[UPDATED] LiveUSB OS X

[gygabyte666]

[11/27/2014]***UPDATE#4: I know I said I was done in my last update and I wasn't really lying. I am done with Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard. I have since moved on to more recent kitties. I already have two of them created. One for Mountain Lion 10.8.5 and one for Mavericks 10.9.4. Both work wonderfully. I'll be updating this section very soon for some much needed updates and post cleanup. Stay tuned!

 

[08/24/12]***UPDATE#3: As it goes with anything like this, eventually it has to end and that day is today for me. A few days ago I was heavily into it again and realized I was right back where I started around 2 years ago. I had Leopard working pretty well, I never seriously tried to fix Snow and Tiger never even got off the ground at all. I really did want to make these discs but ultimately they would have just wasted valuable space in the end, even if I did complete them. The regular install discs for each OS would still have provided most of the essential tools for repairing any Mac that supports them, plus you can reinstall with those, something the Live DVDs (mine at least) would have lacked. So this project is canned. I already deleted all my files and stuff that I was working with. Keeping it around would just encourage me to try again someday and I really don't need that. I apologize if someone was checking this page to see some updates or progress for whatever reasons but I can at least offer some advise for future guinea pigs to the project, assuming I remember much of it. Sorry but that's the best I can do. It was a fun trip and at the very least, I enjoyed the knowledge that came from it. I would also like to express my thanks to those who offered their advise throughout this little journey of mine, you all know who you are. Thanks again. Goodbye old thread, may you finally rest in peace.

[08/15/12]***UPDATE#2: Just did my first real attempt at it again and it went surprisingly well, considering I used nothing to reference from except my old files but with updated installs.

The good news is that Leopard (10.5.8) booted right up as expected. Although, I ran into an issue with apps not working/loading i'll have to try to track down the problem. Never ran into that one before though so i'm confused by it to say the least.

The bad news is I still don't have a method for Tiger (10.4.11) yet. There must be a way to netboot an image using it, I just don't know how. Too bad I can't get away with using Leopard's kernel for the booting/netboot process and on-the-fly switch it the Tiger kernel so it can continue with the booting process.

Finally, Snow Leopard (10.6.8) was almost a complete bust. I can only assume that my mkext was improperly generated. It boots single-user mode as expected but the rc.liveboot command fails with "no mountable volumes available" or something to that extent. I can understand since I used basically the same kextcache command for all three installs with minimal variation between them. I'll try it again as soon as I have time to disassemble my install and restore it to a drive for testing.

[08/10/12]***UPDATE: I started this project a little over 2 years ago. Long story short, I never finished it for a number of reasons that I won't go into here. That said, I have taken this one up again and hopefully can finish what I started so very long ago. The ultimate goal here is to have 3 individual, functional "live" images for 3 different OS X flavors (10.4 Tiger, 10.5 Leopard, and 10.6 Snow Leopard) that can be either burned to discs or restored to external media for the purposes of computer diagnostics or repair.

I would like to express thanks to STLVNUB, spartango, and Memorial. Each of them provided helpful tips or advise throughout the original thread from over 2 years ago and some were never properly thanked for their contributions. So again, thank you guys!

If any relevant progress is made, I will make it a point to update this thread accordingly.

ORIGINAL POST:
Ok, maybe i'm just doing something very wrong but I cannot find any info on creating a LiveDVD that will boot/run on an actual Mac computer. I've tried the posted ways and tutorials to get it working but sadly those are really only for x86 PCs.

I was planning on making two seperate Live discs, one for Tiger & one for Leopard. I don't really care about Snow Leopard at the moment because it's Intel only and I wanted to make the discs as universal as possible (Intel/PPC Macs). I am not entirely sure that this can be done currently. I'm almost positive it can be but I don't really know how myself. I also don't know the limitations on how it can be done. For example, is there a certain update you can't go past. Like does 10.4.11 fail where 10.4.10 might succeed?

I have been messing with making discs for the past few days now with the information available. All of my discs fail to boot on my Real Macs...all of them and they just fail to boot on the PCs because I didn't design them to be bootable on them. I am pretty sure that these are possible on real Macs. From my experience, if you have a bootloader installed on your Mac (I use rEFIt) that will actually boot and list media with Chameleon RCs installed. Chameleon maintains the original boot record on the media aswell. So if this was attempted on say, a GUID partitioned USB external HDD, and had Chameleon RCx installed, it should work, so long as the bootloader is installed too (rEFIt in my case). Sadly, at this time a bootloader is needed as Chameleon is NOT seen by a Mac's default EFI loader. Hope all that babble makes sense, i'm quite tired and finally need to post this up.

