Updating from 10.5.2 to 10.5.7

[CanadianSushi]

This has been a pain in my butt recently. I found myself needing to upgrade to 10.5.7. Why? I was happy with 10.5.1 ToH distro, was stable as hell and worked well for me. Unfortunately, I use the iTunes store in iTunes, and ever since they upgraded to v.9, I'm screwed. Why? Because to use iTunes Store in v.9 you need Safari v.4.0.3 and in order to upgrade to Safari 4.0.3 you need MacOs 10.5.7. WOnderful, huh?

 

Anyway, I've tried just about every distro I could get my hands on. Kalyway, iATKOS, iDeneb -- all fail. The only thing (aside from the original ToH install which was kinda buggy to get going) that seems to work for me is Leo4All v2.

 

Now, can anyone tell me if there is a reasonably stable/reliable upgrade path to 10.5.7? I was thinking of trying the iDeneb upgrade kit, but am a little afraid to, now that I got ANY kind of system back up and running after a week of KPs, grey screens and reboot cycles.... I'd almost throw in the towel and be happy with a stable 10.5.2 Leo4All but that iTunes issue is really nagging me... I really would like to upgrade to 10.5.7 if at all possible...

 

I've been looking around the forum and others as well, but there doesn't seem to be any definitive information (which is typical I suppose)... Just hodge-podge information.

 

BTW, I'm running Intel D915GAV mobo, SATA OEM optical drive, nVIDIA 7300LE vid card, and that's about it. Pretty simple system. Everything else is either built-in or USB or Bluetooth.

 

Any tips on a good, reliable upgrade path? (And maybe a guide to go along with it)?

 

THanks, all!

 

J

[Thelgord]

I don't know about a "definitive" guide. But I did manage to get Kalyway 10.5.2 to upgrade to to 10.5.8. I posted a how-to here.

 

I use an intel DG35EC and have been very happy with the install so far. I did notice my last post in that thread was a bit weird, I think it was ment for another thread. One of the many dangers of working all night then comming home to work on computers all day

 

With the exception of Pystar computers I don't think their will ever be a "definitive" guide on how to do it that will work for all hardware combos.

[Beerkex'd]

It's impossible to give any good upgrade advice to someone using a hacked distro like (ToH, iATKOS, iDeneb, Kalyway, iPC, Leo4All) unless you have intimate knowledge of that particular distro, the hardware it's been installed on AND which patches were picked during installation. There are too many unknowns.

 

That's why so many questions are left unanswered in the forums, the person most capable of finding the right answers is the person asking the questions.

 

You need to find out all you can about which patches are in effect on your system so that you can replace them with fixes and patches that are compatible with the version you'll be upgrading to.

 

The best way to start figuring this out is to look for other people with the same (or very similar) hardware configuration as you, who are already running 10.5.7 and see what they've done.

 

Good luck.

[CanadianSushi]

Yeah, I was kinda afraid that that's what you'd say... But I thought I'd ask anyway.

 

I think that with my aging hardware, it's probably best just to run the 10.5.2 stable and just say "screw it" and not try to go up to 10.5.7. I know I won't be able to use iStore, but them's the breaks. I guess I just have to start saving up for a new Mac Mini or a new iMac... (I think I'm just about done with the whole Hackintosh experiment)... I've been tinkering for a while now, and after all that, I think I'd just rather have a good, stable, usable system that I can upgrade without fear of breaking something each time.

 

Thanks for the kind response, though.

 

Jim

[Beerkex'd]

It's not impossible - look at the second Hackintosh in my signature, it's running retail 10.5.8 and the hardware is older than yours.

 

It just takes some research, all the info you need is right here on IM already.

 

The two main things you need to know when using a non-Core Microarchitecture Intel CPU (I guess you have a Pentium 4 or Pentium D) is that you cannot use the Apple kernel and that you need some way (there are various) to make sure that AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext does not load - at any time.

 

The original Voodoo 9.5.0 and derivatives of it will work on your system. I suggest sticking to the "qoopz" kernel releases whenever you need a 9.6.0 to 9.8.0 kernel - the other modified Voodoo derivatives that are floating around have too many annoying/confusing/obsolete extras added. Visit the Voodoo Kernel Google Code site and download the PDF manual to see what the Voodoo Kernel can do for you.

 

For Bootloader, use Chameleon 2.0 RC3. Visit the VoodooProjects forum and read the FAQ and the documentation.

Chameleon already comes with a set of drivers (SATA/PATA Injectors) that will be useful to you. And learn how to properly spoof a Mac Model Identifer via smbios.plist (google!)

 

As for the rest (sound, LAN, SATA/PATA, video) you need to find the right drivers or driver patches for your hardware by searching. The most efficient way to find what you need is searching by device ID. You can use a utility called lspci to get this information - the easiest way to get it is by installing OSX86Tools by PCWiz. You can run it on your existing install.

 

If you need to keep your stable installation I suggest buying a second hard drive, any old SATA drive will do, and use that for experimenting.

 

Having a stable installation comes in handy when experimenting because you can always boot into it and undo the changes you did that broke your experimental installation.

[CanadianSushi]

Yeah, thanks for the encouragement. I'm not going to give up yet, but I've been running a bit thin on ideas. The thing is, I know what works, but not really what doesn't -- and that's what kills me.

