Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Level 1

9 points

install Snow Leopard on New Mac Pro

I know there has been some discussion of installing Snow Leopard (SL) on a newly purchased 2010 Mac Pro that now comes shipped with Lion. I had to do a lot of legwork to come up with an actually very easy solution. I HAVE to have Rosetta and for Apple to not include this with Lion is truly unconscionable. I and many other make user have programs that we use every day that are not Intel.

Apple cannot tell you that you can install SL but it is actually very easy. Here is what I did:

When I received my brand new Mac Pro (MP) 3.33 (2010 model), I swapped out the main drive with an OWC Mercury 3G 240 SSD. I put my Lion drive to the side. I then booted the MP in target mode (just retsrt and hold down the "T" key). When booted into target mode, I plugged it into my Intel Mac Book Pro. You can use any Intel Mac though. I then plugged the MP into the Mac Book and the MP SSD showed up on the Mac Book Desktop. I reformatted the drive (1 partion but you can have more) and installed the SL 10.6.3 install disk into the Mac Book. I told the installer to install the drive on the newly formatted SSD that is present on my Mac Pro desktop. I installed SL to this target drive with no problem. The computer then restarted -- this is standard so don't be alarmed like I was. Once rebooted, I went through the first time user process I then installed the SL 10.6.8 Combo updater to the SSD.

I was then able to boot into the MP with no problems. To be safe, I then re-ran the 10.6.8 Combo updater and restarted. I then installed all the other updates for SL 10.6.8. I repaired permissions and that was that. DONE!

Now my brand new (1 week old delivered on 4/10/2012) MP 3.33 is FLYING with SL 10.6.8, an OWC SSD and Rosetta. I could not be happier!!

I have the Lion drive as a back up or if I need to call Applecare.

Please tell me if you have any question

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Apr 17, 2012 2:47 PM

111 replies

dcouzin

Level 1

14 points

Jun 21, 2013 1:42 PM in response to TOAO

Despite its acrimonious ending, this strand helped me. Thanks to TOAO's suggesting the OSX 10.6.4 Mac Pro install disk, I finally acquired it from Apple (Ireland!!) and now have 10.6.8 running my 2012 Mac Pro without using another Mac for the installation.

A 10.6.8 system installed partly via Mac Pro 1,1 (as described in my first post) has been working OK on the 2012 Mac Pro for two months. Whether I'll gain any advantage from this more native 10.6.8 system is the unanswered question of that post. Perhaps I'll never know.

Jun 22, 2013 5:49 AM in response to NickyCee

NickyCee wrote:

I still dont understand why in heaven Apple removed Rosetta from Lion.

Because PowerPC is an obsolete technology that needed to be dropped ASAP to prevent people from staying attached to it when they buy an Intel Mac.

MlchaelLAX

Level 4

2,286 points

Jun 22, 2013 9:18 AM in response to Electricidad

Electricidad wrote:

NickyCee wrote:

I still dont understand why in heaven Apple removed Rosetta from Lion.

Because PowerPC is an obsolete technology that needed to be dropped ASAP to prevent people from staying attached to it when they buy an Intel Mac.

Apple licensed the technology from a third party company back in 2005/6 and named it Rosetta. The license expired with the release of new OS X's starting with Lion.

IBM, still championing the PowerPC platform, purchased that third party company and it is doubtful that they would have relicensed it to Apple at a reasonable price, even if Apple had wanted to extend their license.

The duration of Rosetta (about six years) is about the same duration as the existence of the Classic Environment's availability in OS X.

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jun 22, 2013 9:56 AM in response to dcouzin

dcouzinOnly when using OEM DVD to start the install is there any issue, and sometimes retail was better even on the OEM eligible Mac. Once you have run Combo update etc you are good to go.

Rosetta had a penalty translating code, its own VM and memory overhead/penalty I was told.

What 10.9 should bring to RAID:

OS X 10.9 Core Technology (pdf) -

supports drive striping (RAID 0) for improved performance, drive mirroring (RAID 1)

for higher reliability, and mirrored striping (RAID 10) for improving both performance

and reliability of storage. In addition, you can reformat storage in the background: You

can promote a single volume to a mirrored volume, split a mirrored array into two

volumes, or rebuild RAID volumes.

http://images.apple.com/osx/preview/docs/OSX_Mavericks_Core_Technology_Overview. pdf

OS X Mavericks 10.9

Core Technologies Overview

June 2013Core Technologies Overview 2

http://images.apple.com/osx/preview/

dcouzin

Level 1

14 points

Jun 23, 2013 8:07 PM in response to The hatter

Consider three strategies for getting 10.6.8 onto my 2012 Mac Pro:

(a) Use my old Mac Pro 1,1 to install 10.6.3 (from the retail installer) onto some volume and then to run the 10.6.8 Updater Combo on that volume. Finally move the resulting 10.6.8 volume to the new Mac Pro.

(b) Use my old Mac Pro 1,1 to install 10.6.3 (from the retail installer) onto two volumes and then to run the 10.6.8 Updater Combo on one of the volumes. Now boot the new Mac Pro from the updated volume and use this to run the 10.6.8 Updater Combo on the other 10.6.3 volume. Finally use the later made 10.6.8 volume with the new Mac Pro. (This is the strategy described in my first post, 23 May 2013.)

(c) Use the new Mac Pro to install 10.6.4 (from the OEM Mac Pro installer) onto some volume. Boot into that volume and run the 10.6.8 Updater Combo on it. (This is the strategy suggested by TOAO.)

Based on my ignorance of exactly how operating systems install, I regarded strategy (b) as possibly safer than strategy (a), and strategy (c) as possibly safer than strategy (b). I had concern that the 10.6.3 installed by the old Mac Pro 1,1 would be missing something or misconfigured for the Mac Pro 5,1 which the Updater would not correct (or would only correct if run from the Mac Pro 5,1).

I never tried strategy (a), but strategy (b) seems to have resulted in a fast, robust system. Nevertheless I just now spent 20 Euros and about 20 hours redoing everything with strategy (c).

Speed tests comparing the system made by strategy (b) with the system made by strategy (c) found a tiny difference. Final Cut Pro 7 rendering was 1.0 ± 0.7 percent faster with the (c) system. (This might be an artifact of my software installations.)

Jul 4, 2015 12:00 PM in response to dcouzin

Strategy a) worked well for me.

install Snow Leopard on New Mac Pro