Filed under: OS, Software, How-tos, Universal Binary, Snow Leopard
Mac 201: Preparing your Mac for Snow Leopard
With Snow Leopard, the next version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard is mostly about optimizing Leopard's performance rather than introducing new features. Part of that optimization is that OS X 10.6 is expected to save users several gigabytes of space on their hard drives versus a 10.5 installation. And part of the reason that Snow Leopard is able to pare down that much space is that Rosetta is now an optional installation.
(Update: as many commenters have noted, the Rosetta program itself doesn't take up much space - only a couple of megabytes. Most of the space savings in Snow Leopard is from Apple stripping out PowerPC binaries from the apps and OS libraries. It's still worth going through your apps and updating the PowerPC-only apps to universal binaries, however, because you will still see a significant boost in performance by doing so.)
Introduced in 2005, not long after Apple announced its transition to Intel processors, Rosetta is a dynamic translator that allows legacy PowerPC applications to run on Intel processors. It was intended as a stopgap measure to allow PowerPC applications to continue to run on Intel-powered Macs until developers were able to update their applications to support either universal binaries or Intel-only code.
Applications which run under Rosetta provide slower performance than their universal binary counterparts because the CPU has to translate Intel instructions into PowerPC, so developers definitely had an incentive to switch to universal binaries. With four years having passed since the Intel transition, almost all applications for the Mac now run under a universal binary, which makes Rosetta largely unnecessary-hence its inclusion in OS X Snow Leopard as an optional installation.
So, why not save some space on your hard drive and leave Rosetta out? Well, if you do that, any applications you have that still have PowerPC only code won't run at all. (Update: Apparently Rosetta will download on demand if you try to run a PowerPC-only application.) Rosetta is absolutely necessary to run those applications. But, before Snow Leopard drops to consumers, you can take one simple step that will save you a lot of trouble.
Go into your Applications folder, select the first application that comes up, and hit Command-Option-I. Rather than the single-app Info window you get with Command-I, this will bring up an inspector window which will stay up until you close it, and it will dynamically change as you select other applications. The information you're looking for is near the top: under "General," the data for "Kind" will read one of three things: Application (PowerPC), Application (Universal), or Application (Intel).
(PowerPC) = Uh oh.
If the application kind says Application (PowerPC), you're going to need to update that application if you want to continue to run it in Snow Leopard without installing Rosetta.
(Update: you can also go into System Profiler and locate a list of all applications on your Mac. This list will also show which kind of binary the app runs under: PowerPC, Intel, or Universal. Note that if you have a program like Photoshop CS installed, it will count "droplets" as individual applications, so this list will be much longer and potentially more confusing.)
You can either use that application's built-in software updater to check for updates, or you can do what I did: go to either versiontracker.com or macupdate.com and search for the applications there. Both sites will tell you when the application was last updated, as well as what platform the application will run under. If it says "Universal" or "PPC/Intel" then you're good to go-update the application, and it will run just fine under Snow Leopard without Rosetta.
This works just fine for most freeware and shareware applications, but what if you're running an earlier version of a major developer's application that's still PowerPC-only, like Microsoft Office 2004 or any version of Photoshop before CS3?
Well, in that case, you don't have many options. You'll either have to pay to upgrade to a newer version of the application that's been updated with a universal binary, like Office 2008 or Photoshop CS4, or continue to use the older application with Rosetta installed. If you shelled out the cash for those earlier versions and can't afford the new ones, it doesn't make sense to burn your software bridges just to save a couple gigamegabytes of space on your hard drive.
For smaller niche applications you may have that were free but haven't updated in years and are still PowerPC-only, like one of my favorites, iTunes Statistician, it might be time to ask yourself: is this application worth keeping if it means sacrificing space on my hard drive to run it? If the answer is no, then you know what to do: the trash can beckons.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Heimbachae said 12:37PM on 8-17-2009
maybe i'm just not thinking properly because it's monday, but i only have a cd drive in my mid 08 macbook. i've heard nothing about downloading the SL OS off Apple's website, but i'm assuming this will be possible for us dvdless people out there?
