Can I install Snow Leopard on the new Mac Mini

I have been following this thread for a while and I am impressed at the progress thus far. I do not own a 2011 Mac Mini but was planning on purchasing one until I did this type of research and discovered these limits.

One thing that I was thinking about but have no way to test my theory, is when you finally get your 2011 Mac Mini running Snow Leopard 10.6.8, is the sluggish speed issue due to the Mac Mini booting in 32 bit mode by default? That would certainly explain those poor benchmark stats people are posting. There is an app called "32- or 64-bit Kernel Startup Mode Selector".

I believe that Snow Leopard does this and if you can try to force it into 64 bit mode, your speed issues may be solved. Since the 2011 Mac Mini was designed to run Lion 10.7 the hardware may be able to do 64 bit only and not 32 bit mode at all especially if the 2011 Mac Mini has a 64 bit EFI, and when you boot 10.6.8 you are hindering it's performance in 32 bit mode.

As for driver issues has anyone ever zapped the PRAM on reboot and checked these devices out?

--my 2 cents

MichaelLAX...Though I did not try to install Rosetta as I do not need it, it seems to me that in the process of the install process once the target machine is properly provisioned and the SL install is launched, you do need to select the "Customize" button where I think the components of the install can be configured and there is a toggle box for Rosetta that has to be checked. As I said I did not "customize" my SL install so I can't say for sure that this option is available as it is under normal SL instal-from-retail-disk conditions.

One additonal thought...

Is anyone worried that Apple may code something in a future "Software Update" that will either deliberately or accidentally undo what some have done to have SL running on the new hardware? If that is a genuine worry then there would be a disincentive to accepting future software updates which in the case of SL are now down to mostly genuinely needed security patches.

If you really want Lion fixed:

1. Write to blogs and online Mac mags, complaining, as many as you can

2. Write to Apple in Cupertino, snail mail and emails.

3. Write to David Pogue at NY Times, telling him about the 11,000.

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease" and shareholders will see Lion as it stands now as a liability.

William: would you please email me a list of how Lion is broken, other than the elimination of Rosetta; or link me to an article that describes the "liabilities."

Were you this upset when OS X finally dropped the "Classic Environment" (that is, the ability to run OS 9 within OS X)?

MichaelLAX at AOL

Thanks!

This might be slightly off topic a bit but related, i installed SL (Mac Box set 10.6.3) on a partition on an imac CTO core i7/2.8GHz/4GB RAM with preinstalled lion 10.7.1 via TDM using a macbook core 2 duo 2.4 GHz/4GB RAM running 10.6.7. The install went fine SL booted up fine and in fact ended up being able to dual boot 10.7/10.6. I deleted the lion partition but Disk Utility would not let me resize to one parition. So now i have 2 and don't know how to make them one. Also i ran Geekbench (free version- the 32 bit) and my score was 5537. According to Geekbench website benchmarks for system should be 10179. So does that mean i am getting half performance? Seems like installing SL via TDM on a preinstalled lion system results in half the geekbench score.

Does anyone know how to make it one parition again?

See the 32/64 -bit discussions earlier in the thread.

• John Fair will be posting his updated-and-summarized list of steps to install Snow Leopard on the 2011 Mac Mini sometime in the next 24-48 hours, so keep checking if you need them.

• Note that Apple yielded a bit today to the uproar regarding Final Cut X and decided to resume selling Final Cut Studio 3, at least for now, but only via phone orders to Apple. Apple certainly does listen -- especially when the crowd roar gets loud enough.

• Also -- note that Parallels Desktop 7 has just been released, which runs under Lion, and several people, here, are already approaching them about the feasibility of running Snow Leopard as a task under Lion. This will NOT be as easy as it seems, since running a second copy of Lion as an additional instance under Lion (which Parallels can do!) uses the already existing chips and boards that we know can run Lion; it will take some additional code and emulation to support Snow Leopard fully on those Lion boards. Luckily, that is what the folks who create Parallels are good at, if they choose to take it on; some of the first Mac versions of these "virtual machines" were created to run Windows (which required an emulated Intel chipset) on the Mac's then-current PowerPC chips (IMO, somewhat more complex than making available some chunks of code and emulating some Intel chip variants on newer Intel chips. And, they'll get paid for doing it!!).

Here's a link to AppleInsider's article on the Parallels release... (and the Final Cut Studio 3 story is just above that on the AppleInsider website).

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/09/01/parallels_desktop_7_upgrade_availa ble_now_with_mac_os_x_lion_hosting_integration.html

And current viewership on this thread is around 11,200 and rising fast! =)

Yes we can can! 😁 FREE THE SNOW LEOPARD 11,000 ! etc etc

Wow mcraig55 that was rude. I have searched everywhere can seem to find the answer and there was a long discussion about geekbench scores not being where it should on the mini but i posted that its the same on a quad core core i7 imac downgraded. I find that interesting don't you?

I'm sorry if I seem rude zirkenz.

While you are booted off the hard drive, you cannot partition the disk that is why it isn't letting you do it.

You can make it one volume again but it means erasing the drive and starting all over again. You have to boot with an installer disk and load up disk utility app and reformat the drive to a single partition then re-install the os again. Why go thru all that trouble? Just keep 2 partitions.

zirkenz - reminder to "reward" mcraig55 with points for answering the main thrust of your posting; rude or not (he was just abruptly terse 🙂), he came back and gave ya the meat!!!

