Retail Leopard on Beige and B&W (G4 upgraded) Success!! - Page 2

I don't know about anyone else, but I have been getting constant Kernel Panics since I installed the new iTunes 8 in Leopard. Never had a problem with iTunes 7 in Leopard, and iTunes 8 in Tiger is working fine too. I noticed that the installer installed something called CoreFP. Anyone have an idea what CoreFP is?

EDIT
Nevermind, it turns out it was a corrupt Spotlight file on my External USB HD that was causing Leopard to crash whenever it was trying to re-index the USB HD and run iTunes at the same time (since my iTunes Library is stored on the USB HD). I simply excluded the USB HD in the Spotlight privacy settings, and that seems to have done the trick.

Hi all,

Just wanted to report that I ran the 10.5.5 update in Software Update last night on my B&W with no problems.

-Jeff

Sorry to bump, but does anyone know what the Platform Expert kext for a Pismo PowerBook G3 would be? The suggested ones here still have my device KP on boot (yes it has a G4 card in it).

I think it's PowerBook 3,1

Cheers

Well I tried the plain vanilla 10.5.6 Update that came down from Software Update last night, but it looks like they updated IOGraphicsFamily, so I got a kernel panic on restart. If you are preparing to upgrade paste 10.5.4 or 10.5.5 (which I had no trouble updating to) it might be wiser to use the combo installer, update from a supported machine to the hacked Leopard HD, and then copy back the kexts noted in the original post.

I haven't gotten that far yet, but I will post back with results when/if I get to 10.5.6.

Congrats to James on winning the 2008 Mac Mod of the Year!

Hi!

I'm trying to get Leopard to work on my Wallstreet. So far I got Leopard installed using the command line utility "installer" avoiding the GUI installer.
But the problem with the installer as well as with the installed OS is that after some time the screen gets corrupt and shortly after that the system halts.

To get it working on the Wallstreet (which is nearly identical to the Beige G3) I had to use the following extensions from Tiger 10.4.11:
IOGraphicsFamily
IONDRVSupport
IOPCIFamily (in order to have the PC-Card driver recognize the PC-Card Controller, whysoever)
AppleBMacEthernet
AppleGracklePCI
AppleHeathrow
HeathrowATA
AppleGossamerPE

In order to fix that problem I'd like to try the versions that shipped with the Leopard beta releases.
Could you please email me these kexts?

Tobias

Yes I can boot to the GUI. But if I do some memory consuming tasks the display corrupts and the machine hangs. Some sort of memory/addressing problem, I suspect.
Interestingly enough I got the same issue while installing 10.3 after having tried to install 10.5. In singleuser mode there is no problem. Maybe my Wallstreet is dying slowly...
I noticed that the brightness control buttons work which didn't work in 10.4, but in 10.5 the battery isn't recognized. Perhaps the 10.4.11 ApplePMU.kext would help.

Didn't I read in this thread that the onboard video of the Beige does work but only when using another PCI card as the primary one? Or did this refer to the B/W?

I am somewhat disappointed with the performance of 10.5 . Until 10.4 every version has been faster than the previous one. (I am using hacked ATIRagePro drivers from 10.2.5 as these provide some 2D graphics acceleration; they still work in 10.5) 10.6 might bring some performance boost - if it still comes with support for G4 - and if the old kexts keep working. Let's wait.

James,

I was curious if with the Beige + leopard if you'd seen any issues with data corruption, my Beige G3 is rock solid with 10.4, 9.2, 10.3 etc, but is a little flaky with 10.5.x. I was thinking this might be due to the beta nature of the HeathrowATA driver (I'm using the onboard ATA), and possibly solved with a 3rd party ATA card (for which it would be using newer drivers)

Hi,

my PowerBook Wallstreet which is very similar to the Beige also suffered from data corruption in 10.5 only. Every time it locked up (showing very strange screens) some data on the hard drive got corrupted until I couldn't boot into 10.5 any more.
I haven't further tried to get Leopard running stably.

