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Which macOS for Toshiba L875-S7108?


zydoslav
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I'm using the latest InsydeH2O UEFI BIOS that was released for the model and as far as I'm aware no changes are required within the BIOS menu with regards to macOS. Try loading BIOS default settings and make sure Secure Boot is set to disabled, this is a must. I think your issue lies with using a USB2.0 stick for the Big Sur installer, I would recommend creating the Big Sur install media using a USB 3.0 capable SATA drive if possible. CLOVER can be booted from either 2.0 or 3.0 drives should not be an issue.


Upon further testing, it looks like you will also most certainly require SMBIOS MacBookPro11,1 or later in order to initiate the install of Big Sur after you have booted into the installer. Do note: If using CLOVER you will also need to specify compatible Board-ID as well along with SMBIOS value (you can utilize CLOVER Configurator application just to obtain these SMBIOS related values). With OpenCore simply specifying the relevant SMBIOS value should suffice since the rest of the board compatibility patching is done automatically by the boot-loader.

Alternatively you could also consider the below methods incase things go south:
 

  • Try installing macOS Catalina first on your Toshiba and work your way up from there to Big Sur.
  • Install Big Sur onto your SSD partition externally via a machine that is actually compatible with Big Sur and then booting it off through your Toshiba.
     

I'm fairly certain your installer booting issues should be solved as long as you use a 3.0 capable drive when creating install medias.

Edited by aben
Ammended the requirements for successful Big Sur install
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@aben I think that it is an issue related to laptop USB ports. I have made Catalina installer again, copied USBINJECTALL.kext and it went past this place. Installer started to boot but it got a Kernel panice while booting. Anyway, I am going to use the USBToolbox to properly map my USB ports and try again. I need to get Windows 10 PE, because on windows 7 it crashes and It is not compatible with Linux. I will back here when I will try to boot the installer after using USBToolbox.

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@zydoslav When trying to install Catalina, do ensure you have chosen the appropriate SMBIOS value for compatibility; optimal choice would be MacBookPro9,2 + Board-ID value: Mac-6F01561E16C75D06 when using CLOVER.

If you still encounter issues, try adding the below SSDT file to patched folder under CLOVER > ACPI folder: SSDT-IMEI.aml

Edited by aben
Added Board-ID value
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@zydoslav It appears latest CLOVER rev. 5146 actually has issues with booting 10.15.7 Catalina installer at the moment. Other users also reporting similar kernel panic, see here: https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/284656-clover-general-discussion/?do=findComment&comment=2779687


For the time being, I would highly recommend opting for OpenCore just for the installation phases. You may switch back to CLOVER once your preferred macOS versions have been successfully installed, not an issue. I have managed to build a suitable OpenCore EFI for your IGPU equipped machine. I have tested and was able to successfully install Catalina on my L850 so should hopefully work for you as well. Give it a try.

 

 

EFI.zip

Edited by aben
Added EFI folder
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@aben I have managed to boot Big Sur installer (version 11.1)  from clover. One thing was wrong - clover version! In latest version (r5146) the installer is not booting. I have read your suggestion about the kernel panic for catalina installer, then I have installed latest clover version for big sur I've found (r5132) and the installer just boots to it's GUI with your EFI for clover from previous post, after changing SMBIOS to 11,1. Thanks for that :)

I can start the Big Sur installation, but when 12 mins are remaining its showing a log "SERVICE EXITED DUE TO SIGKILL", then some exiting logs appear and the computer reboots. What can be the problem this time?

 

In the installer log, before the system crashes there is something like:

personalization is not required to install this system

unable to get fs for 'big sur volume name' install data

 

@5T33Z0 maybe you have any idea why the install crashes this way?

 

I have tried again, attaching logs 

log3.JPG

log1.JPG

log2.JPG

Edited by zydoslav
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Guest 5T33Z0

I can't tell from the screenshots. Looks like the disk (SSD or HDD?) may be formatted incorrectly.

 

Please upload a preboot log. Press F2 in the Clover GUI. The log will be stored under EFI/CLOVER/misc/

Edited by 5T33Z0
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From what I could gather, this appears to be a known issue seen when trying to install Big Sur onto hardware that is not actually compatible with Big Sur (Apparently due to missing NVRAM checks by installer). Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any official go-to solution per-se to tackle this particular issue other than:

  • Allow the system to pass a few reboots to try and complete the installation of Big Sur.
  • Install Big Sur onto partition externally via a machine that has hardware natively compatible with Big Sur.
  • Try upgrade directly from macOS Catalina which is the final macOS version officially supported by Apple for Ivy-Bridge platforms.

