Tag Archives: Chameleon

[MacOS] Backup Chameleon Boot USB-Stick

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1. Abstract

You have the situation that you installed Chameleon for security and compatibility purposes on an external USB-stick. For safety reasons you should consider making a backup. But all diskimaging (either Apple’s Diskutility, Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper) tools fail to create a proper backup since the bootblock is just not copied. So you end up with having to create a second usb-stick, but this takes time. So why not copying it? In the following article we’ll show you some basic steps to create a proper backup of your precious Chameleon bootable USB-Stick.

This session is not considered for newbies. You need to understand the steps and understand that you can completely destroy your system when you apply certain steps in a wrong way. The following steps comprise a forum threat on OSX86.net.

2. Walkthru: Backing up your Chameleon USB-Stick

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[MacOS] Save Energy by Using Deep Sleep aka Hibernation

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Looking at the situation in Japan at these days, it seems overdue to begin worrying about all our energy consuming devices.

As a MacOS user we are used to some quite convenient features. Like just clicking sleep and the system goes to sleep.

What most of us don’t realize at this point is, that sleep mode logically requires energy as it will immediately wake up when I hit the keyboard.

So for me this began causing me a bad conscious – until I found the way to hibernate MacOS also on desktops

How to Hibernate aka Deep Sleep

  1. Download Axonic Labs’ Deep Sleep Widget for Snow Leopard 10.6 here.
  2. Unpack by double clicking
  3. Install to
    /Library/Widgets
  4. open terminal and
  5. enter in terminal:
    sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3

Step 5. because Hibernation Safe Sleep is disabled by default on desktop systems like iMac, Mac Mini, or Mac Pro’s.

By the way: first tests show that this Deep Sleep Widget is at least compatible to Chameleon EFI RC4 :-))

[MacOS] Chameleon On USB: Mounting USB Stick Correctly

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Inserting USB sticks to your Mac OS X based system makes Mac OS X mount the stick without assigning certain permissions like owners, or groups.

I. How things get mounted on Mac OS

The mount command on the terminal returns most likely some lines, like that:

  • testuser$ mount
  • /dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
    devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
    map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
    map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
    /dev/disk3s1 on /Volumes/CHAMBOOT (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled, noowners)
    /dev/disk1s4 on /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, noowners)

You can see quite a lot of slices (i.e. ~partitions) are mounted to that system I am running here. For instance disk1s4 is the forth slice of disk1 and it countains an image of a Mac OS X Install DVD. And you can see a CHAMBOOT named drive mounted with several options.

II. Mount Options/Permissions

Our beloved USB stick named CHAMBOOT (contains Chameleon and) is disk3s1 and is mounted to /Volumes/CHAMBOOT. Mac OS handles USB mounting for most of our every day life operations fairly reliable. But this comes at a cost, as this simplicity is achieved here by applying options like nosuid and noowners during the mount process.

For people willing to run Chameleon from a USB stick permissions are inevitable, as for instance an Extensions.mkext kextcache can only be generated with proper file permissions being set.

II. Mounting USB with permissions

This just requires some simple mount operations being performed manually on the terminal. Do the following:

  • testuser$ sudo -s
    Become ultimate root now.
  • testuser$ cd
    Get back to the home folder whereever you’ve been before.
  • testuser$ sync
    Force completion of pending disk writes.
  • testuser$ umount -f /Volumes/CHAMBOOT
    This unmounts the USB stick called CHAMBOOT
  • testuser$ mkdir chamboottemp
    Create a temporary folder for our mounting session
  • testuser$ mount_hfs /dev/disk3s1 chamboottemp/
    Mount the USB stick to the temporary folder
  • testuser$ mount
    See how the drives are mounted now
  • /dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
    devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
    map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
    map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
    /dev/disk3s1 on /Users/admin/chamboottemp (hfs, local, journaled)
    /dev/disk1s4 on /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, noowners)    You can see the USB stick is now mounted without “extra” options.

Now you can apply changes to the USB stick’s files in the proper manner (like copying files, repairing permissions and creating a kextcache). After having performed all the changes, you can correctly unmount. Read here:

III. Manually Unmounting

  • testuser$ cd
    Get back to the home folder whereever you’ve been before.
  • testuser$ umount -f chamboottemp
    Force to unmount the device mounted to the chamboottemp folder now.
  • testuser$ rmdir chamboottemp
    It is safe to delete the chamboottemp folder now.

IV. Links

» Mac OS X Reference Library: Man Page for “sync”…
» Mac OS X Reference Library: Man Page for “mount”…
» AsereBln.BlogSpot.com: Some terminal work…

[MacOS] Update 10.6.2 to Break Intel Atom CPU Support

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According to Stellarolla’s blog the upcoming Snow Leopard update 10.6.2 and the Leopard update 10.5.9 will most likely break Intel Atom support. Thus rendering hackintosh installations on netbooks inoperable.

Although Apple does not provide products shipping with Intel Atom CPUs, the Mac OS kernel did support those. Now with the growing amount of hackintoshs it seems Apple tries to stop the use of their operating system on cheap an tiny netbooks.

Probably this is another indicator that Apple is going to bring the long rumored tiny tablet Mac. Anyway for people willing to maintain MacOS on their netbooks the easiest way is to not update to 10.6.2 or 10.5.9 at the moment.

