SnowKitty running on VMware Workstation

[thdanh90]

Yes it is. Mine doesn't support VT-x but it runs anyway.

 

BTW, I would like to thank Zenith from the bottom of my heart. I've been struggling to upgrading from my pre-made Leopard for weeks.

Hey zenith.. is that Vmware osx86 WITHOUT hardware virtualization?

 

Wow, this works with non-VT-x intel CPU. Thank you so much, Zenith432.

Is it possible to upgrade to 10.6.1 or 10.6.2?

[MSoK]

Hey zenith.. is that Vmware osx86 WITHOUT hardware virtualization?

In a word, yes, the instructions in this topic support OS X running under VMware without VT-x or the AMD equivalent, but performace is impacted, it also works with Hardware Virtualisation, but if your hardware and software meet the requirements, then Donk's topic link below is a simpler route.

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1186508

 

Good luck!

 

 

 

Yes it is. Mine doesn't support VT-x but it runs anyway.

 

BTW, I would like to thank Zenith from the bottom of my heart. I've been struggling to upgrading from my pre-made Leopard for weeks.

 

Wow, this works with non-VT-x intel CPU. Thank you so much, Zenith432.

Is it possible to upgrade to 10.6.1 or 10.6.2?

Yes, it is possible, take a backup before you try, as sometimes the non vanilla kernels have problems with patch updates, as they can replace the kernel.

[ArgVega]

I was wondering if anyone could give me some insight, I have done the guide 100% as it is written and it boots, but I have some errors I have been trying to figure out:

 

I have a Core 2 Duo T6500 2.1 GHz, using vista64 as my host

 

1)My Snow volume does not mount at boot, I get an empty desktop, also my DVD volume does not mount. I have my snow volume as scsi0:0 primary and no other hard drive(I deleted my Leopard). It also displays all the folders and files that would normally be hidden such as the mach_kernel.

 

Is it because the permisions? I did all the commands as posted in the guide even the permission ones for the volume.

 

2)When shutting down I get a kernel panic, heres the log

 

 

 

 

Thanks for any input

[ptolomy_was_right]

Here's the guide I promised

 

Requirements:

Intel CPU with VT enabled in the BIOS

VMware Workstation 6.5.x

an existing virtual machine with Leopard installed

OS 10.6 retail install DVD

 

This method is based on this guide. It uses an existing installation of Leopard to install SnowLeopard "offline"

on a 2nd hard disk, prepare this disk, and then start the new disk.

 

[Note: the guide I linked to above is on i_H_a_c_k_i_n_t_o_s_h_._c_o_m, not insanelymac.com]

 

Start out by by a adding a new virtual scsi hard drive to an existing virtual machine with Leopard installed. Give it at least 16GB.

Boot your Leopard virtual machine. Run Disk Utility to partition the new drive with GUID partition table, and create an HFS+ partition. I'm going to assume the new volume's name is "Snow" for the rest of the guide, but you can use any name you want.

After creating the new volume, open a Terminal window and set the permissions on the new volume like this

sudo -s
vsdbutil -a /Volumes/Snow
chown -R 0:0 /Volumes/Snow

Now insert the SnowLeopard retail DVD, and start the installer like the guide I linked to above shows (from "/Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg"). When the installer asks for a destination volume, select the Snow volume. Let the installer run and complete. Don't reboot after installation (it shouldn't ask for reboot, because it's an offline install).

 

Now install netkas's pcefi 10.5 bootloader on the new disk. Its files are attached in pcefi.10.5vm1.tar.gz. There's a README file on how to install it from a Terminal. You should replace rdisk0 with rdiskX where X is the number of the new disk (run the "mount" command to see on which disk /Volumes/Snow is). This is just so you can later boot the new disk. If you have Chameleon 2-RC3 or pcefi 10.x installed on your primary hard drive, you can use them to boot the new disk as well.

 

Now perform the following steps

• Go to /Volumes/Snow and rename mach_kernel to mach_kernel.vanilla.
  
