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Vanilla install on Dell Vostro 1510 - 1520


Jason Parks
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This is a tutorial on how to install OS X 10.6 on a Dell Vostro 1510 and 1520. It is mostly for my own sake when I crash one of my laptops and cant find my Time Machine backup. Hopefully others will benefit from the months of research and trial/error it took me to get these installs just right.

 

 

You will need the following:

1. Dell Vostro 1510 or 1520

2. A retail Snow Leopard Installation disk

3. Snowboot Boot disk available here or here

4. Either the 1510 or 1520 zip files which includes DSDT, boot.plist and all the kext files needed for a perfect install.

5. Chameleon boot loader available here

 

 

The first step is to burn the Snowboot iso to a cd. Then boot the Vostro from this disk. Once the system is booted and the drives are displayed, eject the boot disk and insert the retail Snow Leopard disk. Wait for the drive lights to stop flashing, and hit F5 to refresh the drive list. Select the installation disk and hit enter. Once the installer boots, select your language and the in the upper menu bar select utilities, disk utility. Select your drive and partition with a single partition. You can name it anything you like as long as the volume name does not include spaces. I used MacintoshHD for my volume name. In the options tab select GUID partition table instead of MBR. Next allow the system to complete partitioning and exit the disk utility. Then complete the installation as usual. Once the installer completes and the system reboots, replace the installation disk with the snowboot disk and reboot. When the drive list menu shows up select the volume you installed SnowLeo to (MacintoshHD) and boot. At this point you should be able to see the welcome screen. Go thru the rest of the installation process and user creation. Once the installer completes and it boots to your desktop, copy the 1510 or 1520 zip file and the chameleon installer to your desktop. Run the chameleon installer and make sure it is installing to the correct drive. (MacintoshHD) Then extract the correct zip file to your desktop. Next we do the following:

 

1. Copy the files in /Vostro1510/Extra or Vostro 1520/Extra to /Extra on MacintoshHD

 

2. Copy com.Apple.Boot.plist to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.Apple.Boot.plist overwriting the one that is already there.

 

3. Copy dsdt.aml to root of MacintoshHD

 

4. Delete /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext

 

5. Delete /System/Library/Extensions/ApplePS2Controller.kext

 

6. Copy VoodooPower.kext VoodooHDA.kext and VoodooPS2Controller.kext to /System/Library/Extensions/

 

7. Delete /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Keyboard.prefpane

 

8. Copy included Keyboard.prefpane and Trackpad.prefpane to /System/Library/PreferencePanes/

 

9. Run Kext Utility to repair all extension permissions and create the necessary kext caches.

 

10. Run disk utility and repair permissions for your Snow Leopard volume (MacintoshHD)

 

11. Reboot into a working 32 bit Snow Leopard

 

12. enable QE/CI for your graphics card. If you have a Intel Graphics adapter it "SHOULD" just work. On my Vostro 1520 I have a Nvidia GEForce 9350M GS which works correctly with the included com.Apple.Boot.plist which has the kernel flag for graphics enabler turned on. Otherwise search Google for a supported enabler for your setup

***If you are using X3100 You MAY have to delete the X3100 drivers and install X3100 kext from 10.5

I did not have to but other users of this guide have reported they did.

 

13. All that's left to do now is enable the wireless card with the included shell script(drag on a terminal window and follow instructions) reboot and run software update......

 

 

Currently I have everything working except the media card reader and the integrated biometric finger print scanner.

 

***Please note:

 

I did NOT create or modify the included files or utilities. I simply collected them from around the net and packaged them in the included zip files for the sake of convenience.Thanks to all who DID create the included files and tools without which none of this would be possible.

 

 

I DID purchase a legitimate copy of OS X 10.6

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Hi, Thank you for the package, but in the Vostro 1510 file there is only the DSDT.dsl file not the DSDT.aml file like the instructions.

 

Sorry about that, I will either replace the package or just upload the DSDT.aml this evening. You should be able to use one of the tools to comple the .aml file in the meantime if you would like.

