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


janitor
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Forget 10.6.7 and take it straight to 10.6.8 and use the appropriate legacy kernel for that. Kernel numbers differ from OSX version numbers, confusingly enough. For 10.6.8 you need legacy kernel 10.8.0.

 

As for launchpad, I can't be bothered with it. You can drag icons over each other to create folders just like on your iPhone, so I suggest collecting the useless icons into dump folders, so they are easier to ignore.

 

 

 

 

I took fewer steps to get mine to work for what it is worth. After installing 10.6.0 and getting the network up and running I ran the 10.6.8 combo update until it finished and then before restarting I added the injector kext to the /Extra/Extensions folder and only the ATI5000Controller.kext, the ATIFramebuffer.kext and the ATISupport.kext to the /S/L/E folder. The rest are surplus to requirements. Next I ran Kext Utility. Use only this to repair permissions and rebuild the caches. OSX86Tools is obsolete and should not be used. Next I installed the legacy kernel. Reboot without strings or use -v -f if you have problems to see what is going on.

 

Thanks, but when I try 10.6.8 Combo, It freezes during boot.

Will try again with a clean install, when I get a sec, and see what happens !

 

Hi tk007b,

 

I remember having a similar problem in the early stages of experimenting with numerous boot loaders and kexts.

Took me a while to figure out that pressing the power button would jolt the boot process back into life.

I also found that installing certain new kext files without repairing permissions would either kernel panic the machine, totally ruin my installation of give me the unusable graphics issues you described.

 

In all cases a fresh install from scratch sorted out all of those glitches.

I know it's a real rash, but it's probably time and effort well spent in the end. It's also all too easy to miss the tiniest step and end up in trouble :)

 

If all else fails, try another branch or release of Chameleon. I've heard that RC5 v747 has been known to be quite buggy for some users...

 

I'm currently experimenting with Kabyl's boot loader and few others at the moment. I've even begun looking into compiling a slightly tweaked version with ATI Radeon 5450 support. But i'll publish an update the moment i get some better results :)

 

Good luck, dude!

 

PS. I just had another thought, always be EXTRA sure that ATI kexts from Lion ACTUALLY installed! I had a number of issues and wasted MANY hours when i finally discovered that the kext installer utility i was using didn't copy them over in the end & i didn't notice that they were't in the S/L/E folder. Grrrrr!

 

Hi Janitor,

 

Thanks for your reply and words of encouragement.

 

Will take a deep breathe, start over from scratch and will let you know what happens.

 

Also pleased that the power button thing was not unique to me.

 

Thanks again

 

TK

 

Lastly .. Do you have a view on Combo 10.6.8 update ? .. is it worth me trying that too, or is it a no no ?

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Hi Janitor

 

Thanks for the heads up. I'll be hunting down 6450 then, will hopefully fit!!

 

I got frustrated today and ended up installing windows 2008 server because my usb hd wasn't working as a bootable with 10.6.7 loaded. Not sure what the problem is but it wouldn't boot with an error like, remove all disks. I didn't have a dual layer DVD for SL so ended up burning windows server, which worked!

 

Hopefully I can figure out what the problem is with the USB install method. So you know if I can install SL after Windows is loaded on the primary partition?

 

Soz for the newbie questions, bud!! :)

 

Cheers

Sunil

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This one looks like it might just fit, but you'll need to check that it ships with a low-profile bracket. I would assume that it does due to the detachable VGA cable.

 

Only thing that looks worrying is that it comes with the proviso that a 400W psu is required, which sounds like complete overkill to me.

 

However, if your Microserver is the one that ships with the 250GB drive, just be aware that the psu was downgraded from the the previous configuration with a 160GB hard drive and now only has a top rating of 150W. Not a lot of headroom if you are stressing everything to the max, but it should still be ok.

 

ATI 6450 fanless

 

sapphiore6450.jpg

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Thanks Splonk. I'll probably still go for it and make sure not to push the system too hard, in that case :)

 

Any idea if I can install SL after Windows, btw?

 

This one looks like it might just fit, but you'll need to check that it ships with a low-profile bracket. I would assume that it does due to the detachable VGA cable.

 

Only thing that looks worrying is that it comes with the proviso that a 400W psu is required, which sounds like complete overkill to me.

 

However, if your Microserver is the one that ships with the 250GB drive, just be aware that the psu was downgraded from the the previous configuration with a 160GB hard drive and now only has a top rating of 150W. Not a lot of headroom if you are stressing everything to the max, but it should still be ok.