• Go to /Volumes/Snow/System/Library/Extensions, and delete the following kexts
  • AppleProfileFamily.kext (this kext causes boot to last over 5 minutes)
    
  • AppleUpstreamUserClient.kext (a DRM kext that can cause problems)
    
  • AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement*.kext
    
  • AppleLSIFusionMPT.kext (see below) [Edit: not necessary on Workstation 7]
    

  You may copy these kexts to a backup location before deleting them. This is probably a good idea, especially for AppleLSIFusionMPT.kext.

  [*]go back to your home folder on Leopard, unpack vmsl.tar.gz. Now copy all the files under the folder vmsl to /Volumes/Snow. You should do this in a way to preserve root:wheel permissions, for example

  sudo chown -R 0:0 vmsl
  sudo cp -pR vmsl/* /Volumes/Snow

  The vmsl folders contains the replacement kernel(s), all the necessary kexts, and an smbios.plist for injection.

 

Now you're all done. shutdown the virtual machine. Edit your vmx file to make the Snow drive your primary hard drive. If all went as planned, it should boot into the registration process. If you can boot the snow drive from your primary Leopard drive, go ahead and do that.

 

[Edit: If you get a KP in AppleRTC.kext during boot, see post #22 below]

 

Notes:

• AppleLSIFusionMPT.kext is the lsilogic scsi driver. The version that comes with OS 10.6 uses scsi commands that crash the VMware backend on Workstation 6.5.x (!). So I replaced it with AppleLSIFusionMPT.kext from OS 10.5.8, which is included in vmsl. The older driver works in 32-bit mode. As a result of this, it's not possible to boot the 64-bit kernel (mach_kernel.x86_64), because it doens't have a scsi driver to access the hard disk. Edit: On Workstation 7, AppleLSIFusionMPT.kext from OS 10.6 works fine, and should not be replaced. It can be used to boot the 64-bit kernel.
  
• I included the drivers neccessary for ps/2 keyboard & mouse support in vmsl, including VMMouse. If mouse.vusb and keyboard.vusb work for you under Leopard, you can probably use them instead. They don't work for me - I get erratic keyboard and mouse behavior.
  
• SnowLeopard versions of the VMsvag2 driver set are also in vmsl. I haven't tested the 64-bit variants, but the 32-bit variants work with the 32-bit kernel. Don't use the VMsvga2 installer for Leopard, because the GA component from Leopard doesn't work on SL.
  
• There's no audio driver. You can install EnsoniqAudioPCI with the Leopard installer. It works.
  
• VMware Tools - darwin.iso tools from Fusion 2.0.5 can be installed and work ok. If you use a later variation of darwin.iso like the one uploaded by Donk, you'll lose the fit-guest function in VMsvga2, because VMware have changed the interface the driver uses for this function. If you don't care about fit-guest, use any version of darwin.iso you like.
  
• Update to 10.6.1 should go ok. It doesn't overwrite the kernel, and only modifies a couple of unused kexts. Check to see that AppleProfileFamily.kext doesn't reappear in /System/Library/Extensions, and remove if it does.
  

 

I couldn't upload vmsl.tar.gz because it's too big. I uploaded it to rapidshare

vmsl.tar.gz

 

Edit: Attached patches made to XNU-1456.1.26 for the mach_kernel dated Oct 19.

 

Old Download Counts:

pcefi.10.3.tar.gz - 149 downloads

 

Umm... is this possible with no hardware virtualization? Have Intel Mobile 965 Express Chipset with 1.66 T5450 Core 2 Duo CPUs. Am dual-booting Win 7 Ultimate x64 and Leopard 10.5.7 (iATKOS) with BootThink. Am running XP Pro with VMWare Player in Win 7 no problems... have Snow Leo retail disk and want to install inside either Leo or Win 7. Parallels 5 refused to install saying it needed hardware virtualization. Will check my BIOS but frankly I don't think I have it. But ppl have said it's possible without... help?

Thanks a lot

[Peter Saldanha]

so basically i need an x64 OS installed on an x64 capable processor(obviously) to run this thing right?

OH and btw, how fast is it without hardware virtualization? can i listen to songs on ITUNES?