» Stellarolla: “10.6.2 kills Atom and other news”…

[MacOS] Psystar Release Rebel EFI

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As of yesterday the notorious Mac Clone manufacturer Psystar has released a commercial software called Rebel EFI. Rebel EFI prepares a normal PC to allow for the installation of Mac OS.

After downloading Rebel EFI,

[..] users simply insert a retail copy of the Snow Leopard DVD, follow the installation procedures and then install the application. The application automatically detects connected devices and downloads the appropriate drivers.

Rebel EFI features Psystar’s DUBL (Darwin Universal Boot Loader) and a Safe Update mode, that prevents users from installing updates that could break their systems. The Safe Update mode only installs Psystar approved updates.

In contrast to the EFI-X manufacturers, Psystar in the past has released several drivers for free to the OSX86 scene. The advantage of Rebel EFI in contrast to solutions like the Chameleon boot is that is already comes with an automized hardware detection and a bunch of downloadable hardware drivers. Chameleon on the other hand is available free of charge and a lot more powerful for users in the know. So decide for yourself which product fits your needs the best.

A single license for Rebel EFI costs about 50US$ and can be ordered here.

rebelefi_hardware

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[MacOS] Psystar Accounces OEM Licensing Program

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As of yesterday the Miami based company Psystar, which is still in legal trouble with Apple, announced to license their virtualization technology to third party manufacturers.

Computers preloaded with Psystar’s DUBL (Darwin Universal Boot Loader) would allow to make

“systems Mac OS X compatible. Psystar’s virtualization technology, specifically engineered for Snow Leopard, allows for seamless operation of the Mac OS on generic Intel Hardware and would be offered on all Psystar Certified machines.”

Find more information about this step in Psystar’s official press statement.

[MacOS] Comprehensive Gigabyte Hardware Specification List

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With the advent of Snow Leopard many users have issues installing it onto PC based hardware. Well this is not very curious, since a PC is no Mac. Anyway as Gigabyte motherboards proved to be very close to the original Apple Intel specifications many people decided to buy those boards.

With the release of Snow Leopard DSDT patching seems to have become a must. Installation attempts will most likely fail without it. The intention of this list is to provide comprehensive information on the most used Gigabyte motherboards.

The original idea for this list was by a guy called ximekon (find original list here on InsanelyMac forums).

Model North- bridge South- bridge LAN Fire- Wire Audio BIOS Link Last Check
P35
P35-DS3L P35 ICH9 Gigabit -,- ALC888 F9 08/29/2009
P35-DS3 P35 ICH9 Gigabit -,- ALC889a F14 08/28/2009
P35-DS3R P35 ICH9 Gigabit -,- ALC889a F13 08/28/2009
EP35
EP35-DS3 P35 ICH9 RTL8111B -,- ALC889a F4 08/28/2009
EP35-DS3R P35 ICH9R RTL8111B -,- ALC889a F4 08/28/2009
EP35-DS3P P35 ICH9R Gigabit Yes ALC889a F6 08/28/2009
EP35-DS3L P35 ICH9 Gigabit -,- ALC888 F6 08/28/2009
EP35-DS4 P35 ICH9R RTL8111B -,- ALC889a F6 08/28/2009
EP45
EP45-DS3 P45 ICH10 2 x RTL8111C -,- ALC889a F9 08/28/2009
EP45-DS3R P45 ICH10R 2 x RTL8111C yes ALC889a F11c 08/28/2009
EP45-DS3P P45 ICH10R 2 x RTL8111C yes ALC889a F8 08/28/2009
EP45-DS3L P45 ICH10 RTL8111C -,- ALC888 F10 08/28/2009
EP45-DS3LR P45 ICH10R RTL8111C -,- ALC888 F2 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3 P45 ICH10 RTL8111C yes ALC889a F8 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3P P45 ICH10R RTL8111C yes ALC889a F9 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3L P45 ICH10 RTL8111C -,- ALC888 F5c 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3LR P45 ICH10R RTL8111C -,- ALC888 F5 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3R P45 ICH10R RTL8111C yes ALC889a F9 08/28/2009

you cant see this line, do you?

The Golden Gigabyte Model Rules

  • if last character of the model name is a “number” or a “P” (i.e. EP35-DS3 or EP45-DS3P etc.) it means ALC889a audio chipset
  • if last or penultimate character of the model name is an “L” (i.e. EP35-DS3L or EP45-DS3LR) it means ALC888 audio chipset
  • if last character of the model name is an “R” (i.e. P35-DS3R or EP45-UD3LR) it means SATA Raid controllers
  • The P35 or P45 strings in the beginning are fairly self explaining I suppose (P35 always with ICH9 and P45 always with ICH10)

Your Help is Wanted

Weather these rules nor the list above might be 100% accurate. It is only what I found on the net and summarized from the list above.

  • If you derived a DSDT.aml clean from a BIOS (like using Koalala’s DSDT patcher) and you fixed it for OSX86, you may post it in the comment’s section – don’t forget to tell how much RAM you had while compiling the DSDT.aml (Don’t add individual graphic or wi-fi strings. Just add onboard-devices like onboard-audio and onboard-ethernet.)
  • If your board is not on the list check Gigabyte’s pages and post the specifications in the comments section below.
  • If your board is listed but details above are wrong: please post it in the comments section below.
  • If you know the LAN chipset of the board and it is not listed precisely above (saying Gigabit) please post it in the comments section.

Please always crosscheck with the official Gigabyte specification page for your model (links to your model are included in the BIOS column) before adding a dsdt.aml or anything that could burn your BIOS.