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Guide: Install Leopard on unsupported Macs

arthurson said:
can somebody provide the modified OSInstall.mpkg to us so we just replace the orginal one, and then all g3 powerpc can install the leopard?

i have the orginal one and don't know if i can link the link here for you to modify.:confused:
Click to expand...

sorry but no, G3's will not even boot a cloned install of leopard. they didnt compile it for G3's. its been tried on a few different G3 systems using a leopard install on a firewire drive. they go into verbose mode and hang, the same firewire drive that was used to test the G3 systems boots the G4 system just fine ( that are under 867mhz). it looks like G3's are left with tiger sorry.

these blocks and limits are only for the installer so you can trick the installer to think its a supported machine so you can have a disk that will install Leopard on a G4 system slower then a 867mhz. even tho you remove these limits for the installer it still will make no difference on how the OS was compiled ( cause they compiled for CPU's that are G4 and higher they left out compiling for G3's all together) everything requires altvec and all of the app's require altvec. even on that build of leopard that would run on G3's ( cause it was compiled with G3 support) all of the app's as soon as they was opened they would crash, cause all of the app's was compiled for G4 CPU's and above.

it will boot a G4 Mac and only a G4 Mac and above, cause everything requires altvec or higher

it booted on My Digital audio 533 just fine. but i seen something when i was editing the OSinstall.mpkg, the G4 power Mac models (not including the Yikes cause it shows up as a G3) are not in the machine ID block list. they are only blocked by the 867mhz virtual speed block for the installer. so i think that a DA with a cpu upgrade at or above 867mhz will bypass that block and install properly (maybe).
 
Sorry if this was already covered, but I've heard you can even install Leopard from an iPod (firewire). Is this true? Even so, how does one install off an external HD?
 
copy copy cloner

I also can confirm that Carbon Copy Cloner works. I am using Leopard now on a Mac G4 Dual 800. The permissions work and you can just drop the new package into the disk image and then burn it or restore it to a partition on your HD. Leopard seems to be working about the same as Tiger, but I haven't tried all the apps yet. When I used CCC the extension was sparseimage, but when I used DMG the extension was just .img This may have made some difference. LEt me know if you need the newosinstall package. I changed mine to 499mhz just to be safe.
 
external hd

The external HD has to be firewire I believe. I know it wouldn't work with the USB drives I have. You just restore the image to the external firewire drive and then boot from that and install on your internal HD. I am pretty sure that is the correct method.
 
used freeDMG ( altho it was a PITA ) but it did work.

Myself, i have a Pioneer DVR-110D to burn with. it should be rther easy to get to install from a external (Firewire) drive. which i think you just use CCC to copy the mounted image to the drive ( i would think ). i am not sure really cause i never had a external firewire HDD. the iPod would have to be firewire in order to boot from it. cause you can (from what i hear) use the iPod like a external HDD.
 
I just want to thank suneohair for posting this! I was worried that I wouldn't be able to run 10.5 on my old (but still great working) G4, but the guide was awesome. Despite for the little hang up over FreeDMG, everything worked flawlessly and I can happily say I'm typing this on Leopard!

Thanks again! All off us Sub-867 kids owe you BIG TIME!
 
madmax_2069 said:
sorry but no, G3's will not even boot a cloned install of leopard. they didnt compile it for G3's. its been tried on a few different G3 systems using a leopard install on a firewire drive. they go into verbose mode and hang, the same firewire drive that was used to test the G3 systems boots the G4 system just fine ( that are under 867mhz). it looks like G3's are left with tiger sorry.

these blocks and limits are only for the installer so you can trick the installer to think its a supported machine so you can have a disk that will install Leopard on a G4 system slower then a 867mhz. even tho you remove these limits for the installer it still will make no difference on how the OS was compiled ( cause they compiled for CPU's that are G4 and higher they left out compiling for G3's all together) everything requires altvec and all of the app's require altvec. even on that build of leopard that would run on G3's ( cause it was compiled with G3 support) all of the app's as soon as they was opened they would crash, cause all of the app's was compiled for G4 CPU's and above.