If anyone has any info, a video, maybe a link or installer script to help me out, PLEASE inform me. I have searched and searched but no one can help me. If this is NOT possible on real Macs yet please let me know so I can stop wasting my own time and soooooo many DVD-Rs. I would really, REALLY like to get this working but I have no use for it on a x86 PC right now. These discs could prove to be very useful for diagnostic purposes. Thank you to anyone willing to help in advance. If you need more information please ask. Thanks again!

[gygabyte666]

Thanks for the reply! I've already tried that sadly. It would seem I wasn't clear enough in the first post. I simply don't have the correct 'method' for creating the disc itself I have yet to find a tutorial for this that actually works with a real Mac. All the tuts posted on the forum are for PCs and they don't work on a real Mac. All those tutorials are also very hard to understand to me. I believe they are just poorly written, seems like they are missing steps or something. I dunno

 

Did I mention i'm trying to do this on Tiger first? I think all the tuts are for Leopard. I tired making one for Leopard too but it's DVD-DL size and i'm not wasting anymore of those to try this. So i'd like to stick with Tiger for now. Does anyone know the Terminal commands to install Chameleon RCx onto a external HDD from Tiger? Chameleon was meant for use on Leopard and doesn't install using Tiger's Terminal. Seems to be missing files or something. Anyway, point is I can't install it from Tiger! Someone has to have the answer for creating a working disc aon a real Mac system. I would imagine that is how the method for creating them on PCs was 'perfected'. Thanks for reply, i'll try different ways of making it notice 'boot.efi' and see if it changes anything. I'll post my results, thanks again!

 

EDIT: Does anyone know of a way to create one of these discs WITHOUT the need for a 3rd-party bootloader? (Chameleon/Boot-132/etc)

 

EDIT#2: Anyone know if the MacOS and/or if the newer Chameleons (RC1-4) even support the syntax "rp=file:///live.dmg" for mounting the system disk image?

[gygabyte666]

Thanks STLVNUB! I really appreciate the help. I was wondering if there was a syntax I could us in my com.apple.Boot.plist that Darwin understood that would allow for the netboot image to mount without the use for Chameleon. Something like what rp=file:///live.dmg does for Chameleon/Boot-132 but for Darwin instead. Do you know if such a syntax exists to allow for the Darwin bootloader? I figure that would be a MUCH simpler way of testing this {censored} out instead of resorting to Chameleon for this. Until then I will continue my tests with Chameleon. Moving on though, I understand what you were trying to say about the boot.efi method on Macs or Hacks but I ran into some issues while I tested...

 

1) Chameleon and boot.efi (Apple EFI booting) CANNOT co-exist! Once I install Chameleon it breaks the booting procedure for Apple's EFI booting and cannot be booted in the default way anymore. It sucks because I can no longer boot into the external HDD using my Macbook so after I install Chameleon if something :censored2:s up, I have to partition the drive and start from square one all over again. I believe last night I did that about five separate times.

 

2) I actually managed to get to the verbose booting screen that told me it was trying to initialize the 'live.dmg' afterwards though it sadly froze up and I haven't managed to get back to it yet , perhaps I wasn't using the right 'live.dmg' (I have two, one that is completely clean & one that has a modified IOHDIXController.kext as well as the rc.liveboot.sh file. I couldn't tell from the tuts if the live.dmg was supposed to include those files in the dmg or on the bootable media itself so I have just been tinkering with using all the potential methods I can [total of 4 different ways I can test].)

 

Ultimately, I am actually getting somewhere but i've had to mirror my external HDD so many times i'm starting to worry that I may accidentally mess up some of my file's permissions through constant Terminal commands. As usual, I will continue to post my results and if I get too frustrated with it I will simply move on and try out Leopard. I probably should have just been doing that to begin with but I LOVE Tiger so much I am trying my best to keep that just as alive as the others. Honestly, I haven't really tried very much on getting Leopard to work as a Live disc. I created a fresh install for it and then put it a side so it probably is extremely easy on that I just haven't even bothered yet, too damn busy trying to get Tiger working first before I move on to that! I have basically been driving myself mad over this and will be pushing through for the next few hours. I have sleeping problems anyway so I have to do something to keep my mind busy

 

Thanks for all your help and ideas! Now I just need to figure out the order of this damn thing! I can't for the life of me figure out why this is giving me such a difficult time, it seems like a very simple theory. Thanks again, I'll be posting my latest results soon enough i'm sure.

