another insanelymac dissident - Help me help back the community!

[Gurruwiwi]

EDIT:

All of you with great knowledge, help me out and I will catalgue the answers a make a a great and full thread dedicated to "Snow Kitty OSx86 Install for Dummies" - sort of a diccionary of concepts to help end honourable) noob spam

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Hi all...

I changed my nickname so as not to create unnecessary conflict.

Briefly, I really need some help - again - but what I do upon success in installing is, instead dissapearing into oblivion, I come back to help other achieve their goals. I love to throw out everything I know.

I do use the search - I have successfully installed 10.4.8, 10.4.9, 10.5.2 and 10.5.6

Plus I have ZERO terminal/linux skills. I have limited "hard core" knowledge. And yet I did manage to figure out how to accomplish it. Identify the need, find the solution and copy/paste! :)

Now I am in for the Snow Kitty

Snow Leo and the new stuff is really making my head go round in frustration. I am ready to start again with my new laptop, no dual booting, simply dedicated to have the most stable and perfect OS I can.

Please help me, and I for sure will contribute back with guides and tutorials, .dmg images of my install for similar spec'ed users - as I have always done before.

DOUBTS;

Boot 132 vs PC Efi 9 (or the new netkas v10 that says emulating 64bit pages ?!?!?!)... what is the difference? What is best of the best, hassle free, easiest...? Why choose one or the other?

dsdt.aml patching ? I cannot find any info on what the heck, where, when , why, how to do it etc... who needs this and who doesnt?

I've read that Snow Leo resets CMOS and BIOS on every boot on some systems ? isn't this kind of dangerous ? How do I know if I am affected? Any solutions?

modify smbios.kext ? When? who? why? what is it? aaarg!

Please advise me on how to proceed. Here are my specs

Acer 6935g laptop
P8400 C2D @ 2,4 - 1066fsb - (ICH9 - Intel PM45)
Nvidia 9600m GT 512 Gddr3
Sata 320g Seagate 7,200rpm
Wireless Intel WiFi Link 5100/5300 (have a broadcom on another lappy I can swap)


thanks in advance!!

[pαuℓzurrr.]

Hi Gurruwiwi! & Welcome to the forum! ;)

Since you already got some knwoledge about installing osx, there is a guide for Snow Leopard, which will help you to get started, it can be found here:
http://www.infinitemac.com/f57/how-to-install-snow-leopard-on-a-pc-t3137/

I don't know much about DSDT, since i don't need it...
But you may need to, if you're facing problems with the booting of osx :)
(If someone else knows what it is and how it works, could they post it here? :))

And yes Snow Leopard reset the CMOS, the problem i have is that it resets my default booting device...
This is different for everybody i think.

As for the laptop, i think it will run Snow Leopard pretty good ;)

[Gurruwiwi]

thanks for the reply :)

I know my spec's are really good, thats not why I posted them. I wanted to be clear I was not on AMD, or had a weird video card... That the reason many people have to twiddle about their install.

For instance, netkas released PC Efi 10 based on Chameleon... I thought these two were two completely different methods, first for retail and apple direct upgradeable, the second for multibooting purposes... And with this version 10 it does not load without a dsdt.aml file present... But how do I know if I need it not? How did you find that out?

[Gurruwiwi]

Oh, also, what are the consequences of the constant CMOS reset? Is there a fix? Wasnt this install method upposed to be better than the Leo distro? Never had an issue with them!

[Gurruwiwi]

Sorry to be posting without waiting for answers, I'm not "up'ing" the thread or anything, its just this could be a great thread to get some "fear of the unknown" out of the way and help people decide what best suits them!

I found this thread regarding 10.5.5 stuff, with many straight forward answers. But not all.

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=109102

For instance;

__________________________________________________ ___

DSMOS Script Fix:
This option will change the "1" script to read from DSMOS, therefore you can restart safely without worrying about it. This option also fixes all driver permissions.


some of you may have bad bios issue--where it stops booting after saying some buffer message... like in dDub's case, in this case, you may need to use your old acpi driver, which is saved in /backups folder before the update started which is done by the prepare update package option, also make sure check this web site for possible bios mods/request mods... (http://osrom.net/biosmod/)

__________________________________________________ ___


The explanation is good, but , in the first line ".. without worrying about it ..."

What is it ? Makes the rest a bit confusing.

[Voyn1x]

I don't know much about DSDT, since i don't need it...
But you may need to, if you're facing problems with the booting of osx :)
(If someone else knows what it is and how it works, could they post it here? :))

DSDT (Differentiated System Description Table) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface#Firmwar e_Interface) contains configuration information about the base system such as the processor, audio, lan, power management etc.

A dsdt.aml is a dump of the systems DSDT which you can patch and modifiy accordingly. You can patch it to inject certain information into the system on boot. For instance I use it to insert information about my onboard ALC883 audio which allows me to use the vanilla AppleHDA without the use of HDAEnabler. I've also cured the common UUID 35 console errors and fixed Time Machine using this method.


