[Guide] Installing 10.9 Mavericks on older Macs. -HackerWayne

[Hennesie2000]

Any progress as the GM is out now? Not impatient just curious

+1... going to be doing the x5365 upgrade to my Mac Pro 1,1 and would love to go straight from Lion to Mavericks.

 

[kieranread]

+1... going to be doing the x5365 upgrade to my Mac Pro 1,1 and would love to go straight from Lion to Mavericks.

Good! That generation of mac pro still has a lot of potential, I was hoping to be doing it on an early 2008 MacBook, It narrowly missed out on Mountain Lion too, Unsure whether this will be possible as it says it won't work on machines that count run ML, As the LATE 2008 was supported

 

[jeanlain]

Who wants to try out my OS X 10.9 DP on Mac Pro 1,1 guide? BE MY GUINEA PIG!!!! or not... your choice XD

http://wp.me/p1NdqU-7

Took me 14 hours straight to write and put together. That's right 14 hours non-stop folks... well anyways, if somethings not working or if I made any mistakes just leave a comment and I'll check it out and fix it.

Don't forget to thank Jabbawok & netkas for their hard work!

________________________________________
GROWL** I'M BATMANOFZURENARH! FEAR ME!

I tried your method but I was stuck at some point because I needed another hard drive. Since chameleon is installed on an MBR partition and Mavericks on a GPT partition, I needed 3 HD total (since I wanted to keep my Lion partition and there was no room for an additional volume dedicated to Mavericks on that disk).

So I tried something else. Using my supported MacBook Pro, I installed Mavericks on the small SSD I initially used for Chameleon (which I repartitioned as GUID with just one volume). I then moved the SSD to the Mac Pro, added a partition to it (5GB) to install chameleon using your procedure (including the -bless command). This way, Mavericks was on the first volume of the disk (disk0s2) and chameleon on the 2nd (disk0s4). I was sure it wouldn't work since the disk was partionned using GPT and not MBR.
But it just worked! I rebooted, it took some time to launch mavericks and everything is working now (audio, iCloud, Messages). I haven't tried sleep though.
The only issue I have so far is that it detects another "ghost" monitor. I have a flashed radeon 4870. I'm not sure the issue has anything to do with it being flashed. Any suggestions to fix that? I suppose it has something to do with the Chameleon video settings.

To sum up:
- Install Mavericks GM on disk that has just one partition, using a supported Mac.
- Add a parition to that disk and install Chameleon on it using the instruction by batmanofzurenar (including the -bless command). Note that your disk may not be disk0, like mine. So you may need to modify the procedure.
- There's no step 3! I haven't even moved the boot and mach_kernel files to the Mavericks volume. It's just a vanilla Mavericks installed. However it required a supported Mac.

EDIT: fixed the ghost display issue with graphicsenabler = YES.
The only minor issues I have are incorrect resolution during the Apple logo and the Mac is long to put too sleep (20 sec maybe).

 

[Hennesie2000]

I tried your method but I was stuck at some point because I needed another hard drive. Since chameleon is installed on an MBR partition and Mavericks on a GPT partition, I needed 3 HD total (since I wanted to keep my Lion partition and there was no room for an additional volume dedicated to Mavericks on that disk).

So I tried something else. Using my supported MacBook Pro, I installed Mavericks on the small SSD I initially used for Chameleon (which I repartitioned as GUID with just one volume). I then moved the SSD to the Mac Pro, added a partition to it (5GB) to install chameleon using your procedure (including the -bless command). This way, Mavericks was on the first volume of the disk (disk0s2) and chameleon on the 2nd (disk0s4). I was sure it wouldn't work since the disk was partionned using GPT and not MBR.
But it just worked! I rebooted, it took some time to launch mavericks and everything is working now (audio, iCloud, Messages). I haven't tried sleep though.
The only issue I have so far is that it detects another "ghost" monitor. I have a flashed radeon 4870. I'm not sure the issue has anything to do with it being flashed. Any suggestions to fix that? I suppose it has something to do with the Chameleon video settings.

