10.6 Snow Leopard PowerPC Development

[PowerPC74]

BTW, Qemu won’t possibly work to virtualize macOS ppc on macOS ppc? That would be useful for testing. (I think it is presently just broken on ppc host, but that should be fixable.)

There is no Hypervisor in users space on Mac OS X PPC, I've used it plenty on Linux PPC to run the Mac OS.

So you their have to create a hypervisor or use Linux PPC. Mac-on-Linux had one and someone ported it to OS X PPC, it was called Mac-on-Mac but I don't think it works beyond 10.3 and not sure it works with the G5, and I think it can only boot OS 9.

 

[FBSD_Mac]

Yeah bluetooth is currently non-functional. I really need to update the table of known issues so apologies for that, there are lots of quirks and bugs to iron out still.

No worries at all!!

By the way, the networking seems a little fragile. I'm not sure exactly what caused it but after rebooting following both my firewall (command line and GUI) fiddling and Bluetooth testing I ended up with no internet again. My password for wifi was remembered but no IP address could be assigned until I manually added the local router to the DNS configuration.

After that I had an IP address but no working internet. I tried the command line again (same as I posted earlier with a value at the end of either 0 or 1) as well as the GUI but couldn't get it to work again. Oddly, trying to ssh to another computer on my network (using the IP address) took a really long time to return a login prompt... by which point the connection had timed out. This is very much like the earlier testing I did with super delayed UDP responses.

Ultimately I gave up and re-installed your A5 image and did some minor customization of settings. I made my own image of that configuration after a few reboots convinced me the network was again stable. If I manage to reproduce the broken state I'll be able to "rewind" to a working state relatively easily now. If I can reliably reproduce that state several times I'll share the steps I took to do so here.

Now I notice that I can ssh directly to the PowerBook with no issues whatsoever! <confused face>

It should go in /System/Library/Frameworks/AGL.framework/Versions/A/AGL

Thank you, @educovas !

 

[Tankerthebuberz]

Now that dhcp is working correctly I’m considering trying this….does iwork and iLife install ok I seem to remember issues with 10A190 and iWork?

 

[jktwice]

Now that dhcp is working correctly I’m considering trying this….does iwork and iLife install ok I seem to remember issues with 10A190 and iWork?

Yeah they install fine. In fact iWork 9.1 will install just fine. These seem to be Universal apps still, so give 9.1 a whirl if you'd like to!

Other software I have tried that installs fine:

Reason 4 - No problems.

Logic Pro 9 - Installs fine, but demands a component be installed before launching. If you install this component the app becomes a brick. Make sure you replace whatever components it demands of you with the Leopard equivalent. It is probably pulling an Intel only version from Apple's servers. You cannot migrate your Logic Pro 9 install from another disk unless you use the official Apple migration one... which crashes anyways... I will figure this out myself.

Avid Media Composer 3.1.1 - Installs fine with OpenGL crash. Refer to educovas' post for a fix.

 

[barracuda156]

Yeah they install fine. In fact iWork 9.1 will install just fine. These seem to be Universal apps still, so give 9.1 a whirl if you'd like to!

Just to make sure, do they actually work? I recall installation was fine on 10a190, but apps did not launch.

 

[atester2001]

FYI to all, ipfw (ipfw and ip6fw) is disabled by default on OS X Snow Leopard and only one firewall should be running at any given time. I recommend disabling it until we can confirm it doesn’t have issues. It was also deprecated post-10.6.8.

ipfw configuration files (at least on server) should be located at /etc/ipfilter/

ip6fw.conf.apple
ip6fwstate-on
ip_ address_groups.plist
ip_address_groups.plist.default
ipfw.conf
ipfw.conf.apple
ipfw.conf.default
ipfwstate-on

Use the sysctl tool to enable/disable the firewall:

$ sysctl -w net.inet.ip.fw.enable=1

You can disable the firewall by changing the setting to 0.

OS X has its own Apple Application Firewall which is the one that should be controlled by system preferences, and i’m not convinced that it’s behaving as it should be.

There is no GUI for ipfw (only on server) and both can be configured via command line or by editing their various preference and configuration files.

To enable or disable the apple application firewall from the command line, use the following:

defaults write /System/Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf globalstate -int 1

0 - for off
1 - for only specific services
2 - for essential services only

The main preference file for the Application Firewall is located in /Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist

The executable files for the Application Firewall are located in /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall

This makes no difference. It appears the application firewall simply doesn't work right, perhaps the .plist settings don't work for the kernel or extension installed.
Is there perhaps a way to remove the application firewall kernel extension (assuming the default is open)?