[MSoK]

Umm... is this possible with no hardware virtualization? Have Intel Mobile 965 Express Chipset with 1.66 T5450 Core 2 Duo CPUs. Am dual-booting Win 7 Ultimate x64 and Leopard 10.5.7 (iATKOS) with BootThink. Am running XP Pro with VMWare Player in Win 7 no problems... have Snow Leo retail disk and want to install inside either Leo or Win 7. Parallels 5 refused to install saying it needed hardware virtualization. Will check my BIOS but frankly I don't think I have it. But ppl have said it's possible without... help?

Thanks a lot

You are correct, your T5450 does not support VT-x (Virtualisation), but Zenith's post you reference should work fine for your non VT-x laptop under Win7 with VMware Workstation 7 or Player 3, but performance will not be great. SL under Leo requires Fusion 2.5 or 3 and needs VT-x, not seen any posts on modifying under Fusion.

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

so basically i need an x64 OS installed on an x64 capable processor(obviously) to run this thing right?

OH and btw, how fast is it without hardware virtualization? can i listen to songs on ITUNES?

Peter,

The Host OS does not need to be 64-bit as VMware Workstation 7 talks directly to the system BIOS with its own hypervisor drivers, and if you want to run OS X 32-bit, then the host CPU does not need to be 64-bit either, although a 64-bit CPU and VT-x, or AMD-V AMD's virtualisation equivalent significantly improve performance.

People are using OS X without Virtualisation, and running what is required, i.e. iPhone development, etc. but I have not tested itunes, can anyone else comment!

 

Hope this helps, MSoK!

[ptolomy_was_right]

You are correct, your T5450 does not support VT-x (Virtualisation), but Zenith's post you reference should work fine for your non VT-x laptop under Win7 with VMware Workstation 7 or Player 3, but performance will not be great. SL under Leo requires Fusion 2.5 or 3 and needs VT-x, not seen any posts on modifying under Fusion.

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

Peter,

The Host OS does not need to be 64-bit as VMware Workstation 7 talks directly to the system BIOS with its own hypervisor drivers, and if you want to run OS X 32-bit, then the host CPU does not need to be 64-bit either, although a 64-bit CPU and VT-x, or AMD-V AMD's virtualisation equivalent significantly improve performance.

People are using OS X without Virtualisation, and running what is required, i.e. iPhone development, etc. but I have not tested itunes, can anyone else comment!

 

Hope this helps, MSoK!

 

Just to be clear: performance with SL in Workstation for Win 7 if I had 64-bit CPU and VT-x would be not too bad (but obviously not as good as natively installed SL, either on a Mac or PC), but in my situ having neither, performance will be significantly worse? Sounds like more trouble than it's worth... i have a smoothly running install of Leo 10.5.7 on my 2nd partition, it's fast and stable (tho' takes twice as long to boot than it would on a Mac due to all those fixed drivers); not much point you reckon? Oh and if I don't have VT-x, how come VMWare Player in Win 7 is running XP Pro like a charm?

Damn it I think I just wanna buy a MacBook Pro...

 

Cheers mate

[MSoK]

Just to be clear: performance with SL in Workstation for Win 7 if I had 64-bit CPU and VT-x would be not too bad (but obviously not as good as natively installed SL, either on a Mac or PC), but in my situ having neither, performance will be significantly worse? Sounds like more trouble than it's worth... i have a smoothly running install of Leo 10.5.7 on my 2nd partition, it's fast and stable (tho' takes twice as long to boot than it would on a Mac due to all those fixed drivers); not much point you reckon? Oh and if I don't have VT-x, how come VMWare Player in Win 7 is running XP Pro like a charm?

Damn it I think I just wanna buy a MacBook Pro...

 

Cheers mate

Performance of SL under Windows 7 with 64-Bit and VT-x is pretty good, especially if you can give it 1 to 2GB RAM, without starving your host OS, if you have neither then performance will as you say be significantly worse! So again go with your dual boot environment.

