From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Stephen Bash Subject: Re: mac osx Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:42:17 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <32759526.24168.1316619736958.JavaMail.root@mail.hq.genarts.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Cc: Sverre Rabbelier , Kyle Neath , tom smitts , git@vger.kernel.org, Timothy Harper To: Scott Chacon X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Wed Sep 21 17:42:32 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@lo.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1R6OwR-0000R5-4F for gcvg-git-2@lo.gmane.org; Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:42:31 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752566Ab1IUPmZ convert rfc822-to-quoted-printable (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:42:25 -0400 Received: from hq.genarts.com ([173.9.65.1]:4910 "HELO mail.hq.genarts.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S1751334Ab1IUPmY convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:42:24 -0400 Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by mail.hq.genarts.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 74B21EA2896; Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:42:23 -0400 (EDT) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at mail.hq.genarts.com Received: from mail.hq.genarts.com ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (mail.hq.genarts.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id R1ZdbPczB2K3; Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:42:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: from mail.hq.genarts.com (mail.hq.genarts.com [10.102.202.62]) by mail.hq.genarts.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 139F7EA2894; Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:42:17 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: Zimbra 6.0.10_GA_2692 (ZimbraWebClient - SAF3 (Mac)/6.0.10_GA_2692) Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Scott Chacon" > Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 10:58:03 AM > Subject: Re: mac osx >=20 > On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 5:52 AM, Timothy Harper > wrote: > >>> On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 3:40 PM, tom smitts > >>> wrote: > >>>> Do the git maintainers really think any mac users have > >>>> =C2=A0a clue which git install package to download? You > >>>> put some arcane chipset designation in the package > >>>> =C2=A0name! > > > > Good point, I'll update the description to include "32-bit" and > > "64-bit" >=20 > Honestly this doesn't help much. I think the point is that these > numbers or machs are not in any of the docs or ads I can think of for > macs. I feel pretty stupid admitting this to this list, but I > honestly don't know which macs are 32 bit - I assume the MBP is 64, > but if someone challenged me I'm not sure I could really defend it. Perhaps I can shed some light on the subject... (Long time Mac user an= d developer of software that has to deal with these sorts of issues all= the time) Starting with the hardware: Apple announced the switch to Intel process= ors in 2005, with the first machines shipping in early 2006 with the In= tel Core Duo (i386/32-bit) processors. In August of 2006 they introduc= ed a Xeon-based Mac Pro that used the x86_64/64-bit instruction set. A= ccording to Wikipedia [1] by August of 2007 every Mac shipped was based= on an x86_64 chip. Now Apple confused things with the software: Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) intr= oduced the ability to run 64-bit applications (and access more the 4GB = of memory), but the kernel was still 32-bit (I've skimmed some articles= about how they did this, but I don't remember the details now). Accor= ding to this article [2] it wasn't until OS 10.6.4 (Snow Leopard) that = Apple actually made the boot default to the 64-bit kernel (but I have f= irst hand experience with commercial software that changes the default = back to 32-bit!). And during all this users were never educated about the difference beca= use many (most?) applications built for Mac ship "universal binaries" w= ith multiple architectures linked into the same file (though there are = still a lot that just ship 32-bit). I don't know how much effort it wo= uld be to update the Git Makefile for universal builds on Macs (sometim= es it's as easy as "-arch i386 -arch x86_64"), but that might be the mo= st "Mac-like" way to go. =46or the geeks in the audience if you really want to know: a) the instruction sets linked in a binary (executable or shared libr= ary):=20 $ file /path/to/binary/of/interest b) the currently booted kernel architecture:=20 $ uname -m c) the currently running architecture set of any application:=20 Activity Monitor lists in the column "kind": PowerPC, Intel, or= Intel (64-bit) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93Intel_transition [2] http://macperformanceguide.com/SnowLeopard-64bit.html HTH, Stephen