 

EDIT*****

Apparently it is working without the ddst.aml file. Im not really sure how, but when I try to compile the attached .dsl file I am getting 200+ errors. I will have to try to create another one from scratch, but if you follow the tutorial you wont need one anyways.

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Sorry about that, I will either replace the package or just upload the DSDT.aml this evening. You should be able to use one of the tools to comple the .aml file in the meantime if you would like.

 

I´m trying to make the aml file but it gives me a error everytime. I´ve already put some of my experiments in another post. I´ll wait for the aml file then. Thanks

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Thanks, It work ok without the DSDT.aml file, everything work but no sleep, can you make sleep work in your instalation?

There is some information in:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=189750

But also don´t work.

 

 

I dont use sleep, I shut down every time, so unfortunately I cant help you with that one.

 

Can I try this on Vostro 1310 (on-board video)?

 

 

I think everything SHOULD work with a 1310 as long as the specs are similar and your hardware is supported by other distro's.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Absolutely awesome tutorial. Thanks so much for it. I only have one issue, my screen only displays half the screen. Is there a driver that I need to update that I overlooked?

 

Nevermind that. After doing a few hours of research I found out that you have to delete the kexts for the x3100 and then I installed these drivers even though they are for 10.5.x, they still worked beautifully.

 

Thanks again for making this so painless.

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Absolutely awesome tutorial. Thanks so much for it. I only have one issue, my screen only displays half the screen. Is there a driver that I need to update that I overlooked?

 

Nevermind that. After doing a few hours of research I found out that you have to delete the kexts for the x3100 and then I installed these drivers even though they are for 10.5.x, they still worked beautifully.

 

Thanks again for making this so painless.

 

Glad it helped! I don't remember having to delete any .kext for video, but I will try to add that to the guide just in case others need to. Thanks for the input!

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Sorry if this sounds entirely "noobish", but I had iatkos 10.5.6 running on my computer a long while ago, and because of that, I was never able to use the apple software update. Given that this is a Vanilla install, would I be able update my version of snow leopard? I'm doing this on a Dell Inspiron 1520.

 

Also, I have a Nvidia Geforce 8400m gs graphics card. This is the first time I'm hearing about QE/CI, and it looks like performance drastically drops if that's not enabled, according to what I read. How do I check if this is working when I install Snow Leopard, and if it's not, do I just search "hackintosh 8400m gs QE/CI" or something like that to find the proper drivers?

 

Sorry for the load of questions, just want to make sure I have an idea of things before I plunge into the install! ;)

 

Thanks!

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Sorry if this sounds entirely "noobish", but I had iatkos 10.5.6 running on my computer a long while ago, and because of that, I was never able to use the apple software update. Given that this is a Vanilla install, would I be able update my version of snow leopard? I'm doing this on a Dell Inspiron 1520.

 

Also, I have a Nvidia Geforce 8400m gs graphics card. This is the first time I'm hearing about QE/CI, and it looks like performance drastically drops if that's not enabled, according to what I read. How do I check if this is working when I install Snow Leopard, and if it's not, do I just search "hackintosh 8400m gs QE/CI" or something like that to find the proper drivers?

 

Sorry for the load of questions, just want to make sure I have an idea of things before I plunge into the install! ;)

 

Thanks!

 

Yes with this type of install you can use software update. In order to check QE/CI try opening the DVD player, if it works QE/CI is enabled

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I have an Inspiron 1520. The Vostro are pretty similar to the Inspiron, from what I have read.

 

Will these kexts/files work with:

 

Intel Core2Duo 2.2ghz (T7500)

4GB RAM

160GB 7200rpm

Nvidia GEFORCE 8600M GT 256mb

Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN

SIGMATEL STAC 92XX C-Major HD Audio

Truemobile 355 Bluetooth

 

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

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Hi I have a couple of questions????