But recently in order to get a Broadcom based PC Card running I tried to get the IO80211Family.kext from the x86 version of Tiger to work on the ppc version. I discovered that the source trees for that two architectures are different and that the x86 version also incorporates some changes that in Leopard were applied to the ppc side as well. And interestingly enough the version of Tiger for Intel Macs is built as universal binaries (from the kernel itself up to the applications) - because Rosetta needs that and also to prepare the way for Leopard I think.
So I in order to get the IO80211Family.kext running I had to use the kernel, some kexts and some Frameworks from the Intel version of Tiger. And the things that didn't work anymore in Leopard are also don't work in the Intel version of Tiger: recognition of the left battery, brightness control and pc card support (the latter when using the IOPCIFamily,kext from Intel Tiger).
Well and so I got curious about to find out what's going wrong and how to fix it.
The problem with the brightness control got solved early; the fix was is simple but it took me some trial and error to figure it out.
The PC Card problem I finally got solved as well readding some of the code from the old IOPCIFamily to the reworked one used in Intel Tiger and Leopard as well.
The strangest one was the battery problem. After having implemented an own driver to update the battery status I found out what was the cause of this error; Somehow one of the two batteries (both are in the IO registry) fell out of the linked list all batteries have to be in. Restablishing that link using a small kext fixed the problem perfectly. As I heard, the Pismos left battery isn't recognized either; I think my kext should fix this as well as it seems to be an error in the PMU driver (closed source, but an ancient version available in the source code of XPostFacto).
Finally I also got the charge/discharge time running again, reimplementing the old PMU specific version of the battery time calculation routines of the PowerManagement configd plugin. (Does battery time calculation work on the Pismo running Leopard?)

Apart of that I also had finalized the bootloader L2 Cache enabling routines XPostFacto. So now I don't depend on third party L2 Cache enablers anymore as the L2 Cache gets enabled before even loading the kernel. There is an L2 Cache probing routine implemented in the bootloader which doesn't work on my Wallstreet but is supposed to work on other machines (I used the code from a BSD bootloader). In the case it doesn't work one needs to know the L2CR value to supply it as boot parameter in Open Firmware. The L2 Cache being enabled when the kernel starts also makes sure that the kernel configures itself accordingly and that the correct L2 Cache configuration is put in the IO registry (as one can verify via System Profiler). However it doesn't correct the CPU type entry in the IO registry but that's cosmetical as the kernel correctly identifies the G4 independently. But it provides a huge speed boost even during installation of Mac OS X where caches are normally disabled and is totally independent of the version of Mac OS X.

If anyone likes to get one of my fixes (and/or the source code) feel free to send me a private message including the version of Mac OS X you are using!

Well my current installation of PPC/Intel Tiger is perfectly stable - while the Leopard installation was unusable. I didn't try installing Leopard again using my latest patches - and I don't see a reason why, except someone would donate a Leopard DVD to me (for my tries to get it working I used a downloaded copy which I don't have anymore).

Tobias

I realize this should be on another thread, but I can't find the original thread relating to old Macs

I have a second Mac, a 2002 Quicksilver G4 800MHz w/ 1GB of memory. It was my first Mac, and I can't bring myself to get rid of it. I have Tiger 4.11 installed, but because it's only 800MHz, I can't put Leopard on it. I'm not tech savvy enough to use the methods on this thread (I have trouble following them), so I've thought of upgrading the G4.

OWC has a 1.6MHz processor for $220 and memory upgrades that would cost $64 to max memory to 1.5 MHz.
For $284, I could have a better computer that would accept Leopard OS.

Questions:
1. Do you think it's worth it or should I just get rid of the G4?
2. Is it difficult to install another processor? I've installed memory and hard drives before.
3. What else would I need to do to the G4 to bring it up to par?
4. Would it be possible to install SL when it's available, on a 1.6 machine?

Thanks for any feedback.