 

ATI 6450 fanless

 

sapphiore6450.jpg

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Thanks Splonk. I'll probably still go for it and make sure not to push the system too hard, in that case :)

 

Any idea if I can install SL after Windows, btw?

 

Keep them on separate drives and it is a doddle, otherwise head off to the dual boot section of the forums.

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Hi Splonk,

 

Firstly thank you !!.

 

Updating straight to 10.6.8 did the trick. However, for others I will recap on what I did and mention the issues I have/had

 

** Please note: I am just re-presenting Janitor's and your (Splonk's) instructions (word for word in parts) so should not take any credit for this, but hopefully it can be used as a quick setup guide by others**

 

** Please note: Reboots contain the ' maxmem=2048 GraphicsEnabler=No -f ' commands until the plist file is installed **

 

1. Clean install of 10.6.7 with MOD USB onto fresh Mac Partition (as per instructions)

 

2. From [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] I got Kext Helper b7 + Kext Utility (which was under 'OSx86 Software' )

3. Installed both the modified IONetworkingFamily.kext and AppleBCM5751Ethernet.kext files using Kext Helper b7 (from [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url])

4. Reboot and it recognises the network adapter. However, as instructed, I set up the IP details manually as DHCP doesn't work.

 

5. I ran the 10.6.8 combo update until it finished and then before restarting I added the injector kext to the /Extra/Extensions folder and only the ATI5000Controller.kext, the ATIFramebuffer.kext and the ATISupport.kext to the /S/L/E folder.

6. I ran Kext Utility to repair permissions

7. I also installed legacy kernel 10.8.0/10.6.8 update from here .. http://blog.nawcom.com/?p=791

8. Finally, I copied the pre-edited com.apple.Boot.plist file to the Macintosh HD / Extra folder

 

Problems / Issues

 

1. As soon as I install the Kext helper and Kext Utility from [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] and reboot I have to press the power button mid way through boot up to jolt it backinto life as the startup hangs (not sure why running [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] has this effect on bootup)

2. As some point (I forget where now, it stopped recognising my usb keyboard, a reboot didn't sort it , but unplugging the usb lead, from the keyboard, and plugging back in did)

3. The same happened thing happened to my network connection, so unplugging and plugging the network cable back in sorted it for some strange reason.

4. Safari, misbehaves as do other programs, but locating them in finder, clicking on Get Info and changing to 32 bit mode helps, although I installed Firefox as my default browser and that works just fine.

5. Setting the machine to sleep, doesn't work properly it just attempts to and then wakes immediately, although this is not a big deal at all.

 

Lastly ..

I use a VERY VERY cheap usb audio dongle from ebay for sound and it works fine (plug and play)

 

Hope that's useful and BIG thank you to SPLONK and JANITOR for all of their help !

 

Cheers

 

TK :unsure:

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Hi Splonk,

 

Firstly thank you !!.

 

Updating straight to 10.6.8 did the trick. However, for others I will recap on what I did and mention the issues I have/had

 

** Please note: I am just re-presenting Janitor's and your (Splonk's) instructions (word for word in parts) so should not take any credit for this, but hopefully it can be used as a quick setup guide by others**

 

 

Cheers

 

TK :)

 

A tip before you go. Read the whole thread, not just one or two posts directed to you and you will solve a couple of problems.

 

Firstly, delete the BCM5751.kext from /S/L/E and rebuild the caches using Kext Utility. The BCM5751.kext is already in IONetworkingFamily.kext, so it gets loaded twice and this causes the DHCP problems.

 

Secondly, Kext Helper b7 and [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] do not always do a good job of installing kexts. Check that all the kexts are where they should be and check in System Profiler/Software/Extensions that they are getting loaded. Alternatively, type kextstat in a Terminal window and this will give you all the loaded kexts. Is IOUSBFamilyRollback.kext there? If any are missing, install them manually and rebuild caches.

 

I have no problems with booting, networking or anything on my rig except occasionally shutdown and sleep and for that we really need a DSDT.aml file but neither Janitor nor I can get one to compile at the moment.

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Hi Splonk,

 

Did try to read the whole post including all the threads, but to be honest didn't understand some of it and overlooked other bits.

 

Your last post, makes it clearer though (not sure if my understanding is getting better)

 

Apologies, if that did not come across.