 

Right now, I got Leo4All v2 running. I ran the install 99% as-is, with only the NVinject nVIDIA drivers selected (and the GO drivers deslected). Everything else is default.

 

But for upgrading: I successfully patched Leo4All v.2 with Kalyway 10.5.3 combo update. But then the next step (patch to 10.5.4) borked my install. (The instructions said that the stock Apple-supplied 10.5.4 upgrade would work) but that just sent me into a reboot-cycle.

 

I also checked the compatible hardware database, and even though my mobo is listed as working out-of-the-box, NO ONE has been able to say if it can handle a vanilla kernel. So far, from all my tinkering, it doesn't seem that it can.

 

The original ToH 10.5.0 also works for me, but that is a dirty hack. It worked well enough, but I'm not so sure about its upgradability.

 

Now, if I could only use something like iATKOS 10.5.7 and select the EXACT customize components that I'm using with Leo4All v2, it might work... But I've yet to stumble on that combination.

 

Thanks for all the tips though. I will definitely try the stock 9.5 voodoo kernel with Chameleon 2 RC3.

 

I will definitely read up on the SMBIOS stuff. I've already been reading up on DSDT patching, but it aint easy. I've been reading a lot of the PCWiz stuff and that's given me some new hope on getting this sucker patched up to 10.5.7 or 8.

 

LAN has always worked OOB, and audio I don't give a {censored} about as long as USB works. Since I never got audio going on my original ToH install, I just went ahead and bought a USB-based external sound card. Works fantastic. Audio-in too. And a USB-based Bluetooth adapter.

[Beerkex'd]

Whether you can use the "Vanilla Kernel" or not has nothing to do with your motherboard. It's like I said, you need a Core Microarchitecture CPU (see google/wikipedia) to use the Vanilla kernel. Everything else is irrelevant (though having an Intel chipset greatly improves compatibility).

But for upgrading: I successfully patched Leo4All v.2 with Kalyway 10.5.3 combo update. But then the next step (patch to 10.5.4) borked my install. (The instructions said that the stock Apple-supplied 10.5.4 upgrade would work) but that just sent me into a reboot-cycle.

You cannot install OS version updates on a system that can't run the Apple ("vanilla") kernel without taking precautions. This is because version updates update the kernel, and that will overwrite whatever kernel you are using with the vanilla one.

 

The trick here is to give the kernel you are using another name, such as mach.kernel_voodoo. And then configure com.apple.Boot.plist so that mach.kernel_voodoo loads instead of mach.kernel.

 

The other crash/reboot culprit on non-vanilla systems is AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext, which also gets updated or reinstalled with every version update.

The Voodoo kernel (and qoopz derivatives) has built-in blacklisting of this kernel extension (and a few other ones) so if you're running the Voodoo kernel you don't have to worry about it loading. There are also kernel extensions available that will block AppleIntelCPUPM, the so-called disablers. These can be useful if you need to disable the built-in blacklisting in the kernel for some reason.

[CanadianSushi]

Success!

 

10.5.7 fully operational! YAY! Thanks to Beerkex'd's hints! Video, LAN, USB, Bluetooth, dmg mounting all working.

 

Rough procedure:

 

- Acquired iPC 10.5.6

- Installed clean. Went through the customize options with a friggin' fine toothed comb!!! Paid special attention to the things that Beerkex'd talked about (like the kernel, smbios, etc). Booted with -f option. Booted up 100% fine!

 

(One small glitch, I forgot to install seatbelt fix -- caused kernel panic, but I got that resolved with some simple instructions from elsewhere this forum. Basically just re-run install DVD with ONLY the seatbelt fix selected and nothing else, and clear extensions cache)

 

Upgrade to 10.5.7:

- Downloaded 9.6 XNU 1.1 kernel

- Downloaded Delta upgrade from Apple

- Backed up kexts and kernel

- repaired permissions on kernel_backup

 

- In Terminal, ran while sleep 1; do rm –rf /System/Library/Extensions/AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext;done

-Ran Apple's update

-Did a check of InstallAtStartup script for rogue "Do not steal MacOS" line (none found)

- Couldn't run OSX86 tools to repair permissions for some reason. Oh well.

- On reboot, ran kernel_backup -x (safe mode)

- System auto-rebooted (due to AtStartup script from before) so re-ran kernel_backup -x at boot prompt.

- When GUI came up, installed previously downloaded XNU kernel

- Rebooted

- Shazam! 10.5.7

- Installed all system updates except 10.5.8 system update. (I've had enough excitement for one day)!

 

Anyway, thanks Beerkex'd. This one is RESOLVED! :-)

[Beerkex'd]

Well done.

 

iPC 10.5.6 Final is my patched distro of choice as well - ironically, if it wasn't for iPC I would not be able to install and run Retail OS X.

 

Remember not just Seatbelt.kext but also System.kext must match your kernel version, no matter what version of Leopard you're running.

 

So, if you're using a 9.6 kernel, System and Seatbelt.kext must be from 10.5.6.

 

You can follow the same procedure to update to 10.5.8 - look for the qoopz Voodoo-based 9.8.0 kernel in the new releases and updates forum.

[Beerkex'd]

I should add here that installing "clean" when using a hacked distro doesn't necessarily mean that your install is clean. But iPC 10.5.6 final is close.