Update: A few users have reported the App Store becoming unresponsive when attempting to install apps. I was able to install the Twitter app without issue, as have a few other users. Feel free to report any issues in the comments below.
Hackintosh users rejoice! 10.6.6 was released for Snow Leopard users earlier today (Kernel 10.6.0), adding the Mac App Store and a few other minor bug fixes. The update is extremely simple to install and does not require any additional work to restore system stability. That means just install the 10.6.6 update and reboot! Wi-Fi will continue to work, audio with AppleHDA.kext will be unaffected, Bluetooth will be untouched, USB will be running at 2.0 speeds, and sleep will continue to function with the pmVersion=21 boot flag (also used in 10.6.5).
Only users that require the legacy kernel:
10.6.6 (10.6.0 kernel) legacy kernel– To be installed after the 10.6.6 update but BEFORE rebooting
December 10th, 2012 at 8:54 AM
I have a Dell 1520 and it hangs at the Apple logo when I try to restart the install of 10.6.6 (from 10.6.3). Any help will be appreciated.
April 27th, 2011 at 10:27 AM
Hi, I’m at the end of my tether now!
Had 10.6.6 installed dual bootinig with ubuntu 10.10 perfectly.
Upgraded to ubuntu 10.04 via cd and stupidly have written grub over chamelion.
I’ve got hold of a bootable usb chamelion which sees my hackintosh install but it kernel panics. Have used the following flags
-x -v -f arch=i386 -legacy
Anyone have any suggestions – luckely I took a backup of the data last night, but I really dont want to start from scratch!
Many thanks
April 27th, 2011 at 4:59 PM
Try booting with -v -f arch=i386 pmVersion=21.
April 27th, 2011 at 7:38 PM
Thank you so much Thomas.
Tried with the boot USB stick I had but didn’t work.
Was about to begin a fresh install from here http://macyourpc.com/2011/01/install-mac-on-dell-inspiron-1525/ and thought I’d give your method one more shot with the boot disk from that page – success!
Just to install Chameleon again and fingers crossed
Many thanks
April 27th, 2011 at 7:46 PM
spoke too soon, no keyboard or mouse
Will proceed with fresh install
April 27th, 2011 at 7:48 PM
That’s why I recommend our methods; they actually work! ;)
March 22nd, 2011 at 5:12 AM
thanks for all ur support…..
well i read ur tweet regarding lion….may i know what is the status
regards
anshuman
March 13th, 2011 at 4:13 AM
one more issue i have is i often get the ‘You need to restart your computer. Hold the Power button for several seconds’ kernel panic….not based on specific app..
March 13th, 2011 at 12:26 PM
Boot with -v -f arch=i386 and then take a picture of the screen when it Kernel Panics. I’ll then be able to diagnose the issue.
March 6th, 2011 at 6:49 AM
i followed ur amazing guide to install SL on my dell 1525..
i firstly installed 10.6 and then 10.6.6 update from apple….everything seems to work fine, though i have a couple of issues…
1) USB speed seems slow – and i guess because of tat the webcam framerate is low too.
2) on wake up from sleep there is no webcam, only the blue light glows.
March 6th, 2011 at 2:26 PM
For your first issue, delete AppleHPET.kext from /System/Library/Extensions/ and then reboot. This may slightly improve the webcam frame rate, though much improvement isn’t to be expected. All other USB devices should work at USB 2.0 speeds. The second issue may be resolved by the first as I’ve never encountered the second issue before.
March 12th, 2011 at 3:25 PM
thanks, that worked like a charm for me…..also if u can assist me if i can use parallels or vmware or something like that on 1525….i dont want to dual boot
March 13th, 2011 at 12:24 PM
The best way of knowing if you can use virtualization software is by simply testing such software.
March 21st, 2011 at 11:51 AM
man i tried parallels…..but it requires hardware virtualization, which it says is not available…..tell me something i dont want to dual boot… :(
March 21st, 2011 at 6:47 PM
You’ll have to upgrade your processor to enable Hardware Virtualization. I believe Virtual Box will run without VT, though if so it’ll run slowly.
June 7th, 2011 at 1:05 AM
Thank you so much. That fixed my USB logitech quickcam vision pro blur / fuzzy video problem in 10.6.6 as well. I owe you.
June 7th, 2011 at 3:18 PM
Happy to help!
February 19th, 2011 at 6:09 PM
Guys and gals,
I am trying to install Adesk Smoke Subs. ver. on this hackintosh machine. Eventhough, I have a ATI 4870 X2 (2048 MB), the Mac OSX only sees 256 MBs or something like that. Is there a fix to get the OS X to see the full 2GBs of RAM on the ATI card? If so, please advice me how to do this. I am new to the Mac (been a PC person for many years).
