virtualbox.org

Have Macbook Pro using Lion 10.7.4. Is it possible to use Virtualbox to set up guest host using Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or Leopard 10.5.8? Have several PowerPC applications I use on a daily basis and can no longer open with Lion. Also, the new Macbook Pros do not allow partitioning of harddrive to install older versions of Mac OS X. Left having to use my Pro with second computer running Snow Leopard or Leopard.

There is no such thing as a "guest host". The host is the physical PC that runs VirtualBox. The guest is the virtual machine. This makes the rest of your question somewhat difficult to decipher.

All applications run in VirtualBox must be Intel/AMD based. You can't run PowerPC applications.

VBOX is the Intel World (x86). PowerPC is another processor architecture. Such applications does not work in the Intel world.

Sorry for confusion. Was asking if I could run an older Mac OS X system in virtualbox, rather than a PC system. stefan.becker has answered question. Thanks. It just means my Macbook Pro is worthless as a laptop, at least when I travel.

Stefan is just blowing smoke. PowerPC apps can run in earlier versions of the Mac OS X (earlier than 10.7.x) that also have Rosetta installed.

To answer your question. Yes, you can run 10.5.x (Leopard) or 10.6.x (Snow Leopard) as a guest in VB and they should be able to run those PowerPC applications as long as they are OS X apps and not apps for OS 9 or below. But as the moderators will no doubt post here soon, you can only legally do that if you use the Server version of either of these. There are also some built in hardware checks in both the OS X installer and OS X that will keep it from running on a newer Mac that came with 10.7.x unless you work some Mac-fu that cannot be discussed in these forums (Google may help you out there).

@rpmurray: what constitutes a "PowerPC app"? If it's an application compiled for the Power PC processer then it will not run on VirtualBox, since VBox is not a processor simulator. Does OS X have some kind of PowerPC software simulation built in? Sounds awful if so - it would run like a snail.

mpack wrote:Does OS X have some kind of PowerPC software simulation built in?

Not anymore, but used to (Rosetta Stone).

Sounds awful if so - it would run like a snail.

Not at all, it was quite zippy. Not native performance, but very usable.

Oh I see... It seems to be some kind of dynamic recompiler, rather than an interpreter?

Yep, exactly. Neat technology, but of course something you don't actually want to use

It seems an odd thing to exist: a lot of development for a product with a limited lifetime (i.e. a transition period).

It's like writing a boot loader. It will become a dead weight as soon as its job is done, but you won't get very far without it.

Apple had the experience from the Motorola 68K to PowerPC transition... it's just not possible to do a sudden and complete world switch, so emulation must be used to temporarily keep the old bits afloat until everything and everyone catches up. It must have been an interesting problem to figure out just how good the emulation needed to be

Sorry I was unable to respond earlier.

to rpmurray: I tried installing Snow Leopard as a guest in the VB using my original installation disks and nothing happened. Whether that was the result of the myriad problems you cited, I have no idea. Just so you understand how desperate I am to be able to run Appleworks (and other "Power PC" programs) using Snow Leopard or Leopard on my Macbook Pro, I have a database (it's actually my address book) currently with 685 separate records, each listing details such as address, telephone number, etc. and notes of up to 28 conversations listed by date. Some notes go back to 1989 (I have been using Macs since they first came out in February 1984). I'll let you do the math on how long it would take to replicate even a small portion of this. There is no program on the market that can open this database other than Appleworks. I also use on a daily basis an old version of AOL, which is the only mail program I know of that allows you to save mail to your computer in the original mail format, not as a pdf. I have literally thousands of folders on my computer with e-mails in them going back to 1992. There's no way I could replicate that on Google's or some other server.

to mpack and michain: The Rosetta software was not required with Leopard. It was first introduced with Snow Leopard. I recently upgraded my Macbook to Snow Leopard and it works fine. My impression from discussions I have had with Apple Customer Relations and Technical Support is there is no intention to have Rosetta operational with Lion. Why, I have no idea.

WW wrote:to rpmurray: I tried installing Snow Leopard as a guest in the VB using my original installation disks and nothing happened.

How far did you get with the install before the "nothing happened"? Did you get any error messages?

Rosetta installed automatically by default up through Leopard (10.5.x). It was an optional install with Snow Leopard (10.6.x), meaning you had to install it manually. It doesn't install with Lion (10.7.x) because Apple removed the underpinnings for it. Rosetta was a software emulator developed by Transitive Corp. for Apple. IBM apparently acquired Transitive and from what I've heard Apple was unable to get them to agree to a renewal of the license.

to rpmurray:

Thanks for the info on Rosetta. I don't think anyone in Apple's Customer Relations or Technical Support area is aware of this.

I tried installing Snow Leopard a while ago so my memory is somewhat hazy. I do remember running completely through the installation process but Snow Leopard did not appear in the VM. I do not recall if there was an error message. I would love to try it again, but I am currently abroad and do not have access to my installation discs.

WW wrote:(...) I do remember running completely through the installation process but Snow Leopard did not appear in the VM. I do not recall if there was an error message.

If you did this you successfully solved the virtual disk formatting issues, install-DVD-dmg-must-be-the-hardware-reader-not-the-disk issue etc.

At this stage, what happens on the machine is, the installer program triggers a reboot, and a normal machine then ejects the install DVD, finds the HD and just starts.
Instead, our virtual one rigidly maintains this so-hard-to-connect DVD, then very stupidly, it will boot first from the DVD ignoring the HD, and... everything restarts to step one.

Thus, our objective is to eject the DVD.

Mind you, there are at least half a dozen ways to do it, among others by changing the VM setting (and then the VM crashes upon switchon), by ejecting it through the Finder before rebooting, by clicking on the related button at the bottom of the VM window, by changing the VM boot order in its Virtualbox settings, by doing the same through the Finder before rebooting... and most of theses actions you can perform at various moments, of which only a single one will work

Alas, I am also away from home, and I just don't remember exactly which process is the right one. I do remember having tried many!
Retain this: once the installer has finished its job, you must have ejected the install DVD before rebooting, and maybe have designated the new boot disk too.
I think I did this maybe by conjugating two of the above methods, possibly through the "select startup disk" dialog AND by ejecting the said DVD "by hand" during the reboot, or just before. But the entiere process was atrociously erratic...

My recom: record snapshots like mad, and name them explicitly ("with right startup disk selected", etc.)
You'll then spend 2 hours suppressing gigabytes of useless snaps (only once you have DUPLICATED the working VM for backup), but really this is definitely an easier job

**reedited on June 13:
One last thing: if you work on e. g. a Macbook Air, you'll be shocked to hear, probably for the firt time, its cooling fans starting.
This is due to Virtualbox improperly announcing 100% of one CPU use, something itself related to a poor power management support. You'll solve this by deleting a system kernel extension file and having it self-rebuild, as described there at the bottom of the page.