EasyMercurial

h1. OS/X version, hardware platform, and Qt version compatibility

Executive summary: For a program like EasyHg that demands the widest possible compatibility, we currently want to build for 10.4 PPC and Intel 32-bit, 10.5 Intel 32-bit, 10.6 Intel 32- and 64-bit.

To do this, we need at least two builds of Qt: a Carbon build for PPC and i386 on 10.4 using gcc-4.0, and a Cocoa build for x86_64 (and optionally i386) on 10.5+.

h2. OS/X 10.4

h3. As target

* Oldest version still apparently in use as of Feb 2011: not very widespread, but at least two researchers here use it

* Appears in PPC and i386 systems

* Runs in 32-bit mode only

* Can build for it from 10.4, 10.5, 10.6

* Requires SDK @/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.SDK@

* Requires @-mmacosx-version-min=10.4@ on 10.5+

* Requires gcc-4.0 to be requested explicitly on 10.6

* Does not support Objective-C 2.0

* Not a supported target for Qt's Cocoa builds, Qt Carbon needed

h3. As build host

* Does not support Objective-C 2.0

* 10.4u SDK can build 64-bit executables of simple programs, but not GUIs

h2. OS/X 10.5

h3. As target

* Not all that much more widely used than 10.4 -- if we were dropping 10.4, we probably might as well drop 10.5 as well

* Last version supported for PPC platforms

* Runs in 32-bit mode by default

* Can build for it from 10.5, 10.6

* Requires SDK @/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.SDK@

* First version to support Objective-C 2.0

* Qt Cocoa supported

h3. As build host

* Builds 32-bit by default

* Can be used to do 64-bit builds

h2. OS/X 10.6

h3. As target

* By far the most common version as of Feb 2011

* Not supported on PPC

* Runs in 64-bit mode by default where possible

* Is _not_ always 64-bit -- it is supported on 32-bit-only hardware such as Core Duo (first Intel Macs)

h3. As build host

* Builds 64-bit by default

* Can be used to do 32-bit Intel and PPC builds