Iam thinking of buying a vostro 1510 with intel x3100 for my girlfriend as she has now decided that she like mac....

 

Is everything working like qe/ ce audio web cam?????

 

thank you

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Glad it helped! I don't remember having to delete any .kext for video, but I will try to add that to the guide just in case others need to. Thanks for the input!

 

Oh man... QE/CI doesn't work... well my hunt for snow leopard kexts for X3100 will continue. I'll post back in here if I get it.

 

(The odd thing is that in the beginning QE/CI worked just fine with an external monitor... of course you could see how that's no good though.)

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  • 2 weeks later...
Hi I have a couple of questions????

Iam thinking of buying a vostro 1510 with intel x3100 for my girlfriend as she has now decided that she like mac....

 

Is everything working like qe/ ce audio web cam?????

 

thank you

 

I have everything working EXCEPT the integrated card reader

 

Oh man... QE/CI doesn't work... well my hunt for snow leopard kexts for X3100 will continue. I'll post back in here if I get it.

 

(The odd thing is that in the beginning QE/CI worked just fine with an external monitor... of course you could see how that's no good though.)

 

Are you booting in 32bit? I don't remember having to install any kext for the x3100, it just worked OOTB.

 

Thanks. i have a vostro 1520 but with windows Seven

How i can do a Dual boot?

 

Search Google

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So I tried to install snow leopard, but after using snowboot and then putting the snow leopard dvd in, all it does is go to the apple loading screen, and then the screen gets darker with a "please restart your computer" message. Any suggestions?

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So I tried to install snow leopard, but after using snowboot and then putting the snow leopard dvd in, all it does is go to the apple loading screen, and then the screen gets darker with a "please restart your computer" message. Any suggestions?

Same problem on Vostro 1500! iAtkos v7 working fine!

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Same problem on Vostro 1500! iAtkos v7 working fine!

 

Yeah that's weird, I wonder if the problem is that certain bios settings needed to be changed. I'm just really disappointed that it didn't load when I put in the Snow Leopard dvd. I even purchased it :(

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So I tried to install snow leopard, but after using snowboot and then putting the snow leopard dvd in, all it does is go to the apple loading screen, and then the screen gets darker with a "please restart your computer" message. Any suggestions?

 

Try booting with -v for verbose mode and see what part is loading prior to the kernel panic or if you get the "still waiting for root device" error. The boot disk is probably missing necessary kext files for your particular hardware setup. You may be able to find a boot disk specifically suited for your hardware.

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Hi all. I have a Vostro 1510, Core Duo T5670 1.8Ghz CPU, 2 GB RAM, nVidia GeForce 8400M GS, and I'm running into a couple of issues when I follow these instructions. Firstly though I should mention that I'm trying to install retail Leopard instead of Snow Leopard (the installer appears to want to load at least though so I'm assuming it doesn't matter...?) Anyways the issues:

 

1) When I boot off my snowboot cd, I see this:

EBIOS Read Error: Device Timeout

Block 0x532c Sectors 0

 

2) After I see #1, I still get a drive list and can sort of load up off my retail Leopard DVD. The problem here is that the installer never really fully loads up. I just see the background, and a spinning cursor. After about 5 minutes the DVD spins up as if something is about to happen, but about 10 seconds after that it goes silent again. I thought maybe my machine was just slow, so I let it sit overnight with the spinning cursor, but nothing had happened by the next morning (the cursor still moved though so it wasn't a completely frozen system)

 

Anyone know what might be happening in #1 or #2? Is there a better distribution of OSX for vostro 1510 that I should use instead? Or a different boot loader since I'm trying to use Leopard instead of Snow Leopard? I tried boot 132 also but it did the same thing, though the cursor seemed to spin faster...

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Hey, I'm considering buying a Vostro 1520 and am relieved to see a healthy community for the 1520.

Before I buy, I just want to ask whether you think the extra for the 9300M GS is worth it. And which Wi-Fi card you're using/recommend, or at least which this guide accomodates for.

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