Have a look at Leopard Assist (http://www.mac.profusehost.net/leopardassist/) Using it you should be able to install Leopard on the Quicksilver easily. And the Quicksilver is surely fast enough for Leopard without any further upgrading (in my opinion) than you already have done.

Well, we don't know yet if Apple will still support the G4 processer in 10.6, although it might be possible to get it working as long as Rosetta is supported.
But if it'll still be supported I don't think you'd need a further upgrade for your machine as Snow Leopard is supposed to run faster than Leopard.
Sure, you could upgrade to 1.5 GB of memory, to a 1.6 GHz (even 2 GHz might be available) CPU and switch to SATA hard drives using a PCI SATA card (which would hugely increase speed!). Generally the speed sensation should increase more with a faster hard drive (modern SATA ones with plenty of Cache) and enough of memory (1 GB should already be enough) than with a faster CPU.
Well, as Snow Leopard is supposed to be optimized for multiple CPUs (or CPU cores) it might be quite worth the effort buying a *dual* G4 upgrade (provided Snow Leopards still supports G4 CPUs).
And then you still might upgrade the Graphics Card to a Radeon 9600 or better a 9800 in order to get CoreImage and QuartzGL support.

Tobias

Thanks Tobias,

Is changing the processor difficult? How is it done?

James, have you tried going up to 10.5.7 yet?

Cool - please let me know if you have success with 10.5.7. I tried installing the combo update over 10.5.5, and then copying back the original kexts, but then I got the no platform found error on start up. I feel like I am just overlooking something simple though.

It would be nice to see Snow Leopard on a PPC, but I'm following the keynote at WWDC right now, and Phil says "All the major system apps run in 64-bit mode in Snow Leopard." So I guess that means it really is a no-go for PPC's.

yikes! Safari 4 needs 10.5.7. I hope we can get it working!

Well, it looks like Apple just rolled out OS X 10.5.8, the final Leopard release before the jump to Snow Leopard. It would be great if we could get our legacy macs working all the way up to 10.5.8 before Apple puts the nail in the PPC coffin with Snow Leopard.
I'll be trying what I can with the limited time I have...but James I might have to rely on your expertise to get this one working!

good news, everyone!
Using the instructions found here:
http://www.ihackintosh.com/2009/03/h...-leopard-1055/
I was able to install Safari 4.0.3 on my 10.5.5 B&W G4.

The only change to the instructions I had to modify was that everywhere the article mentions 10.5.6, replace it with 10.5.7 instead, since the latest version of Safari 4 will be looking for that.

Top Sites work and I have no issues to report so far. The main reason I did this is because I installed iTunes 9 and clicked on the App Store and it said it needed Safari 4.0.3 in order to work.

I'd still like to get this thing all the way up to full Leopard 10.5.8, but I haven't been able to spend any time on experimenting with that yet. For now, I am content down here at 10.5.5.

Hi there,

once again I gave Leopard a try on the G4 upgraded PowerBook Wallstreet.

I was able to install 10.5.8 but after installing it I had to install *all* the kexts again that are needed to run our old machines and that aren't there anymore within a Leopard installation. It seems that the 10.5.8 installed wants to clean the installed kexts.

Also I was able to use the standard IOGraphicsFamily.kext that ships with 10.5.x using versions of AppleGossamerPE.kext and AppleGracklePCI,kext that I had updated and modified to match more the behaviour of their newer equivalents AppleMacRISC2PE.kext and AppleMacRiscPCI.kext.

Additionally I recompiled the PMUBatteryHelper.kext to now work on Leopard. That one corrects the issue that the left hand battery on PowerBooks that have two media bays (Wallstreet, Lombard, Pismo) isn't recognized.

In order to get the PCCard driver to work I also had to modify IOPCIFamily.kext. This is of use on Lombard and Wallstreet machines only.

Should there be any interest in those kexts please send me a message!