 

In terms of Windows XP, it does not require VT-x to run well under VM Player in Win 7, although XP Mode under Win 7 does require VT-x! VMware's implementation requires VT-x support for OS X with a vanilla kernel, this is related to Fusion which is the only "supported" platform for OS X as a guest OS. VMware's Windows XP implementation as a long standing supported guest OS does not require VT-x, but may benefit from the latest versions of VM Workstation and Player which can take advantage of the techology.

 

The MacBook Pro sounds good, I just struggle to justify the cost compared to equivalent non Apple notebooks!

[ptolomy_was_right]

Performance of SL under Windows 7 with 64-Bit and VT-x is pretty good, especially if you can give it 1 to 2GB RAM, without starving your host OS, if you have neither then performance will as you say be significantly worse! So again go with your dual boot environment.

 

In terms of Windows XP, it does not require VT-x to run well under VM Player in Win 7, although XP Mode under Win 7 does require VT-x! VMware's implementation requires VT-x support for OS X with a vanilla kernel, this is related to Fusion which is the only "supported" platform for OS X as a guest OS. VMware's Windows XP implementation as a long standing supported guest OS does not require VT-x, but may benefit from the latest versions of VM Workstation and Player which can take advantage of the techology.

 

The MacBook Pro sounds good, I just struggle to justify the cost compared to equivalent non Apple notebooks!

 

Agree about the sheer cost of MacBook Pros! That's why I bought a VAIO instead. But I've outgrown it now and want a laptop with 500GB internal HDD that can support up to 8GB RAM and has 64-bit hardware with VT-x. The 64-bit hardware thing hasn't been an issue with running win 7 x64, tho' presumably it will run even better? Ha I'm waiting for i7 Quad Core to become available for laptops! They will, in time.. (or at least Core 2 Quad). Can't stand Desktops despite the fact you can easily build your own (much more powerful) system. I can always increase HDD size with external...

 

No I will abondon the idea of SL on Workstation in Win 7. I have all the ingredients to do retail install of SL on my VAIO, eventually I may get to that but having to use GUID will wipe Win 7 unless I boot from USB or external HDD. VAIO NR-series are stubborn pieces of hardware when it comes to OSX86 install. My video was a nightmare and I may not get it working with SL (some have, some haven't).

[ptolomy_was_right]

Oh BTW does it have to be Workstation as the tutorial only refers to this, or will Player 3 definitely be OK? (As I already have Player 3 installed and XP in it... don't partic want to have to reinstall that if it's unnecessary... that's if I decide to give it a go of course..)

[MSoK]

Oh BTW does it have to be Workstation as the tutorial only refers to this, or will Player 3 definitely be OK? (As I already have Player 3 installed and XP in it... don't partic want to have to reinstall that if it's unnecessary... that's if I decide to give it a go of course..)

Player 3 is fine, and definately works, I am in the middle of doing a new manual and it is based on both Player 3 and Workstation 7. The only difference is Player needs to download the guest tools, i.e. FreeBSD, as it goes, but other than that works fine.

 

For completeness, Player also does not support ESX(i) as a guestOS, which is supported in Workstation 7, but not relevant for this topic or OS X as a guest OS.

[MSoK]

In terms of Windows XP, it does not require VT-x to run well under VM Player in Win 7, although XP Mode under Win 7 does require VT-x!

Although not really relevant to this topic, as I mentioned it in the earlier post, Microsoft have released an update to XP Mode under Windows 7 which will now work without VT-x, link below:

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

[ptolomy_was_right]

Although not really relevant to this topic, as I mentioned it in the earlier post, Microsoft have released an update to XP Mode under Windows 7 which will now work without VT-x, link below:

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

 

Thanks for that. Before VMWare Player 3 I did try Windows Virtual PC XP Mode but it didn't work. Probably why, eh? Doesn't matter now as VMWare is great.

[Uranus]

I'm trying to install Snow Leo on VMware ESXi 4 (Update 1). I followed everything correctly but when I finally go to boot the machine I get this:

 

 

Can anyone help me out? I am SOO close to getting this thing to work.

[MSoK]

Thanks for that. Before VMWare Player 3 I did try Windows Virtual PC XP Mode but it didn't work. Probably why, eh? Doesn't matter now as VMWare is great.

