Daily Blogged

*Many thanks to John Demented for all his help and patience when trying to get me running Snow Leopard*

For 10.6.2 woes see Flackend’s comment

Snow Leopard, Apple’s next OS in their lineup after Leopard, was recently released. Thanks to the widespread hackintosh developmeant of Leopard, Snow Leopard can be installed on your PC just a few short days after it was released. Fortunately, this OS is quite easy to install (Much easier than Leopard) and, for the first time on the 1525, we will be booting a retail copy of OS X. This means certain devices, such as WiFi, will no longer be broken after updates, and their respective kexts will never have to be installed again.

We will be running Snow Leopard in either 64-bit or 32-bit (your choice). Ethernet works native and so does Quartz Extreme Support. And now, thanks to the 10.6.2 update, Quartz Extreme is supported in 64-bit. A couple things such as the Internal Microphone, HDMI, S-Video, and VGA Mirrored Display still aren’t working but, as seen with Leopard, fixes are released over time that remedy these issues. Snow Leopard isn’t perfect yet, but it’s getting pretty damn close. Just remember that you need a working Leopard install prior to installing Snow Leopard.

1. For installation, we need a .DMG of the install disc. You can learn how to make one from your Snow Leopard Install DVD here.

a) If you want to install Snow Leopard on your current MBR Disk then  “… simply download this (thanks to The Edge3000) and place it in /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages.” (Source: Infinitemac.com)

2. Launch Terminal from within Leopard and type

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

3. Now mount the Snow Leopard DMG from step 1

4. Then from the mounted DMG, go to System –> Installation –> Packages and double click on OSInstall.mpkg

5. The Snow leopard installer will now launch. If it gives you a message about your computer not being compatible just quit the installer and launch it again

6. Click continue through the License Agreement until you arrive at the install options. Then click “Change Install Location” and select the drive you want to install Snow Leopard on (It cannot be the drive/partition you’re currently booted to)

7. Now click on Customize and select which components you would like to install

8. Go ahead with the install and when it finishes, click Close but don’t restart yet. You now need to install some drivers to the partition so that it will boot

9. Download the drivers pack here and unzip it to your desktop

10. Open the unzipped folder and go to the Needed Kexts folder. Copy the 6 kexts from the folder to /System/Library/Extensions/ located in your Snow Leopard partition

11. Then open the Kexts folder again and mount Chameleon.dmg. Run Chameleon_v1012.pkg and install it to your Snow Leopard partition (Alternatively, you can skip both this step and step 12 and instead follow this guide for a much sexier and much newer Chameleon. These steps can also be skipped if you’re already using Chameleon 2 RC3 or later)

12. Launch Terminal and type the following. You must swap <<Snow Leopard Partition>> with the name of your partition. If the name contians more than one word then separate the words witha blackslash and a space. For example, if the name of my Snow Leopard partition was Snow Leopard then I would need to type it as cp /Volumes/Snow\ Alternative/boot /Volumes/Snow\ Leopard

sudo -s

cp /Volumes/Snow\ Alternative/boot /Volumes/<<Snow Leopard Partition>>

13. Copy the dsdt.aml from your Leopard partition to the root of your Snow Leopard partiiton

14. Go to the Extra folder in the root of your Snow Leopard partition and inside that folder, create a new Folder called Extensions. Then copy the kexts from “Extra Folder” to the new Extensions folder

15. Once again open up the unzipped folder on your Desktop and unzip VoodooPS2Controller-0.98-installer.pkg.zip. Then run the .pkg and check the Trackpad option when on the Installation Type step. Change the Install Location to your Snow Leopard partition and install

16. Now you can boot to your Snow Leopard partition. Boot with the -f arch=i386 flags and go through the process of setting up your User Account. When you get to your desktop, WiFi should already be working (if you have a Broadcom 1395 chipset)

17. Either download or launch Kext Helper on your Leopard partition. Copy VoodooBattery.kext and VoodooHDA.kext from your Kexts folder on your Leopard partition to your Desktop. Then kext helper the two kexts and reboot. Upon rebooting, Audio and Battery Meter should now be working

18. Download the trackpad preference pane here and then install it using the included instructions. This will allow you to change the speed of the trackpad/mouse pointer

19. Download the SD Card Fix (Thanks R), unzip the file, and kext helper VoodooSDHC.kext

20. Download the Hard Drive Icon Fix (Thanks WhY.SoOo.Serious), unzip the file, and copy AppleRTC.kext to your /Extra/Extensions/ folder. If this doesn’t work for you then you can try Kext Helpering the kext from Snow Leopard.

21. Mount your Snow Leopard Install DVD DMG and navigate to /System/Installation/Packages/. Then run BSD.pkg and install it to your Snow Leopard partition (while booted to your snow Leopard Partition). 9 times out of 10 you will get a Kernel Panic during the install process and be forced to restart. This is OK. I had to install BSD.pkg 8 times before it had one successful install. Eventually, the package will install without a KP; hit OK on the install screen and then restart. Boot back to Snow Leopard and you will notice two things: 1) The system will be much more stable and you should stop receiving those damn Kernel Panics and 2) you can now repair permission in Disk Utility without getting an error.

Drop a comment below about how your install went or any problems you are facing. You absolutely must follow steps 11 and 12 or you will most likely receive a Kernel Panic whenever you try to boot.

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