[Guide] Vanilla Retail 10.6.x with Chameleon v2 for Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L

[flyguyjake]

@Blackosx,

 

Just to clarify,

 

Do I have to create an Extensions.mkext in Cham/Extra for SL?

 

Do I have to use DSDT.aml?

 

You say you're using Netkas boot v10.1 which indicates you're not using one correct?

V10.1 doesn't use DSDT right?

 

Can you give this NOOB more simple boot replacement directions? LOL I can't seem to get it to work.

 

When installing Cham R1 why didn't you install the kexts; AHCIPort, IntelPIXATA, IOAHCIBLOCKSTORAGE?

Do these install in the Cham partition or SL S/L/E?

 

And regarding the kext's in Cham/E/E do all of the kext plist's have to be edited to boot from root?

 

Other than the UUID kext are there any other kext that would need to be edited/customized?

 

 

Thanks!

[boogi]

@Blackosx,

 

Just to clarify,

 

Do I have to create an Extensions.mkext in Cham/Extra for SL?

 

Do I have to use DSDT.aml?

 

You say you're using Netkas boot v10.1 which indicates you're not using one correct?

V10.1 doesn't use DSDT right?

 

Can you give this NOOB more simple boot replacement directions? LOL I can't seem to get it to work.

 

When installing Cham R1 why didn't you install the kexts; AHCIPort, IntelPIXATA, IOAHCIBLOCKSTORAGE?

Do these install in the Cham partition or SL S/L/E?

 

And regarding the kext's in Cham/E/E do all of the kext plist's have to be edited to boot from root?

 

Other than the UUID kext are there any other kext that would need to be edited/customized?

 

 

Thanks!

I followed his guide and I didn't create an extensions.mkext file at all. This is what I did.

 

1) I created a Cham partition and installed Cham R1 from his support files onto that drive. I only included the default theme and unchecked those additional kexts just like blackosx did in his guide. I guess they're not needed.

 

2) As far as I understand, you have to replace Cham R1's boot with the Netkas 10.1 version to get it to work with Snow Leopard, so you type those terminal commands to copy the Netkas 10.1 boot file to your Cham partition.

 

3) Copy all the green kexts from blackosx's support files to /Volumes/Cham/Extra/Extensions. I didn't modify them at all except for injecting my UUID into PlatformUUID.kext and SMBIOS.plist.

 

4) You modify the com.apple.Boot.plist for your graphics resolution and edit the SMBIOS.plist file with your UUID and SMSERIAL info and put those in /Volumes/Cham/Extra

 

5) Put your dsdt.aml into /Volumes/Cham/Extra as well. You don't HAVE to use a dsdt.aml, but I believe it's the cleanest way for the system to get your hardware info w/o using a bunch of modified kexts or putting EFI strings into your com.apple.Boot.plist file, so it's recommended.

 

That's all. Hope that helps!

[flyguyjake]

I followed his guide and I didn't create an extensions.mkext file at all. This is what I did.

 

1) I created a Cham partition and installed Cham R1 from his support files onto that drive. I only included the default theme and unchecked those additional kexts just like blackosx did in his guide. I guess they're not needed.

 

2) As far as I understand, you have to replace Cham R1's boot with the Netkas 10.1 version to get it to work with Snow Leopard, so you type those terminal commands to copy the Netkas 10.1 boot file to your Cham partition.

 

3) Copy all the green kexts from blackosx's support files to /Volumes/Cham/Extra/Extensions. I didn't modify them at all except for injecting my UUID into PlatformUUID.kext and SMBIOS.plist.

 

4) You modify the com.apple.Boot.plist for your graphics resolution and edit the SMBIOS.plist file with your UUID and SMSERIAL info and put those in /Volumes/Cham/Extra

 

5) Put your dsdt.aml into /Volumes/Cham/Extra as well. You don't HAVE to use a dsdt.aml, but I believe it's the cleanest way for the system to get your hardware info w/o using a bunch of modified kexts or putting EFI strings into your com.apple.Boot.plist file, so it's recommended.

 

That's all. Hope that helps!

 

Regarding the netkas boot, what will the terminal response be if it's successfully replaced? I did it, but don't know how to verify if it worked?

 

Thanks

[boogi]

Regarding the netkas boot, what will the terminal response be if it's successfully replaced? I did it, but don't know how to verify if it worked?

