[No Bug] 5.1.0b1/2 failed install on 10.8.5

[socratis]

Disclaimer: the test was done on a VM running 10.8.5.

The 5.0.x series have no problem installing on the 10.8.5 VM. 5.1.0b1 and b2 never finished the installation. There is also no problem installing on a 10.9.5 or a 10.10.x or a 10.11.x installation (VMs of course, all of them).

The installation stops at the "postflight" script (I can provide installer logs or comparisons if needed), but the source directories that are responsible for creating the installers (VirtualBox-5.x.y/src/VBox/Installer/darwin) are the same except the "Makefile.kmk".

The installer's first error appears to be:

Code: Select all

Jun  7 12:11:52 10.0.5.15 installd[538]: ./postflight: /Library/Application Support/VirtualBox/VBoxDrv.kext failed to load - (libkern/kext) link error; check the system/kernel logs for errors or try kextutil(8).

I'm not sure if the requirements for OSX as a host have changed, but if they haven't, something might not be right.

[frank]

Sorry, the requirements have changed but the Installer and the User Manual didn't know about that. The minimum required version for 5.1 will be Mac OS X 10.9. Mac OS X 10.8 is not supported by Apple anymore. Sorry if that means that you need to update your OS. The missing checks will be fixed in the next Beta.

[socratis]

Mac OS X 10.8 is not supported by Apple anymore.

So isn't XP and in less-than-a-year Vista, which are way older than 10.8, but they're still working. So, is this a "the manufacturer doesn't support it, so neither are we", or is there a fundamental difference that would prevent VBox running on 10.8.x?

Note that I'm on 10.9, but with that pace I'm afraid that next year (or VBox 5.2.x whichever comes first) I will be irrelevant...

[frank]

The situation with Windows is a bit different. Windows XP is not officially supported anymore as of VirtualBox 5.0. We try to not actively break it but we don't guarantee that VirtualBox 5.0 or later runs on Windows XP. On Mac OS X we had to upgrade the SDK to support the features of the latest Mac OS X versions and to be able to compile Qt5 on Mac OS X. In particular the latter was not possible on the build environment we used for VirtualBox 5.0 (which still supports Mac OS X 10.8 ).

[michaln]

Yes, "manufacturer doesn't support it so neither do we" is a big factor. The practical concern is that we simply can't support 5-6 different OS X versions. And as Frank says, Apple makes it difficult to support many versions, it's much easier on Windows.

[socratis]

I was afraid it was going to be a little bit of both. I know the strangles the devs have to go through to keep things working on older OSX versions. It is definitely not the devs fault. Apple has been notorious for embracing if not inventing the "out with the old, in with the new" in complete contrast to what the rest of the OS developers are doing...

[michaln]

The thing is, Apple is actually fairly successful with their approach. OS X users really do upgrade! It's completely different in the Windows world (Windows XP, Windows 7!). That actually makes it even more difficult to support old versions (i.e. justify the effort), because so few users run old versions.

And I'm writing this on a laptop running 10.8.5

[socratis]

And I'm writing this on a laptop running 10.8.5

So that means no 5.1.x for you... Too bad man, you'll have to upgrade . Actually 10.8 to 10.9 is not that bad. It's the iOS-ification that prevents me from going any further than that. I still love my 10.6.x. I'll stick to it till they pry it from my cold, dead hands!

Yes, there are two schools in the upgrade logic. (Un)fortunately, Windows is used by the majority of business and it's not easy/worth it sometimes to update 20K employees' systems, just because someone wants to cash in on the upgrades. Microsoft gets that. Apple on the other hand wants to sell more iStuff. The newer, the better. The shininess factor vs the stability one...

[Technologov]

I have a question : What-if you target some ancient Mac OS X, like 10.5 or 10.6? (whatever supports 64-bit x86_64)

Will such a build of VirtualBox work on all the newer systems, like OS X 10.9, 10.10, 10.11?

Because throwing out completely perfect thousand-dollar MacBooks seems like a big waste for me (and not all of them can be upgraded)

[Martin]

See the answer from Frank: They had to update to a newer SDK to support the features of the latest Mac OS X versions and for Qt5. This SDK doesn't support 10.8 anymore.
So targeting an older version would mean to create an additonal Vbox build which wouldn't support the newest version.

[michaln]

Will such a build of VirtualBox work on all the newer systems, like OS X 10.9, 10.10, 10.11?

Here's a better question... do you suppose we already thought of that?