Can I install Snow Leopard on the new Mac Mini

OK: Back from London! Having had some time to consider the problem, I have concluded that this bump in the road is not much different than previous bumps...

Then, as now, I have concluded that I must continue to move forward, and live with Lion, rather than crowbar Snow Leopard into my Mac Mini.

For example, I was disappointed to see when I opened my hard disk, that the amount of space remaining was no longer listed at the bottom of the window. But I have discovered that going to the VIEW menu and selecting SHOW STATUS BAR now restores that functionality. Again, as in the past, answers will appear to most of the slight glitches that Lion brings to the table.

So my only problem that remains is the Quicken problem: until Intuit comes up with a suitable Macintosh solution (unlikely given their Mac history), I need Rosetta capability. Hence: Virtualization and the wait until Apple authorizes Snow Leopard within a virtual machine.

But for those of us that do not want to wait, Ivan Drucker has documented two ways to get Snow Leopard to run under Parallels; I used the first method: http://www.ivanexpert.com/blog/2011/08/snow-leopard-as-a-parallelsvmwarevirtualb ox-guest-os/

I upgraded Parallels to version 7 (before I was aware that the article gets Snow Leopard to run under version 6). Some comments to Ivan article indicate they were unable to get his solution to work in version 7. However, I upgraded to Build 7.0.14922; Revision 693916; September 13, 2011 of Parallels 7).

Then I upgraded my 2GB Mac Mini to 8GB (online for $87 including overnight shipping! As Bill Gates would say: "You can never have too much money or too much RAM!), and allocated 2GB to Parallels.

After a couple of initial glitches, it is working like a champ today (I have posted a couple of comments to Ivan's article which discusses my hiccups and their solutions).

So until Apple unlocks Snow Leopard, here is a simple solution to my (and perhaps some others?) problems.

I should have the right drivers, the MBP 13" has as close to the same hardware as the Mini 2.3 as any machine.

Here's an IORegistryExplorer view of the graphics:

If I click on IGPU@2, then Reveal Extension in Finder, I get:

IOPCIFamily.kext

If I click on AppleIntelFramebuffer, then Reveal Extension in Finder, I get:

AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB.kext

The same extensions are used on my MBP.

Apparently SL thinks the mini is connected to a TV:

(The 2436 monitor is the one that I want to be 1920x1080.)

How do I choose a resolution that is not a "television" resolution? The Monitors prefs has only resolutions (no mention of "television"):

Thanks, iX

Thaqnks David for the detailed and simplified proceedure for installation and everyone who has helped in making Snow Leopard installation possible!

I have followed your version 2 instructions and have run into a slight problem with my AirPort setup. After sucessful installation, tested with geekbench and scored 6600 in SL! But here is what my AirPort looks like:

I can get it to work, but I have to open the Network preferences in the System Prefs. In there, it shows up as Ethernet 2. Because of this, every time I restart, I have to re-enter all my network settings. I have tried running applejackAUTO, and it showed

"AirPort: Link Down on en1. Reason 1 (Unspecified)" as well as a ton of permission corrections for AirPort Utility.

I Used my Nahalem Mac Pro to do the installation and I'm wondering if this is the cause of the problem, as it does not have an AirPort card installed. Any thoughts on how to fix this?

The Kernels of the Printers (HP+Lexmark) showed up at me too.

I just deleted them and everything was fine.

(I think the printers were installed by newfoundglory and so they come to the installer package, even if nobody else uses them)

Great continuing work, newfoundglory! For those who still want Snow Leopard (and Rosetta) concurrently with Lion:

I have now put full updated instructions for installing Snow Leopard (and Rosetta) into Parallels 7 in Lion, which now only requires the Snow Leopard Install DVD (and not the Server version):

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439

In the 6th line down "- remove the wrong system-extensions" are you referring to theAppleIntelHDGraphics.kext and AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB.kext ? If so, arent those taken care of if I use the NFG installer?

These kext came with the NFG-Package (with 150-250 others) - I think by mistake

(a screenshot with Pacifist)

If you don't want to remove them,

there is just the popup if you do something with frameworks or the SystemPreferences

The System will work with or witout them.

There is still the ability to run Snow Leopard in virtualization in Mountain Lion.

Snow Leopard Server installs more easily, but is no longer sold by Apple; there are copies available on eBay; or

Install Snow Leopard client (with Rosetta) into Parallels

[click on image to enlarge]

NOTE: Computer games with complex, 3D or fast motion graphics make not work well or at all in virtualization.

VICTORY has been achieved in the Snow Leopard virtualization wars!!!

It has taken quite some time to get Apple to be reasonable about the virtualization of Snow Leopard (in spite of the fact that the Snow Leopard EULA does not prohibit its virtualization in Lion or Mt. Lion on a Mac).

I believe that my efforts to help everyday users be able to virtualize Snow Leopard client in Parallels (and others who extended this information to VMWare Fusion) finally convinced Apple to let down the barriers, and they chose to do so with this 95% reduction in price of Snow Leopard Server:

[click on image to enlarge]

My next project will be to develop instructions on how to "remove" the Server functions of Snow Leopard Server, so that it will be able to operate without the overhead needed by the "server" functionality and "look and feel" just like Snow Leopard client. I am waiting for my copy of SLS to arrive this week. 😎

WZZZ wrote:

As far as I can tell, no one ever discussed the possibility of getting there by restoring a 10.6.8 clone, and if one of those guys is still around, that's my question.