 

Thanks

 

I don't think there is a response. Just check your Cham partition and if it now has a boot file in the root of the partition, you should be good to go.

[flyguyjake]

I don't think there is a response. Just check your Cham partition and if it now has a boot file in the root of the partition, you should be good to go.

 

So that's just it. I have the cham root open and used "show all files" to show the boot file. Get info shows modified date of yesterday, the day of installation. When I attempt netkas replacement boot, the information for mod date remains the same. Here is the actual command lines.

 

Please confirm if spelling & spacing is correct.

 

1) Open Terminal

john-smiths-imac:~ John$

 

2) Type cd

john-smiths-imac:~ John$ cd

 

3) Drag Netkas folder containing boot file into terminal

john-smiths-imac:~ John$ cd /Users/John/Desktop/V10.0

 

4) Type mv -f boot/Volumes/Chameleon/

john-smiths-imac:~ John$ cd /Users/John/Desktop/V10.0 mv -f boot/Volumes/Chameleon/

 

5) When I hit return after final command I get

john-smiths-imac:~ John$

 

When I right click-get info on the original cham boot it shows a modified date of yesterday "install date" and the file size is 276KB.

 

The Netkas boot has a modified date of today and file size 292.

 

After performing the terminal commands the get info stays the same on the boot file. Doesn't that mean it didn't work?

 

HELP!

[boogi]

That should be right, though you're apparently using Netkas 10.0 rather than 10.1 (the one included in blackosx's support files). Other than that, I really don't know what else to tell you. It seems like you're doing everything right. What happens when you reboot?

[blackosx]

What a fantastic guide. Thank you for making it so easy to understand! I have everything working in both 32-bit and 64-bit mode, with graphics, audio, ethernet, etc. all working via DSDT (no EFI strings).

 

The only thing that doesn't work for me (and hasn't been working for a while) is automatic sleep. Manual sleep works just fine, but automatic sleep never triggers - only the display goes dark but the computer itself stays on. The "Restart automatically after power failure" option in System Preferences, which is reportedly the fix for a lot of people, is not available on my system. Sleep does work if there is a disc in the optical drive. I've searched and searched and have yet to be able to find a solution for this.

 

Have you experienced this before, and are you aware of a fix, either via some setting, through DSDT, or otherwise?

 

Thanks again.

Thanks spyguy007 - and well done

Automatic sleep works for me with 32-bit not 64-bit. (I am not on in 10.6 at the moment to do some tests right now, but I will report back about system prefs settings a bit later)

 

But there is no fix in DSDT (as far as I am aware of) for sleep

 

@blackosx -- have you read my earlier post regarding Time Machine and kernel panics? I'm curious whether you've also been experiencing a similar problem. Once I enabled Time Machine and it started backing up files, I would get a kernel panic within maybe 30 minutes of normal usage (e.g. web-browsing). Now that I've disabled TM backups again, I've been able to run a CPUTest for over an hour with no issues. Any thoughts? Thanks!

 

Also, I'm using your com.apple.Boot.plist that's using the -x32 string, but is there any way to confirm that it's really running in 32-bit or 64-bit mode while in Snow Leopard?

Hi boogi

 

No I haven't had any Time Machine problems, but there was something here about Time Machine problems with 64bit. I don't know if it will help you or not.

 

To confirm which mode the kernel is running in, do what I showed at the end of the guide in the Tips section. Go to System Profiler and click of Software in the left pane. This will show you.

 

Thanks for helping out flyguyjake.

 

@Blackosx,

 

Just to clarify,

 

Do I have to create an Extensions.mkext in Cham/Extra for SL?

 

Do I have to use DSDT.aml?

 

You say you're using Netkas boot v10.1 which indicates you're not using one correct?

V10.1 doesn't use DSDT right?

 

Can you give this NOOB more simple boot replacement directions? LOL I can't seem to get it to work.

 

When installing Cham R1 why didn't you install the kexts; AHCIPort, IntelPIXATA, IOAHCIBLOCKSTORAGE?

Do these install in the Cham partition or SL S/L/E?

 

And regarding the kext's in Cham/E/E do all of the kext plist's have to be edited to boot from root?

 

Other than the UUID kext are there any other kext that would need to be edited/customized?