 

Extremely grateful for all of the support and will continue to check and update progress (if I make any more)

 

For an absolute beginner the guide and support has been top drawer ! :P

 

Kind regards

 

TK

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Can I get a bit of help getting the DVD drive to work please.

 

I have followed the instructions to flash, using the original HP flash ROM

and then have followed with the hacked ROM

which all seems to work ok.

 

The part at which I get stuck at is what to do next.

 

I go into BIOS load optimal defaults, restart and go back into BIOS but cannot see anything to do with separating the eSATA port.

 

My bios versions shows up as 2.6.1

 

Many thanks

 

TK

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Can I get a bit of help getting the DVD drive to work please.

 

I have followed the instructions to flash, using the original HP flash ROM

and then have followed with the hacked ROM

which all seems to work ok.

 

The part at which I get stuck at is what to do next.

 

I go into BIOS load optimal defaults, restart and go back into BIOS but cannot see anything to do with separating the eSATA port.

 

My bios versions shows up as 2.6.1

 

Many thanks

 

TK

 

Hey, bro!

 

So sorry about that! I REALLY need to get around to updating that damn guide! Just had A LOT of family drama to sort out lately... Grrr!

 

Anyhoo, check out the following forum post, it's buried near the bottom where you'll see a bunch of pics of the BIOS setup screen and some of the changes after the hack is applied. The important bits are under the new Chipset options. The last 4 or so images in the batch will show you where to go and what option to disable.

 

http://www.avforums.com/forums/networking-...unraid-nas.html

 

It's quite literally just the one option you need to change: Set 'SATA IDE Combined Mode' to 'Disabled'.

 

Good luck & let me know how it works out for you :D

 

Cheers!

 

j.

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Hey Janitor,

 

Sorry to hear you've got family issues, I hope it's nothing too serious and that they get sorted out soon :D

 

Anyway, this might cheer you up ... Did you know if you take the word 'Janitor', change the letters around, take a few away and then add a few ... you get the word 'HERO' ? :D

 

I'm sorted !!! once again !! DVD Drive is rocking :D:D:D:D:D

 

Thanks

 

TK

 

PS - My next challenge is to find out why, (from Finder) when I browse to a shared folder on my mac mini (real) that I see the share/drive name but get a message saying 'The operation can’t be completed because the original item for “USB Drive” can’t be found' when I try to open it. I have given the folder read permission to everyone and can get to it from Windows or Linux. I guess the fun never stops ... cheers !!

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Having issues getting beyond part 2, step 1 - 'Insert USB and boot up'

 

After POST, all I get is a flashing cursor in the top left corner and the USB thumbdrive is not being accessed. Have tried this with 2 different thumbdrives and 2 different retail images (dmg).

 

Any tips? What could I be missing?

 

 

Thanks.

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Having issues getting beyond part 2, step 1 - 'Insert USB and boot up'

 

After POST, all I get is a flashing cursor in the top left corner and the USB thumbdrive is not being accessed. Have tried this with 2 different thumbdrives and 2 different retail images (dmg).

 

Any tips? What could I be missing?

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

Sounds like your computer can't find the bootable disk or partition you have just created...

 

Either:

 

a. There is another USB device (disk) being accessed before your USB Installer Disk. This has thrown me before when i've left a non-bootable USB flash drive plugged in after booting. Grrr!

 

or

 

b. Your computer is set to boot from the HDD (which probably has no bootable sector) BEFORE your USB Install Disk.

You should be able to change this in your BIOS (press F10 at boot) setup by setting 'USB Device Boot Priority' under the Boot menu to 'High'

 

Hope this helps . . .

 

j.

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Hope this helps . . .

 

Heaps, thanks :)

Made me realise a silly mistake of not relying on image burn/dumps on to USB to set the boot correctly. Re-partitioned, ensuing that the GUID boot was set, and then re-dumped the image to USB. Viola, and I'm away ...

 

Cheers.

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My 3 attempts over the weekend failed. Couldn't get to "PART 5: Post Install - Some Machine Specific Fixes" as after completing all steps of PART 4 my system would hang ~1-3 mins after boot-up.

 

ANy ideas what I missed?

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My 3 attempts over the weekend failed. Couldn't get to "PART 5: Post Install - Some Machine Specific Fixes" as after completing all steps of PART 4 my system would hang ~1-3 mins after boot-up.

 

ANy ideas what I missed?