I’ll anyways test Big Sur on my machine as well and see if I can figure out a workaround. 

@zydoslav My apologies for any confusion caused but I actually never completed testing of Big Sur installation on my machine the other day, I only discovered the SMBIOS requirement part to enable the volume selection on installer GUI. Given the situation we're at, I would still suggest you install macOS Catalina with the help of OpenCore EFI I attached earlier. I believe this is the better approach at this point.

Edited by aben
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@zydoslav Just tested installation of Big Sur on my Toshiba L850 and just like you described, at 12 minutes was shown the same verbose output indicating the "SERVICE EXITED DUE TO SIGKILL" log however this appears to be normal behavior, can confirm its a non-issue. System automatically rebooted, continued with the installation process as usual, completing it successfully within 23 mins.

Note: I used OpenCore for the test. Attaching Big Sur compatible EFI incase you wish to try.

EFI.zip

Edited by aben
Attach EFI
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@aben your tips are very helpful. I have installed Catalina on an external drive and it looks like the installation is OK - you are right "SERVICE EXITED DUE TO SIGKILL" looks like a normal situation here. It also occured when I tried to install big sur, but after reboot I could only start installation again. In Catalina case I could boot macOS from my disk to finish installation.

On first run I had a 'sip is off, allowing core dump for pid xxx' infinite loop, but I have added a boot parameter 'amfi_get_out_of_my_way=1' nad now Catalina boots. I am on first config screen right now.

What do you suggest to do after installing Catalina? Any post-install steps to make it work good? I will try to upgrade it to big sur next days, and if It will not work I will try to install big sur with your approach from opencore.

 

I can see that ethernet controller is not working, wifi also is not working :( Can I make them working when Catalina install is completed?

 

edit: copied kexts to Library/Extensions on installation drives, installed them through terminal and when I rebooted I have a kernel panic 'panic diag file unavailable, panic occured prior to initialization' haha :(

which post install steps I should take to avoid later problems with booting? 

Edited by zydoslav
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That is great! Glad to know the installation was a success :) 

Some Post Install checklist:

  • Power Management: You may install Intel Power Gadget tool to monitor/evaluate your CPU's power readings and performance. I believe your machine is equipped with i3 processor. Since there was never an i3 Ivy-Bridge variant  in Apple's MacBook lineup, you will most likely notice not-quite-efficient CPU performance especially with idle states since there is no native power management data for the CPU within macOS's ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin or x86PlatfromPlugin. This can be overcome with the help of Acidanthera's CPUFriend project which allows us to inject any given CPU's frequency vector data to macOS for most accurate native CPU power management while maintaining a clean/vanilla approach. In my experience, this is the best approach if you require native power-efficient performance especially for low-powered CPU's like i3. You may follow the official instructions here: https://github.com/acidanthera/CPUFriend/blob/master/Instructions.md
  • USB Mapping: Although I have shared a pre-built SSDT USB map within my EFI, I would still recommend you try and remap for your machine as well, although I strongly believe the mapping will most likely be identical for both our machines coming from the same lineup, which would also explain why your USB 3.0 port worked earlier when trying to boot CLOVER with my EFI :) 
  • Bluetooth: Ensure Bluetooth USB hub is correctly mapped to Internal (255) connector type for working Bluetooth functionality along with BrcmPatchRam and its relevant plugins of course: https://github.com/acidanthera/BrcmPatchRAM
  • Ethernet:  Most likely you will only require Meize's RTL8111 kext. Latest ver is 2.4.2 however if you face issues try older version as well. You can find all releases here: https://github.com/Mieze/RTL8111_driver_for_OS_X/releases
  • WiFI: Unfortunately 3rd party wifi support is sometimes limited on macOS depending on the model that is fitted and the macOS version itself. Only vendors: Atheros, Broadcom and Intel will find some support with Broadcom being the most preferred since Apple's own chipsets are Broadcom based. Have a look at this comprehensive compatibility list for more info: https://dortania.github.io/Wireless-Buyers-Guide/

You will find other essential Post-install info here: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Post-Install/#how-to-follow-this-guide

 

With regards to the panic issue you described, it's best advised not to install any of Acidanthera's kexts like: VirtualSMC, AppleALC, Whatevergreen especially Lilu to Library/Extensions or S/L/E. This approach is not actually supported by the developers for proper patching purposes. Other kexts can be copied to L/E and S/L/E, shouldn't be an issue.

