/S/L/E vs /E/E vs EFI volume

[rebecca!]

I'm confused about which kexts get loaded when. So I have a 200mb EFI Volume on the disk. I installed Chameleon manually and copied the Extra/ dir from / into it.

 

I also have /System/Libraries/Extensions and /Extra/Extensions.. which gets loaded on boot?

 

Do I delete Extra from / after moving it to the EFI volume?

 

For some reason my EFI volume goes empty sometimes. Maybe it's how I'm mounting it.. does initializing the volume format it?

 

Sometimes sound works but no video, sometimes video but no sound.

 

I'm thinking /Extra is some sort of hack. My real mac doesn't have it.

[3.14r2]

..I also have /System/Libraries/Extensions and /Extra/Extensions.. which gets loaded on boot?

By default Chameleon loads all the stuff from /Extra directory first. So all the kexts that are located in /Extra/Extensions are loaded first and if there are any duplicated items, (i.e. Sstem.kext) the one that is located in /Extra/Extensions overrides the one that is located in /System/Libraries/Extensions.

I also have /System/Libraries/Extensions and /Extra/Extensions.. which gets loaded on boot?

See the above.

Do I delete Extra from / after moving it to the EFI volume?

If you move all the Chameleon stuff to EFI also, then yes. Though that's only my opinion. Gurus may not agree.

Sometimes sound works but no video, sometimes video but no sound

Not all kexts located in /Extra/Extensions loads properly. Sound and video are amongst them. Though it is very specific problem and it may vary from system to system.

 

You should also know that the kext that is placed in /Extra/Extensions, must have this lines in Info.plist

	<key>OSBundleRequired</key>
   <string>Root</string>

in order to load.

 

I'm thinking /Extra is some sort of hack. My real mac doesn't have it

LOL!!! 10 points! Sure it doesn't. It doesn't have Chameleon too

[cyberdog_sk]

Initializing a volume does indeed format it. So if your machine says "this volume is unreadable - do you want to initialize it?", and you say yes, it will erase its contents.

 

Real Macs don't have the Extra folder. That's why you'd want to move it to /Volumes/EFI - then your hard drive would be the same as one on a "real" Mac. If that's not important to you, you'll find keeping your Extra folder on / is less trouble to maintain.

[rebecca!]

Ahhh thanks guys I was wondering where /Extra came from because I installed from the vanilla OS X disk. Empire EFI's "post-installation" myHack never works for me. I always need to use Empire EFI's disk to boot unless I manually install Chameleon.

 

I'm on EP43-UD3L. Sometimes I can't boot with 8 GB of RAM without maxmem=4096, sometimes sound doesn't work, sometimes audio doesn't work. I just feel it's flaky sometimes but I'm slowly working out all the kinks. Love it!

[srs5694]

I'm confused about which kexts get loaded when. So I have a 200mb EFI Volume on the disk. I installed Chameleon manually and copied the Extra/ dir from / into it.

...

For some reason my EFI volume goes empty sometimes. Maybe it's how I'm mounting it.. does initializing the volume format it?

 

"Initializing" and "formatting" both generally mean the same thing: To create a new filesystem, thus wiping out anything that had been there before. "Formatting," though, is a bit vague; it can legitimately refer to at least two different types of activities ("low-level" and "high-level" formats), and I've seen people use it in reference to still more. Personally, I try to avoid the word for this reason. Despite its awkwardness, I prefer "creating a filesystem," which is precise, at least in the usual context.

 

Also, FWIW and IMO, it's a Bad Idea (note the caps) to store OS data in the 200 MB EFI System Partition. The reason is that this partition has a very specific purpose and format, as defined by the EFI specification. In particular, the partition must (according to the spec) be a FAT volume (FAT32, IIRC), and it's intended to hold EFI files. Many Hackintosh users end up using the partition as HFS+, which is definitely a no-no, and storing non-EFI files is also dubious. (You could argue that Chameleon or other Hackintosh boot loader files might be OK, since they take the place of EFI on Hackintoshes.)

 

You might say, "so what? My system doesn't have a real EFI, so why should I care what the EFI spec says?" The problem is that Mac software authors might assume you've got an EFI, and they might assume that the EFI System Partition is therefore what the spec says it is. If this assumption is violated, strange behavior could occur, or worse, a utility might attempt to "fix" a "problem" that it discovers. I've seen posts about at least one utility (I've forgotten which one it was, unfortunately) that, when it encounters a non-FAT EFI System Partition, puts a fresh FAT filesystem on it -- without asking! You can argue that this is a bug, or at the very least unwise, but the fact that such a program exists should be a big red flag about using the EFI System Partition in ways other than those that are approved in the EFI spec.

 

If you want to keep Hackintosh-specific files outside of the root (/) filesystem, that's fine. I recommend creating another HFS+ partition for this purpose. You can mount it wherever you like and still be within all the usual partitioning and filesystem specs.

[cyberdog_sk]

I'm on EP43-UD3L.

 

I'm on the same motherboard. I installed Cartri's bios and the version of chameleon supplied with it. My extra extensions folder contains only fakesmc.kext and LegacyHDA.kext (with and older AppleHDA.kext in S/L/E) - otherwise a completely vanilla install. No need for com.apple.Boot.plist in /Extra. Everything works great. I too have 8 GIG ram.

 

 

EDIT: Just saw your sig. You'll need a com.apple.boot.plist to boot into 32 bit mode due to your video card.