@flyguyjake

I haven't used an Extensions.mkext in /E/E but it's recommended you build one for the system. See the fixes at the end of the Reboot section of the guide, or run Kext Utility.

 

If you don't want your CMOS reset after every use of SnowLeopard then yes, you will need DSDT.

 

I use Netkas' PC EFI v10.1 becasue that's what I chose to use. If you want to use v10.0 then go ahead.

 

Boot replacement - It couldn't be simpler...

Wherever you choose to install Chameleon, it will install a hidden file named 'boot' to the root of that partition.

This boot file doesn't like SnowLeopard so you need to replace it with Netkas's one. So in the Terminal, change directory (cd) to the folder containing Netkas' boot file (Then press enter to process that command).

 

Your step 4 - john-smiths-imac:~ John$ cd /Users/John/Desktop/V10.0 mv -f boot/Volumes/Chameleon/

These are two separate commands, you need to press enter before the mv -f command.

 

Next command is copy (it was move in the previous guide but it's now copy) , with the overwrite flag set (cp -f), the boot file to the root of the place you installed Chameleon.

 

So your commands will be (and keeping with the mv -f as your notes, (but you can replace mv- f with cp -f))

john-smiths-imac:~ John$ cd /Users/John/Desktop/V10.0

john-smiths-imac:~ John$ mv -f boot/Volumes/Chameleon/

 

You won't get any feedback from the Terminal because it's a successful copy.

 

To check it's successful, in Terminal, list the Chameleon partition and check the date. So....

ls -al /Volumes/Cham and you'll see a list of all the files in the Cham partition with dates and times, and the date and time for the boot file will be the same as when you copied it in. (I have just done this and my date & time now say 2 Sep 07:44.

 

I didn't use the kexts supplied with the Chameleon install, because I thought it would be easier to tell everyone to leave it blank and then just add the ones from my Support Files.

 

None of the kexts in /E/E have been touched (no editing has taken place) to boot as root

 

Other than PlatformUUID.kext, no other kext is customised.

 

If in doubt, just follow the guide exactly!

 

And can you build a signature for the bottom of your posts to help others help you when identifying problems etc. Thanks

[flyguyjake]

@Blackosx,

 

Some things are so simple, they're complicated...

 

With regards to the kext utility, Is it's primary function to repair the Cham install/partition? Since the Snow install is vanilla, what would I need to repair there?

[Professor]

Hey,

 

I managed to get Snow Leopard running with a minimum of kexts.

 

Installed from USB-Drive, worked fine.

put only

 

fakesmc.kext

IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext

LegacyHDA.kext

 

in the Extra/Extension folder plus dsdt.aml and apple.boot.plist.

 

It worked fine without kernel panic for hours.

 

Then I decided to install a third party extension (Little Snitch 2.2 beta, SL ready) and I have almost instant kernel panics when the finder shows up again.

 

I deinstalled Little Snitch again, but those kernel panics still come up.

 

I tried to run kextUtility to repair any errors from a second leopard partition on the snow leopard install, now i get kernel panics right on startup. KextUtility didn't repair because it couldn't find an extensions.mkext.

[blackosx]

@Blackosx,

 

Some things are so simple, they're complicated...

 

With regards to the kext utility, Is it's primary function to repair the Cham install/partition? Since the Snow install is vanilla, what would I need to repair there?

Lol

 

If you install using the OSInstall.mpkg method, then your system will have ownership/permission errors and some things won't be right. Kext Utility will check over your system and make sure it's all as it should be. But even if you have no problems then there is no harm in running it anyway.

 

I managed to get Snow Leopard running with a minimum of kexts.

 

Then I decided to install a third party extension (Little Snitch 2.2 beta, SL ready) and I have almost instant kernel panics when the finder shows up again.

Well done Professor

But you will need to be careful adding any app that write to the system. There's a thread here about little snitch. Hopefully that can help you recover, but if not, then now you know what to do to get your system installed, re-install it.

 

It's also worth noting that it's a good idea to install 2 x partitions with SnowLeopard, so you have either backup or a testing system.

[121fred]

usb hd setup with snow install disk ok and able to install to a formatted drive as per guide ok, but after reboot to 10.5.8 drive cannot install chameleon onto snow disk, installer locks up at start of install. Tried to install chameleon before snow and allows install OK but then snow will not install onto the drive. Can anyone HELP please?

