No, I did not replace anything for Xcode, it is a clean install, however that should not be necessary, since the app itself is still universal and launches normally on 10a190. What got broken in Xcode 10a222 are a few minor apps which come in a packages but are standalone and quite a number of Unix-tools binaries here and there. Those should be replaced (or rebuilt) to get a functional development environment, but they are irrelevant to the issue here.
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Snow Leopard on Unsupported PowerPC Macs
- Thread starter Larsvonhier
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No, I did not replace anything for Xcode, it is a clean install, however that should not be necessary, since the app itself is still universal and launches normally on 10a190. What got broken in Xcode 10a222 are a few minor apps which come in a packages but are standalone and quite a number of Unix-tools binaries here and there. Those should be replaced (or rebuilt) to get a functional development environment, but they are irrelevant to the issue here.
Re MacPorts for 10.6 ppc: I hope to sort packaging tomorrow, but just in case someone needs something urgently, the key is here: https://github.com/barracuda156/macports-base-10A190/commit/33bf1737144d6c0412a4ce5fe00fbceaecee3abc
Set the URL with packages for archives, place the key into /opt/local/share/macports, basically same way as you would have set up a local archive on a local network.
(Or rather wait a day until I sort it out.)
Set the URL with packages for archives, place the key into /opt/local/share/macports, basically same way as you would have set up a local archive on a local network.
(Or rather wait a day until I sort it out.)
This is making 10A222 look easy but build 10A432(GM) finally boots "properly"
Still a lot of work left to do but looks promising. It's definitely far from usable yet, like even trackpad/mouse doesn't work, a bunch of missing UI elements and I have no idea what's also broken since it's almost impossible to check without a mouse lol
I hope it'll be possible to make this build stable enough in the future.
It’s astonishing you’ve made it this far! Congratulations!
Finder is going to be a particular challenge, owing how the Finder was re-written completely in Cocoa, Intel-only from build 10A286 (10.0.0d5). (This also assumes there wasn’t the conjectured internal parallel nightly builds which would run on PowerPC, which remains conjecture.)
What we’ve been using for 10A96/10A190/10A222 has been the Carbon version whose backbone is shared with Leopard’s Finder. Many of the Cocoa Finder’s dependencies will, likewise, have only been compiled for Intel.
I know you already know the following, but for others watching this thread casually and feeling optimistic:
Finder is typically the first, main, and most frequently used application in OS X. Finder, as with many other system utilities and applications, were also re-written in Cocoa for the release of retail Snow Leopard. Overall, the developers did a lot of work with getting the Cocoa versions to look and feel very close to their Carbon predecessors. Keep this in mind when considering the challenge of getting a Cocoa Finder to play nice on PowerPC architecture: it will be next-level complex (without access to proprietary source code).
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This is amazing work @educovas! When i imaged 10A190 to an unsupported aluminium MacBook, to use for cross compilation and testing, I experienced similar trackpad/keyboard issues - the solution was to identify the relevant .kexts and copy them over from a build that supported the hardware. Took a bit of trial and error but eventually got it working.
Out of interest, what did you do for this 10A432 build? Is it the modified 10a222 build with a new custom kernel or have you replaced components on a 10a432 image?
This is exciting stuff and i can’t wait to replicate this and start tinkering! Replacing LoginWindow, Finder and Dock would probably be a good starting point after keyboard and mouse/trackpad support. Are you able to enable write access on the command line in single user mode? I realise that’s not recommended by apple. If not perhaps SSH or booting from another OS partition and moving the relevant files across would be a better option?
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The new Cocoa Finder would be basically impossible to get working on PowerPC without the source code but the old one from 10.5.8 seems to be working mostly fine so far with the same swapped components I've used for 10A222.
All necessary kexts are already in the Extensions folder because I just copied all kexts from my 10A222 install but I did find the problem and trackpad now works. The problem was a missing copyright entry in the Info.plist from some kexts.
