[GUIDE] Snow Leopard on HP ProLiant Microserver N36L (AMD)

[Edhawk]

tk007b,

 

I have just commenced a new installation so I can confirm the steps I took when first installing Mavericks on a Microserver.  This is a N36L with a single HD (original HP drive) ATI HD 6450 2GB, 4GB Ram, TP Link WN 4800 Wifi card in other slot, wired keyboard and mouse, bluetooth usb dongle, connected via DVI to Dell 24 inch monitor and usb speaker.

 

To get to the language choice screen & Utilities option from the Niresh distro (I still have 10.9.0 on a usb thumb drive) and commence the os x installer the only boot flag I needed was 'AMD'.  The installation starts normally, but I found it looks like it has stalled, with the usual circling dots frozen, but it hasn't this stage takes about 2 minutes to complete, so don't restart the machine.  The installation is still happening, as can be seen by the ability to move the mouse pointer during this time.

 

The plist and other boot flags were required to get the installation to boot from the HD once the initial installation process had been completed.

 

Having selected the language and formatted the HD, the next screen allows you to confirm the partition to install Mavericks on, it also allows you to check the default installation options (button in bottom left hand corner of screen) before you commence the installation.  Selecting install does what is says.  The time remaining is not accurate, the screen starts with a time of 27 minutes, it will probably take between 40 & 50 minutes to complete the installation.

 

I'll update this post as the installation progresses.

[tk007b]

Thanks Edhawk,

 

I'm stripping more and more out of my machine as I get more desperate, as I just can't get past 5 seconds of the install before it re-boots.

 

Currently, I am taking pictures (as quickly as my camera will allow) of the screen so I can see where is crashes.

 

The last lines are :-

 

Legacy USB off

and

EHCI Controller (I think it's) [1002 - 4396] as my pic is blurry on the last line

 

can't figure out why I just cannot get past the first hurdle ?!

 

Thanks for taking the time

 

TK 

 

** Update **

Stripped everything out with the exception of my 8GB of RAM, Video Card & Nic (inc all disks at one point)

Changed:-

1. monitors

2. usb sticks

3. removed KVM completely

 

Thoughts going forward :-

 

1. Check Bios to see if anything is non standard

2. Find out if Mavericks-Restore Package for Mac failing is relevant

3. Buy another microserver !!!

 

This is killing me !! 

[Edhawk]

TK,

 

I'm now at the same point as you with the rapid reboot issue. I am going to play with this some more tomorrow evening and will let you know how I got on, I'll have a look back at my previous installation notes, which should confirm which boot flags are required.

 

Ed

[tk007b]

Thanks Ed,

 

Fingers crossed you'll be able to give me something to work with

 

Speak tomorrow :-)

 

Cheers

 

TK

[Edhawk]

TK,

 

OK I've got my Microserver up and running with the Niresh Distro.  But I feel like I have cheated!  I looked up my notes from my previous install and the main thing I noticed was that I had wrote about using a different kernel to get the Microserver to boot correctly.

 

I still have my snow leopard installation on a separate HD, which I dropped in the Microserver and booted up.  I then copied a new AMD kernel from my USB thumb drive on to the Mavericks HD, as the kernel installed by the distro keeps causing a KP.  As I write Microserver has booted into Mavericks and the Niresh installation is running through the post installation routine.

 

I believe the AMD kernel I have used is the BSA Kernel v9 that was created by Bronya AVN Sinetek, and is available from the download section on this site.  This kernel is a better fit for the Microserver and Mavericks.

 

Once I dropped the AMD kernel on the mavericks HD I rebooted with the following boot flags: AMD_kernel -v -x.  This stopped the never ending reboots and eventually took me to the Apple install, country, language and Account setup etc.

 

OK so I have it up and running and now comes the tweaking part, getting the graphics card, Ethernet and other parts up and running with the kexts I collected previously.

[tk007b]

Great - thanks Ed,

 

I did wonder how close I was to getting it right myself but wouldn't have worked that out in a zillion years

 

I do wonder if Janitor & Splonk had similar issues and how they worked around it.

