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Snow Leopard on Unsupported PowerPC Macs
- Thread starter Larsvonhier
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The system still boots up fine with the kext upgrades I did do, but downgrading the networking kext in particular didn’t fix anything and still results in an apipa address under 10.6 (10A96).
My suggestion, as frustrating as it might be:
1) Undo every single moved kext/bundle/plugin/framework to what it was with a stock installation. Or…
2) Re-install 10A96 and start with a clean sheet, paying especial attention to what you change (and having the original item(s) right next to what was changed in case you need to revert it).
I never changed the IONetworkingFamily.kext in my environment. Because the 10A96 version was newer than what was in 10.5.8, I left it alone. This is why that kext in Table 4 is highlighted in grey (grey means leave alone the higher-version-numbered kext of the 10A96 or 10A190 install.)
Also, keep in mind that my test Mac running 10A96 uses only gigabit ethernet for networking, since there is a flaw in my Mac’s particular logic board which KPs at boot time when any AirPort/BT card is connected.
I’m in a position where I can’t use Ethernet because of AT&T’s claim that it made our network unstable, not to mention that I’m not near any Ethernet jacks with where my Macs are setup now... otherwise I would have used it with my 10/100 PrintServer 4 port switch.
Yeah I saw through their BS, although it had a bit of truth to it in the sense that we’d have our stuff go out in terms of being connected. I would like to invest in another Airport Express to offset this problem.
I just had to reinstall it to fix it. Updated iTunes to 7.7.1 after said reinstall, as 9.2.1 has broken radio functionality and like stated the HUD that displays track names is super glitchy (when changing tracks) and is missing it’s background. I’ll be trying nubango with it when it is at a point where it can be remotely hosted.
Some miniature updates:
- Gave this project a face and a name (see WikiPost)
- Began to add Frameworks, located beneath kernel extensions, to Table 5
- tidied up the FAQ and getting started sections
I'd like to report the patched iTunes works fine in 10a96 (iTunes 7.7.1)!
Hi all!
In preparation for a future 'Combo Update' for Snow Leopard on PowerPC, which will include the files i've been working on as well as essential community fixes discovered in this thread, i have prepared a test update package.
The attached installer will update the system LibXML2 library and binary files.
Please test and report findings on this thread. If this update is received well, i will aim to provide more substantial combo updates in the future.
Many thanks
In preparation for a future 'Combo Update' for Snow Leopard on PowerPC, which will include the files i've been working on as well as essential community fixes discovered in this thread, i have prepared a test update package.
The attached installer will update the system LibXML2 library and binary files.
Please test and report findings on this thread. If this update is received well, i will aim to provide more substantial combo updates in the future.
Many thanks
Nice! Thank you!
What does the LibXML2 library update impact in terms of performance or functionality, or alternately, if leaving be the LibXML2 library bundled with 10A96 or 10A190?
Hi @B S MagnetNice! Thank you!
What does the LibXML2 library update impact in terms of performance or functionality, or alternately, if leaving be the LibXML2 library bundled with 10A96 or 10A190?
LibXML2 is the XML C parser used in OS X. Apple makes use of the XML markup language extensively throughout the OS.
The update is built using the source from 10.6 and should improve system stability and speed for things that depend on LibXML2 - Finder and Spotlight being important examples. Installing my update will replace the system files so backup before you run the installer.
This has been compiled and tested on a modified build of 10A190 on an iBook G4 and a PowerBook G4, but should work on all builds and systems.
Please test and report your findings!
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This was supposed to be sent out to you last Monday, but the moderators had other plans.