 

Hope you enjoy macOS on your Toshiba machine!

Edited by aben
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@aben I have managed to activate my ethernet port thanks to RTL8100.kext, for WiFi I am going to try an USB adapter. 

I have tried to update Catalina to Big Sur from Catalina, but it was stuck on 'less than 1 minute remaining' and after something like an hour it crashed with an error. Now I am trying to re-install Big Sur with recovery partition but I think it will also crash. I can see that many macbook users have this issue with 'less than 1 minute remaining...' so I think it will be hard to update from Catalina to Big Sur. Or maybe I should take any additional steps before trying to update? I don't know.

 

I also had a problem with installing clover to my SSD with catalina - when I installed it, it won't boot from the ssd - but it works from the USB stick. Why could it behave like that?

 

When installing from recovery partition it reboots when its less than a minute remaining, after reboot I can only install big sur from the beginning. Maybe any new boot parameter or any new kext would do the trick?

Edited by zydoslav
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@zydoslav Please attach current EFI folder being used for Big Sur install. 

With regards to booting CLOVER from SSD; do you have Windows/linux installed on same SSD? Sounds like your SSD's EFI partition has not been formatted/resized yet for compatibility with macOS boot. Requirement is minimum size of 200MB for EFI partition. Could you please share output of below command from macOS Terminal: 

diskutil list

If EFI is less than 200MB, I'm afraid you will need to re-format your SSD. if you have other OS(es) installed as well then it will be quite the dicey situation to resize the EFI partition, you will most likely have to back-up and reinstall your OSes in order to accommodate EFI requirement for macOS. Recommended to format SSD through macOS installer; this is more convenient approach for EFI situation.

Edited by aben
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@aben I am installing MacOS on separate SSD, it was fully formated before Catalina install. I couldn't install Catalina on my Windows drive, I think I can't have Windows 7 and Catalina on same SSD (windows 7 uses mbr, and apfs file system is gpt, correct me if I am wrong). I am attaching my latest EFI, unfortunately, next two days I am without my toshiba laptop, so I can't paste the terminal result here for now. But nothing except macOS is on the SSD. Maybe since this is a GPT drive I should install clover for UEFI? I am using legacy boot on this machine (because of linux and windows 7 on other drive) and maybe this is the problem?

EFI.zip

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@zydoslav Yes you are indeed correct; drive has to be formatted using UEFI/GUID partition table (GPT) for macOS file systems. Please note: Formatting drive through Windows will create default EFI partition size of 100MB which is not compatible for macOS boot. You will need to either format drive with help of CMD commands (Windows) to manually assign partition size of 200mb OR better to utilize Disk Utility (accessible through macOS installer) to format drive onto which you would like to install macOS; the latter approach is recommended for convenience factor, choice is up to you. Then you may proceed with installing CLOVER for UEFI.

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@aben today I have tried your approach with opencore (big sur installation). I can boot to the installer, install goes through the first phase, but then it reboots and I can only boot the installer again and start install from the begginning. There is also a screen problem - attached a photo, do you know how to solve this? 

278574314_3176283489349235_7555903424552011558_n.jpg

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Hmm...looks like it's a possible EDID problem. My model too has washed out screen problems for which I'm required to inject a custom EDID patch (thanks to findings by a guru who worked on the same L850 model at AppleLife.ru almost a decade ago) however as far as I'm aware this issue was only seen on the AMD equipped GPU models, but maybe even others are affected. You may try with the custom EDID patch I use on my model although I'm a bit skeptical it may not be compatible since you have a 17inch compared to 15inch. Just to rule out other possibilities, I have uploaded two EFI folder below, one with the custom EDID patch and one without IMEI SSDT. Give both a try. 