 

ok ... will try to emulate what you did, but at least I've got a hot lead to work on :-)

 

Cheers

 

TK (will edit this post and let you know)

 

** How do you install the BSA Kernel v9 onto the mavericks install HD (or USB)

 

Downloaded the mach_kernel and the system.kext but don't know what to do with them **

 

I've now copied the mach_kernel to the root folder of my Install Distro (Usb Stick) after renaming the existing to mach_kernel_old

From terminal (from the USB Stick root directory) I then did:-

1. sudo chown root:wheel mach_kernel*

2. sudo chmod 664 mach_kernel*

3. I then reboot with my Chameleon boot loading CD and chose the USB stick with the AMD_kernel -v -x parameters but it didn't find the AMD_kernel

 

Still unsure what to do with the system.kext as there is no S/L/E folder on the USB Stick

 

ta 

[Edhawk]

TK,

 

The cheat I was talking about was booting in to my previous Snow leopard installation disk, downloading the new BSA kernel and copying it to the mavericks hd, which I had left in the Microserver. Having first renamed it 'AMD_kernel' so I didn't have any issues with the existing Mach_kernel.

 

I could then add the bootflag 'AMD_kernel' during the boot from the Niresh USB drive to select the preferred kernel, along with -v & -x. This got me to the Apple installer. Once I got it to boot I used Chameleon wizard to add this to the chameleon plist so I don't have to keep typing this for every boot.

 

Stripping your machine isn't necessarily the answer, I found that it will boot with all of my accessories attached, some working oob others requiring additional kexts, the main issues being the kexts for to get the Graphics and Ethernet working, which I sorted the last time I went through this process.

[tk007b]

Hi Ed,

 

I think I got most of this right:-

 

1. I too have a SL 'working' partition on another drive on my N36L, so I booted into that (lets say disk 2 for arguments sake)

2. Then downloaded the BSA Kernel v9 you told me to which contained two files the mach_kernel and the System.kext files

3. I copied the Distro to a spare partition of my freshly formatted system drive (lets say disk 1 partition 2)

4. I then installed the Chameleon pkg onto Disk 1, so that it would load the boot loader without any of the other disks active (inc CD or USB stick)

5. Now I renamed the original mach_kernel and copied the one from the BSA Kernel folder to the same root folder and repair the permissons and ownership

6. I did the same for the system.text, although I'm not sure what I'm actually supposed to do with that (if anything at all)

7. As you renamed your mach_kernel file to AMD_kernel, I will rename my new mach_kernel to AMD_kernel 

8. and also rename my mach_kernel_old back to mach_kernel

9. This should have reverted everything and then I will try to boot again .. will update this shortly

 

Cheers

 

TK

 

Arrgghh !! did this and ...

 

it picked up the AMD_kernel parameter but still crashed shortly afterwards !

 

I've got 8GB of RAM and tried it again with the maxmem=4098  parameter added, so it read like this 

AMD_kernel -v -x maxmem=4098

 

@#!~ !!!!!!!

 

H E L P !

[Edhawk]

TK,

 

I'm away from my machine (on an iPad) and won't have access to my Microserver till tomorrow. I will post (attach) the alternative kernel I used when I have a chance tomorrow.

 

If you have access to your SL drive and your new Niresh Mavericks drive on the same machine this should be an easy copy send paste.

 

To be honest I had a bit of a day and replied to you previous post while relaxing in a pub, and I'm not sure I explained my actions correctly in my earlier post.

 

Ed

[tk007b]

Thanks Ed,

 

I thought you saw the light and gave up on me ;-)

 

Hope tomorrow is better :-)

 

At least I've learned a bit today and am now, download and trying different AMD kernels for fun.

 

Right now I will completely refresh my install file on Disk 1 Partition 2, so that it's nice and clean for tomorrow, as I think the chown and chmod commands may have not helped ?

 

Thanks again mate, I really do appreciate the effort

 

Cheers

 

TK :-)

[Edhawk]

TK,

 

I sent you a message if you respond I will forward the AMD_kernel, as I can't attach that type of file to this post.

 

I have attached a copy of my chameleon boot plist as this contains a number of boot flags that are required to get the Microserver to boot without any additional input.  You may want to remove the graphics and instant menu flags.

 

Ed

org.chameleon.Boot copy.txt

[tk007b]

Hi Ed,

 

Something very weird has just happened.

