Monday, November 09, 2009, 08:30 pm

Intel Atom support officially missing from Mac OS X 10.6.2

By Brian Garner

Intel Atom support is confirmed to be missing in the final release of 10.6.2, citing multiple prominent Hackintosh sources.

Apple's latest update for Snow Leopard has broken support for Intel's Atom processor line. Mac OS X 10.6.2 was released Monday afternoon, and was Apple's second major update for Snow Leopard.

OSXDaily reported that various netbook and "hackintosh" forums are "blowing up with problems of 10.6.2 instant rebooting their Atom-based notebooks." Systems using the Atom processor will go into a startup-loop if the 10.6.2 update is installed.

Support for Atom fluctuated over the course of 10.6.2 development, and Apple was mum about the subject.

It is recommended that anyone using OS X on Atom-based systems should not install the update. Many believe that a community-generated fix will be developed soon. Prominent hackintosh blogger StellaRola commented, "Just an FYI, this is OSx86 after all and none of the scenes hackers really let down on support. The latest kernel may not be “officially” supported but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a modded kernel around the corner."

Intel's Atom processor is a low-cost, low-power chip intended for notebooks and ultra-mobile PCs. Although current Apple products do not sport the Atom chips, a dedicated community has formed around the practice of installing Snow Leopard on Atom netbooks.

The 10.6.2 update weighs in at 473MB and fixes a guest account bug which could have potentially deleted a user's account data. It can be accessed direct from Apple or via Software Update.