[gygabyte666]

No I haven't tried VirtualBox. So the rp= command will work in Darwin as it does in Chameleon? Interesting as it just doesn't seem to in my tests, although as I said before, it could be my configuration. I'm kinda in the dark on going through this.

 

I can get it to boot just fine, problem is, that the system will lock up once it tries to load launchd, it gives an error when trying to load it and then does nothing. something along the lines of 'loading /sbin/launchd error 5' or something and just sits there. I didn't add in the /sbin folder so clearly launchd isn't there, I tried adding it on the boot media for a test but it still won't load it. I don't think the Darwin loader is trying to mount live.dmg because otherwise it would go through the process of booting without a problem. My config must be all up.

 

I have tried this with Chameleon, without it using the default Darwin bootloader and the system always locks up somewhere. Darwin always does it when trying to load launchd, Chameleon i'm luck to be able to even boot sometimes. I have gotten it to load live.dmg once but it locked up after attempting. I have used and blessed the boot.efi file in S/L/CoreServices every time but the result is the same.

 

The Mac i have been using to test all of this is a Macbook1,1 Specs are: Intel Core Duo, 2GB RAM (Max) Intel GMA950, etc. I wanted to try to make a universal LiveDVD though so I was kinda hoping to get this disc to be universal if possible (Intel/PPC). I don't know if it helps but I added in boot.efi and BootX too so hopefully it can stay as universal when booting as possible. Thanks for you help and I hope my info can help solve this dilemma. I will try to take some screenshots for examples of what my problems are and what files I have in my boot media.

 

UPDATE: After more extensive testing I have figured out much of the problem. I have been playing around with Leopard now and getting that to mount the live.dmg is MUCH easier than in Tiger. I'm not quite sure why yet and haven't worked all the kinks out yet but slowly but surely, i'm getting much, MUCH closer to figuring this out. Also, all of this is being done without the use of 3rd party bootloaders like Chameleon, this is all being accomplished right from the default Darwin bootloader. Tiger just seems to not like the rp= command and acts like it doesn't know what to do with it like Leopard does. I'll keep this thread informed of my progress.

[gygabyte666]

Alright, first off, let me apologize for not posting an update lately on my progress. Moving on, I have done a lot of testing again and finally got the Live disc working correctly for Leopard! STLVNUB, you were 100% right about Leopard, it is AMAZINGLY easy. After I stopping screwing with Tiger and went to test out Leopard it worked almost ASAP. I was right about Tiger, it seems it operates differently. The same Leopard method 100% does NOT work on it. It always locks up at the same point mentioned in a different post, when it tries to load the 'non existent' OS. It just seems to not understand how to load the 'live.dmg' file on the disc and the rp= command doesn't work for it.

 

It sucks I really wanted to get Tiger working due to it's small size and overall decent functionality compared to Leopard, which is massive in size and operates virtually no different. I have yet to burn the Leopard Live to a disc because it is so huge (roughly 8GB) I did extensive testing on Tiger though after I figured out Leopard's method. I even went so far as to replace much of the required files on Tiger from the Live Leopard install. It was sure to end in disaster because of compatibility differences but I went for it anyway. It does actually boot without panics it just still sadly didn't change anything about booting Live. It still locks up at the same place. Guess it just isn't designed to use any of the extra kernel extentions and/or files.

 

I have a few questions with both methods:

 

1) With Leopard, is there any way to auto-boot the 'rc.liveboot' script without having to manually type in 'sh /etc/rc.liveboot init' each boot? It would EXTREMELY helpful to have that script auto-launch at each boot.

 

2) If it is known, how is the Tiger Live install procedure different? What extra files are needed for it and where can they be obtained?

 

3) Do you have other information about either install? It will most likely come in handy at some point.

 

Overall, I am pleased to have Leopard working but if at all possible I would like to continue trying to figure out Tiger. Do you have any suggestions for getting it to work? I know Tiger Live was figured out first I believe I just am not sure how different the process is. No one really created a user-friendly tut on how to go about creating it. You really have to browse through tons and tons of pages just to get bits and pieces on installing it properly, which sadly is useless when you really have no clue how to piece the process together.