As for the Big Sur install issues, may I safely assume that you are trying to install Big Sur onto an external drive connected via USB? If so, this could be a possible limitation with either Big Sur install or non-Apple hardware. I would suggest you try creating a small HFS+ partition with size of 17 GB at the end of the internal drive and use that HFS+ partition to create Big Sur install media. Boot OpenCore via USB stick and use that internal install media to install Big Sur onto the same drive. This is the approach I used for testing Big Sur install.

EFI-custom_EDID.zip EFI-no_IMEI.zip

Edited by aben
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@aben I have created big sur installer on usb 3.0 stick and on this stick I put opencore to the EFI folder, just like it's described in opencore manual. I am trying to install on internal SSD which I put in place of DVD.

I have just tried both EFI folders you have pasted, the graphical issue unfortunately still exists :(

 

EDIT: @aben with the latest EFI I have successfully completed Big Sur install. Now I am on configuration pages. But still the graphics issue exists. If this will be resolved, it would be cool!

Edited by zydoslav
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So if I'm understanding this right, you weren't seeing this display issue on macOS Catalina booting off CLOVER, am I right on that? If so, that means some built-in ACPI or device property patch of CLOVER is active and we're missing this on OpenCore. Try the below attached EFI, hopefully it solves the issue, if not, then I have no idea how to hope solve this further. You'll probably need some custom EDID patching, which I'm not really well-versed with, sorry about that. 

EFI.zip

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@aben the problem remains :(

I have tried to modify config.plist regarding to https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Post-Install/gpu-patching/intel-patching/connector.html

but no success (I have added framebuffer-con1-type = 02000000). Big Sur is booting, but still damaged display. On Catalina with Clover video card worked perfectly

 

@5T33Z0 maybe you know how to fix this problem?

Edited by zydoslav
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@zydoslav Only two possibilities I can think of: Either one or more of CLOVER's many DSDT patch is somehow fixing your display issue and/or Catalina's display driver is more suited for your display. Only way to confirm is by looking at an IOREG extract from both Catalina booted from CLOVER and Big Sur from OpenCore haha. 

Since you have Big Sur already installed, I propose you try boot using same CLOVER config. This should help narrow down the culprit.

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@aben Clover is seeing only the recovery partition (it boots without graphic problems). I can't boot big sur with clover (don't know why).

I have done a deep research, including documentation of whatevergreen kext and there was a problem with framebuffer. I have change AAPL,ig-platform-id regarding to https://github.com/acidanthera/WhateverGreen/blob/master/Manual/FAQ.IntelHD.en.md and... it worked! Display is repaired :) 

Now I have to somehow handle some problems I have noticed at first look:

- not working touchpad, (this is a problem, on catalina it worked with kexts attached to your EFI, on BigSur touchpad is not working and I don't know that to do with this issue.)
- not working ethernet, (WORKING with RealtekRTL8100.kext)

- not working wifi (I'll try to make it work via wifi usb dongle)

THANK YOU @aben!!!

278344676_539699487777388_6852065149783915494_n.jpg

Edited by zydoslav
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@zydoslav Ahh makes sense. Looks like I overlooked the correct framebuffer value required for mobile Ivy-Bridge's AAPL,ig-platform-id property since my model don't require iGPU framebuffer patching 😅 sorry about that! However good to finally see Big Sur running great on your Toshiba :) Glad I was able to provide some assistance.

With regards to the trackpad, I see no reason why there would be any difference between our models since it worked for me on Big Sur using the same ApplePS2SmartTouchPad.kext I shared with you. I have to mention, this kext was actually modified/configured to better suit our keyboard function/shortcut keys like brightness, volume etc however if you are still facing issues I would 
suggest you first try combo Fn key + F5 on your keyboard, this shortcut enables/disables trackpad on our Toshiba models, maybe this will help resolve the issue. If not, the only solution left would be to use Acidanthera's VoodooPS2 and its trackpad plugins however I'm afraid you will probably lose out on the original keyboard shortcuts for which you may have to do some research and find a way to manually map these keys, if its a deal breaker for you.

Edited by aben
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@aben I have made the touchpad work with VooodooPS2 kext by rehabman, works well, keyboard shortcuts are also OK.

WiFi is working with https://github.com/chris1111/Wireless-USB-Adapter

One more thing - no audio :D

For AppleALC i have to put the boot-arg alcid=xx to check whether I am using correct layout-id and I have to reboot to check if the ID i put is OK? I have ALC269... if yes, this sounds like MANY reboots :D

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