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 hit the following targets:

• 10.4 PPC 32-bit Carbon
• 10.4 Intel 32-bit Carbon
• 10.6 Intel 64-bit Cocoa

To do this, we currently need at least two builds of Qt:

• 10.4 gcc-4.0 Carbon PPC and i386
• 10.5 or 10.6 gcc-4.2 Cocoa x86_64 (and optionally i386) -- this is what is shipped by default with Qt 4.7.1

It is not possible to cover all platforms in a single build step, we always need to do at least two separate builds plus lipo.

OS/X 10.6¶

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)

As build host¶

• Builds 64-bit by default
• Can be used to do 32-bit Intel and PPC builds

OS/X 10.5¶

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

As build host¶

• Builds 32-bit by default
• Can be used to do 64-bit builds

OS/X 10.4¶

As target¶

• Oldest version still apparently in use as of Feb 2011: not very widespread (low single digit %age of Mac users), 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

As build host¶

• Does not support Objective-C 2.0
• 10.4u SDK can be used to build 64-bit executables of simple C/C++ programs such as plugins, but not of GUIs or anything using Core frameworks