Sadly I still get corruption and hangups when I use a second RAM module. Using only one (that means 256 MB) everything is working fine. I'll also update the AppleHeathrow.kext and possibly also HeathrowATA.kext soon in a try to fix that problem. In case the reason isn't in all those kexts it would probably be in the kernel itself where it would be horrible to track down...

However despite of the fact that I have a maximum amount of RAM of just 256 MB 10.5.8 is running very well and in my opinion *much* faster than bare 10.5.

P.S: I still have got the L2-Cache enabling BootX (Mac OS X boot loader) - the only way I know of having 10.5 recognize that there really is L2 cache built-in.

Hey All,

Just wanted to post that I was able to get OS X 10.5.8 running on my B&W G3 with a 500 MHz G4 upgrade, pretty much following James' posted method.

Unfortunately, the on-board USB, Firewire, and networking are still not working. However, all my PCI cards work, including a Sonnet ATA/133, combo USB 2.0/Firewire, and Radeon 7000. I have a gigabit Ethernet PCI card being shipped to me, so the on-board troubles MAY be moot, if I can get that running.

One problem I'm having is that my retail copy of Leopard is version 10.5.6, so I can't get the kexts for anything lower than that. I don't own the WWDC 2006 version. If anyone has gotten Leopard 10.5.8 to work on a B&W (with on-board ports working), can you send me the kexts that you used?

To get the thing to boot, I had to replace "IONDRVSupport.kext" with the version from 10.4.11. It seems stable - running two days with no glitches - but I'd be interested in getting a more up-to-date copy of this, if possible.

Also, I noticed in James' article, he mentions replacing "IOUSBFamily.kext" with the 2006 version, but that kext isn't available for download on that page. If someone could send me that, it would be excellent.

I've really appreciated all the post and information that people have posted. It's been very helpful, and I'm pretty excited that this old computer is almost to the point where it's completely usable!

Take it easy,

Rick

So, I'm currently writing this post from my B&W G3 running 10.5.8. Everything seems to be working acceptably well. I installed my new gigabit Ethernet card, installed the drivers, and it showed up instantly. Still no on-board USB, Firewire, or Ethernet working, but I can live with that.

I did have to temporarily get the on-board Ethernet working, because Time Machine was complaining that it couldn't find the built-in networking. So I installed the 10.4.11 versions of IONetworkingFamily and AppleMaceEthernet and rebooted. Built-in Ethernet came on, I configured Time Machine, then switched back to the new versions of those kexts and back to the gigabit card. Everything seems to be running fine, now, but I'll still need to do some more testing.

So, it seems that the only kexts that I had to completely replace from 10.5.8 were IOGraphicsFamily and IONDRVSupport. I'm still using the 10.4.11 version of IONDRVSupport, so if someone could send me a more up-to-date 10.5 version that works on the B&W, that would be awesome.

Thanks!

Rick

Hi Rick!

send a me private message containing your email address so that I can send you the updated platform drivers. They should work on the B&W as well.

Tobias

It is so good to see progress still going on this. I am going to give another go at upgrading my B&W from 10.5.5 to 10.5.8 over the holidays. Maybe once everyone is all upgraded and stable on 10.5.8, we could come up with an easy to reference list of kexts, sub-kexts, and their versions by mac-type for future reference.

hey guys I know it's been a while, but I finally have the chance to work on the upgrade to 10.5.8 this week and so far it is not going well.

I have tried a couple different steps:

1) take current system running 10.5.5 → apply 10.5.8 combo install → add back kexts → put hard drive back in B&W
(failed)

2) take a 10.4.11 system → archive & install from 10.5 retail dvd → apply 10.5.8 combo install → add back kexts → put hard drive back in B&W
(failed)

maybe the issue is in which kexts i am adding back. i was pretty sure i was adding back all the appropriate versions, but maybe i missed something.
here is what i am adding back:
IOGraphicsFamily - 1.5
AppleGossamerPE - 2.0.3
AppleGracklePCI - 1.2
AppleHeathrow - 1.2.3
CMD646ATA - 1.0.7
HeathrowATA - 1.0.8f1
AppleCuda - 1.1.0
IONDRVSupport - 1.4.2

would you guys (james/tobias/rick) mind checking against what you have that is working for you and let me know if i need to change something?

thanks!