 

 

Hi auMouth, I had the problems with this section too, which I overcame in two ways:-

 

1. I skipped the whole section bar this bit ..

* Under 'OSx86 Software' --> Kext Helper b7 + Kext Utility + MSR Tools + ShowAllFiles (These are great tools for later when we start adding Kext Files)

 

2. When trying to re-boot afterwards, I had to press the power button to jog the PC into continuing with the startup, as the pc seem to hang part way through. Later when I ran the 10.6.8 Combo update it negated the need for me to do this.

 

HTH :)

 

TK

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Got my N36L!

 

Followed the instructions, installed SL, updated straight to 10.6.8 and used the 10.8.0 kernel for it. Works fine. Also having to deal with having to press the power button whilst booting up. Anyone got any idea's on how to fix that? It's hard when I want to remotely restart it!

 

Not got a graphics card, just using the integrated one. It seems to run ok at 1024x768 resolution. Not too fussed about this as I'm just going to use it as a server. won't be connecting it up to any display after it's all set up.

 

PS - My next challenge is to find out why, (from Finder) when I browse to a shared folder on my mac mini (real) that I see the share/drive name but get a message saying 'The operation can’t be completed because the original item for “USB Drive” can’t be found' when I try to open it. I have given the folder read permission to everyone and can get to it from Windows or Linux. I guess the fun never stops ... cheers !!

 

I'm also having this problem! Think it might be do with the mac address being 00:00:00....? Hmm, Can't seem to find any info about this anywhere. Kind of a dealbreaker for me is this. I'm gonna keep at it and try to solve it but if not, think I'll keep SL on a partition but end up using WHS mainly (ARGH!)! Been trying scripts to change mac address but it either freezes the server or when it tries to change the mac address on boot, it seems to hang and when I press the power button, instead of continuing the boot it restarts! Hmm..

 

Anyway, thanks for the detailed guide Janitor! And everyone else on the thread - the tips have come in handy! :unsure:

 

 

Saf

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I'm also having this problem! Think it might be do with the mac address being 00:00:00....? Hmm, Can't seem to find any info about this anywhere. Kind of a dealbreaker for me is this. I'm gonna keep at it and try to solve it but if not, think I'll keep SL on a partition but end up using WHS mainly (ARGH!)! Been trying scripts to change mac address but it either freezes the server or when it tries to change the mac address on boot, it seems to hang and when I press the power button, instead of continuing the boot it restarts! Hmm..

 

Anyway, thanks for the detailed guide Janitor! And everyone else on the thread - the tips have come in handy! :hysterical:

 

 

Saf

 

I don't think it is necessarily related to the hardware. I stuck in another card that runs with the MY8053.kext and I get the same problem trying to mount shares on the HP. The problem doesn't occur on clients mounting the server volumes as shares. Unfortunately, there are many reasons why this could happen so it is a matter of narrowing the list down. Computer names are the first ones to look at. OSX doesn't like spaces or symbols in those.

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I don't think it is necessarily related to the hardware. I stuck in another card that runs with the MY8053.kext and I get the same problem trying to mount shares on the HP. The problem doesn't occur on clients mounting the server volumes as shares. Unfortunately, there are many reasons why this could happen so it is a matter of narrowing the list down. Computer names are the first ones to look at. OSX doesn't like spaces or symbols in those.

 

Hmm, not the hardware then. I was about to dig out my Apple USB Ethernet adaptor to test it out.

 

Yea, like you said, clients can mount the server's shares with no problems. Both my MacBook and iMac can connect to the server and mount shares/screenshare fine. But when trying to access the AFP shares of the iMac/MacBook it pulls up the error.

 

Funnily enough, I can mount the clients shares on the server using SMB. I've enabled SMB on the clients and although it doesn't pop-up at the side on the server, it mounts the SMB shares using Finder>Go>Connect to Server and typing in SMB://192.xxx.x.xx.

 

Just seems to have a problem with AFP. Can't even use the mount_afp commands through terminal. They pull up the following error:

 

mount_afp: AFPMountURL returned error 22, errno is 22

 

Could it possibly be the kernel? Is anyone still on 10.6.7 using the earlier kernel (not the 10.8.0 kernel)? Still have the same problems? If no-one is still on 10.6.8, and I can find the time, I'll back my server up and re-install it to 10.6.7 this time and see if the problem is still there. Could be a kernel problem maybe??

