At 8:13 PM -0500 8/4/2011, Kris Tilford wrote:
On Aug 4, 2011, at 7:32 PM, Tina K. wrote:
Meaning the OS is 100% 64 bit, or the OS and Apps are 100% 64 bit?
I don't think so, but I'm still confused upon this issue? Would
someone clarify please?
[Moved from below for clarity]
When booted 64-bit kextstat shows 84 kexts loaded, but when booted
with the 32-bit flag there were 99 kexts loaded, so 15 more kexts
under 32-bit. Obviously there is still 32-bit operation under Lion,
but perhaps many of the apps don't run as 32-bit?
The bit width of the kernel has *nothing* to do with the width of the
frameworks or apps. Those are separate "layers", that are managed,
well, separately!
OS X can run 32 or 64 bit frameworks and apps, regardless of which
kernel is booted.
Like Snow Leopard, Lion contains no ppc code. It is x86 only.
Like Snow Leopard, Lion contains both a 32-bit and a 64-bit kernel.
If you have any 32-bit kernel extensions, then Lion has to boot in 32-bit mode.
As distributed, there's a file missing that tells Lion it can boot on
32-bit hardware -- hence Apple's claim that you need a Core 2 or
better processor. Add that file back and it works... this was
"discovered" by the hackintosh crowd during the seeding cycle.
I'd thought that Lion was "supposed to be" 100% 64-bit
Nothing is pure 64-bit yet. That's not going to happen until ALL of
Apple's stuff AND the 3rd party drivers (kernel extensions) are
either updated or blown off. And then there's all the frameworks and
apps. ... Part of this transition is that Apple is moving away from
the old Carbon API to the "native" Cocoa / Objective-C system. It's
only just now that they rewrote iTunes to conform!
At the app level, consider QuickTime - Apple's own puppy. QuickTime
X is 64-bit Cocoa, but is missing quite a few codecs, as well as
support for things like QTVR, interactive QT movies, and MIDI. To do
any of those missing things, QTKit spawns off a helper process that
runs QuickTime 7, in 32-bit mode!!!! Nice kludge, eh?
HTH,
- Dan.
--
- Psychoceramic Emeritus; South Jersey, USA, Earth.
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