it will boot a G4 Mac and only a G4 Mac and above, cause everything requires altvec or higher

it booted on My Digital audio 533 just fine. but i seen something when i was editing the OSinstall.mpkg, the G4 power Mac models (not including the Yikes cause it shows up as a G3) are not in the machine ID block list. they are only blocked by the 867mhz virtual speed block for the installer. so i think that a DA with a cpu upgrade at or above 867mhz will bypass that block and install properly (maybe).
Click to expand...
I thought that may be the case because I got Kernel Panics when trying to boot from the DVD on both the B&W G3's I tried it on. But I also got the same Kernel Panic on a Tray Loading iMac that has been upgraded with a DVD drive and a G4 processor… Any idea why it won't boot up from the DVD on that machine? And do you recall which build(s) are compiled for the G3? There are discussions of this topic on many other forums and I read a post from someone that they have 9A581 running (slowly) on a 350 Mhz G3 and I don't see how with all the Kernel Panics that I keep getting…
 
Tupring said:
I thought that may be the case because I got Kernel Panics when trying to boot from the DVD on both the B&W G3's I tried it on. But I also got the same Kernel Panic on a Tray Loading iMac that has been upgraded with a DVD drive and a G4 processor… Any idea why it won't boot up from the DVD on that machine? And do you recall which build(s) are compiled for the G3? There are discussions of this topic on many other forums and I read a post from someone that they have 9A581 running (slowly) on a 350 Mhz G3 and I don't see how with all the Kernel Panics that I keep getting…
Click to expand...

yea the reason you was getting KP's was cause it was trying to exacute instructions that require altvec. i cant remember which Leopard build ran on a G3 ( but you can bet its a early version), sorry. but even then all of the app's was compiled for altvec so they crashed as soon s you tried to load them.

i think if you have a G4 upgraded Mac ( some require software to run) and if it don't have the software installed most things freak out or run uber slow). so the G3 to G4 upgrades might not be able to work booting leopard. now a G4 on a G4 cpu upgrade has a way bettter chance for it to work great cause most dont require software.

you might try to look in the OSinstall.mpkg for any G3 refrance and related boot rom and remove them. so you can try to boot it on a G4 upgraded G3 Mac. i know the iMac is listed in the Machine ID list of non supported Mac's and lists a powermac G3 and there is another G3 refrance above the Machine ID list, and remember to edt the speed limit ( 867mhz ) and lower it to 300mhz ( or what you want to put it at)
 
Oh... Why are all my packages in pkg and not mpkg? My OS install file got this name:

osinstall.pkg

And when I extract it with terminal, I get a file called "PackageInfo" and a container thats called "Scripts".

Am I might doing something wrong?

By the way, Im trying to install Leopard on a iMac G4 700Mhz.
 
xcuneytx said:
I want to install Leopard on an iBook G3 700 MHz, anyone tried it on a similar Mac?
Click to expand...

ahhhh, let me say this again. no G3 system will run Leopard. everything was compiled for a G4 +. everything requires altvec. every test to try to boot a G3 with Leopard makes the system KP or freeze. this was tested with a external firewire drive with leopard installed to it, the same drive works just fine booting a 400mhz G4 GBE and a ton of other G4 macs. all of this info was posted here

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/371144/

scroll down a bit to mc68k post about the G3's tested. the reason why they did this is cause everything requires altvec meaning a G4 or above.
 
osinstall.mpkg download ???

Anyone know of a place to get a copy of a modified osinstall.mpkg? i don't have the developer tools installed and would rather not install them just to modify this one file.
 
Unfamiliar scripting language

What is the scripting language used in the file "Distribution"? (btw, there should be a suffice on that file. Best to use Terminal throughout with such low level hacking)

It looks to be C but with some tweaks --- the "var" flag for variable declarations, and using < instead of < . Or was that your editing for this forum, worried that < would be parsed as html code?

It will be interesting if simpler hacks can be developed.

Too bad Apple is taking away choice from the user with its forcible prevention of installation on systems where Leopard will actually work, where the speed issue is in the eye of the beholder.
 
suneohair said:
So, ...
Click to expand...
No offense but this should be called "an intensely detailed techie guide to ... " or something. I didn't get past the fact that you have to install developer tools and compilers before I gave up on it.