To sum up:
- Install Mavericks GM on disk that has just one partition, using a supported Mac.
- Add a parition to that disk and install Chameleon on it using the instruction by batmanofzurenar (including the -bless command). Note that your disk may not be disk0, like mine. So you may need to modify the procedure.
- There's no step 3! I haven't even moved the boot and mach_kernel files to the Mavericks volume. It's just a vanilla Mavericks installed. However it required a supported Mac.

EDIT: fixed the ghost display issue with graphicsenabler = YES.
The only minor issues I have are incorrect resolution during the Apple logo and the Mac is long to put too sleep (20 sec maybe).

I might have to give this a try. I have a a few MPB's and I could use one of them to build install like you did and then put the HDD in to my Mac Pro. What generation is your Mac Pro? i am running a non flashed GTX 570 so I hope I don't have any issues there.

 

[Snowshiro]

To sum up:
- Install Mavericks GM on disk that has just one partition, using a supported Mac.
- Add a parition to that disk and install Chameleon on it using the instruction by batmanofzurenar (including the -bless command). Note that your disk may not be disk0, like mine. So you may need to modify the procedure.
- There's no step 3! I haven't even moved the boot and mach_kernel files to the Mavericks volume. It's just a vanilla Mavericks installed. However it required a supported Mac.

EDIT: fixed the ghost display issue with graphicsenabler = YES.
The only minor issues I have are incorrect resolution during the Apple logo and the Mac is long to put too sleep (20 sec maybe).

So, in theory, if you already have a Mac Pro 1,1 with Mountain Lion on it (using Chameleon), you should just be able to install Mavericks to the main OS partition using another Mac, and it'll run out of the box (because Chameleon will already be setup to boot that partition). If that's true, it just shows at best how lazy Apple are at supporting users with still capable machines, or at worst how they're forcing obsolescence on a Mac that could still easily run their latest OS.

My only concern is whether, by installing from an MBP, the installer makes certain choices during installation based on the hardware it detects, and leaves some vital files which the Mac Pro would benefit from, but the MBP doesn't use.

 

[Hennesie2000]

So, in theory, if you already have a Mac Pro 1,1 with Mountain Lion on it (using Chameleon), you should just be able to install Mavericks to the main OS partition using another Mac, and it'll run out of the box (because Chameleon will already be setup to boot that partition). If that's true, it just shows at best how lazy Apple are at supporting users with still capable machines, or at worst how they're forcing obsolescence on a Mac that could still easily run their latest OS.

My only concern is whether, by installing from an MBP, the installer makes certain choices during installation based on the hardware it detects, and leaves some vital files which the Mac Pro would benefit from, but the MBP doesn't use.

Good question... also, how well does Chameleon work with a dual boot? I use both OSX and Windows (they are on separate drives). Would I still be able to boot to windows? I currently use BootChamp to select the windows drive to boot and then BootCamp Control Panel when running windows to select the OSX drive since I am using a PC video card and don't have a boot screen.

 

[Graeme43]

So, in theory, if you already have a Mac Pro 1,1 with Mountain Lion on it (using Chameleon), you should just be able to install Mavericks to the main OS partition using another Mac, and it'll run out of the box (because Chameleon will already be setup to boot that partition). If that's true, it just shows at best how lazy Apple are at supporting users with still capable machines, or at worst how they're forcing obsolescence on a Mac that could still easily run their latest OS.

My only concern is whether, by installing from an MBP, the installer makes certain choices during installation based on the hardware it detects, and leaves some vital files which the Mac Pro would benefit from, but the MBP doesn't use.

I was running 10.8 on the 1,1 with chameleon and upgraded to 10.9 by extracting the image of 10.9 from the app store onto a spare hd then i stuck it inside and booted off... all great

 

[jeanlain]

So, in theory, if you already have a Mac Pro 1,1 with Mountain Lion on it (using Chameleon), you should just be able to install Mavericks to the main OS partition using another Mac, and it'll run out of the box (because Chameleon will already be setup to boot that partition). If that's true, it just shows at best how lazy Apple are at supporting users with still capable machines, or at worst how they're forcing obsolescence on a Mac that could still easily run their latest OS.

