14 DAY TRIAL // According to Apple, Mac OS X Lion will not work with some old Macintosh computers, such as the Late 2006 iMac with an Intel Core Duo processor. However, some have been able to get it up and running on a similarly specced MacBook from the same year, by eliminating a file tasked with thwarting such attempts.
Mac owner Matt Briggs claims to have been able to run the beta OS without problems on a May 2006 MacBook with an Intel Core Duo processor, after installing it on a USB drive using a Mac mini from 2009 - a supported machine.
Published in a report by Cultofmac, his story goes like this:
"I managed to get the Lion preview running on a supposedly unsupported Macbook Core Duo from May 2006.
I installed Lion on a USB drive hooked up to a Mac Mini Core 2 Duo 2009, then removed /System/Library/CoreServices/PlatformSupport.plist and the same drive booted in the Macbook with no issues!
there might be some stricter restrictions in the future, but pretty good right now!"
In a report titled “Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Won’t Work on Some Macs”, Softpedia discussed a so-called warning put up by Apple in the Mac OS X 10.7 Developer Preview notes, where the Mac maker specifically said “Lion requires hardware with a Core 2 Duo processor or better,” while “iMac (Late 2006) is not supported for this Lion seed.”
We wondered what could be at the heart of this restriction, and still do to this day. Apple may well lift it before the final OS ships, but it’s a stretch.
The system should, nonetheless, be able to run Lion, as the clock speed and RAM are not an issue.
However, just like with iOS releases that stopped performing well on old-generation iPhones (e.g., iOS 4 and subsequent releases on the supposedly supported iPhone 3G), Apple may have strong reasons not to ship Lion for systems older than 2007.