I thought this was going to be a thread on installing Leopard on older Macs that still meet the requirements for Leopard installation, not a "hackers guide" to making it work on a Performa or something.

Please be clearer in your headings next time.
 
Nice guide - good work, suneohair! Somebody ought to package this up into a simple app that does everything with one click. Should be pretty easy. I'd do it since I plan to install Leopard on my 733 MHz G4 at some point, but I think I'll go the clone route. Much easier if you have access to another supported PPC machine. ;) I'll just install it to an external drive on a faster PowerBook and work, then clone that drive to the older Mac at home.
 
one issue

Thanks suneohair. 10.5 is faster and more robust than tiger ever was on my g4imac 800. I just recorded 16 audio tracks and 10 instrument tracks with logic 8. Easy...felt like it could have done more.
One thing stopping me from using this as my main working OS is the sleep issue. On sleep...my screen fades to white then goes black then sleeps.
On wake all I get is a black screen. Only a reboot will bring it back.
I've tried reinstall, pram reset, permissions etc. No luck.
Could need a reinstall of nvidia geforce4 mx driver??
Any ideas anyone?
 
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rumac said:
One thing stopping me from using this as my main working OS is the sleep issue. On sleep...my screen fades to white then goes black then sleeps.
On wake all I get is a black screen. Only a reboot will bring it back.
I've tried reinstall, pram reset, permissions etc. No luck.
Could need a reinstall of nvidia geforce4 mx driver??
Any ideas anyone?
Click to expand...

It seems that Apple had a reason to disable the Leopard install for older machines. One of my Macs is a iMac G4 800 MHZ with a GeForce2 MX graphic card. It shows the same symptoms described by rumac: stripes on the screen when to machine goes to sleep, which are still there when it wakes up. In addition, display sleep does not work: the screen goes to the half-dim mode as scheduled but does not go to sleep proper. Once the mouse is moved it merely blinks.

It seems that the Leopard power manager does not properly work with these graphics cards.
 
error: disk needs to be cleaned!

i burned the sparse image to a dual layer disk. ran the installer. rebooted and i get as far as the preparing installer screen. then i get an error that sayd i should try cleaning the disk and reinstall. please help.

also if someone could explain the problems that some are running into with step six.
 
continued form last post

this is the error message:
"There was a problem reading the Mac OS X installation disc. Carefully clean the disc, and try reinstalling."

it says this even when i restored the image to my 2nd internal drive. this is driving me crazy.
 
Thanks so much!

Thanks suneohair!!!!!!!!!!
I don't know how you figured this out or how long it took you but thanks sooo much! I have a Dual 800mhz G4 Quicksilver.

Knock on wood that it stays this way... but so far it's been a smooth road once Leopard was installed. The only thing I noticed was that the screen blinked to black for 1 second on two separate occasions. This wasn't related to sleep. Sleep works just fine for me. I am using an Apple 20" ADC display. The graphics card is a NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with TwinView. I wonder if this setup works because it is different than those of you having problems? I did a reformat and install fresh. I reinstalled all my apps and copied over only the necessary pref files, etc.

So far it's a pleasure using 10.5. I can't believe Apple didn't want it on this machine. I'd swear it's faster than 10.4. At least as good though.

I was actually surprised it could not install it after I bought it. For two reasons:
1: It's a higher end machine then the 867 was at the time so it "should be supported when a lower machine by $1000 is supported"
2. I had called up Apple on the phone and a system engineer told me that it would run on this machine. I was quite shocked and annoyed when it told me it could not. That is why I "had" to get it installed.

Thanks again. I love 10.5 so far, even on this Dual 800 G4. I can't wait to put this puppy on my MBP 15".

Oh, and for those that are wondering:
- I do get a reflective dock
- I do NOT have a transparent menu bar.
- I do not get the ripple effect in dashboard (didn't with 10.4 either though).
- There is no blurring behind the transparent menus, but their opacity level is fine for easy legibility (much better than I had expected).
 
install leopard on older macs

Hello, was wondering if that procedure will work with a G3 mac (Ibook) laptop computer 512 mb ram/800 mhz? Thanks
 
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