Also, the graphics card will not allow me to change the desktop resolution beyond 1024 x 748. In order to run smoke, the graphics resolution needs to be at least 1920 x 1080. Any help is much appreciated.
Edit:
I forgot to give specs. on my PC. Sorry about that.
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A UD3R (ver. 2.0)
Proccessor: Intel i7 930 (OC’d to 4.6 GHz with liquid cooling (I am using a custom blend) and very stable [so far cannot crash that easily; I am keeping my fingers crossed!] I can’t afford to burn the proc. Cannot buy anything beyond this for a while. (Wify says so! LOL))
RAM: 24GB @2000
Wacom Intuos 4
Graphics card: ATI HD 4870 X2
Thanks again,
P
Thanks in advance
February 19th, 2011 at 8:40 PM
There doesn’t appear to be a kext for your card, and without one you won’t have Quartz Extreme, though you can set the resolution by adding the following to your com.apple.Boot.plist: http://pastie.org/private/rsu2w3h4ozf9hvdiqwneq
Edit: This thread offers a potential solution, though proceed at your own risk.
February 11th, 2011 at 7:05 AM
I’ve been running the 10.6.0 hackintosh without a problem (VMWare Player, running on AMD), so running the legacy kernel. My problem is that I don’t see how you can install the legacy patch before the reboot occurs. I did tried copying the legacy kernel patch to the desktop, running the update and then booting from the install disk to install the patch. Unfortunately this resulted in a machine that wouldn’t boot.
February 11th, 2011 at 5:38 PM
Once you finish installing the update and hit the Restart screen in Installer, Force Quit Installer. Then install the legacy kernel and reboot.
February 10th, 2011 at 2:28 AM
Okay new question. Since first installing I’ve had to set a hotcorner to get my screen to show. When I hit detect monitors it does the same thing only the external monitor doesn’t stay black. So I hot corner and wake it up. When I hit mirror the screen freaks out and shows the same 4 pixels across the screen in a 4:3 instead of widescreen. Have to force restart to get anything to work. Is this fixable?
February 10th, 2011 at 9:26 PM
It seems that it is mirroring your display instead of simply extending it, thus causing the issue. Instead of using the hotcorner, why not use a dsdt.aml?
February 10th, 2011 at 9:36 PM
I read up on them but could not find for my laptop. Do you have one I could use?
February 10th, 2011 at 11:16 PM
You can try mine, though I highly suggest you make your own using DSDT Patcher GUI. Just check “Darwin/ Mac OS X†and hit Run DSDT Patcher. Then place the dsdt.aml in the root of your Snow Leopard partition and reboot.
February 11th, 2011 at 4:58 PM
Thanks I no longer need to hot corner! Both DSDT.aml worked but I chose to make my own as I figured that was safer. Is there a way to fix mirroring? It seems to be a common problem among other hackintoshers.
February 11th, 2011 at 5:34 PM
Unfortunately not as the kexts to allow mirroring have not been developed (and likely never will be).
February 11th, 2011 at 5:48 PM
Okay thanks again!
February 9th, 2011 at 3:41 PM
I have an interesting question. I submitted a bug report to apple a few days ago, regarding a pdf file that crashes preview when I try to open it (need it for school). I got a response via email today asking for a copy of the pdf file and (here’s the kicker) a full Apple System Profiler report. It doesn’t seem smart to me to give the folks over at apple a full readout of my hacked system, even though they may be the only ones that can help me solve this problem (can’t find a solution on the net). So I guess my question is, if I send in the System Profiler readout, do you guys think they’ll screw me? :)
February 9th, 2011 at 5:20 PM
That’s a very interesting scenario. While Apple can’t do anything to you with your hackintosh profiler report, they have strong grounds to decline to help. On the other hand, they may decide to help. In other words, it seems that the worst case scenario (and most likely scenario) is that they decline to help, though it’s also possible that they attempt to remedy the issue. Personally, I’d send them the information solely to see their reaction.
As a side note, have you tried opening the PDF in Windows or other PDF software? The PDF may simply be corrupt and be the root of the problem. Either way, good luck!
February 9th, 2011 at 5:41 PM
I can open it in Mac OS with Adobe Reader and Acrobat Pro no problem, and Windows doesn’t have any trouble either. This appears to be an issue with programs that use the native OSX pdf viewer; programs I’ve tried that crash on opening the file include PDFpen, Papers, and Preview. I’ll submit the info and see if they can figure something out.
February 11th, 2011 at 4:07 PM
“This is a follow up to Bug ID# 8961012. After further investigation it has been determined that this is a known issue, which is currently being investigated by engineering. This issue has been filed in our bug database under the original Bug ID# 8892670. The original bug number being used to track this duplicate issue can be found in the State column, in this format: Duplicate/OrigBug#.