 

As mentioned I formatted the setup/image file that I have been tinkering with (on disk 1 partition 2) and reload it from Niresh's DMG. Can't say for sure what I used last time but I used Disk Utility this time and left it for today.

 

Anyhow, Janitor had been in touch and suggested that I should give it a go but with the 4096 instead of the 4098 to see if that made a difference. However, this time, when I booted into the partition I saw a white text based bootloader as apposed to the normal black screen with the Green Chameleon at the top that I usually get. 

 

I was SO excited I forgot about the 4096, I even forgot to load the AMD_kernel. Instead I used the AMD -v -x maxmem=4098 and hit enter 

 

.. long story short, I am now 13mins away from completing my installation.

 

One of the things I did before (that I didn't do this time) was to run the Chameleon 2.1 pkg file from my snow leopard partition and installed it into my setup Disk 1 Partition2 partition. Maybe this inadvertently screwed it up before, even though I thought I was supposed to do it.

 

Quick sanity check for anyone trying this, if you get the graphical (Green) Chameleon bootloader picture show up it may not work, but if you get the white text on a black screen text version of the bootloader then it probabaly will. At least that's my experience.

 

Do you remember which one you saw ??? when first choosing your installer file location ?

 

Cheers

 

TK (still in shock after spending at least 15+ hours trying to get it to work)

 

... mind you the installation hasn't finished yet, but at least I have made a big step forward 

 

Thanks very much indeed ! :-D

 

PS - still need to make sure all is well, so please do send me that other kernel file, just in case

[Edhawk]

I too had the non GUI white text list when using the usb thumb drive, but this changed to the red/white Niresh theme for Chameleon once I booted direct from the hard drive.

 

Sorry I didn't notice the memory size issue, glad Janitor was able to help.

 

I have sent you a copy of the kernel I am using.  Hopefully things will work out with this installation I would take the 13 minutes remaining with big pinch of salt, it is more likely to be closer to 30-40 minutes on the N36L

 

Ed

[tk007b]

You were not wrong about that,

 

I have never seen so many about a minute, less than a minute, about a minute, less than a minute messages in all of my life !

 

Got the white niresh bootloader but it's crashing, so will copy your kernel across and use the details in your plist to see if I can finally crack this 

 

Something tells me I still have a bit further to walk on this path !

 

;-)

[tk007b]

Ummmm, 

 

It ummmm  ...... kind of works !

 

In a daze .. Thanks SO much Ed Hawk ... legend status achieved

 

I used the AMD_kernel and your plist file and all is well 

 

.. well except the screen resolution which is a bit wonkey when in Safari but ok apart from that.

 

What I can't understand is that when I booted up my Snow Leopard image, I had to use the monitor I installed it on (remember I changed it recently to rule out other issues)

Will need to find out how to change monitors without the screen going blank .. but I might go and lay down for a bit as I feel a bit odd  

 

               

 

TK

[Edhawk]

We always have a bit of a convoluted journey with any hack!  The AMD Microserver requiring just a bit more patience and time than most other hack's.

 

I've just updated my installation to 10.9.4 with the AppStore download and I'm in the process of reverting to the previous versions of Sandbox and System kext, as otherwise you get a KP after the combo update has run its course.

 

Next will be getting my ATI graphics card working, at the moment the edited kexts I installed aren't loading.

 

Pleased to hear you have your Microserver up and running with Mavericks!  

 

Getting your graphics sorted will deal with the resolution issues, after rebooting in to my updated Mavericks HD my graphics card is now being recognised and using the full 1024MB of memory. If you look at the About this Mac screen it will probably show your machine is only using 5-7mb of memory for graphics!  This is why the resolution is off and the screen jumping about in safari.

[tk007b]

Cheers

 

Will play about after I've made my first backup .. time to roll out CCC (my fav)

 

I think I might have to install the ATI kext(s) I did when using SL to get my Graphics card to work

 

Incidentally, I'm running on 8GB RAM quite happily !

 

:-)

Not trying to run before I can walk but where are the locations of and how do you replace the old system.kext and sandbox.kext after running the 10.9.4 update ?

