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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?

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11684
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    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 – Foosh Jan 27 '15 at 19:17
  • @Foosh 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. – 11684 Jan 27 '15 at 19:41
  • Is there a specific reason as to why you would want to linger on an unsupported dist of the OS? – Martin Jan 29 '15 at 20:57
  • @Martin I don't want to, my iMac is just too old to upgrade. – 11684 Jan 29 '15 at 20:58
  • Same boat. What did you end up doing? – Matthew Cornell Sep 18 '15 at 11:47
  • @MatthewCornell Not upgrading and having another computer. Sorry! – 11684 Sep 18 '15 at 22:15
  • FYI I tried it and got errors. Interestingly, the latest Python runs fine on 10.6 ;-) – Matthew Cornell Sep 19 '15 at 02:01
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    @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. – 11684 Oct 12 '15 at 09:21
  • @11684 good points. At the same time, how much do internals change in each OS X version? – Matthew Cornell Oct 13 '15 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. – 11684 Oct 14 '15 at 06:56
  • I did find it in my browser history: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/235335/the-linux-kernel-breaking-user-space. Just a passing remark in [this answer](http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/235338/37709) to that question. @MatthewCornell – 11684 Oct 14 '15 at 07:06
  • thanks, @11684. I'd be curious to hear a Java expert's explanation of why the lack of OS X backwards compatibility... – Matthew Cornell Oct 14 '15 at 14:20

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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.

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