Thank you for submitting this bug report. We truly appreciate your assistance in helping us discover and isolate bugs.
Best Regards,
Developer Support
Apple Worldwide Developer Relations”
It appears to be ok for us to submit bug reports to apple. They didn’t solve the problem, but it seems like they’re working on it. Original assessment was correct that this is an OS/Preview issue, and not an issue specific to my system.
February 11th, 2011 at 5:37 PM
Congrats on your success! It’s good to know that contacting Apple is a viable option for some issues.
January 22nd, 2011 at 6:08 AM
Do you think that the Dell 1525 will be able to be upgraded to Lion OSX when its released???
January 22nd, 2011 at 5:16 PM
I’m almost certain that the Core 2 duo models will be able to. The dual core and celeron models might have some trouble, though they’ll likely just need a legacy kernel.
January 20th, 2011 at 3:10 AM
Hey,
So I made it through the 10.6.5 and 10.6.6 updates no problem, but I’ve found that my clamshell sleep no longer works. I started having problems with it after the 10.6.5 update. Computer goes to sleep fine (all other lights dim, power light starts “breathing”), but it won’t wake up from sleep. Upon restarting, chameleon tells me I should disable “Use secure virtual memory” under Security in System Prefs (doing this doesn’t fix the problem, but my computer does resume where it left off after restart when it fails to wake from sleep).
Already tried replacing SleepEnabler.kext in the Extra and Extensions folder, with no luck.
Any suggestions?
January 20th, 2011 at 3:59 AM
Try entering the following into Terminal and rebooting:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
sudo rm /private/var/vm/sleepimage
January 20th, 2011 at 5:39 AM
Didn’t work; now it doesn’t sleep when I close the lid (display shuts off, but nothing else). While I guess this is preferable to the computer shutting down, it’s going to kill my battery. Also, not sure if this matters, but I checked out the sleepimage file before deleting it, and it was a whopping 3.22 GB. Not sure if that’s normal, but I figured I would report.
I have an old ClamshellDisplay.kext in storage from 10.5.7; think I should try throwing that into the mix, or do you think it will brick me?
January 20th, 2011 at 10:01 PM
False alarm; it appears to be working fine now. As usually Thomas, you da man. I’ll post again if it starts acting up.
Thanks!
January 13th, 2011 at 7:28 PM
Thomas,
Your guides are A+! I have gotten 3 Hackintoshes and 2 Hackbooks going with them. Many thanks…
But my latest project the ‘netHack’ (yes, I come from the old vt-100 days) requires an answer from you.
Do the Legacy kernels that you have linked (for 10.6.2+) have Atom support built-in?
January 13th, 2011 at 7:45 PM
I’m glad you’ve been so successful with my guides! Yes, the included legacy kernels include Atom support. Though if you’d like to avoid the hassle, remember that both 10.6.0 and 10.6.1 do not require the legacy kernel.
January 13th, 2011 at 8:12 PM
Preview and iPhoto do not display images correctly unless I am at 10.6.4+.
I start most of the systems from a 10.6.3 retail dvd, so that could explain part of the problem, if 10.6.3 broke something from 6.0 and 6.1… No way of knowing since I don’t have any system below 6.3
I will just have to figure out a way to bootstrap an Atom based system from 6.3 using a Legacy kernel and then just keep applying the updates from there.
January 15th, 2011 at 1:20 AM
I am unaware of the process to integrate the legacy kernel into a retail install, though best of luck to you!
January 10th, 2011 at 2:10 PM
Can you go straight from 10.6.4 to 10.6.6? Is there still an issue with going to 10.6.5 with the legacy kernel?
January 10th, 2011 at 8:39 PM
The 10.6.5 guide now includes the legacy kernel and so you can follow that guide. The 10.6.6 guide does not yet include the legacy kernel and thus you should avoid 10.6.6 until the guide is updated.
Edit: The 10.6.6 update guide now includes the appropriate legacy kernel and so you should be able to update straight to 10.6.6 (though make sure to use the combo update).
January 12th, 2011 at 11:27 PM
What if u updated an didn’t install legacy kernel? Can this be fixed?
January 13th, 2011 at 4:11 PM
You can fix this be booting to another OS X partition, running the legacy kernel pkg, and selecting your Snow Leopard partition as the destination.
January 9th, 2011 at 2:18 AM
My sleep does not work. Hasn’t worked for awhile. Worked and then one day just stopped. Any ideas on a fix?
January 9th, 2011 at 11:16 AM
Which version of Snow Leopard are you on?