BTW, the com.apple.alf.plist is in /Library/Preferences not /System/Library/Preferences.

 

[atester2001]

Real Life (tm) has intruded on my ability to test for some time recently but this was wonderful to see!! I've gotten it installed and I'm posting this from the InterWebPPC in that image. Great job @ChrisCharman ! I'd love to understand what combination of updates finally cracked the UDP issue.



@atester2001, did one of your combination of settings tried actually allow ssh connections from another computer to your iMac? I tried setting the second option for the Firewall and turning on Remote Login in Sharing but cannot connect to my PowerBook remotely. I set these using the Systems Preferences UI but did attempt @ChrisCharman's command below when that didn't work (without any change in behavior):

sudo defaults write /System/Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf globalstate -int 0

No that still doesn't work. As far as I can tell the only setting that works is the allow specified one (1)
That will allow ssh but not screen sharing.

I'd like to totally remove/disable the application firewall, trying to find a way...

 

[jktwice]

Just to make sure, do they actually work? I recall installation was fine on 10a190, but apps did not launch.

To be clear, "at minimum" just means that you can only see Pages working in this screenshot. Keynote and Numbers work well too.

 

[jktwice]

Does anyone else have an issue where if one decides to boot Snow Leopard on start up or chooses it as their start up disk, the graphics driver for the 6600 will not initialize, leaving a black screen?

To get around it, you have to simply just boot into it from the boot manager.

 

[barracuda156]

Does anyone else have an issue where if one decides to boot Snow Leopard on start up or chooses it as their start up disk, the graphics driver for the 6600 will not initialize, leaving a black screen?

To get around it, you have to simply just boot into it from the boot manager.

That is the case, you may find discussion of the issue earlier here.

 

[Project Alice]

After cloning the image to my 1.5GHz PowerBook, it does this and just shuts off.
Edit: added logs

 

[barracuda156]

After cloning the image to my 1.5GHz PowerBook, it does this and just shuts off.
Edit: added logs
View attachment 2485181

Could you clarify what is it supposed to boot from? And does it have any peripherals connected?
(Sorry, I have little idea about what normally these logs look like, but those attached appear strange.)

It could be worth trying to boot from a FW drive to see if it fails in the same way.

 

[ChrisCharman]

After cloning the image to my 1.5GHz PowerBook, it does this and just shuts off.
Edit: added logs
View attachment 2485181

Hi @Project Alice

Your kernel log seems to be failing when trying to load the version of pre-linked kernel and or kext cache based on my system - those are the references to ‘PowerPC Developer’s PowerBook G4’.

Try deleting the caches and it should generate fresh ones for you and hopefully boot successfully.

The other warnings and errors noted in the System log will need to be investigated, especially the ‘BUG’ with libdispatch.

The image should boot from internal drives and external Firewire drives but external USB drives are unsupported without manually doing so in OpenFirmware.

 

[Tankerthebuberz]

Hi @Project Alice

Your kernel log seems to be failing when trying to load the version of pre-linked kernel and or kext cache based on my system - those are the references to ‘PowerPC Developer’s PowerBook G4’.

Try deleting the caches and it should generate fresh ones for you and hopefully boot successfully.

The other warnings and errors noted in the System log will need to be investigated, especially the ‘BUG’ with libdispatch.

The image should boot from internal drives and external Firewire drives but external USB drives are unsupported without manually doing so in OpenFirmware.

It’s kernel panicing because when you restored the image, you didn’t select the ‘Erase and Restore’ option. I made the same mistake, but you must select this option during the restore process; otherwise, it doesn’t copy block-for-block, which causes the error. If you’re left with the drive name you assigned yourself, that’s the issue. After the restore is complete, the drive name should match the Snow Leopard ISO name.

 

[barracuda156]

Hi @Project Alice

Your kernel log seems to be failing when trying to load the version of pre-linked kernel and or kext cache based on my system - those are the references to ‘PowerPC Developer’s PowerBook G4’.

Try deleting the caches and it should generate fresh ones for you and hopefully boot successfully.

The other warnings and errors noted in the System log will need to be investigated, especially the ‘BUG’ with libdispatch.

The image should boot from internal drives and external Firewire drives but external USB drives are unsupported without manually doing so in OpenFirmware.

On a side note, every once in a while I see some crashes which may refer to libdispatch, from the backtrace, but not sure if those imply any bugs in it or not.
[As you well know,] building libdispatch from source is easy, but perhaps in order to swap it with the original, we need to rebuild the whole Libc. Or is there a way to replace only a given component of it?