The current-hardware iMacs are running Snow Leopard with no problem and at effectively full speed for the chip combination. That's why I suggested -- addressing that part of your problem -- that you look back at 32 / 64 bit issues and if you had used a "combo updater" to bring your original-install disk version of SL up to the latest and greatest build; and, did you do permissions repair before using the "combo updater"? If all of those are "yes," then we have some additional interesting issues to track down either with drivers or from a quirk in the install and I'll leave that for someone else (with far more points than mine) to address...

I can not boot the imac using the mac box set 6.3 SL disc nor the retail upgrade SL disc. With the mac box set disc 10.6.3 trying to reboot results in a gray screen with an appple logo and a very loud beeping sound like a car alarm. When i try to boot with the retail uprade disc i get some code and a message saying to restart. So the only way to ge SL on this imac was to use the TDM via a macbook. Perhaps i should have erased the whole drive then instead of creating a partition but i thought it might be better to leave lion on there just in case my SL efforts failed. I saw several videos showing that deleting the lion partition would allow me to just resize or it would auto resize. Anyway i might just leave it that way,

The bigger point is that its not only the downgraded 2011 mac mini that is having issues with speed. Its also a downgraded imac as well. So this issue with speed or geekbench scores is not specific to the 2011 mac mini. I'd like to see if other downgraded machines that came with preinstalled lion have the same issue. This would suggest that the problem occurs when dowgrading using TDM. I'd like to see somone do a TDM on an imac core i7 that came with SL use that to downgrade a similarly configured imac with preinstalled lion and then check the scores. That would confirm that the problem is universal to all downgraded macs that had lion preinstalled. I can understand some issues with 2011 mac mini as it has some features that aren't on other macs like BT 4.0 but the imac 2011 is exactly the same. So this speed/geekbench issues should not be happening to a downgraded imac.

How do you reward points?

I used a combo updater 10.6.8 v 1.1, i did not fix permissions before applying updates from 10.6.3. All of the updates occured on my macbook booted using the imac drive via TDM. The second set of updates i did when booted from the imac drive. I have reread all 12 pages twice and don't find anything hekpful regarding 32/64 except that i'm experiencing the same speed/geekbench issue.

Steve: as regards Parallels 7...

Don't you mean runing Snow Leopard under Parallels 7 in Lion, as opposed to your statement of "This will NOT be as easy as it seems, since running a second copy of Lion as an additional instance under Lion (which Parallels can do!) uses the already existing chips and boards that we know can run Lion; it will take some additional code and emulation to support Snow Leopard fully on those Lion boards."

Why would Parallels have to run two copies of Lion? Thanks

Confirmed: same Snow Leopard slowdown on a brand new iMac that shipped with Lion. As zirkenz points out, it is significant that the issue is not confined to the Mac Mini.

Details:

iMac 27" 2.7 GHz (iMac 12,2 quad core i5)

Geekbench scores (32-bit, freeware version):

Lion (10.7.1): 8000

Snow Leopard (10.6.8): 4400

For comparision, the same hard drive volumes were used to boot and benchmark a MacBook Pro. There was no difference in results:

MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz (MacBookPro6,2 dual core i5)

Geekbench scores (32-bit, freeware version):

Lion (10.7.1): 4980

Snow Leopard (10.6.8): 5000

In addition, two other tests also showed a reduction to about half-speed on the new "downgraded" iMac: (a) a short, custom C program that runs a Monte Carlo and counts MFlops and (b) Xbench. For each, the overall and detailed times are about double in Snow Leopard compared to Lion. (The Lion benchmarks are at the level expected given the hardware and other published results, so it is a Snow Leopard slowdown rather than a Lion speedup.)

The Snow Leopard installation was cloned from a MacBook Pro, updated with combo to 10.6.8. (Also repaired permissions, zapped PRAM, and checked with additional physical drives). iMac was bought for use w/ Snow Leopard, so Lion was an unwelcome surpise. Apple Store had said the machines were still shipping with SL; now, however, Apple is unable or unwilling to provide the gray install discs. So there is no way for now to do a clean install of Snow Leopard, which might have revealed if these repeatable results are due to a software issue or due to a change in the hardware since Lion was released.

Ok, I'm the one who brought up virtualization, so I should clarify some things that I managed to get confused.

Parallels is a product that runs on macs, and allows you to run virtual machines inside of Parallels. Those virtual machines can be various flavors of windows, linux, unix, but NOT mac os x. Parallels version 6 was just released, and it runs atop of Lion.

Parallels Server is also a product that runs on macs, and allows you to run virtual machines inside of Parallels. Those virtual machines can be various flavors of windows, linux, unix, and mac os x SERVER, but NOT mac os x CLIENT. The current version of this seems to be version 4, and it does not seem to run atop Lion. The two versions of osx SERVER that Parallels Server runs are 10.5 and 10.6.

I got myself hepped up thinking that this was a possible (albeit expensive) solution available to running Snow Leopard on Lion-only hardware. It's not, although the Parallels people may have the necessary expertise to create such a solution.

Cathy,

Parallels 7 was just announced and it will run Lion within Lion. (Lion as a guest OS is mentioned halfway down: http://www.parallels.com/upgradepd7/) Nowhere does it say that SL is eligiable or ineligable as a guest OS.