 

 

Not really sure what else now, I've looked through the logs in console and can't seem to find anything helpful.

 

 

 

Saf

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Firstly, delete the BCM5751.kext from /S/L/E and rebuild the caches using Kext Utility. The BCM5751.kext is already in IONetworkingFamily.kext, so it gets loaded twice and this causes the DHCP problems.

 

Secondly, Kext Helper b7 and [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] do not always do a good job of installing kexts. Check that all the kexts are where they should be and check in System Profiler/Software/Extensions that they are getting loaded. Alternatively, type kextstat in a Terminal window and this will give you all the loaded kexts. Is IOUSBFamilyRollback.kext there? If any are missing, install them manually and rebuild caches.

 

I have no problems with booting, networking or anything on my rig except occasionally shutdown and sleep and for that we really need a DSDT.aml file but neither Janitor nor I can get one to compile at the moment.

 

Hi,

 

I have rebuilt and installed the IONetworkingFamily.kext (without the BCM5751.kext) and the network adapter does not work. If I do it the other way around (BCM5751.kext, instead of IONetworkingFamily.kext) the adapter is seen (but I have to manually enter the IP details by hand to get it working). DHCP does not work and the adapter remains fixed as 00:00:00 etc.

 

As an aside, installing the IOUSBFamily Rollback from [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url], locks up all my usb devices such as keyboard and mouse and renders the machine unusable.

 

 

Many thanks

 

TK

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Hi Saf,

 

I think i've sort of found an answer (or a part of it)

 

It's in this link http://www.gizmolabs.org/~ecronin/w/Main/OSXSetMac

 

To test it, I opened a terminal window and typed the following:-

 

1. sudo ifconfig en0 lladdr 00:11:22:33:44:55

2. I then type ifconfig to see if the change worked which it did

3. I then browsed to a network drive and can now access the remote files ;)

4. Will read the rest of the instructions on how to make the changes permanent tomorrow.

5. Please note that the ethernet address still appears as 00:00:00 when you look at the network details in system pref and DHCP does not work, but I could not access remote files before this change.

 

Cheers

 

TK

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Hi Saf,

 

I think i've sort of found an answer (or a part of it)

 

It's in this link http://www.gizmolabs.org/~ecronin/w/Main/OSXSetMac

 

To test it, I opened a terminal window and typed the following:-

 

1. sudo ifconfig en0 lladdr 00:11:22:33:44:55

2. I then type ifconfig to see if the change worked which it did

3. I then browsed to a network drive and can now access the remote files ^_^

4. Will read the rest of the instructions on how to make the changes permanent tomorrow.

5. Please note that the ethernet address still appears as 00:00:00 when you look at the network details in system pref and DHCP does not work, but I could not access remote files before this change.

 

Cheers

 

TK

 

Great stuff TK!

 

I had very quickly experimented with manually assigning MAC address when i was testing the patched AppleBCM5751Ethernet.kext file, as the forum i was working from had made mention of the zeroed out MAC address issue...

 

However, i remember using -> sudo ifconfig en0 ether 00:11:22:33:44:55

I left it out of the guide mostly because it would also reset back to 00:00:00:00:00:00 after reboot, and i just figured that manually assigning your IP address in System Preferences was a more stable solution in the long term... Might be worth looking into again if it has been causing such problems, especially if we can figure out a way to make it stick!

 

Let us know how i works out with the gizmolab's solution.

 

Unfortunately, i've been wasting FAR too much time tweaking framebuffer personalities lately and screwing with my video card to get HDMI audio to play through that dratted Radeon HD 5450, so i've put off maintaining and editing the guide. Sorry! My bad!

 

The good news is that i've had some improved success with the 5450 autodetecting the correct type of displays connected (i.e. via HDMI, VGA and DVI) and have FINALLY found a compiled and working DSDT file for our machines! Haven't had much luck with any custom edits just yet, but we are slowly some making progress ;)

 

Chat soon.

 

j.

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Is it possible to install Lion using this guide. Reason being is I only have the SL dvd's that came with my 2011 MBP. I have however already purchased Lion from the app store.

Thanks

 

Unfortunately, not yet :lol:

 

We're still waiting for a patched Legacy Kernel for Lion to run on AMD chips.

You're just going to have to hold out until the legendary Nawcom has had a chance to save us all :(

 

Like us, you can keep an eye on the progress at: http://blog.nawcom.com/

 

Cheers!

 

j.

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