I haven't yet bought Mountain Lion and am wondering if I will. I'm also wondering if many people have gone ahead and purchased the latest OS and if they find it to be an improvement over previous systems.

Well, Mountain Lion isn't for sale yet. it looks interesting, and I'll probably upgrade.

sudo rm -rf /

I have the latest build installed via parallels. Not done any serious testing, but it feels just like lion. What I do like about it is the notification centre. Still not a huge fan of Lion, but this is a good feature for me.

I'll DL it when the public version is released and install it on my macbook pro.

I'm currently running Lion on my laptop. I actually don't mind Lion and enjoy the experience, although there is the odd frustrating thing it does here and there. I'm more concerned with software compatibility then any of the "shortcomings" of Lion that many take issue with.

I'm still running Snow Leopard on my mac pro desktop (where i do most of my "work"). I'm hoping the kinks are ironed out quickly with Mountain Lion as i will probably just jump from SnowLeopard to 10.8 on my Mac Pro and bypass Lion completely on that machine.

I have a legit install.

Notifications is great. I can put down my phone once in a while.

The sales girl in the Mac story said its pretty cool. More interestingly, she said that the list of compatible Macs isn't exactly true, and that all you need is 4GB of memory to make it work on older Macs.

The sales girl in the Mac story said its pretty cool. More interestingly, she said that the list of compatible Macs isn't exactly true, and that all you need is 4GB of memory to make it work on older Macs.

She's incorrect. It will not work on machines older then stated as they can not boot 64 bit kernal. Due to having a 32bit EFI. WIth some hackery you can get it to work. The Hackintosh method works. Still, will never run well on the machines with GMA950 and GMA x3100.

I'm running Mountain Lion and it works perfectly on my MacBook Pro.

-M

She's incorrect. It will not work on machines older then stated as they can not boot 64 bit kernal. Due to having a 32bit EFI. WIth some hackery you can get it to work. The Hackintosh method works. Still, will never run well on the machines with GMA950 and GMA x3100.

I'm running Mountain Lion and it works perfectly on my MacBook Pro.

-M

She was being trained on it right at the Apple store and she said it worked fine.
We shall see, as Dr. G likes to say.

She was being trained on it right at the Apple store and she said it worked fine.
We shall see, as Dr. G likes to say.

Well, she was being trained incorrectly. It won't work.

Well, she was being trained incorrectly. It won't work.

Because you know more than the Apple store employees do? My iMac and MacBook are on the excluded list, but both can run 64-bit and have 4GB of memory. I'm going to wait and see—sometimes Apple states the specs just to persuade people to buy newer computers.

Because you know more than the Apple store employees do? My iMac and MacBook are on the excluded list, but both can run 64-bit and have 4GB of memory. I'm going to wait and see—sometimes Apple states the specs just to persuade people to buy newer computers.

Based on "all you need is 4GB of memory to make it work on older Macs" my initial suspicion is either she is being misquoted or is mistaken. A G5 with 4Gb won't run it, for example :)

More to the point, Mountain Lion doesn't support 32 bit kernel extensions, nor do some of the older EFIs load 64 bit kernels. Whether your machines fall into that category or not, her statement is misleading. Plus, there's a huge difference between it'll actually boot, and is at all usable, from a performance point of view.

Mind you, if you have even one machine that is on the supported list, there's little risk in the investment in the upgrade; you could try and if it fails, restore your backup. That's the nice thing with the App Store model.

Because you know more than the Apple store employees do? My iMac and MacBook are on the excluded list, but both can run 64-bit and have 4GB of memory. I'm going to wait and see—sometimes Apple states the specs just to persuade people to buy newer computers.

Yes, yes I do. Speaking both as a consultant and a developer, many Apple store employees couldn't find the power button without an Apple-approved map.

The issue with Mountain Lion is that some of the older machines don't have 64-bit kernel extensions available for key components like graphics. Unless Apple (and likely the video card manufacturer) decide to spend the time to recompile, test, tweak and bugfix a 64-bit version, support isn't going to be there.

I can all but guarantee they won't spend the time on outdated hardware.

Lion needed a 64-bit CPU, but did not need a 64-bit EFI. Mountain Lion needs a 64-bit EFI and a OpenCL capable graphics card.

Mid 2006 iMacs are excluded because they only have a 32-bit EFI despite having a 64-bit CPU.

Intel GMA and X3100 integrated graphics and the ATI Radeon Mobility x1600 are not OpenCL capable.

