, and I can't imagine someone affected by it would continue to be a "fanboi", making them not exactly plagued.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Annihilator

    I don't think they will have put a check into the kernel for certain CPU families. That seems pretty pointless 'cos when they release the source for the kernel it will be obvious how to take it out again!

    Anyway, I guess that when the source is released we'll have a better idea of what's happened.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    @Simon Banyard

    Well said.

  9. James Robertson 2
    Megaphone

    code

    could just be they are optimizing the code to run on the processors that they sell, Snow Leopard was developed for taking advantage of 64bit and was optimized.

    There doesn't have to be another motive, and I would think that they know that the Hackintosh community will fine a fix fairly quickly.

    It could I also be a way to help stop psystar or support their legal argument against them.

  10. Steven Raith
    Troll

    @Simon Banyard

    While I agree that Mac OS dropping Atom is a nonews tale as far as official apple users are concerned, this is a tech site, and a certain subsection of users will no doubt be active in the Hackintosh community, and I'm willing to bet a substantial amount are at least interested in hackintoshes and the general workings around that.

    So it's releveant to the Reg readership, hence it being published.

    It also basically confirms that if Apple are to release a tablet type affair, that it won't be using Atom; either ULV C2Ds [unlikely] or chunky ARM hardware [more likely].

    So no need to get up on that high horse just yet...

    Steven R

    [not interested in building a hackintosh as I'm not a massive fan of OS Xs interface, but interested in the tweeks and workarounds hackintosh users have to use from a geeky p0erspective]

  11. Wrenchy
    Linux

    @Simon Banyard

    >By Steven Raith "While I agree that Mac OS dropping Atom is a nonews tale as far as official apple users are concerned, this is a tech site, and a certain subsection of users will no doubt be active in the Hackintosh community,..."

    So which one are you Simon? A user, a techie or a tosser?

  12. Alastair 7

    Facking irritating Apple

    "an issue in which some fonts are missing"

    "an issue when connecting monitors to DVI and Mini DisplayPort adapters"

    WHAT issue? I have an issue when I have a DVI monitor plugged in- it doesn't go to sleep like it's supposed to. Does this patch solve that? Buggered if I know.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Wrenchy

    I tried to respond to Steve Raith, but it seem the Moderatrix doesn't like criticism of El Reg (censoring much?), although they love to dole it out. So, without the criticisms of El Reg;

    "what's this about ? #

    By Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 10th November 2009 10:55 GMT

    I thought only the big evil Microsoft released security and bug fixes. Mac's are immune from the real world? No, well then shut the fcuk up then fanboi's about Microsoft's software" beautifully illustrates the point I was making! As does your comment! Are you suggesting that I'm a tosser for merely owning a Mac? Am I a tosser for exercising MY choice as a consumer? Well thanks for your opinion - I guess by your previous posts and the avatar you chose that you are an open-source fan. That's great! Well done. You are obviously morally and technically superior! OS X isn't open source though, and Apple, last time I looked, don't make devices that use Atom processors in any of their products, so I ask again; what is the relevance? AFAICT, the only ones that are interested are those interested in pirating OS X (even if you pay for it, by putting it on a machine other than a Apple one mean that you are intentionally breaking the license agreement), like Psystar. The fact that support for the Atom processor has been dropped may indicte that it had been considered, but since Apple now own a chip maker (PA Semi), I'd argue that wasn't ever really a realistic configuration. You can make up your own mind as to whether I'm a tosser or a techie - you will anyway...

  14. Robert Moore
    Jobs Halo

    I have a hackintosh

    It is good to know I should not update to 10.6.2.

    But what has Apple really done? They chose to not include support for a processor that they do not use in their hardware.

    While I love my "HackBook Mini" as I call it. I have to admit the Atom CPU is not really powerful enough to give a proper showing of what Snow Leopard is capable of doing. As a low power portable machine it is fantastic for use on the train. But even a fanboy like me will admit it is not suited for use as a replacement for a REAL Mac.

  15. Joe Ragosta

    Register a tech site?

    @Simon Banyard:

    "this is a tech site"

    ROTLMAO. When did the Register become a tech site? Unless you want to call them the National Enquirer of technology, I guess.

  16. Hugh McIntyre

    Re "when they release the kernel sources"

    Apple have not been releasing kernel sources for the last few years, from about when they switched to x86. Mostly to stop Hackintoshers. So it's not clear where people are expecting sources to appear. Non-kernel sources - yes. Kernel - no.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    What is this Nonsense

    Apple never said it would run on Atom MicroProcessors. What is this silliness about "killing Atom". Further who cares about Atom ---- sorry couldn't resist.

  18. tony trolle

    @Register a tech site?

    Congratulations, your domain name is available!

    registerenquirer.com

  19. jtc

    kernel source

    @ Hugh McIntyre

    eh, what planet are you on?

    http://www.opensource.apple.com/

    http://www.opensource.apple.com/release/mac-os-x-1061/

    for the kernel scroll to xnu

    http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1456.1.26/

  20. Hugh McIntyre

    @jtc (kernel source)

    Hmm - could have sworn there were reports in the past of Darwin efforts being stopped because of source being removed. And I certainly know about opensource.apple.com.

    It does appear though that xnu contains at least most of the kernel though - can't say if it's complete or not but it may be. Part of the problem is that the naming convention on the Apple page does not make it easy to see which of the downloadable projects goes with which bits of the system.

  21. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
    Jobs Horns

    Open source

    Apple may be able (or rather may have to) release the XNU source, but there is a lot of stuff Apple need not, and does not unfortunately.

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