Kernel panic while installing Mac OS lepoard

You are using a retail version of Snow Leopard when your laptop shipped with a later version of Snow Leopard. You need to be using the DVD with a gray label which originally shipped with your MBAir which is meant for one specific machine.

If your laptop had macOS 10.12.6+ installed at some point, then you should be able to use Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R to access the macOS 10.13 online installer, but sometimes it may only access the oldest online installer which in this case would be macOS 10.7 which some people have trouble installing.

If you have access to another Mac from 2008 to 2017, then you can create a bootable macOS USB installer for either macOS 10.11 or 10.13. You can create a bootable macOS 10.11 installer if you have a Mac from 2008 to 2009, while you can create a bootable macOS 10.13 installer with a Mac from 2010 to 2017. This article shows which versions of macOS are compatible with various Apple hardware:

https://eshop.macsales.com/guides/Mac_OS_X_Compatibility

Here is an Apple article with links to various macOS installers as well as instructions for creating a bootable macOS USB installer (read carefully if downloading the macOS 10.11 installer):

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

Danteonamacbook wrote:

can I make a bootable usb off Ubuntu

No.

Old gear needs old DVDs, or you need another Mac and some searches to create a bootable installer. Apple added a tool to create a bootable installer, but Snow Leopard predates that. High Sierra does have an Apple tool, and earlier OS X versions can usually have some manual steps found with web searches for “bootable installer OS X {name}” or,such.

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

You’re also operating before a Mac could boot directly from Apple.com over the internet. DVDs were the mechanism used for installs and upgrades back then.

Basically, you’re in what amounts to “hard mode” for Mac system admin tasks and tools.

You need to borrow another Mac to download and build an installer for High Sierra. With that, you can then boot this Mac, and get going.

Danteonamacbook wrote:

I got from eBay so I don’t have the restore dvd but I am getting a 2009 Mac book in 2 days. Could I install Mac OS X snow lepoard on that?

If it is a mid-2009 MacBook or MacBook Pro, then you may be able to use the retail version of the Snow Leopard DVD. However, the Late-2009 models shipped with Snow Leopard so it is hard to say, but is doubtful.

So I copy the contents of the Jed to my ssd?

Jed?

can I make a bootable usb off Ubuntu

A bootable USB of what? Is it "off" or "of"? If you want to install Linux to this laptop, then yes it is possible and should work well. At least Kubuntu or Linux-MATE versions of Ubuntu will work on an older computer with more limited resources. The default Ubuntu with the Gnome desktop environment requires a computer with more resources. If you are not familiar with Linux, then you may want to consider Linux Mint instead. While Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, they have become very different in some ways where both have their advantages & disadvantages.

You first need the correct Snow Leopard DVD for this laptop. Making a bootable USB installer using your existing incompatible retail DVD will not change anything. We've already presented all the various options to obtain a compatible macOS installer for this laptop.

Danteonamacbook wrote:

The Jed was supposed to be hhd. And making a snow lepoard usb on Ubuntu desktop 18.04

You need another Mac to build the El Capitan OS X 10.11 or High Sierra macOS 10.13 installer.

Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Tru64 UNIX, HP-UX, Solaris, SunOS, Domain, OS 9, Plan 9, Hurd, seL4, Fuchsia, RSX-11M, MS-DOS, iOS, iPadOS, Windows ME/CE/NT/95/98/2000/Vista/RT, or any other platform, will not have the tools necessary to build a bootable installer for OS X.

The platform would particularly need the ability to read and write GPT partitioned HFS+ file systems, plus some other features, if you want to research and create the necessary tooling.

Old hardware needed those DVDs, or needed another Mac to build a USB installer—and the homemade USB installer path itself didn’t get official support until El Capitan.

Macs from the past decade or so—Macs first shipped after Snow Leopard OS X 10.6, starting around El Capitan OS X 10.11—can remote boot an installer from Apple servers directly from firmware, so this problem went away.

What to do? Find somebody willing to create an installer for you. They’ll want to know exactly which Mac model and Mac model year, as that determines the range of OS X and macOS versions that will boot. And MacBook Air 2009 hardware tops out at El Capitan.

Alternatively… You should be able to install and boot Linux on these Macs, which may make them more useful to you. Probably also at least one of the BSDs too, but haven’t checked that.

Read this first: Updating from Snow Leopard to High Sierra… - Apple Community

You can go to High Sierra. Have you considered HS?