How to install JDK 8 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard?

Asked 28/7, 2014 at 12:15 Answered 2/1 at 21:31

Solved java macos installation java-8 requirements

According to the system requirements, even Java 7 requires Lion, but then I found this question: How to install java jdk 7 on Snow Leopard. Especially the answer stating that java 7 doesn't, in fact, require 10.7 and that this restriction can just be removed from the .pkg gives hope that it is possible to install even Java 8 on Snow Leopard. Any information on this?

Mchugh answered 28/7, 2014 at 12:15 Comment(12)

Have you tried following the steps in Niksa Jakovljevic's blog post? Seems like it's a lot simpler than messing around with the .pkg – Cellobiose 27/1, 2015 at 19:17

@Cellobiose Nice catch, thank you! I missed it since it has relatively so few votes. I would prefer, though, to know wether the requirement is "real" before I run an installer that is not compatible with my OS. – Mchugh 27/1, 2015 at 19:41

Is there a specific reason as to why you would want to linger on an unsupported dist of the OS? – Volsung 29/1, 2015 at 20:57

@Volsung I don't want to, my iMac is just too old to upgrade. – Mchugh 29/1, 2015 at 20:58

Same boat. What did you end up doing? – Carlita 18/9, 2015 at 11:47

@MatthewCornell Not upgrading and having another computer. Sorry! – Mchugh 18/9, 2015 at 22:15

FYI I tried it and got errors. Interestingly, the latest Python runs fine on 10.6 ;-) – Carlita 19/9, 2015 at 2:1

@MatthewCornell Python is less OS dependent; no GUI and relatively little low level stuff. Java's AWT and multithreadihg facilities are - I believe - lower level than their Python equivalents. I don't know Python very well though. – Mchugh 12/10, 2015 at 9:21

@Mchugh good points. At the same time, how much do internals change in each OS X version? – Carlita 13/10, 2015 at 12:13

@MatthewCornell Coincidentally I just read about that a few days ago. OS X internals change a lot between versions, apparently. I don't think I can remember where I read this though. – Mchugh 14/10, 2015 at 6:56

I did find it in my browser history: unix.stackexchange.com/questions/235335/…. Just a passing remark in this answer to that question. @MatthewCornell – Mchugh 14/10, 2015 at 7:6

thanks, @11684. I'd be curious to hear a Java expert's explanation of why the lack of OS X backwards compatibility... – Carlita 14/10, 2015 at 14:20

The OS level requirements are "real" and shouldn't normally be circumvented. As to how real it is I cannot answer. Ultimately as system libraries are updated, and newer versions of JDK are compiled against them older systems won't be able to use parts of Java that use the newer functions in those libraries or even the libraries as a whole if the pointers/links have changed.

If you want to be absolutely sure Java will work on your system, you will need to compile it from source. But that is a massive pain on a Mac unfortunately. If you want to try anyway, check out the Mac Port Project over on OpenJDK.

Cellobiose answered 27/1, 2015 at 19:47 Comment(0)

In a recent development Jazzzny made java 17 for Mountain Lion and up possible. As well as Java 11 for Snow Leopard and up. This should be useful.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/java-17-for-10-8-10-9-10-10-and-10-11-java-11-for-10-6-10-11-jdk.2395323/

https://github.com/Jazzzny/jdk-macos-legacy/releases

Alexandrine answered 2/1 at 21:31 Comment(1)

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