I kinda feel bummed I didn't get a 2007 iMac instead, as I was under the impression that the ATI HD2400 video card was also not OpenCL capable, but it's not my main computer so I don't mind.

Edit: I guess I should've read past posts prior to posting mine. Oh well. :)

Yes, yes I do. Speaking both as a consultant and a developer, many Apple store employees couldn't find the power button without an Apple-approved map.

The issue with Mountain Lion is that some of the older machines don't have 64-bit kernel extensions available for key components like graphics. Unless Apple (and likely the video card manufacturer) decide to spend the time to recompile, test, tweak and bugfix a 64-bit version, support isn't going to be there.

I can all but guarantee they won't spend the time on outdated hardware.

Fair enough. Good explanation.

Is there information under "about this mac" to determine whether or not a computer is eligible for an OS upgrade?

Is there information under "about this mac" to determine whether or not a computer is eligible for an OS upgrade?

Apple (Canada) - OS*X Mountain Lion - Read the technical specifications. (http://www.apple.com/ca/osx/specs/).

Match your computer to the list.

Yes, yes I do. Speaking both as a consultant and a developer, many Apple store employees couldn't find the power button without an Apple-approved map.

best story ever:the poster on ehmac a few years ago who was (from the sounds of it) suffering from the nvidia issue, was urged to go to their closest genius bar by a few of us. he had the nvidia test run on his machine, *watched* the genius run the test and get a result of "no eligible graphics processor found" and then be denied coverage because "its not eligible"

ellll ohhhhh ellllll

best story ever:the poster on ehmac a few years ago who was (from the sounds of it) suffering from the nvidia issue, was urged to go to their closest genius bar by a few of us. he had the nvidia test run on his machine, *watched* the genius run the test and get a result of "no eligible graphics processor found" and then be denied coverage because "its not eligible"

ellll ohhhhh ellllll


I'm sure it can sometimes happen, but then it's time to find and source a good, knowledgable and experienced Authorized Apple Tech who may be able to get a proper check done and maybe even an Apple supported fix.

Is there info about the year a Mac was built under "about this Mac"? I couldn't find it. I know I could google it if I have to.

It's not time spent productively to correct Apple store employees anymore. They are not trained to provide information, nor even to sell, but mostly to make you feel _nice_. If they happen to know anything about computers, or sales, Apple sees that as an irrelevant bonus. They are not the people I would ask a simple question like "Which computers work with Mountain Lion?"


Because you know more than the Apple store employees do? My iMac and MacBook are on the excluded list, but both can run 64-bit and have 4GB of memory. I'm going to wait and see—sometimes Apple states the specs just to persuade people to buy newer computers.

Is there info about the year a Mac was built under "about this Mac"? I couldn't find it. I know I could google it if I have to.

If you're running Lion, click "About this Mac" and then the "More Info" button. That'll display a picture of your Mac with the designation like below.

Unfortch my 24" iMac won't win ML either. But I knew that before I got it. I prefer the Matte 24" to the glossy 24" regardless. :D

I don't have that picture come up. My OS is 10.6.8. Is that an OS change?

yes

Is there info about the year a Mac was built under "about this Mac"? I couldn't find it. I know I could google it if I have to.

best place to check is everymac.com

Is there info about the year a Mac was built under "about this Mac"? I couldn't find it. I know I could google it if I have to.

Use:

Klantenservice: Serienummers (http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html)

or

coconutID 3.0 - by coconut-flavour.com (http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutid/index.html)

"You can get all these information from any Apple produced piece of hardware using its serial number. "

It's not time spent productively to correct Apple store employees anymore. They are not trained to provide information, nor even to sell, but mostly to make you feel _nice_. If they happen to know anything about computers, or sales, Apple sees that as an irrelevant bonus. They are not the people I would ask a simple question like "Which computers work with Mountain Lion?"

See, I could accept that answer if she hadn't told me she was surprised herself to see it working right in front of her on an older Mac during this Apple-led training session specifically about Mountain Lion. I'm just saying it COULD be possible that the Apple site is not quite rgiving all the information so that they can persuade more people to upgrade to newer computers.

I experienced the exact same phenomenon last summer when I purchased but did not install Lion for many months because I was worried it would kill some of my needed software and peripherals. When I finally installed it, after CCCing my Snow Leopard Macs, almost everything worked, except for AppleWorks, even software that was not supposed to work. We shall see.