Upgrading to Mountain Lion

Hi,

I have searched several places where there are similar discussions but most of them are on high level hardware requirements. It seems that there is a kernel issue due to which I cannot upgrade - so please help me figure out 2 key questions with regards to upgrading.

My system's hardware and software details are as follows:

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook

Model Identifier: MacBook3,1

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 2 GHz

Number Of Processors: 1

Total Number Of Cores: 2

L2 Cache: 4 MB

Memory: 2 GB

Bus Speed: 800 MHz

Software Overview:

System Version: Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549)

Kernel Version: Darwin 10.8.0

Boot Volume: Big Brain

Boot Mode: Normal

64-bit Kernel and Extensions: No

From this kb support article, I have a 64 bit processor;

I am running Mac OS X 10.6.8 and majority of the extensions under my software menu are 'yes' - meaning my kernel is compatible to a 64-bit mode, but is currently running in 32-bit mode.

Following this kb advice, I switched my kernel architecture to 64-bit through terminal. But on checking again, it really offers only 32-bit mode (I386 i386)

See Terminal script:

Marceau-2:~ Bee$ sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture x86_64

setting kernel architecture to: x86_64

changes to kernel architecture have been saved.

Marceau-2:~ Bee$ uname -a

Darwin Marceau-2.local 10.8.0 Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0: Tue Jun 7 16:33:36 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1504.15.3~1/RELEASE_I386 i386

Marceau-2:~ Bee$

Is there a way to switch my kernel architecture to 64-bit so that I can upgrade to OS X 10.7 and then to Mountain Lion? I went to the apple store in person, but the staff wasn't able to help. I am a big fan of my Macbook 3.1 and want to be able to upgrade its OS alongwith understanding how it works - I would very much appreciate if you could point me in the right direction:

- From this ars technica article, it seems the key challenge is overcoming the hurdle of kernel not being 64-bit; so how can I make my kernel compatible or upgrade it?

- Once I have done that, I plan to upgrade RAM to 4GB so that I can run Mountain Lion. Is that the only hardware upgrade I require?

Thank you very much in advance!

Message was edited by: Lyra_real