TAGGED AS: osx

Friday September 04, 2009 at 9:21

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Snow Leopard Not in 64-bit mode by Default

So, you bought Snow Leopard, and you thought everything would just work. Guess what, you were wrong.  By default, Snow Leopard boots in 32-bit mode, not 64-bit. This was a decision on Apple’s part, and after readying why, I understand why they did it.  However, I want full 64-bit mode.  First, you need to verify that your Mac can even boot into 64-bit mode.  In a terminal window, run this command:

ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

You should get back:

“firmware-abi” = <”EFI64”>

If yours says EFI32, there is no reason to keep reading because you can’t boot in full 64-bit mode.

Here’s the boot as you want method for 32 and 64-bit. At boot up, hold down the 6 and the 4 keys. This will boot into 64 bit, just for that boot.

You can verify that you’re in 64 bit mode by going to About this Mac -> More Info -> Software:

Look at 64-bit Kernel and Extensions, if it says No, then you are not in 64-bit.

If you want to always boot in 64-bit mode, here’s the easy and safe way to do so:

With a plain-text editor, edit: /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

Insert arch=x86_64 into the Kernel Flags field.

<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”UTF-8”?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC “-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN” “http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd”>
<plist version=”1.0”>
<dict>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>arch=x86_64</string>
</dict>
</plist>

That’s all it takes. Reboot, and you’re in 64-bit mode.  If you have a problem with an app after doing this, just go to the Info for that app, and you will now see a check box that says: Open in 32 bit mode.

Update:

These are the only models that can boot in 64-bit mode:

Xserve - Early 2008 - Xserve2,1 MA882LL/A | Early 2009 - Xserve3,1 MB449LL/A

Mac Pro - Early 2008 MacPro3,1 - MA970LL/A | Early 2009 MacPro4,1 - MB871LL/A, MB535LL/A

iMac Early 2008 - iMac8,1 MB323LL/A, MB324LL/A, MB325LL/A | Early 2009 - iMac9,1 MB417LL/A, MB418LL/A, MB419LL/A, MB420LL/A

MacBook Pro - Early 2008 (Penryn) MacBookPro4,1 MB133LL/A, MB134LL/A, MB166LL/A | Late 2008 (Unibody) - MacBookPro5,1 MB470LL/A, MB471LL/A | Early 2009 (Unibody) - MacBookPro5,2 MB470LL/A, MB471LL/A, MB604LL/A, MC226LL/A

Sunday May 10, 2009 at 19:57

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Windows vs Mac from the Windows vs Mac photoshop contest.

Windows vs Mac from the Windows vs Mac photoshop contest.

Wednesday December 17, 2008 at 11:36

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Get off my desktop

If you’re like me, you constantly take screen captures, for a long list of different reasons.  OSX has made this incredibly easy, but it also tends to leave a mess.  Next thing you know, you’ve got 20+ screen grabs littered around your desktop with the great name Picture (number).png.  Here’s a way to clean up the clutter, and put those screenshots in their place.

In a terminal, type the following:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Documents/Screenshots 

Just replace YOURUSERNAME with, your username.  Of course, you can use this command to put the screencaptures anywhere you want.  After doing so, then just add the directory to your Dock as a stack, and it’s even more useful.  You need to make sure the directory exists first, and it will take a logout/login for the changes to take.

If you’re still running Panther, then you’re SOL, and you need to upgrade anyway.

Monday August 04, 2008 at 11:03

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Apple Internet Sharing errors

I noticed these strange errors in my log, on the MacBook Pro:

com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.InternetSharing) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

And every 10 seconds or so, the error would show up again.  This meant, that every 10 seconds, launchd was trying to do something, and failing.  After looking through some support forums, finding no answers, I decided to go take a look at Internet Sharing in more detail.  Might I add, I have never used InternetSharing on my MacBook Pro.  I use it on the iMac at home, for all devices in the house, but not the MBP.  As I thought, the Internet Sharing was not turned on, nor was there evidence that it had been used at some point.  I decided to enable it, using the AirPort as the shared resource, and the Ehternet as the device for the NAT.  It complained that the AirPort was not turned on, but after a moment, it gave up and said it was sharing.  Lots of errors in the error log, but I expected that.  I then turned off Internet Sharing, and returned to Console to watch the logs.  To my surprise, the respawn errors stopped.  Knowing that nothing is always what it seems, I rebooted, just to ensure the problem did not reappear on a restart, which it didn’t.