Hi, There are three issues here. First is the actual transition to a 64-bit headers and libraries, which has been underway for many years and is "not a big issue". Second is Snow Leopard's support for older 32-bit apps and drivers. Thirdly is Snow Leopard's support for PowerPC apps and drivers.
We have heard that Snow Leopard occupies less disk space than Leopard. And because 64-bit binaries are larger than 32-bit binaries, any major reduction in size for a 64-bit OS has traditionally implied dropping support for older architectures. As a case in point, current transitional libraries contain all four architectures on disk: library.so: Mach-O universal binary with 4 architectures library.so (for architecture ppc7400): Mach-O bundle ppc library.so (for architecture ppc64): Mach-O 64-bit bundle ppc64 library.so (for architecture i386): Mach-O bundle i386 library.so (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit bundle x86_64 Fortunately, Apple has already committed Snow Leopard (despite its size reduction) to supporting 32-bit Intel applications, if not kernel extensions <http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/>. Regarding Freehand MX, was it released as a Universal binary or only PPC? I don't know if Snow Leopard will support PPC applications (Rosetta). There is speculation that by default it WON'T, but that you CAN OPTIONALLY install Rosetta support (losing some disk space in the process). James. -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:[email protected]>
