Oh, Bother! OS X Mountain Lion Won't Run on Some Early 64-Bit Macs
Oh, Bother! OS X Mountain Lion Won't Run on Some Early 64-Bit Macs
While you're tapping your fingers in anticipation waiting for OS X Mountain Lion to arrive this month, you might want to consult Apple's upgrade page again -- it's been updated and a few otherwise capable 64-bit models appear to left hanging.
Ars Technica is reporting that apparently, not all 64-bit Macs have been created equal -- at least not in the eyes of the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion. Ahead of the final release, Apple has updated the upgrade page of its website, tweaking which models will be supported by the latest big cat.
Despite a few older Macs being otherwise 64-bit capable -- a requirement for both the current OS X Lion and the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion -- it appears that 32-bit graphics drivers may be to blame for Apple's decision.
"While Mountain Lion is compatible with any Mac capable of running a 64-bit kernel, the kernel no longer supports loading 32-bit kernel extensions (KEXTs)," Ars Technica explains. "Since those older drivers are 32-bit, Mountain Lion won't load them. We believe Apple decided it was better to draw the line in the sand for some older machines rather than invest the resources into updating the drivers for these older GPUs."
As noted by Apple's OS X Mountain Lion upgrade page, supported Macs now include the following:
• iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
• MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
• MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
• Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
• Xserve (Early 2009)
However, if you're running close to edge of this cutoff, now might be a good time to consider a new Mac anyway -- and you'll even get that copy of OS X Mountain Lion thrown in free as a bonus.
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