[Python-Dev] OS X Installer for 3.0.1 and supported versions

[Ronald Oussoren]

On 14 Feb, 2009, at 13:05, Martin v. Löwis wrote:
>
>> 2. Release an installer built for 10.4 and higher.
>>   pros: one size fits all
>>   cons: no 64-bit support, known bugs in 10.4 wrt locale support, etc
>
> Why is it that such an installer couldn't include 64-bit support?
> Wouldn't 10.4 just ignore architectures it doesn't know about?
> Also, didn't 10.4 already support ppc64?

10.4 only supported 64-bit code for a very limited number of system  
libraries, basicly just enough to support running 64-bit number  
crunching code.  System-wide support for 64-bit code was added in 10.5.

A single installer could support both 32-bit on 10.4 and 64-bit on  
10.5, but I don't think that's very useful because there are changes  
in the low-level unix API's that could result in different behaviour  
of a 32-bit and 64-bit script on the same system. In general 10.5 has  
much saner Unix API's than earlier releases.

>
>
>> So, to summarize, I will build and test installer images for 3.0.1  
>> built
>> for 10.4+ and for 10.5+ and will make them available, if there is
>> interest.  If someone else is planning on making official  
>> installer(s),
>> I'd be happy to pass along my experiences so far.  In any case, I
>> strongly urge that the minimum support level be 10.4.
>
> I still wish there were 10.3+ installers that also include 64-bit  
> code.
> I don't get it why that can't be technically possible.

The problem with 10.3 support is that we need volunteers to actually
investigate and fix issues that only occur on 10.3 systems. I cannot be
that volunteer because I no longer have access to systems that are
capable of running 10.3.

That said, the difference between a binary capable of running on 10.4+
and one running 10.3+ is minimal. I introduced weak-linking for a number
of symbols that are not present on 10.3.9 in the 2.5 timeframe and that
could should continue to work in the future. I won't notice when someone
introduces additional calls to functions not available on 10.3 though.

Ronald

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