 

Just wanted to ask before I forgot :-)

 

Cheers

 

TK

[Edhawk]

TK,

 

The Sandbox & System kexts should be installed with Kext Wizard of a similar tool to System/Library/Extensions (S/L/E) (backup any files that these replace).  You need to install the original files from 10.9.0 or 1, as the later kexts don't work with our kernel as Apple has changed the later versions of these two kexts so they give you a repeating error, which won't be fixed unless these older kexts are installed.

 

FYI the ATI kexts are now 'AMD' kexts.  You will need to update and add the Vendor/Device ID for your specific graphics card to either AMD5000Controller.kext or AMD6000Controller.kext, which kext you need to update will depend on the specific graphics card you are using, plus the you will need to confirm that your vendor/device ID are included in the AMDRadeonx3000.kext.

 

In my case I have a Radeon HD 6450 which has the following vendor/device ID -0x67791002, I added this to the AMDRadeonx3000.kext (info.plist) under the <key>AMDCaicosGraphicsAccelerator</key> (as this is the family for my card).  I also added this Vendor/Device ID to AMD6000Controller.Kext (info.plist), under the <key>IOPCIMatch</key> string section.

 

If you had your card working under Snow Leopard I am assuming you know your card's vendor/device id.  If not use MaciASL (which can be downloaded at http://maciasl.sourceforge.net ) this will help you find your card's ID.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Ed

[tk007b]

Thanks Ed,

 

Just my luck when I think I'm making progress, things get complicated.

 

I did a bit of searching and found a page that Niresh owned that told me to download 2 files (AMD5000Controller.kext and AMDRadeonX3000.kext) for the 0x68f9 whic is my ATI/Radeon 5450 512mb Graphics card.

 

It also told me to amend the Chameleon plist file in the Extra folder to add the following:-

<key>AtiConfig</key>
<string>Eulemur</string>
<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>

 

Then copy the two files in the S/L/E folder and then using Kext Wizard, I should repair permissions on the S/L/E folder

 

Did all of this, re-booted but it made no difference

 

Tried it again but this time I used Kext Utility to install the two kext files, repair and reboot again (I also took out the lines from your plist file that stated the screen resolution required

 

Reboot and still no joy, I still have a 3mb graphics card according to my OS

 

Any ideas why ?, I was so confident that it was gonna work this time :-(

 

Might re-download the files from another site and re-try but as far as I can tell, that SHOUD have worked.

 

Any ideas oh great one ?

 

Cheers

 

TK 

[splonk]

Try adding another string

 

<key>AtiPorts</key>
<string>3</string>

 

If your card has VGA, HDMI and DVI ports.  Eulemur is the correct string for the HD5450 512MB card. Other variants might do better with other framebuffers.

[tk007b]

Thanks Splonk,

 

My machine now recognises the video card :-)

 

but .. 

 

I still can't change the resolution (I can the refresh rate only) and the graphics are still jerky/flickery

 

Here's a copy of my Chameleon boot plist file but I will have another bash at this tomorrow

 

Cheers

 

TK

 

<key>Timeout</key>

        <string>3</string>

<key>Default Partition</key>

<string>hd(0,1)</string>

<key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>

<string>Yes</string>

<key>AtiPorts</key>

<string>3</string>

<key>Graphics Mode</key>

<string>"1920x1080x32"</string>

<key>AtiConfig</key>

<string>Eulemur</string>

<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>

<string>Yes</string>

<key>InstantMenu</key>

<string>Yes</string>

<key>Kernel</key>

<string>AMD_kernel</string>

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string>-f npci=0x2000</string>

<key>PciRoot</key>

<string>1</string>

 

 

restored from basic copy and copied the two modified AMD5000 and ATIX3000 kexts files, put the latest (above) Org.Chameleon plist into the Extra Folder, repaired the permissons in the S/L/E folder using Kext utility, rebooted and it still didn't work ! :-(

 

So I did the following:-

 

1. Restored the original AMD5000 and ATIX3000 kext files into S/L/E then selected "show package contents" and manually edited the info.plist file to add 0x68f9 (after the IOPCIMatch bit of the AMD5000 kext and after the Cedar bit of the ATIX300 - replacing the previous value)

 

2. Moved the <key>AtiPorts</key> <string>3</string>

key so that it was below the <key>AtiConfig</key> <string>Eulemur</string> key (not sure this achieved anything

 

3. Repaired the S/L/E folders from Kext wizard and re-booted when completed.

 

Low and behold it worked. Also, when I checked, I had a 1024mb of Video RAM (as I previously thought it was 512mb) :-)

 

The only thing that doesn't work is that I cannot manually change the resolution to anything other than the resolution in my plist file. However, will try removing it from the plist, rebooting and seeing what happens. 

