Hi all,
I've managed to install SnowOSX distribution on my X61 (7676-3PM). The machine is stock with an
Atheros AR5BXB72 bought from eBay and using AHCI for SATA. The wifi card doesn't work without a quick additional step. See the bottom of this post for that.
The only thing that's not working at the moment is the LCD brightness. Will update this post once I'm done.
I used most of the instructions from the first post in this thread. Only issues I hit were the bootloader wouldn't work. Here are my amendments to the instructions above:
Before installation:
- Copy the X61 pack to a USB stick. I've used TransMac trial version to format the USB stick in HFS+ and then dragged the files over from a folder on Windows. Delete the DSDT folder.
- Download the ZIP attachment below and extract it to a Windows folder then copy the content over to the USB stick using TransMac.
- Download Chameleon bootloader RC4 and extract it to a Windows folder then copy over to the USB stick using TransMac. Make sure you copy the snow leopard version over to a new folder on the USB stick.
- Optionally download the 64-bit kexts I've listed below as they are what I've used. I've installed those AFTER I updated to 10.6.2 so I'm not sure they'll work in SnowOSX 10.6.0.
After installation and before the first restart:
- Insert your USB stick and do all the kext deletes/replacements etc in the first post. Delete dsmos.kext and AppleHDA.kext from /System/Library/Extensions and install to the same place fakesmc 2.5 from the USB stick. No need to delete AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement and AppleIntelCPUPowerManagementClient kexts because SnowOSX has NullCPUPowerManagement, which disables those modules. Copy the DSDT.aml file from the USB stick to your filesystem root (/Volumes/<volume name>). Use the kexts in my zip instead of the ones in the X61 pack as my zip has newer versions. If they don't work in 10.6.0 use the ones in the X61 pack instead.
- Follow instructions on How to install Chameleon manually to replace the broken bootloader with the new one.
- Run the following command in Terminal:
diskutil repairPermissions /Volumes/<volume name>/System/Library/Extensions
Where <volume name> is the name of the volume you installed Snow Leopard to. Make sure you use double quotes around it if i you have a space in the volume name. Use ls -d /Volumes to see what the available volumes are.
- Restart
When you see the first boot screen from Chameleon press any key then type:
-f arch=i386
This flushes the kernel extension caches in OS X. After booting you can add the kernel flag arch=i386 to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist so you don't have to type it anymore.
It is possible to update your system to 10.6.2, 10.6.3 or 10.6.4. 10.6.2 introduced 64-bit drivers for the X3100 display adapter but
sleep is currently broken in 64-bit mode (Haven't tested it since 10.6.2). It works in 32-bit mode.
There are 64-bit drivers available for all the hardware on the X61. All of them are working except for the X3100 FB driver. I've installed 64bit drivers for the following:
If anyone figures out the sleep issue on 64-bit kernel please
post about it.
NOTE: I may have accidentally skipped some stuff above. E.g you may have a problem booting either 32-bit or 64-bit because of kexts like IOPCIFamily or IOATAFamily. I've replaced both of those on my X61 as I was getting kernel panics or bluetooth wasn't working. I didn't try 32-bit mode until after I had replaced them so I'm mentioning them in case the problems exist in 32-bit mode.
(UPDATE) Since 10.6.3 (could be earlier) I now have vanilla IOPCIFamily, IOATAFamily and IO80211Family kexts working though the latter (IO80211) might still not work in 64-bit mode though it's compiled for it.
Here are the links to the versions I was using:
- IOPCIFamily (Fixes kernel panic in AppleHPET when booting 64-bit kernel). The vanilla version works fine in 10.6.3 and later (32-bit).
- IOATAFamily. The vanilla version works fine in 10.6.3 and later (32-bit).
Atheros AR5BXB72 (AR5418): Install the AtherosFix kext and it'll work in 32-bit mode. Install a
64-bit IO80211Family kext and it'll work in 64-bit mode as well. NOTE: If you don't have the same adapter as I do you'll need to add your adapter's PCI ID to the AtherosFix.kext/Contents/Info.plist file before it'll work. The AtherosFix kext makes your card look like a AR5416 card (Airport Extreme).
That about does it... Would love to hear if anyone manages to get their X61 working.
Don't download the kext bundle in this post. I've been updating it in later posts and you'll find the latest one at:
Latest sammys 10.6.2 kext bundle for X61
Latest sammys 10.6.3 kext bundle for X61
Latest sammys 10.6.4 kext bundle for X61