[tex-live] small bug re installing x86_64-darwin vs. universal-darwin

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 4:47 AM, Jack wrote:
> I think there is a small bug in texlive when installing on a 64-bit
> Mac running Snow Leopard or greater.  Specifically, I found it
> impossible to install to either a Lion or Mountain Lion Mac in such a
> way that the resulting binaries are x64_64-darwin.

--force-platform=x86_64-darwin

> Surely there is a way for one of these installation scripts to test
> whether a machine recognized as 64-bit capable is running Leopard or
> not, right?

I use the following:

   # if running Snow Leopard or later
   # probably better: /usr/bin/sw_vers -productVersion
   if test `uname -r|cut -f1 -d"."` -ge 10 ; then
      # if working on 64-bit hardware
      # I used that to set x86_64 on 10.6 even when uname reported i386
      if test `sysctl -n hw.cpu64bit_capable` = 1; then
         # do whatever needs to be done to set x86_64
      fi
   fi

> Probably nobody noticed this because Mac users tend to use MacTeX.  I
> install from the install-tl script.

It has been noticed and the change has been requested in past, but
rejected for some reason. I don't exactly remember the reason(s), but
it could have been that:

- 10.6 could be booted in either 32-bit or 64-bit kernel; uname was
thus returning different results depending on how one booted the Mac.
If one relied on uname only, without testing for
"hw.cpu64bit_capable", TeX Live would suddenly stop working when
booting into a different kernel. But the code above is immune to that.

- The code was too complicated/risky to use. Or it has been requested
too late in production cycle, so developers didn't dare to change it
in last minute. (This is not true now.)

- The binaries run anyway. There is hardly any difference in speed.
MacTeX users get 64-bit binaries already. So why would anyone care?

I totally agree that it would make more sense to use 64-bit binaries
and given the timing there is plenty of time left to test before TeX
Live 2013 is released.

Mojca