[OS X TeX] PPC to Intel

[Maarten Sneep]

On 8 Jun 2005, at 12:25, Gerben Wierda wrote:

>> ...and so the question, for those who know best, will the transition
>> from PowerPC to Intel be painless, as far as TeX (and all the related
>> apps that we so cherish) is concerned?
>
> Regarding the backend most people use on Mac OS X: I have already a  
> report
> that TeX Live compiles fine on an Intellimac.

I would expect the 'Intellimac' (first time I hear this name) to be  
the same as Darwin/x86, which itself is not dissimilar from FreeBSD/ 
x86. The latter certainly has TeX running (... checks on shell  
servers owned by his ISP, whoops, it's there, but it is _old_), and I  
guess someone has TeXLive compiled on Darwin (eithe PPC or x86). I'd  
be very surprised if it didn't compile.

> In howfar i-Installer is
> portable I do not know yet (because that depends in howfar Apple  
> has good
> ports for the Mac OS X 10.2 frameworks i-Installer uses) but  
> normally it
> should just work.
>
> What might happen is that I have to drop support for Mac OS X 10.2  
> accross
> the board. Dropping 10.2 might enable me to support autehticating  
> proxies
> etc, so it is also a potential good thing.

Don't forget that the intellimac is still one to two years into the  
future. 10.2 will be four to five years old by then, which should  
mean the number of users depending on 10.2 is reduced even further.

> I am likely going to work on getting Apple to produce an improved
> Installer engine for 10.5 Leopard, so what might happen is that
> i-Installer would disappear entirely and be replaced by Apple's own.
> (Here's to hoping that is going to happen)

(Cheers!)

> Relax all, we have a year of hammering this out before the first  
> systems
> are out there.

Agreed. And with software such as TeX, that has been ported a the  
number of systems that can only be described as 'staggering', I don't  
think there is any reason to worry.

Maarten
--------------------- Info ---------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>