If nothing else, I have to say Mac users keeping old machines running is doing the right thing in terms of the environment, by keeping old machines out of landfills and still in action. I like to fire up my Color Classic every now and then. I've seen so many Classic Macs still doing various tasks. Somehow, though, I don't think I'll be running OS X on my Classic any time soon though! Unless I inherit an old Cube or mini and do some hardware tinkering! Good luck getting OS X on these old Macs folks, I salute you all!

Well after a few more tries, I finally got 10.5.8 up and running on my B&W.

I went from my parents' iMac G5 to my hard drive connected via an ATA to FireWire controller:

freshly erased hard drive partition → fresh install from 10.5 retail dvd → apply 10.5.8 combo install → added back kexts → put hard drive back in B&W
(always logged in as root to copy kexts, and run batchmod)

kext problems resolved from earlier:
- of all the replacement kexts I had saved off, the culprit was IOGraphicsFamily. Not sure what happened to it along the way, but I extracted a fresh copy of it from WWDC using Pacifist, and that did the trick.
- I used a Tiger version of IONDRVSupport.
- I had to remove a sub-kext from IOSerialFamily because I kept getting a weird problem with 'Apple SCC Serial'. I wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that I still have the Apple Internal Modem in the B&W, but in any case, removing the SCC sub-kext resolved the issue.

I still have a couple minor issues to work out. For some reason X11 doesn't launch. Also, I get a kernel panic if I go to System Profiler and click on the Graphics/Display tab. I assume it probably has something to with IOGraphicsFamily.

My final list of replacement kexts was:
IOGraphicsFamily (from WWDC)
AppleGossamerPE
AppleGracklePCI
AppleHeathrow
CMD646ATA
HeathrowATA
AppleCuda
IONDRVSupport (from Tiger)
IOSerialFamily (with SCC sub-kext removed)
IONetworkingFamily (with B&W compatible sub-kexts added)
IOUSBFamily (with B&W compatible sub-kexts added)
IOFireWireFamily (with B&W compatible sub-kexts added)

The last thing I want to do to this ol' B&W is find a PCI GeForce 6200 to put in it. I have an FX 5200 in it now, but if I can get a 6200 in it, then I will have fully maxed out every possible upgradable component.

I love the fact that since I bought it in 1999, it's still the 'everyday' computer I use at home. It's going to be strange when the day comes that I actually have to stop using it and buy a new mac.

Ok I know I have come late to this party (stood at doorway with bowl of cheese puffs)

I have a Sawtooth running leopard, a B&W upgraded with a sonnet G4 (Tiger) and a Yikes G4

I am trying to run leopard on the B&W & on the yikes

I popped out the HD from the sawtooth and dropped it into both machines and got pretty much the same problem (not supported machine)

Can someone PLEASE, I *sort of* follow the conversations above, however...

I dont have the WWDC 2006 (just the 2007) leopard disc. I do have full retails copies of leopard for each machine, full retail copies of Tiger ..

Thanks

Nic

Can anyone help?... Please

Have just completed upgrading 10.4.11 with retail DVD 10.5 leopard. Is there somewhere I can find the needed Kexts to attempt to get 10.5.8 working with the current hardware environment I have?

Am an ADC member but cannot find the old WWDC 2006 release.

I agree with other member posts that once success is achieved with 10.5.8 in various hardware configs a listing of kext versions, install instructions would keep this endeavor alive.
Will post my findings with my B&W G3(G4), sonnet encore G4 1ghz, sonnet ATA133, wiebetechSATA, radeon 9200 as I progress.
Any help especially with the necessary kexts is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.