Indeed VMware rocks, and the next version of Workstation 7.1 and Player 3.1, currenty in public Beta, will support application launch from the Host OS, similar to XP Mode.

[ArgVega]

I was wondering if anyone could give me some insight, I have done the guide 100% as it is written and it boots, but I have some errors I have been trying to figure out:

 

I have a Core 2 Duo T6500 2.1 GHz, using vista64 as my host

 

1)My Snow volume does not mount at boot, I get an empty desktop, also my DVD volume does not mount. I have my snow volume as scsi0:0 primary and no other hard drive(I deleted my Leopard). It also displays all the folders and files that would normally be hidden such as the mach_kernel.

 

Is it because the permisions? I did all the commands as posted in the guide even the permission ones for the volume.

 

2)When shutting down I get a kernel panic, heres the log

 

 

 

 

Thanks for any input

 

I've searched the forum but seems no one else has had this problem, I'm new to Mac OS so I'm stuck. Do any of the experts have any ideas to point me in the right direction?

[cypherx]

I'm surprised no one commented on this, but the link to snowy darwin.iso does not work.

 

I think I need this do I not?

 

I have a regular darwin.iso from MsoK's VMWare Mac OS X Guest Package thread.

 

Currently I'm running Mac OS 10.5.2 (Kalyway) in Vmware Workstation 7 in Windows 7 on a i920 cpu.

 

I'd really love to try to get a Snow Leopard machine going. I can't use I-Tunes in 10.5.2 because it want's me to update safari. Well I can't update Safari because it needs 10.5.8, and that update causes the kernel panic. I even tried the Safari update for Tiger, but that says it requires 10.4.6 or something, I'm like well 10.5.2 is better than 10.4, so just work! I guess they never went to school and learned their greater than, less than number relationships.

 

So I want to start fresh with 10.6.2

[MSoK]

I'm surprised no one commented on this, but the link to snowy darwin.iso does not work.

 

I think I need this do I not?

 

I have a regular darwin.iso from MsoK's VMWare Mac OS X Guest Package thread.

 

Currently I'm running Mac OS 10.5.2 (Kalyway) in Vmware Workstation 7 in Windows 7 on a i920 cpu.

 

I'd really love to try to get a Snow Leopard machine going. I can't use I-Tunes in 10.5.2 because it want's me to update safari. Well I can't update Safari because it needs 10.5.8, and that update causes the kernel panic. I even tried the Safari update for Tiger, but that says it requires 10.4.6 or something, I'm like well 10.5.2 is better than 10.4, so just work! I guess they never went to school and learned their greater than, less than number relationships.

 

So I want to start fresh with 10.6.2

The link for the snowy darwin.iso has been removed as it was superceded by the wks7 revision, but all, including the original darwin-200 have been replaced by the one I (MSoK) posted, supplied by Donk. Refer to my post and link below, the darwin.iso in the package which is based on Fusion 3.0.1, hence the term Darwin301, fully supports both Leopard and Snow Leopard, and includes text files with the VMX settings for both L & SL.

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1431750

 

Hope this clarifies the situation!

[cypherx]

Ok so that VMWare Mac OS X Guest Package I downloaded works for SL too, cool.

 

I didn't realize it because the history was so long ago on the instructions pdf included (30/07/09)

 

Does VMWare workstation support mounting DMG images? I tried it but I don't think it works.

 

I tried Magic ISO to convert a DMG to an ISO and that doesn't look right. A 7.5GB DMG file turned into a 1.5GB ISO? I don't think the best compression can do that good!

[cypherx]

Ok I followed all the steps in this thread. I installed Snow Leopard to a second virtual hard drive (IDE). It did fail but it looked like everything was there. I didn't even see any way to customize and not choose other languages or printers... although since it does not boot, I may try again and look closer.

 

Following all the steps, when I try to boot off the new Snow Leopard drive I get:

boot0: GPT

boot0: testing

boot0: testing

boot0: done

boot1: error_

 

That's it. Not even a kernel panic or anything.