My only concern is whether, by installing from an MBP, the installer makes certain choices during installation based on the hardware it detects, and leaves some vital files which the Mac Pro would benefit from, but the MBP doesn't use.

I don't think that OS X is customized for your hardware, since booting from another Mac via target disk is supported.
And yes, I suppose it would just be possible to install Mavericks on the partition already setup for boot. I haven't modified any file. However, I'm not sure my installation is trouble-free yet. There a appears to be an issue with sleep (I get an error message in the console and the Mac goes to hibernate mode instead of simple sleep mode). And I wouldn't be surprised if it hanged on after a long sleep, as it seems to happen on other systems.

 

[Snowshiro]

I was running 10.8 on the 1,1 with chameleon and upgraded to 10.9 by extracting the image of 10.9 from the app store onto a spare hd then i stuck it inside and booted off... all great

So, you used Disk Utility to restore it to a HD partition and then just got Chameleon to boot it? Or something more complex? Hackerwayne & batmanofzurenarh seem to have gone awol recently, so I guess we may have to figure this out ourselves.

 

[Hennesie2000]

I have run into a bit of a snag... batmanofzurenarh's guide says to hold option and select the chameleon boot drive to get to the install. Well having an upgraded GPU that is not a flash one. I can't get to that screen. Currently I use bootchamp to choose my Windows hdd when I want to boot to that and then when I restart it defaults back to OS X.

The Chameleon partition does not show up in either the startup disk preference pane or bootchamp. I am not too familiar with how Chameleon handles the boot. Or if by blessing it, it chooses that partition to boot from by default.

Currently I have a 250GB drive formatted with two partitions, a 1GB with Chameleon installed and the rest is just free space where I was hoping to install OS X Mavericks but I am not sure if it being set up as MBR will cause any problems. I also made a bootable USB thumb drive installer with the Mavericks GM on it.

I am not sure where to go from here...

 

[fiatlux]

MLPF vs Chameleon?

Sorry to hijack this thread but could someone confirm or point me to pros and cons of MLPF vs Chameleon?

To me, Chameleon is a software EFI64 emulation layer which enables installation and use 64bit kernels OS on older hardware. Only issues I see are a complicated setup (separate boot partition) and potential lack of 64 bit drivers for all hardware. But once up and running, the system should be stable and update-proof as it is essentially an unmodified OS install.

MLPF on the other hand appears to be a hack of Mountain Lion (and Mavericks) to let it work with 32bit kernels and drivers. To me, this appears, on paper at least, a much less desirable approach: it requires hacking key OS files which may have unidentified effects and may completely stop working after any OS update.

Do I miss something?

 

[RV-ABZ]

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[fiatlux]

MLPF (for ML only) can indeed be considered a less desirable method for several resaons:

• it was designed for systems with older graphics chips for which Apple dropped support with ML: Intel GMA950, Intel GMA X3100, nVidia GeForce7300, etc.

Thanks, and if I understand well, Chameleon+ML is a no-go on a late 2007 MacBook due to lacking drivers.

Too bad because I was willing to try installing Mavericks on it once my MacPro & MacMini were updated, just for the sake of maintaining a single OS version across my machines, but also to have the same up-to-date iCloud-related features.

 

[RV-ABZ]

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[Snowshiro]

I have run into a bit of a snag... batmanofzurenarh's guide says to hold option and select the chameleon boot drive to get to the install. Well having an upgraded GPU that is not a flash one. I can't get to that screen. Currently I use bootchamp to choose my Windows hdd when I want to boot to that and then when I restart it defaults back to OS X.