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mlmcgoo said 12:45PM on 8-17-2009
Your 08 MacBook certainly has a DVD drive. Perhaps you cannot burn DVDs but their combo drive allows reading of regular or DL DVDs
Codey H. said 12:45PM on 8-17-2009
You absolutely certain you don't have a combo drive?
jb510 said 1:01PM on 8-17-2009
first, I agree with the two above...You almost certainly have a Dvd reader.
Second, you (or someone with a DVD reader) can easily copy the SL install disk to a external hard drive partition (or 8gb USB key) and then install from there. Alternatively you can install from another mac in target disk mode or via network install.
Icello said 2:00PM on 8-17-2009
Unless you messed it up to where it won't work some how, you do have a combo drive.
LAGal said 10:36PM on 8-17-2009
no, you can not download SL. too big. also, i'm fairly certain that unless you bought the absolute lowest priced macbook available this time last year, you have a superdrive (dvd and cd reading and burning) but even if you did you have a dvd reading combo drive.
Heimbachae said 5:59AM on 8-18-2009
freakin ehy! i forgot to check, i was playing trials HD. i'll check tonight when i get back to my apartment and let you guys know how that works out for me.
Heimbachae said 5:02PM on 8-18-2009
dvd player: CONFIRMED!!! thanks guys
Sam said 12:38PM on 8-17-2009
apparently office 2004 is power PC?
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Josh said 2:00PM on 8-17-2009
Seeing as the Intel transition was only announced in 2005, I would only assume that Office 2004 is PowerPC only.
Roshan VIjay said 11:52AM on 8-18-2009
Well, yes Office 2004 is PowerPC. I saw it on the System Profiler app on my iMac... Apparently, Office 2004 seems sluggish too even though I have the new 2.66GHz core 2 duo... it would be due to the fact that it is running on rosetta...
jb510 said 12:51PM on 8-17-2009
I myself was just wondering the best way to survey one's apps just for this purpose.
I was also wondering what apps were already fully 64-bit capable. Adobe Lightroom is the only one I know of off the top of my head, but assuming there must be others. Before anyone says 64-bit doesn't really make much difference I've found LR to be nearly 25% faster when running in 64-bit mode. What is interesting to me is that the speed is nearly the same runnng under a 64-bit kernel as a 32-bit kernel... all the speed boost comes from the app being 64-bit regardless of the Os kernel. Regardless what other 64 bit apps are out there?
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Victor said 12:57PM on 8-17-2009
You can see this in Activity Monitor for the applications that you currently have running. It is all the way to the right under the kind field.
MM2 said 5:39PM on 8-30-2009
About this Mac ->More info -> Applications
Will give you both of what you asked for, for all your applications
jb510 said 3:32PM on 8-17-2009
I should have been more clear.... I'm wondering what Apps out there have 64-bit versions which I don't have... for example maybe I have an older version of an app but a 64 bit version exists now. Can't think of an example, but I'm sure they're out there...
Trev said 12:56PM on 8-17-2009
I believe the iScrobbler client for Last.FM will give you the local charts
Reply
Triston said 12:56PM on 8-17-2009
Just use "System Profiler" app. Once launched, go: Software > Applications
You'll get a list of applications installed and in the "Kind" column, you can see "PowerPC", "Universal", or "Intel".
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Lewis82 said 1:03PM on 8-17-2009
In case you guys didn't know, Rosetta weighs only 1.9 MB. (check screenshot at macmagazine.uol.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/13-sl_10a432_05-550x425.png)
You'll just have to delete one song from your iTunes library to reclaim two or three times the "lost" space from the Rosetta install.
Oh by the way Heimbachae, your MacBook has a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive: it can read and burn CDs, and read DVDs (but not burn them).
So unless you try to install SL on a 10-year-old PowerPC, you'll have no problem.
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Tony Ward said 1:03PM on 8-17-2009
If I might alter your method of searching for PPC apps (and, BTW, thanks so much for posting this!!) create a smart folder to search for "Kind is Applications," in order to avoid all the enclosing folders many apps are nested into these days.
After running mine, it looks like Rosetta and I are still an item.
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jonlon15 said 1:07PM on 8-17-2009
Rosetta really doesn't take up much space at all in Snow Leopard. It only takes up about 3 megs...
If you run a PowerPC app and Rosetta isn't installed, Software Update will download it from Apple.com and install it.
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