 

The one thing that I could not do per your instructions was copying vmsl maintaining the root permissions at once. With your code:

sudo chown -R 0:0 vmsl

sudo cp -pR vmsl/* /Volumes/Snow

 

After the second command it says that vmsl/* cannot be found.

 

However if I DONT do the sudo chown then it copy's. So I looked into every file that's in the archive and manually changed the permissions on them with

sudo chown -R 0:0 <path to extracted filename>

 

Do you think that was the issue? I'll try running the installer again and starting over. One thing that's nice about virtualizing this, it's always easy to go back.

 

EDIT:

I see the customize button is a small item in the lower left of step 4 of the SL installer. I breezed through the wizard before. I'm trying it now with Printers and Languages unchecked.

[MSoK]

Ok so that VMWare Mac OS X Guest Package I downloaded works for SL too, cool.

 

I didn't realize it because the history was so long ago on the instructions pdf included (30/07/09)

 

Does VMWare workstation support mounting DMG images? I tried it but I don't think it works.

 

I tried Magic ISO to convert a DMG to an ISO and that doesn't look right. A 7.5GB DMG file turned into a 1.5GB ISO? I don't think the best compression can do that good!

Mounting a DMG is supported, although I have not got it to work, I have found ImgBurn (link below) does the job in terms of converting a DVD / DMG to an ISO. The 1.5GB is probably the Windows Boot Camp part of the DVD.

 

http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

[cypherx]

Ok I re did the SL installation and followed the steps here, but I have the same problem.

The SL installation finished fine.

I looked at mount and saw that /Volumes/snow was disk0s2. That's exactly the disk that the example shown in the README in pcefi.10.5vm1. SO I ran followed it exactly. I didn't get any error messages about it. Per that README:

Suppose that your installation is on /dev/disk0s2

 

- Install boot0 to the MBR:

sudo fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk0

 

- Install boot1h to the partition's bootsector:

sudo dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk0s2

 

- Install boot to the partition's root directory:

sudo cp boot /

 

Ok so then I removed the kexts as shown in this guide, and I was also able to correctly follow the guide for the vmsl, because this time I did su and switched to root, so when I did the chown on vmsl, as root I still had authority to copy it over.

 

So upon switching the hard drives in the vmx file, I still get the:

 

boot0: GPT

boot0: testing

boot0: testing

boot0: done

boot1: error_

 

Do you have to follow the ENTIRE guide over ihackentosh? I was only doing Phase 1, and then carrying on the steps posted here, because it was not clear if you needed to do everything listed on that other site, which looks like it's for a physical machine (not a virtual). Like over there they are installing Chamelion, and I thought that was what I was doing with the pcefi.10.5vm1.tar.gz archive posted here. Then they run some stuff out of their tools.zip archive, like DSDT patcher (What is that, daylight savings time?) And they also do more stuff with kexts.

 

I appreciate any guidance in advance. I think I'm close here to getting something working.

[cypherx]

Ok I got it to almost boot...

I get the new shiny apple logo, then it goes to a dark grey screen with the animated pinwheel cursor. Nothing happens beyond this point.

 

I guess the boot loader is OK then.... I got it to show me two icons snow and system, and when you click on snow like I said it partially boots.

 

Any idea's?

 

I've also experemented with the guestOS in my vmx file. Right now it's at freebsd-64.

[flynjets]

Yes, it should, I am in the middle of trying to get SL running under ESXi 4 as we speak, so will post an update when I have some news, had a problem with my NIC not being supported, but that is sorted now, so full steam ahead.

 

Cheers, MSoK!

 

Any progress getting SL on ESXi to work?

[ArgVega]

I have been able to figure out both of my previous issues, and I'm also able to run 10.6.2 flawlessly with zenith's SVGA driver and VMWare tools and this guide. No more kp at shutdown and I now have support for intel IDE.

 

If anyone has any of my issues let me know and I will do my best to help.

 

Its also important to know that I am running 10.6.2 on VMware workstation 7 without any VT-x support and it runs great. let me know if anyone without vt-x needs any help

 

thanks to zenith and donk for your tutos and tools