 

[Tankerthebuberz]

on a side note @barracuda156 and @ChrisCharman thank you and to all the devs for what you've done with this project. The fact that we are at this point is insane considering the very few leaked builds. Haven't used it on my powerbook as I stilck with tiger but I'm rocking this on my G5 2.3DC and it runs perfect.

 

[barracuda156]

on a side note @barracuda156 and @ChrisCharman thank you and to all the devs for what you've done with this project. The fact that we are at this point is insane considering the very few leaked builds. Haven't used it on my powerbook as I stilck with tiger but I'm rocking this on my G5 2.3DC and it runs perfect.

All the credits for the work on the OS itself go to @educovas and @ChrisCharman (and for early pre-10.6.8 builds a few others contributed initially).
I am mostly working on support for third-party software (compilers, build system, X server, apps etc.) and just testing OS builds in that context.

 

[Project Alice]

Hi @Project Alice

Your kernel log seems to be failing when trying to load the version of pre-linked kernel and or kext cache based on my system - those are the references to ‘PowerPC Developer’s PowerBook G4’.

Try deleting the caches and it should generate fresh ones for you and hopefully boot successfully.

The other warnings and errors noted in the System log will need to be investigated, especially the ‘BUG’ with libdispatch.

The image should boot from internal drives and external Firewire drives but external USB drives are unsupported without manually doing so in OpenFirmware.

I will give this a shot. Its the internal drive.
And I don’t ever USB PPC lol

It’s kernel panicing because when you restored the image, you didn’t select the ‘Erase and Restore’ option. I made the same mistake, but you must select this option during the restore process; otherwise, it doesn’t copy block-for-block, which causes the error. If you’re left with the drive name you assigned yourself, that’s the issue. After the restore is complete, the drive name should match the Snow Leopard ISO name.

I erased the partition, and then used CCC to clone the image to it. Should be a foolproof way. Disk Utility almost never successfully restores images.

 

[ChrisCharman]

On a side note, every once in a while I see some crashes which may refer to libdispatch, from the backtrace, but not sure if those imply any bugs in it or not.
[As you well know,] building libdispatch from source is easy, but perhaps in order to swap it with the original, we need to rebuild the whole Libc. Or is there a way to replace only a given component of it?

I have some annual leave coming up soon so will add investigating libdispatch to my todo.

The specific bug i was referencing is in the system log shared a few posts back ref DirectoryService.

I am mostly working on support for third-party software (compilers, build system, X server, apps etc.) and just testing OS builds in that context.

What’s the best way to mirror PowerPC Ports archive and how much storage space should i need to reserve on my server @barracuda156?

 

[Hughmac]

I will give this a shot. Its the internal drive.
And I don’t ever USB PPC lol

I erased the partition, and then used CCC to clone the image to it. Should be a foolproof way. Disk Utility almost never successfully restores images.

That doesn't work either, and resulted in a KP on my 15" PowerBook.

When I used Disk Utility to Erase and Restore the image booted fine to my FireWire drive

Cheers

Hugh

 

[barracuda156]

What’s the best way to mirror PowerPC Ports archive and how much storage space should i need to reserve on my server @barracuda156?

Does this work? rsync://macos-powerpc.org/macos-powerpc/packages/
(Packages are priority, since packages_legacy are for 10a190 and not really advisable for 10.6.8, and port sources exist on GitHub.)
It should be below 100 GB, since the partition I used recently was about that side, and build directories take far more space than binary tarballs. (I am away from my PowerMac for a while, will try to check the size remotely a bit later.)
Having a mirror for packages will be valuable, since while builds are reproducible, building from scratch gonna take weeks.

 

[Tankerthebuberz]

Anyone figure out how to get g4fancontrol working…i know the java front doesn't work but in terminal it says it’s missing two kexts

 

[Project Alice]

That doesn't work either, and resulted in a KP on my 15" PowerBook.

When I used Disk Utility to Erase and Restore the image booted fine to my FireWire drive

Cheers

Hugh

Hmm. Well I'll try restoring it in DU then. I rarely have success with that though.

Hi @Project Alice
Try deleting the caches and it should generate fresh ones for you and hopefully boot successfully.

Deleting the caches didn't work either. I will try what Highmac suggested and use DU to erase+restore instead of the CCC method.

 

[ChrisCharman]

Anyone figure out how to get g4fancontrol working…i know the java front doesn't work but in terminal it says it’s missing two kexts

Which two kexts? I’ve suspected an issue with thermal/power management so this could be related.

 

[barracuda156]

Hmm. Well I'll try restoring it in DU then. I rarely have success with that though.

I have always restored OS images with DU (usually from 10a190), works perfectly fine.