January 10th, 2011 at 6:33 PM
10.6.6 on a dell inspirion 1525. Sometimes it will go to sleep but not wake fully. The power light will come on but only that, The fan will spin up as well.
January 10th, 2011 at 8:40 PM
Does this occur when on battery power or when plugged in? Does it not wake when it’s your first time sleeping after a reboot, or have you slept other times in this boot?
January 10th, 2011 at 10:30 PM
These errors happen on the first sleep of boot. When trying to sleep on power it does a reboot and gives me this error:
Header read size 20
mem-base 8df0d600
Not enough space to restore image. Press any key to continue.
What’s strange is I cannot press any key to continue. I must press one of the touch sensitive buttons at the top. Once I press one of them I get a quick error the says “couldn’t…” But goes by way to fast for me to read anything else. On battery it will sleep but not fully wake. The touch buttons at the top spin through lighting up and the disc drive spins. The fan then begins to speed up rapidly and stays on. I then must force the computer off. I get the same error as above when turning the computer back on.
January 10th, 2011 at 10:47 PM
Type the following into Terminal:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
sudo rm /private/var/vm/sleepimage
January 10th, 2011 at 10:52 PM
Sleep now works on battery! On AC power it still restarts but does not give me an error. Could you explain what these commands do? Thanks!
January 10th, 2011 at 10:58 PM
The first command changes the mode OS X uses for sleep. You’re changing it to 0 (presumably from 3) which keeps the RAM powered on while sleeping. The second command simply rebuilds the sleep image so that OS X uses the new sleep mode.
January 10th, 2011 at 11:00 PM
Okay that makes sense. Thanks again!
January 8th, 2011 at 11:24 AM
Hello Thomas!
Thanks for publishing this blog! it’s very helpful!!
I followed your instructions and I was able to upgrade from 10.6.4 to 10.6.5 to 10.6.6. Along the way though, my USB ports no longer work. I tried to downgrade to the IOUSBFamily.kext but I don’t know how to get those files. I found some on the Developer Apple website, it’s a package that you need to install, which I did but it tells that I have a more recent version install, so it won’t let me downgrade.
Any idea where I could get this kext, and where to install it, and how?
Thanks a lot!
January 8th, 2011 at 11:30 AM
What computer model do you have?
January 8th, 2011 at 11:44 AM
I’m running a Dell 1525 Intel Core 2 Duo.
Actually, just now I found an old IOUSBFamily.kext from the macyourpc.com website, and I kext it in the System/Library/Extensions folder, and rebooted. I got my USB mouse to work again but none of my other usb devices are working (key, hd). Maybe something to do with USB high-speed not being recognized… Maybe the kext was too old
January 8th, 2011 at 12:20 PM
It’s strange that your USB stopped working since my guides never touch IOUSBFamily.kext. Did you follow any other guides that could have messed with the kext?
What was the last version of Snow Leopard in which USB worked?
January 8th, 2011 at 3:41 PM
Hi Thomas!
Under 10.6.4, it was working fine.
I’ve followed your guide. I changed from legacy_kernel to mach_kernel, but I did that change before upgrading to 10.6.5 and it was fine, USB were working then.
January 8th, 2011 at 6:15 PM
I’ve made more progress on my issue. Actually, the problem is not due to the IOUSBFamily.kext as i thought. The fact is all my USB ports are working (mouse, printer, iphone) but the real problem is that no disk can be mounted.
It turns out that it is due to a mismatch between system.kext and the kernel. My kernel is 10.4.0 (legacy) and the system is 10.6.0. Apparently, it causes this issue.
Now, I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t need to use legacy because I run Intel Core 2 Duo, but I don’t know how to change this. I tried deleting the /legacy_kernel file but when SL won’t boot.
Any ideas?
January 8th, 2011 at 6:33 PM
Fixed it!
Here the solution in case you have the same issue:
– I backed-up /legacy_kernel
– I copied /mach_kernel to /legacy_kernel, so that the new legacy_kernel is the same as mach_kernel
– I kept the legacy_kernel info inside the com.apple.Boot.plist, as it was before I upgraded
– I rebooted
– I ran the following command to $sudo update_dyld_shared_cache -force (to remove annoying msg: dyld: shared cached file was build against a different libSystem.dylib, ignoring cache)
– I reinstalled the latest IOUSBFamily.kext from Apple website
– I rebooted
And now all is fine!
Basically, the trick for those who are using legacy_kernel on a Intel Core 2 Duo with 10.6.4 is to simply upgrade and then overwrite the /legacy_kernel with /mach_kernel. Good luck!
January 6th, 2011 at 11:27 PM
Like I said, if the app store becomes responsive – unmount all drives. It’s not a wide spread issue, but it is an issue nevertheless.