 

Now taking backups as I've finally got a stable base platform to work from  - Thanks Ed, Splonk & Janitor

         

 

** Was all going too well today -  when I tried to backup using CCC it complains about a com.apple.documentationVersions plist file 

should I be concerned ?, can I just delete it and copy it from an earlier backup or will it re-create ?? ***

 

Cheers

 

TK   

 

Deleted the plist files in the com.apple.documentationVersions (in the 1 and 2 subfolders) and the backups run error free. 

Apparently, they are meant to keep versions of documents. Will read up/ experiment to see if they re-create !

Hope I haven't done anything serious !!

[Edhawk]

TK,

 

Pleased to see you now have the last few graphics card & backup issues sorted, hope the deletion of the plist file didn't cause you any subsequent problems.

 

With regards the resolution change, look under Preferences/Displays and check 'Scaled' this should give you a list of resolutions your display and graphics card support in OSX, you can then select the resolution you require.  I think by default OSX selects the 'Best for display' option for your screen (as it sees things).  The Chameleon 'graphics mode' settings wouldn't restrict your ability to change the screen resolution, it just sets the resolution of the display when booting in to Chameleon.  If you are getting 1920 x 1080 resolution as standard and your screen can support higher, it may be that the graphics card can't support the higher resolution.

 

Also looking at your Chameleon plist settings you seem to have both the 'instant menu' and 'timeout' options set.  Out of curiosity which takes precedence?  I would recommend that you delete the 'timeout' settings if you have the machine set to dual boot or the 'instant menu' option if you are just booting in to OSX and everything is stable.  You might want to look at using Chameleon Wizard when changing your plist, as when you save the file it will order the plist in a more logical way and it might show if you have any duplicates and/or clashes.  It is also a good tool for fleshing out or revising/changing your SMBios.plist settings.

 

Cheers,

 

Ed

[tk007b]

Hi Ed,

 

When I boot normally, I get the bootmenu (set to my disk/partition of choice) with a few secs to de-select it. Thne I get to choose from any of the others or add boot flags.

 

Have I answered your question correctly ? - not sure if I have but that's what I get.

 

In the case of Mavericks, I got the Niresh boot menu instead of the chameleon one, but every since booting back to SL the Niresh bootloader has stopped working and I have to use his install image (USB) to get it to load into Mavericks successfully (as it refuses to load, if I select the Mavericks image from the Chameleon boot loader).

 

Cheers

 

Tahir

[Edhawk]

Tahir,

 

I would delete the 'Timeout' section from your Chameleon Plist, so you just have the instant menu screen, this will only save a few seconds each time you boot, but every thing helps.

 

It also sounds like your Mavericks Bootloader has been corrupted by the SL Bootloader.  When you next boot in to Mavericks download and install the latest version of Chameleon from the download section on this site, run your preferred method for fixing permissions and see if that fixes the problem of having to use the USB installer.  The latest version of Chameleon should work with both Snow Leopard and Mavericks, the older Snow Leopard version of chameleon probably won't work with Mavericks.

 

Cheers

 

Ed

[tk007b]

Not exactly sure why but i've been getting EBIOS read error: Media Error - messages when I boot my machine ... 

 

I have identified the disk that's causing the problem. However, I cannot get the bootloader to load so that I can boot from another disk and sort it 

 

Will find my SL install disk and see if I can get to Disk Utility from there and sort it out.

 

Once I have, I will boot off another disk, backup the data (I have a recent copy so it's not the end of the world) and then re-format it.

 

The fun never stops !

 

**Update ** in the end I booted from my SL disk and tried to repair the disk about 20 times, until I was able to copy files off and re-format it.

 

On to the next issue ...