[blackosx]

usb hd setup with snow install disk ok and able to install to a formatted drive as per guide ok

So you have made a USB boot drive and managed to run the 10.6 installer. Well done

but after reboot to 10.5.8 drive cannot install chameleon onto snow disk, installer locks up at start of install.

So in 10.5.8 the Chameleon installer locks up installing on to the Snow Leopard HD? how about installing Chameleon on to the Cham partition?

Tried to install chameleon before snow and allows install OK but then snow will not install onto the drive. Can anyone HELP please?

For the purpose of getting you all up and running I recommend installing Chameleon on a separate partition to the system. This way you don't have to worry about permissions etc., and it's easier to understand if you are new to this.

[121fred]

Thanks for your reply, tried Cham partition install but it would not complete boot from snow drive, but would boot from install usb then select snow drive

[blackosx]

Thanks for your reply, tried Cham partition install but it would not complete boot from snow drive, but would boot from install usb then select snow drive

Really?

So your installed Snow Leopard system will boot fine as long as you use the bootloader from USB?

But if you try to boot your installed Snow Leopard system from the Cham partition on the HD, then it fails?

 

In that case, you should just need to use Disk Utility to wipe the Cham partition and re-install Chameleon like step 4 in the guide, then just copy everything from your USB stick on to the Cham partition.

[121fred]

Doh I didn't think of that I'll give it a try, thanks

[philippebezoteaux]

Hi,

 

Great tuto. Got it running in no time !

I only have one problem:

I can't get my nvinject.kext running. I'll explain, got a 7300GS graphic card which I could get running in dual screen with this kext only (nothing else ever worked, and I tried efi strings, ...)

 

I paste it to "Extra/Extensions" like the R1000.kext and the psystar one is working but nothing on the graphic side !

 

Any suggestions ?

[blackosx]

Thanks philippebezoteaux, and well done

 

I haven't had the need to try running nvinject.kext from /E/E. I think someone else had to put it in /S/L/E for their 4 screen setup (was it YoYelloW?)

 

All I can suggest is to carry on asking about to see what you can find. Have your tried changing the OSBundleRequired property to Root, in the kext's info.plist?

[philippebezoteaux]

Thanks for the quick answer !

 

Indeed someone used nvDarwin, nofear I believe. I just ran through all posts in the subject !

Right now, my graphic card is working with no QE/CI in clone mode (I have a lcd display on vga and a projector on dvi).

I read somewhere that PEGP should be chjecked in DSDT even if you d'ont see it in IOregistry. Gonna try tonight if it changes something !

[blackosx]

Thanks for the quick answer !

 

Indeed someone used nvDarwin, nofear I believe. I just ran through all posts in the subject !

Right now, my graphic card is working with no QE/CI in clone mode (I have a lcd display on vga and a projector on dvi).

I read somewhere that PEGP should be chjecked in DSDT even if you d'ont see it in IOregistry. Gonna try tonight if it changes something !

Oh yeah, it was nofear, thanks for reminding me

 

But you should hopefully be able to get your 7300GS working with DSDT... Here's a post for someone trying to get a 7300GT working. I just don't know how it works with dual outputs, as I haven't tested with that.

[dakku]

can someone help me dual boot leopard and snow leopard from the same hard drive but on different partitions? ive got leopard installed on the first partition with chameleon rc2 running on it, i want to install snow leo onto the second partition and still keeping my leopard. ive tried to install snow, all works fine but i cant seem to get my head around chameleon, where do i install it? over my existing chameleon on leopard drive or on snow? if i do install it on snow and try to reboot i get kp right away.

[spyguy007]

Thanks spyguy007 - and well done

Automatic sleep works for me with 32-bit not 64-bit. (I am not on in 10.6 at the moment to do some tests right now, but I will report back about system prefs settings a bit later)

 

But there is no fix in DSDT (as far as I am aware of) for sleep

Yeah, I'm fairly sure it's a motherboard-related issue, as other people with DS4Ps have been unable to get automatic sleep working either. Didn't work for me in 10.5 or 10.6. Sadly, it also seems like the only board that Gigabyte hasn't released any sort of beta BIOS for, so any hope of seeing an update from them is unlikely.

