Snow Leopard is the gateway to update your Mac to a newer operating system via Apple Purchases. Having seen the negative reviews, I thought I'd give it a go and see what happens. Nothing to lose. Well, imagine my surprise when I copied the iso to a USB stick, stuck it into my 2008 MacBook Pro and it worked beautifully.
Apple launched MacOSX 10.6.8 update couple of days a go. It was a smooth update for my on my Hackint0sh Desktop and on my MacBook Pro (duh!). However , there were a lot of outcries from the netbook community users saying that the update is broken and such.
The reason why the update failed is because of the kernel patcher which did not patch the new kernel properly thus resulting in an infinite loop. This is because Apple has changed a couple of stuff in their kernel differently as how they did in previous kernels. The only way to fix is it either to wait for a new Chameleon (or NetBookInstaller) or to use a patched kernel.
On a side note , if everything is working great with 10.6.7 , I recommend you to keep it and do not upgrade till someone (hopefully merk) patches the the normal kernel . This is meant to help you to get your system back up and running if you have upgraded or if you plan to upgrade (if you’re being curious to discover whats new)
Thankfully , nawcom has just released his MacOS X 10.6.8 legacy kernel (which works great with our Intel Atom) and this is the fix that we need. That is to replace the kernel and everything works great.
Installation Guide
Here are the instructions :-
Assumption : You are running MacOSX 10.6.7 with everything working and you have made backup of your system just incase if something went wrong
1. Download MacOSX 10.6.8 Update (Please do not use Software Updater) . Alternatively you may download MacOSX 10.6.8 Combo Updater (1GB +)
2. Download nawcom’s legacy kernel and SleepEnabler (if you use SleepEnabler , otherwise ignore it) , extract it and move legacy_kernel-10.6.8 to Macintosh HD or root of your drive aka (/ )
[Optional] You may want to download these legacy kexts – EvilAppleACPIPlatform.kext and EvilIOPCIFamily.kext . This is to avoid the infamous stuck at PCI Configuration or non-working WiFi. Its completely optional though
3. Install OSX 10.6.8 Combo updater but do not REBOOT.
4. Fire up Terminal and run the following commands :-
sudo mv /mach_kernel /mach_kernel_bad
Mac Os X 10.6 Intel Download Iso 64-bit
Renames default kernel into mach_kernel_bad
sudo mv /legacy_kernel-10.6.8 /mach_kernel
Renames nawcom’s patched kernel as default mach_kernel
For those who are using NBI – You may reboot now as Intel Graphics kexts are automatically patched , and the system should be good to go
For those who are using UpdateEFI2 – Simply run UpdateEFI2 and select System Update. Let it patch Intel Graphics kext and you are good to go
[Optional] – Place the legacy kexts in your /Extra/Extensions or EFI partition
For those “I did it my way…” – You are on your own. Basically you’ll have to patch Intel Graphics and thats about it
6. Reboot and keep your fingers crossed . If you are having few issues , feel free to read the troubleshooting guide
Troubleshooting Guide
Stucked at PCI Configuration – Simply install the legacy kexts which I’ve included above. You may have to revert back or use a boot loader from USB to get past and install these kexts back
Broken WiFi – Again , simply install back the legacy kexts , make sure that your SMBIOS.plist is populated with the correct mac information and stuff. For more information , please read this guide