Snow Leopard on Hackintosh Guide

Released on the 28th of August 2009, Snow Leopard is described by Apple as ‘Better.Faster.Easier.’ It’s a fairly accurate label, and once I got over my initial problem upgrading my Macbook the new operating system has been stable, fast, and a pleasure to use. The Family pack I bought from the Apple Store allows installation on five computers, so this covers my Macbook, original hackintosh, home cinema hackintosh (HTPC) and the Intel Atom server I recently built. I know the EULA doesn’t allow for installation on non Apple hardware, but I paid my £39 so I’m as legit as is currently possible.

Before I start listing the steps I took to get Snow leopard working on my original Hackintosh, it’s worth mentioning backups again. During the install I tried things that screwed up Snow Leopard and stopped it working correctly. Having a full backup meant it was easy to reinstall and restore user data. My recommendations for backup software are SuperDuper, which I bought a couple of years ago, or the excellent donation-ware Carbon Copy Cloner. If you intend to use Carbon Copy Cloner with Snow Leopard make sure you have the latest V3.3 beta 5, as I had major problems with version 3.2.1. Superduper version 2.6.1 is described as compatible with Snow Leopard, my testing has shown no problems so far.

Backups done, on with the install. I used a separate hard drive for my Snow Leopard install, and the first part is done from my existing 10.5.8 installation. There’s a great 10.6 Generic Retail Guide at Insanelymac that lists three methods of installing Snow Leopard on non Apple hardware:

1. Chameleon bootloader with a hidden EFI partition
2. Boot-132 Disc with a patched boot file
3. Chameleon v2 RC1 USB bootloader with Netkas PCEFIv10.1 patched boot

Snow Leopard 10.6.1 update released

Two weeks after Snow Leopard went on sale, Apple has released the first system update. 10.6.1. is described as containing ‘general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac.’ Available now through Software Update or as a direct download, the 71.47Mb package is recommended for all Macintosh’s running Snow Leopard.

Snow Leopard Problems

The first system I tried Snow Leopard on was my 1st generation Macbook. I expected some problems installing onto a hackintosh but all the reports I have read so far say the Leopard to Snow Leopard upgrade works just fine. Unfortunately this hasn’t been the case with my Macbook.

Before starting the upgrade I made a full backup to an external hard drive. The Snow Leopard upgrade is fairly straightforward, there are few options you can change now so it’s just a case of insert the DVD and go through the installer steps. After installation there were immediate problems visible, starting with many missing items at the right side of the menu bar. No time, no iStat menu’s and other items missing. I’ve since found out that iStat menu’s has problems with Snow Leopard, but trying to go into System Preferences> Date & Time>Clock just caused System Preferences to hang and needing a Force Quit. It looked like there was a conflict somewhere, so I tried again.

10.5.8 on Hackintosh

Snow Leopard is released today which means the focus of the hackintosh scene will quickly shift to the latest release. I picked up my Copy of the Snow Leopard Family Pack on the way home from work today and will by attempting a hackintosh install over the weekend, as a fresh install. My three hackintosh’s will be staying as they are until all the bugs are ironed out and Snow leopard is stable on non-Apple hardware.

My main Hackintosh, based on a Gigabyte P32-DS3R motherboard and Intel Core 2 Quad 6600 processor, is running 10.5.8. I had a problem with sleep not resuming after the install, but a quick search of Insanelymac.com showed a perfect fix by deleting disabler.kext and IntelCPUPMDisabler.kext from the Extensions folder. The same didn’t work with my newest Intel Atom server Hackintosh, in the limited time I have had over the past two weeks I haven’t found a fix yet. The HThackintosh hasn’t been attempted yet, as this and the server are not routinely web browsing or doing any other risky activity. Also, by the time the eighth point update to an Apple OS is released the urgency to upgrade is wearing off. These machines may stay at 10.5.7 until the Snow Leopard on Hackintosh guides are well tested.

As I always say, don’t forget to make a backup before upgrading any system, Apple or not, to Snow Leopard. My Macbook is currently being backed up to an external USB drive using the excellent Carbon Copy Cloner, as soon as I have the option to restore to Leopard from a backup the newest big cat will be going on as an upgrade.

Snow Leopard available from 28th August

It’s been a while coming, but today Apple has finally set a date for the release of it’s next operating system. Snow Leopard is available now for pre-order, with Friday 28th August given as the delivery date. Pricing in the UK has been set at £25 for a single machine upgrade (from Leopard), and a family pack for five machines is £39. Those upgrading from Tiger are still expected to buy the Mac Box Set which contains Snow Leopard, iLife and iWork for £129.

Hackintosh Atom server

In a previous post I told the sorry tale of my Synology DS106e network attached storage box. It served me well for 18 months until the fan stopped working and a scheduled backup led to the hard drive overheating. It was time to upgrade my server, and there were several options available.

1. Buy a replacement NAS box, either a newer Synology model or something similar from Qnap, Thecus, Netgear etc. This would cost anywhere from £70 for a used item on eBay to £300 for a top of the range home/soho device. The current Synology one drive budget NAS is around £180 online.
2. Buy a used Mac Mini from eBay. The newer Core 2 Duo/solo models fetch a high price but the original G4 versions at 1.25 or 1.4Ghz are selling for around £120. Ready made server in a small and silent box, easy to setup and expand through software.
3. Build a mini hackintosh based on an Intel Atom processor. This is perhaps the most flexible approach, is should be able to run Leopard and hopefully Snow Leopard. Linux and windows shouldn’t be a problem either, so it has plenty of options for software.

I decided to go for the third option, not really surprising since I have already built a Quad Core hackintosh and a Home Theatre hackintosh. Building something is usually more fun than buying a ready made device, although this depends on how well the end result works. With the decision made I started looking at the Insanelymac forums for details from people who had already used Atom processors.

Snow Leopard 10A402

Apple has released Snow Leopard build 10A402 to developers, bringing some UI changes as well as stability, compatibility and security fixes. MacRumors has more specific details of what’s new, the most immediate appears to be to the Dock contextual menu appearance. The new style is shown below, this is a composite image of several screen shots to show the menus on one screen.

Snow Leopard videos

Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard has been marketed so far as a refinement of the existing 10.5 Leopard operating system, offering a smaller footprint and increased performance as opposed to lots of new features. That doesn’t mean there are no visible changes for the end user, as many components have seen additions and improvements in existing features. The video’s below show some of the improved interface elements in Snow Leopard.

The enhanced Dock ‘Stacks’ feature of Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard 10A394 released to developers

Apple has issued an update to developers for its 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system through Software Update. The 10A394 update offers ‘general operating system fixes for stability, compatibility and security’. Included in this version is the Dock Expose feature demonstrated at the recent WWDC, allowing a view of all an applications open windows by clicking and holding briefly the dock icon. The screenshot above shows Dock Expose in action, screenshots of the update below.

Snow Leopard due September

Phil Schiller has today confirmed at the WWDC 09 that OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard, will be released in September. Priced as a $29 upgrade for 10.5 Leopard users ($49 family pack) there are no details yet on the price for Intel 10.4 Tiger users.

Here are some of the highlights mentioned at the WWDC:

• 45% faster installation, and a 6Gb immediate space saving for Leopard users
• Handwriting recognition from Macbook trackpads
• Improved crash resistance in Safari when running on Snow Leopard
• Improved Stacks and Expose
• Quicktime X
• 64bit mode for all major system apps
• Grand Central and Open CL
• Microsoft Exchange Support

Quite a list of improvements, and a $29 upgrade price for Leopard users is a no-brainer. I just hope the initial release is a bit less flaky than 10.5.0.