For instance, netkas released PC Efi 10 based on Chameleon... I thought these two were two completely different methods, first for retail and apple direct upgradeable, the second for multibooting purposes...

They both share the same codebase and perform the same function ie. boot OS X. For the average user, PC_EFI_v10 is just Chameleon 2.0 but with Snow Leopard support.

And with this version 10 it does not load without a dsdt.aml file present... But how do I know if I need it not? How did you find that out?

I think you answered yourself there... :rolleyes:

Oh, also, what are the consequences of the constant CMOS reset? Is there a fix? Wasnt this install method upposed to be better than the Leo distro? Never had an issue with them!

I haven't tried the new v10 bootloader yet so i can't answer that, lets hope so! I don't know of any fix to date, i've got a dual bios on my board so I can just restore from that but it's certainly not ideal. This way is better, distro's are the old way of doing things. Retail installs are the future, you can't argue against the ability to use software update (and be legal)! :D

[pαuℓzurrr.]

Thanks for posting that Voyn1x ;)
I think i might take a second look at DSDT, might be able to tune some things on my system...

[DocShadow]

I've done a few installs of SL, both 380 and now 394 and I did not need the DSDT.aml file.

I'm currently tweaking SL 394 ... still have no sleep/shutdown ... in fact it hangs if I try a manual sleep.

I have not tried PC_EFI_v10 Chameleon 2.0 as I have not been able to install it manually. I've extracted the pkgs but I'm a little hesitant about installing Chameleon 2 as it does not boot with the old r431 version I have installed on another drive.

[Gurruwiwi]

Ok... I now know what DSDT is... but still confused.

DSDT is to "inject" kext on each boot, thus leaving the retail install untouched...

If you need DSDT to be able to boot, how do I know what kexts I need before I actually manage to instal SL ?

And if it boots, I dont need DSDT ?

Lets say I can boot, but no audio, video etc... how can I test kexts without hacking the retail install ?

And finally, wasn't Boot 132 supposed to be the best method, apple updateable etc ?

[Gurruwiwi]

Ok...

So I finally got my hands dirty and installed Snow on my laptop.

Followed the instructions in this forum, line by line, dint't work. KP here and there.

I tried PC EFI 9 and 10.

Nothing worked. I tried booting with multiple flags, until finally, out of the blue I managed to get into Snow.

The absolute first thing I did was to run the DSDT Patcher GUI. This is because I patched from another hachintosh that is a Core Duo and my new laptop is Core 2 Duo. So to better the compatibility, I ran the patcher from within Snow.

Kernel Panic in verbose! No kernel panic with -v -f

Without -f I get ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin error and boot stalls.
With -f (or after I deleted it by accident) - it says "timed out" and boot ok !

With -f, I am able to boot but the system is slow and laggy. Rams are 667 not 1066. Shut down does not go all the way, displaying

CPU Halt

Waiting for AppleUSBUIHC (or something really similar)

Upon messing about, I removed the dsdt.aml from the root and bingo, boots up fine with -f flag and system shuts down ok and ram speeds are ok. Dont know if it will boot without -f because I deleted ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin.kext and thought I had backed it up when I didnt. So nomal boot will hang when it is supposed to load. Anyone mind posting it for me please? Should be in S/L/E

Whats up with this? Why is the DSDT Patcher making my system slower, non shutdown etc...?

Also, quick question too... I have a Nvidia 9600m GT, shouldnt Snow pick up? Do I need kexts for it?

[DocShadow]

Don't have ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin.kext in either of my SL builds.

Running a dsdt.aml on one but not the other and have not notice a difference in the two builds.

I have shutdown on one build but not sleep on both. I think it goes to sleep by itself but the fans stay on :confused: If I try a force sleep through the menu or by using the power button it goes to sleep (fans running) but I can't wake it up.

For your 9600 GT have you tried NVdarwin?

[Gurruwiwi]

No I haven't as I am still unsure about a couple fo things...

First, I am ONLY able to boot using -f flag (PC EFI 9), otherwise, although no KP, boot just hangs. What is -f flag ? What does this symptom suggest to you?

about DSDT.. what should be happening ?

I only notice two thing with DSDT, my ram speed read correct in "about my Mac" and that final boot stages is much quicker. But still, without -f flag on boot ot behaves the same.

Isnt DSDT supposed to tell Snow I've got x,y,z hardware ? and having the same HW as Apple, should my GFX card show up correctly... With or without DSDT, it finds I've got an Nvidia card, but no QE/CI info at all (not present ?!) , says it has 32mb ram, etc...

I mean, when I am finally starting to undertand DSTS, I'm blown back.

I cannot make Chameleon 2 see my DSDT in Extra folder (nor SL root drive) - I "know" because my ram go back to reading 667mhz instead of 1066... Plus, Chaneleon 2 only boot with -v -x32 -f ... without -x32 or -f it will not boot.

How come Chameleon 2 only boot with 32bit and PC EFI 9 ok with 64 !?

This cat is one serious feline to tame! :P