 

At this point, I plan to create a more user-friendly tutorial soon in the future for the Leopard install process on a real Mac. Hopefully, it will help aid other users in the future, experiencing the same 'communication barriers' as I experienced with the usual tuts. I wanted to wait until I had Tiger figured out first though before I moved on to created a nice tut for them both and their key install differences.

 

One down, one to go. As usual, any assistance is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[gygabyte666]

Ok, thanks a lot STLVNUB, I will certainly be testing that out. Using that to speed up the boot process and basically completely remove the 'user-errors' out of the Live operation will be very helpful and more productive for both users and the system itself. Nice 'trick' btw

 

Sadly, I haven't had much more luck with Tiger. Tried a few more different things with the ideas I had floating in my head at the time. It just simply doesn't work the same way and I don't even know who I would contact to try to figure out more info about it. The only person I can think of is Modbin. He is probably the only person with useful and more accurate knowledge on creating and installing a Tiger Live disc. The only bad thing I have noticed with him is his brain seems to think faster than his hands can type, resulting in poor tutorials/instructions usually. I will hunt down some of the files he used during his Tiger Live tests. If I can't find them or they don't work well, I will try to PM him. Hopefully luck will be on my side for this one. Without the ease of Leopard Live's method, Tiger looks to be one big pain in the .

 

As crappy as it is, if he doesn't answer I am going to have to put the Tiger Live DVD on postpone. That is, unless someone else comes forward with more knowledge on the subject. I have tried so many different things for it my brain hurts so I am now going to consider this to be 'out of my hands'. If I can't get in contact with someone with more info, this plan is dead.

 

At the least, Leopard works great! Several 'bugs' in it but nothing too severe. Certainly not anything that most people couldn't live without. This will become a great testing tool in the future, even better for system recovery! I can't thank you enough STLVNUB! You have been the only person willing to help me out in here and for that I am EXTREMELY grateful.

 

I will post my results of everything soon...

[spartango]

Sorry, Tiger will almost certainly not work with the method that I proposed for leo & SL.

The reason is pretty simple...the tiger kernel doesn't have the same imageboot system that sl and leo have.

See

http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu....22.5/bsd/kern/

 

vs

 

http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu...ern/imageboot.c

 

All the work in leo is based on that file. That said...modbin has an older method to get tiger to liveboot, but imho its PITA compared to leo/sl. sorry

[Memorial]

I have yet to burn the Leopard Live to a disc because it is so huge (roughly 8GB)

 

I hope you know that you can cut the size down significantly to fit on a 4.7 GB disc if necessary (especially with SL). I am glad to hear you got it working, I've been meaning to make a Chameleon/EFI hybrid for a while for my machine and apple hardware, but got lazy about it.

[spartango]

One of the best ways to shrink your live.dmg is to use a compressed DMG. its not R/W, but once you have finalized your setup, the FS level compression is very effective. We've gotten live.dmg's down to 2.2GB without removing anything (even with backgrounds and apps and stuff)

Of course, you can use Monolingual to get the languages youre not using out, but you mentioned you wanted to use this with PPC so im guessing you dont want to take the PPC stuff out.

[gygabyte666]

Let me start by apologizing for replying to this so very late. I hate replying to such an old thread and reopening it like this (forgive me mods) but there is a reason for it. The truth is I spent somewhere close to a full 2 weeks doing nothing but working on this project. It basically consumed my life during that time and eventually I got completely burnt out and wanted nothing more to do with it. So I put the whole thing on the back burner until I could find time again to hopefully finish it.

 

That's exactly what I plan to do now. I've started everything up again and plan to make a live disc for Tiger (hopefully), Leopard and Snow Leopard. I would like to make a couple for Lion and Mountain Lion too but I only have a 1st gen MacBook (x86 CPU ONLY) to do testing with so those will probably have to wait awhile. It isn't a big deal though considering the method to create live discs for Lion and ML should be EXTREMELY easy.

 

Anyway, I understand it likely doesn't mean a thing now since so much time has gone by, but I wanted to apologize for not replying to the thread and keeping it updated like I wanted to. I also want to thank everyone who helped me or tried offering up their advise for my project. I do very much appreciate it. Oh and of course, i'll keep the thread updated on any and all progress this time, assuming I don't catch hell from the mods for replying to this old thread. ;p

[gygabyte666]

I have a feeling this topic will be very active shortly

Heh, i'm getting there. I figure i'll be updating this very soon. Just as soon as I get another free day to jot down everything into something coherent and readable. Keep posted.