I had the same concerns when I upgraded to Mountain Lion on my 1,1 as I also have a flashed PC 5770 GPU with no boot screen, so I was worried about being able to make the partition selection at the boot screen. However, when I read some of the comments in the discussion below the guide it said that the "bless" command that you type in the terminal as part of the install is what determines which partition to boot from. So, as long as you use this command it will automatically select Chameleon on reboot if you just wait, and you don't need to hold down the option key. I tried it, and it worked fine for me.

Since batmanofzurenarh's guide for Mavericks seems to be largely based on the earlier Mountain Lion guide (it's word for word copy and paste in places) it also blesses the boot partition and I would guess you shouldn't have any problems.

By the way, just FYI, it's "bootcamp" (as opposed to champ).

 

[Hennesie2000]

I had the same concerns when I upgraded to Mountain Lion on my 1,1 as I also have a flashed PC 5770 GPU with no boot screen, so I was worried about being able to make the partition selection at the boot screen. However, when I read some of the comments in the discussion below the guide it said that the "bless" command that you type in the terminal as part of the install is what determines which partition to boot from. So, as long as you use this command it will automatically select Chameleon on reboot if you just wait, and you don't need to hold down the option key. I tried it, and it worked fine for me.

Since batmanofzurenarh's guide for Mavericks seems to be largely based on the earlier Mountain Lion guide (it's word for word copy and paste in places) it also blesses the boot partition and I would guess you shouldn't have any problems.

By the way, just FYI, it's "bootcamp" (as opposed to champ).

Ok, thanks.

An FYI there is something called BootChamp. I use it to select my windows drive to reboot into windows without having to open settings or hold in the option key.

 

[Snowshiro]

Ok, thanks.

An FYI there is something called BootChamp. I use it to select my windows drive to reboot into windows without having to open settings or hold in the option key.

Ahh, my bad - apologies. I assumed you were referring to the standard Apple boot screen. Most people only encounter for the first time it after they install boot camp/Windows and need to switch OS.

 

[Hennesie2000]

Ahh, my bad - apologies. I assumed you were referring to the standard Apple boot screen. Most people only encounter for the first time it after they install boot camp/Windows and need to switch OS.

No problem. I know I might have sound a bit noobish, it's just a bit new to me. I catch on quick though.

I am proud to say that I have had success using chameleon. I installed Mavericks on to a HDD formatted with 1 partition and GUID using a supported MacBook Pro. Setup the user and then shutdown. Installed the Mavericks HDD into my Mac Pro 1,1 and booted up 10.7.5. I then installed chameleon on to the same partition as the Mavericks install. Modified the SMBios.plist and org.chameleon.Boot.plist. I also used the Chameleon Wizard to update to the latest release. Then I used the bless command. Reboot and all works. Sound, Resolution, Sleep, iCloud, iMessage. This method does not require a second boot drive or boot partition. It only requires a supported Mac. If you don't have one maybe you have a friend who does, and they are willing to lend it to you for 30 mins.

With a processor upgrade to 8 cores maybe I can get another few years out of it.

Update:
So it looks like sleep is not working or maybe its something else because my computer isn't set to sleep, just the screen to go off. Came in this morning and when the screen turned on it had KP'd over night at some point. This was however when running OS X 10.7.5 in 64bit mode.

Update 2:
iMessage is no longer working. I get an message saying "Could not sign in to iMessage. An error occurred during activation. Try again. Last night I was able to sign in fine

Update 3:
Got iMessage working again. Had to put a dylib file into a 'modules' folder inside the 'Extra' folder. Also for good measure I started over with a fresh SMBios.plist from batmanofzurenarh. Sleep DOES work with 10.9.

The inital boot screen (the grey one with the apple logo) is still not the right size but that no big deal.

 

[schreiberstein]

Mavericks i386

Hi!

I've just installed Mac OS X 10.8.5 on my Macmini2,1 (1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo, Intel GMA950, 4GB Ram, 128GB SSD) and it works ~95%-ly.
(Had to install 10.8.5 Combo Update using Terminal on ML-Install partition
("installer -pkg /Volumes/MacOSXComboxyz/xyz.pkg -target /Volumes/ML")
and my USB2-DAC caused Kernel Panics (Solved by replacing the Audio Kexts with 10.7.2 ones))
I used MLPostFactor v0.3.
The overall performance is significantly better than on Lion.
Browsing with Safari is much snappier than ever before.