This install didn’t take very well in a 10A96 environment:
Jun 28 18:04:18 glaciologia com.apple.ReportCrash.SafetyNet[26750]: dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/lib/libxml2.2.dylib
Jun 28 18:04:18 glaciologia com.apple.ReportCrash.SafetyNet[26750]: Referenced from: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/DictionaryServices.framework/Versions/A/DictionaryServices
Jun 28 18:04:18 glaciologia com.apple.ReportCrash.SafetyNet[26750]: Reason: image not found
Jun 28 18:04:18 glaciologia com.apple.launchd[1]: catch_mach_exception_raise_state_identity(): PID: 26750 thread: 0x7e4b type: 0xa code: 0x4e044 codeCnt: 0x2 flavor: 0x4e054 old_state: 0x4e05c old_stateCnt: 0x4c new_state: 0x4f02c new_stateCnt: 0x4f028
Jun 28 18:04:18 glaciologia com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.ReportCrash.SafetyNet[26750]): Exited abnormally: Trace/BPT trap
Jun 28 18:04:18 glaciologia com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.ReportCrash.SafetyNet): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jun 28 18:04:26 glaciologia WDDriveManagerStatusMenu[993]: *** attempt to pop an unknown autorelease pool (0x8c8a00)
Jun 28 18:04:27 glaciologia [26751]:
Jun 28 18:04:27: --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Jun 28 18:04:27 glaciologia ReportCrash[984]: Too many crashes in rapid succession! No crash report being written for pid 26751
Jun 28 18:04:27 glaciologia [461] ([26751]):
Jun 28 18:04:28 glaciologia com.apple.ReportCrash.SafetyNet[26752]: dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/lib/libxml2.2.dylib
Jun 28 18:04:28 glaciologia com.apple.ReportCrash.SafetyNet[26752]: Referenced from: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/DictionaryServices.framework/Versions/A/DictionaryServices
Jun 28 18:04:28 glaciologia com.apple.ReportCrash.SafetyNet[26752]: Reason: image not foundAnd so on. Finder and QuickLook activiy still worked, but was sluggish. Using QuickLookto preview a video clip caused the video to stick and stutter as the audio continued.
I went through and manually set aside the installation to restore the previous libxml2 library.
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Hi @B S Magnet
Thanks for testing under 10A096. Assuming that I haven’t missed a dependency that i’ve updated on my system but failed to include in the update the result is unfortunate, as it indicates a clear split between builds moving forward if 10.6 source compiled for 10A190 is incompatible with the earlier developer previews.
I will have to restrict myself to provide 10A190 only updates for the moment, as unfortunately compiling and testing for two separate builds will be too time consuming for me.
Given that 10.5.8 seems to be a better source for ‘donor parts’ to fix 10A096 maybe somebody might want to consider either compiling from Leopard sources if they are more recent than the versions included in 10A096, or use 10.6 source code but with 10.5 set as the target during compilation for compatibility to see if that helps?
Considering how there was over four months of active development between 10A96 ans 10A190, it isn’t terribly surprising that some of the bones of the system were built anew during that time frame. This is why I’d love to get a hold of any internal “nightly” builds between 10A96 and 10A190, assuming any actually still exist anywhere.
You’re probably right, though I will add how creating a working build environment for 10A96, outside of Xcode 3.2 projects, is going to be an intensive process — after having learnt the limits of getting a macports build environment to work with the available ports out there: macports fails to find darwin10 repositories built for PPC, and macports gripes, then quits when trying to get it to grab darwin9 PPC port files (due to incompatible kernel). I haven’t tried homebrew, but I don’t expect it to be terribly different, given the particular oddity of Darwin 10 on PPC.
I agree. From what i’ve read the build numbers aren’t arbitrary and indeed should be interpreted literally, so we could be missing up to 94 intermediate internal nightly builds between 10A096 and 10A190 alone.
It’s a shame that nobody has come forward and volunteered any internal builds but i suppose avoiding the hammer wielded by the Apple legal team is an understandable motivation, if indeed anything has survived the many years of drive replacements and reformatting and upgrading of systems. We can only hope.
I’m pretty sure the command line tools can be fixed and upgraded to work properly on 10A096, but i would have to clone one of my builds back to a machine to test functionality as i’ve been focused on 10A190 for a little while now. I’m sure i was able to build at least some open source projects from the terminal when i was running 10A096, but i may have replaced some binaries in order to achieve that like target config, automake, autoconf, xcrun etc. It has to be attainable as Apple surely bootstrapped later builds from earlier builds during development - it seems unlikely that each new build was built from scratch.
