Universal Mac OS X 10.4.x?
Even though it looks like Apple won’t be making a Universal Mac OS X (one version of OS X for both Intel and Power PC Macs, instead of the specific Intel and Power PC builds currently available) until 10.5 comes out, it looks like it’s possible to build a Universal image for Mac OS X 10.4.x, with a few caveats. Most binaries included with the Intel 10.4.x are in fact Universal builds, which allow both PPC Macs and Intel Macs to use them. This includes the kernel, most kernel extensions, the system libraries and frameworks; the Intel 10.4 even includes the bootloaders for both platforms.
The methods and madness are documented by Andrew Mortensen from the University of Michigan (creators and maintainers of Radmind) at his website at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~admorten/CreatingUniversalTigerWithRadmind.pdf
Brant Sears on March 17th, 2006 at 11:33 am
Maybe folks who make use of NetBoot will appreciate having a universal build of MacOS X as soon as they add intel macintosh systems to their environment. I’m not sure how it currently works with NetBoot, maybe you have 2 versions of the system??
Rich Trouton on March 17th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
That’s correct, NetBoot requires having separate boot images for Intel and Power PC. There is a workaround for creating a Universal NetBoot image though: http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0603&L=MACENTERPRISE&P=R13313&I=-3