To get to this point I followed mostly what I did for 10A222, imaged a GM install from an Intel Mac, compiled the custom kernel, restored the missing ppc binaries from /bin, /sbin, /usr and with this single user mode worked. Now to get it to boot properly I had to fix the errors from the logs, mostly compiling from AOSP what was causing the errors (this was the worst part so far), then restore the missing ppc binaries from /CoreServices and some frameworks to get a working WindowServer.
Replacing login window was not necessary since it still supports ppc unlike Finder and Dock, which have already been replaced, are working mostly fine so far. I've been booting a different OS to replace what I need.
Thanks @educovas. Which AOSP projects have you compiled? I have a bunch compiled already on various systems so i can check if i need to compile any I don’t have etc to replicate your work.
It's kind of funny that the most excited features when Snow Leopard as released (like a rewritten and optimized Finder), are not the biggest downsides to getting working on PPC.
Sorbet didn’t involve anything resembling the work on this project, it was a well marketed tweaked 10.5.8, this is rebuilding the OS from the ground up. All contributions welcome of course, but testers and people able or willing to learn to build components are what we need, not hyperbole.
Thanks @educovas. I’m at work at the moment so will have a look when i’m able at my machines and backups. I really need to take more notes as the last list i had of compiled binaries was incomplete and a while ago on here.
Could you describe the procedure you use to build a custom xnu? I would like to try that.
In all honesty I do not get the hype about the Finder, it feels the same as the one on 10.5.8. (Of course, 10a190 one is unstable, but that is to it.)
What made a big difference with 10.6 were libdispatch (likely fixable for ppc), some changes to libpthread (same), sandboxing (no idea on this) and ObjC-related changes like blocks (this is a troublesome part).
IMO, let us not devalue work of others which we may not find utility of ourselves. I do not use that tweaked 10.5.8, though I had installed it once, but I have seen people enjoying it. If people value something, it is a valuable contribution.
It also does not matter how relevant are some other projects which someone was/is engaged in to this one. Or marketing of those project.
Whoever is able and willing to work on this project is to be welcomed.
Sorbet was a big project that he took on, that used some components of Snow Leopard, and assembled something that runs better and more modern than 10.5.8. I just thought those seemed like pertinent skills to accomplish something like bringing Snow Leopard to PPC.
It’s an understandable suggestion given that you believe the marketing hype, but actually Sorbet has nothing to do with Snow Leopard, it doesn’t have a ‘10.5.9’ kernel and the performance tweaks utilised are scripts and preference changes that have been known and available for many years. What the author did was integrate these tweaks into a pre-installed dmg of 10.5.8 along with themes, created by others and also available for years, and branded it as a new version of Leopard. It’s a good jumping on point for new users to PowerPC and a bit of fun for others to play with, but nothing of utility or relevance for this project unfortunately. Think of it as a pre-optimised Leopard for those that either don’t want to modify it themselves or don’t have the knowledge, or desire to do so. It has some good qualities but personally I found it actually runs more slowly and has lesser functionality than stock Leopard when properly tweaked.
Oh yes, I'd like to know, too. I've been able to build 10.0.0 on my SL netbook hackintosh (also running a stock kernel), but its never successfully booted my machine. I always had to hackishly build the ctf* tools and other stuff I don't remember, and the kernel would always finish compiling but with weird warnings. I know this whole thread is all about PPC, but I'd imagine the steps to at least building the dependencies are the same.
These are my notes from building xnu.
Thank you very much! Time to dig out my poor netbook again haha.
Just some small updates: trackpad works, got some UI elements back, PreferencePanes and SystemProfiler.
I haven’t devalued anyone’s work @barracuda156 I have simply demystified the misconceptions that Sorbet Leopard incorporates any modified code, or anything other than wallpapers, fonts etc copied over from Snow Leopard. I also stated that all contributions are welcome, and that we need testers and people able to or willing to build components. Relevance to this project is exactly why the suggestion was being discussed in the first place so i’m not sure why you’re disputing that relevance is or isn’t important? Other than to try and play devils advocate which is odd seeing as you’ve basically reiterated exactly what i’ve said anyway minus the facts about what Sorbet actually is, which is important. Facts matter. Transparency matters. If @z970 has value to add to the project, they are welcome to do so just as we are. It’s a community project. We’re not calling it Gelato though.