 

I'll keep messing around though. Thanks again for the fantastic guide.

[blackosx]

can someone help me dual boot leopard and snow leopard from the same hard drive but on different partitions?

Hi dakku

 

There was a post here from g_MAC saying he had found out how to do this from CaptainNemo's post, but I haven't looked in to it.

 

EDIT: But the way I understand Chameleon is that it will only load kexts from the active partition. In this case, the Chameleon volume is the active partition so regardless of which partition (10.5 or 10.6) you select, it will always attempt to load what ever is in the /Extra folder.

 

Now I haven't tried this from RC2 v640, but a while back when I was testing with RC1 v431, I created 2 x partitions, and each partition had a 10.5 system installed on it and I then installed chameleon on to each of those partitions with the idea that I could use a different set of kexts for each system for testing. But I could only ever get Chameleon to use the extra folder on the first partition, never from the second partition. Now if this situation has changed with RC2 v640 and it can now load a different set of kexts dependent on which system is selected to boot then yes, in theory it can be done.

 

Does that make sense?

 

 

Yeah, I'm fairly sure it's a motherboard-related issue, as other people with DS4Ps have been unable to get automatic sleep working either. Didn't work for me in 10.5 or 10.6. Sadly, it also seems like the only board that Gigabyte hasn't released any sort of beta BIOS for, so any hope of seeing an update from them is unlikely.

 

I'll keep messing around though. Thanks again for the fantastic guide.

Okay, well good luck finding out about it.

I always keep my eye on this Gigabyte Beta BIOS page, as I am waiting to see when they can release an update to the AHCI V1.20 spec for the EP45-DS3L so it will speed up boot time.

 

No probs and Thanks.

[PeterHsieh]

Thanks plenty to everyone who contributed towards this guide, especially towards blackosx who compiled his knowledge into such an easy to follow guide...

 

I have successfully installed Mac OS X 10.6 on my Gigabyte GA-945PL-S3.

 

KP seem to only occur on the 64bit kernel, which I presume is a kext error...

That ok with me loading in 32bit cause I don't have 4G Ram anyways...

 

The only issue I have at the moment is sound... I can't get the sound to work. I've used LegacyHDA.kext and attempted at the DSDT... but obviously something isn't right. I've tried using EFI but failed...

It says in my System Profiler that my Audio (Built In) is :

Intel High Definition Audio:

Then follow with some Device ID, Audio ID, Avaliable devices...

 

But when I open my System Preferences and select Sound there is no input/output devices...

 

Thanks plenty for all the help.. Im so glad I got this working!!

[boogi]

Hey,

 

I managed to get Snow Leopard running with a minimum of kexts.

 

Installed from USB-Drive, worked fine.

put only

 

fakesmc.kext

IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext

LegacyHDA.kext

 

in the Extra/Extension folder plus dsdt.aml and apple.boot.plist.

 

It worked fine without kernel panic for hours.

 

Then I decided to install a third party extension (Little Snitch 2.2 beta, SL ready) and I have almost instant kernel panics when the finder shows up again.

 

I deinstalled Little Snitch again, but those kernel panics still come up.

 

I tried to run kextUtility to repair any errors from a second leopard partition on the snow leopard install, now i get kernel panics right on startup. KextUtility didn't repair because it couldn't find an extensions.mkext.

I had a similar issue. My original SL install worked fine for hours, but because I had that crackling sound issue, I tried to use the LegacyHDA.kext from blackosx's DSDT guide and replaced the one from his SL support files that was located on the Chameleon partition. After that I got a kernel panic, so I replaced it back with the SL version and thought everything would be okay. However, I still received a bunch of kernel panics and my system became pretty unstable. I thought it was Time Machine causing the issue, but I still received panics even when TM was disabled.

 

In the end, I switched back to Leopard for the time being since the system was way too unpredictable, but I think I'm gonna try to install SL on another partition for testing purposes to see if I can pinpoint what led to the instability. Once it's all figured out, I'll switch for good.

[Biøhazard]

I changed my old 6600gt (i think that finder was a little bit slowly) to a 9500gt 1gb, i put my efi string in com.apple.boot.list, made a new dsdt with out graphic card, then I used kext utility, and now my system is working perfect with sleep!

 

Thanks!!