Bug report -- "Illegal instruction" on Mac 10.6.8 without XCode installed

Ray Hengst· Mar 18, 2014, 08:33 UTC · lore

Hi, I am running a Mac 10.6.8 and tried to install git-1.9.0 off of the installer (git-1.9.0-intel-universal-snow-leopard.dmg). The installation worked fine and gave no error messages. But whenever I type in a git command (see below for some I tried), it gives me this error message: Illegal instruction

I am completely new to git and mostly new of Unix, but here are some commands I tried: git git help git config git init git clean git config --global user.name "John Doe" git status

However, typing "man git" displays typical man pages. I do not have Xcode installed. (it's very hard to find a legacy copy); the "make" command also is not present, so I can't use any of the workarounds I saw listed. I uninstalled git-1.9.0 successfully using the provided script, then downloaded the same file again (and installed it) to make sure I didn't get a corrupt copy. I had the same problem, however. If I can provide any more information just let me know. Thanks for any help you can provide. -Ray

Konstantin Khomoutov· Mar 18, 2014, 10:35 UTC · re: Ray Hengst · lore

Re: Bug report -- "Illegal instruction" on Mac 10.6.8 without XCode installed

On Tue, 18 Mar 2014 01:33:25 -0700 Ray Hengst <rkhengst@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 19 quoted lines

> Hi,
> I am running a Mac 10.6.8 and tried to install git-1.9.0 off of the
> installer (git-1.9.0-intel-universal-snow-leopard.dmg). The
> installation worked fine and gave no error messages. But whenever I
> type in a git command (see below for some I tried), it gives me this
> error message:
> Illegal instruction
> 
> I am completely new to git and mostly new of Unix, but here are some
> commands I tried:
> git
> git help
> git config
> git init
> git clean
> git config --global user.name "John Doe"
> git status
> 
> However, typing "man git" displays typical man pages.

This has nothing to do with your problem: the `man` program is not part of Git and presumably works; it just finds and reads the specified manual page--which is just plain text--renders it and shows to you. And your problem is with misbehaving Git binary.

Show 8 quoted lines

> I do not have Xcode installed. (it's very hard to find a legacy copy);
> the "make" command also is not present, so I can't use any of the
> workarounds I saw listed.
> I uninstalled git-1.9.0 successfully using the provided script, then
> downloaded the same file again (and installed it) to make sure I
> didn't get a corrupt copy. I had the same problem, however.
> If I can provide any more information just let me know.
> Thanks for any help you can provide.

I once came across this thread [1] on SO which says this might be due to the binaries compiled for a newer version of the OS than you have installed. In any case, [2] suggests the installer is prepared by the guy behind [3], and that project's bug tracker has a bug for exactly your problem already filed [4]. You might want to chime in there with more details if you feel like it.

1. http://stackoverflow.com/q/14268887/720999
2. http://git-scm.com/download/mac
3. http://sourceforge.net/projects/git-osx-installer/
4. http://sourceforge.net/p/git-osx-installer/tickets/97/