I am now trying to get OS X Mavericks Golden Master up and running.
The 64-bit Intel GMA kext doesn't look promising, hence I'd like to stick with the Mountain Lion PostFactor mixture of kexts and mach_kernel.
I installed Mavericks (using a supported machine) to my USB harddrive, applied MLPostFactor on it (->10.8.4), reworked "SystemVersion.plist", added the Board-ID and Model-ID to PlatformSupport.plist, replaced the boot.efi with the MLPostFactor one (from the installed 10.8.5 system), "blessed" the boot.efi and rebooted...
To make a long story short: It doesn't work.
The kernel and its extensions gets loaded, but "launchd" doesn't show up in verbose mode. The system freezes (keyboard is ignored).
(Screenshot attached!)

My question is: Is there a solution for this, beside switching to 64-bit mode?
Or is that the end of i386-mode PostFactor?

I consider myself an experienced "hackintosher" and I would love to see my MacMini and MacBook working with the very latest version of Mac OS X.

Best regards!
Schreiberstein

EDIT: Not even 'chroot' is working... (Screenshot attached)
Indicates massive under-the-hood (API) changes
Chroot itself works fine -> "chroot"-ing into the Mountain Lion installer partition works flawlessly.

 

[RV-ABZ]

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[schreiberstein]

Did you seriously expect to boot Mavericks with a DP1 ML kernel, Lion 10.7.5 graphics kexts and several other older stuff?

Mavericks is 64bit only from the onset (i.e. DP1) and in the absence of stable 64bit graphics kexts for older GPUs, I very much doubt MVPF will ever see daylight.

Well... No...
I am very pessimistic about that, too.
But hope dies last!

Wouldn't it be possible to recompile the Darwin 13.x.x kernel for i386 (IF it still compiles) once the sources are released, and use it for MVPF?


However...

 

[Rastafabi]

Well... No...
I am very pessimistic about that, too.
But hope dies last!

Wouldn't it be possible to recompile the Darwin 13.x.x kernel for i386 (IF it still compiles) once the sources are released, and use it for MVPF?
[...]

If MVPF (or what ever it will be called, ones it's realeased) will actually be available (what it is supposed to be as the original creators still are actively tweaking Mavericks to make it compatible to our hardware) it will be 64Bit only! This means, that at least at first GMA graphics will be limited to Mountain Lion and only ATI X1600 iMacs, MacBooks as well as MacPros (with upgraded GPUs) will be supported. Later on those graphics may gain Mavericks support.
For further information you should follow MLforALL on Twitter. You may also want to follow hackerwayne although he is not tweeting that much about the topic.

Best,
RastaFabi

PS.: I don't know about XServe machines as they don't have BIOS emulation, which seems to be neccessary for the upcoming release.

 

[schreiberstein]

If MVPF (or what ever it will be called, ones it's realeased) will actually be available (what it is supposed to be as the original creators still are actively tweaking Mavericks to make it compatible to our hardware) it will be 64Bit only! This means, that at least at first GMA graphics will be limited to Mountain Lion and only ATI X1600 iMacs, MacBooks as well as MacPros (with upgraded GPUs) will be supported. Later on those graphics may gain Mavericks support.

Okay, thanks for the clarification.

 

[Snowshiro]

Update 3:
Got iMessage working again. Had to put a dylib file into a 'modules' folder inside the 'Extra' folder.

Could you give a little more detail about this process?

 

[rubberjabber]

Thanks for all the posts on here. Have spent a few hours today getting Mavericks up and running on my MacPro 1.1.

If anyone is experiencing any issues in getting Chameleon to boot (EBIOS errors, flashing cursor) , reset your PRAM and it'll kick into life