I'm sorry, but in the first wiki post's screen shot, how can launchpad run on sl 10.6? Thanks.
They aren’t my screencaps, and I don’t think they were @Larsvonhier ’s screen caps, either. If I understand correctly, that screen cap came from a since-suspended Twitter account, @system2048, whose username was “tesco”.
I would update the sample screencap with something more current in this project’s development, but I don’t have permission on the WikiPost to remove or add attached images.
Anything resembling Launchpad doesn’t appear on my installation of 10A96, and I doubt it appears on 10A190, either.
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I’m fairly certain, whomever originally captured the screenshot was running a theme. The icon you reference (probably the dashboard replacement icon from Mountain Leopard) is not representative of any Snow Leopard build, released publicly or otherwise. You will also notice that the dock has been modified, either using the same theme, manually or via the many dock customisation applications.
I have personally disliked this screenshot being the ‘poster child’ for the project for the very reason you have just made apparent; it doesn’t represent the desktop experience of the builds that we are working on and it also may discourage people from taking the project seriously. That being said, if it is from the original user that alerted the community to the PowerPC potential under the hood of these early Developer Previews then it does deserve a prominent position on the WikiPost.
Perhaps we should add a more recent image from 10A096 and 10A190 alongside, clearly labelled as such, and a description for the original image to clarify that it is not representative of this project?
Some extremely minor findings:
I still don’t know why the login window for 10A96 (and for all I know, 10A190 as well) displays a plain blue default background, even when directing loginwindow.app to open a background picture is included in its preferences plist. But what I did learn was the loginwindow.app from 10.5.8, version 5.6 (a later version than the 5.3 version bundled with 10A96), works just fine with 10A96. This doesn’t affect the background at all, but it still functions — making it one of the few applications from 10.5.8 to work in the 10.6 PPC environment (along with TextEdit and Keychains).
Interestingly, loginwindow from 10.6.8 is a different major version from 10A96 (it’s version 6.1.2), but it shows as a Universal Binary in 10.6.8. For fun, I opened its Info.plist to check the minimum version it was meant to run (10.6, it turns out), then tried it in 10A96, with low expectations. The crash, as expected, pointed to a dynamic library not present in 10A96:
I still haven’t set up a successful, working build environment within 10A96 to begin compiling dynamic libraries whose source code on AOSP is available, and offhand I don’t remember whether libbsm was one of the libraries available in source code.
Anyway, I’ll be updating my findings for loginwindow.app to Table 4 shortly.
I still don’t know why the login window for 10A96 (and for all I know, 10A190 as well) displays a plain blue default background, even when directing loginwindow.app to open a background picture is included in its preferences plist. But what I did learn was the loginwindow.app from 10.5.8, version 5.6 (a later version than the 5.3 version bundled with 10A96), works just fine with 10A96. This doesn’t affect the background at all, but it still functions — making it one of the few applications from 10.5.8 to work in the 10.6 PPC environment (along with TextEdit and Keychains).
Interestingly, loginwindow from 10.6.8 is a different major version from 10A96 (it’s version 6.1.2), but it shows as a Universal Binary in 10.6.8. For fun, I opened its Info.plist to check the minimum version it was meant to run (10.6, it turns out), then tried it in 10A96, with low expectations. The crash, as expected, pointed to a dynamic library not present in 10A96:
Dyld Error Message:
Library not loaded: /usr/lib/libbsm.0.dylib
Referenced from: /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow
Reason: image not foundI still haven’t set up a successful, working build environment within 10A96 to begin compiling dynamic libraries whose source code on AOSP is available, and offhand I don’t remember whether libbsm was one of the libraries available in source code.
Anyway, I’ll be updating my findings for loginwindow.app to Table 4 shortly.
I found a workaround for the screenshot issue. They now link to the screenshots posted on the garden.