Yes, you can restore a 10.6.8 clone to the 2011 Mac Mini and it will boot and work.

To get the 2011 Mac Mini to its full speed, efficiency and utilization of such new technologies as Thunderbolt, you have to install the extra software suggested by newfoundglory:

You can read more about these software additions by googling the term: "NFG gnommak Edition Mac mini 2011"

I just did it, but rather than use a clone, I did it the hard way, but a clone would have worked just as well. I used the instructions offered in the link at the bottom of this post:

1. I added a "Snow Leopard" partition to my 2011 Mac Mini internal HD

2. I booted it into Target Mode by holding down the "T" key during reboot.

3. I connected my 2011 Mac Mini in Target Mode by Firewire to my 2007 Mac Mini and installed Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on the Snow Leopard partition on the 2011 Mac Mini.

4. I used the 10.6.3 folder to restart the 2007 Mac Mini and then used Software Update twice to upgrade all of the elements of Snow Leopard.

5. I shut down both computers, disconnected Firewire and rebooted the 2011 Mac Mini into Snow Leopard and it booted and operated.

6. I then installed all of the newfoundglory additions using the NFG installer and rebooted.

7. One commentator indicated that to get an external DVD player to properly function in Snow Leopard on the 2011 Mac Mini to make this change:

Following Software Update’s final run of updates, I started working with the Mini and everything looked like it was working, including the all-important Front Row. Front Row was able to communicate with iTunes 11.x, so it looked like I was set until I attached an Apple USB SuperDrive and tried to play a movie DVD. No go; neither Front Row nor Apple’s DVD Player application recognized it as a valid DVD drive.

Why was this? After all, the 2011 Mini never came with an internal DVD player. This should have worked; except for the fact that the 2011 Mini was never supposed to run 10.6.8 either. All of the 2011 Macs that ran 10.6.8 were laptops that came with internal optical drives.

What fixed it was some additional driver modification. Using information found here on MacOSXHints, I edited/System/Library/Frameworks/DVDPlayback.framework/Versions/A/DVDPlayback with the 0xED hex editor. What I was doing was updating DVDPlayback‘s definition of an acceptable DVD player by finding the word Internal and replacing it with External, by searching for (hex)496E7465726E616C and replacing with (hex) 45787465726E616C.

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/installing-10-6-8-on-a-2011-mac-min i/

[click on image to enlarge]

Hey Mike,

It looks like Target Disk Mode is actually a viable solution if you have another Mac.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2815344?start=0&tstart=0

I'm going to try this out tonight as soon as I get home and will report back if I can get it working.

William,

I bought a MM for my partner. He is very visual in his organization. He groups related items together in a folder in icon view. Lion has been rearranging these with a random consistency. We have done lots of suggestions and the problem persists. It is a bug. Here's the thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3216766

We downgraded so that his workflow is not impacted by the operating system.

Rob

Thanks for some great info, and we might want to stick a little more tightly on the core issue on this thread -- getting Snow Leopard up and running at something approaching full speeds on the Mac Mini 2011. Please don't stray too far afield in this thread; perhaps consider starting another one on the "Mini 2011 as Home Theater" or something more appropriate (there are some extensive threads already running on that here in Support Community Discussions). Thanks! And your topic is very interesting, so stay close by here.

There's a reason to keep it focused! -- as of this morning, this thread is now very close to 10,000 views! -- presumably, mostly by people looking for a way to get SL up and running on their 2011 Mini. We want to keep progress moving and "buzz" generated on that topic if we hope to get a good coder to come up with some solutions. There IS a solution somewhere out there, waiting for someone to write it.

Incidentally, for those of you looking to get max graphics and video production heft out of your Mini, there's an active Support Discussions thread here at

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3213645?answerId=15896182022#15896182022

Yes we can can! 😁 FREE THE SNOW LEOPARD 10,000 ! etc etc etc.

Michael,

That's an easy answer. Lion needs a bug fix; it keeps rearranging the icons within a folder. My partner is extremely visual and organizes his work by grouping related icons into a cluster. Lion will rearrange the icons into an alphabetical grid at near random intervals. Now, I know this is not a major bug for everyone, but to my partner it is. He cannot use Lion because his workflow is severely crippled.

Now when Apple fixes the bug, we will migrate over to Lion.

Here are the threads relating to it:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3216766?answerId=16075933022#16075933022

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3241846?answerId=16132633022#16132633022

Like many others I have managed to install SL on the new mac mini server (2.0Ghz i7 quad).

Geek bench score with the single 5,3 kext added is >8000, but unfortunately I have major display issues.

I used a 2008 MBPro (2.4 Ghz C2D running 10.5.8) to install SL retail DVD 10.6.3 onto the MacMini server SSD in target disk mode (I first partitioned the SSD using disk utility within Lion).

I copied the 5,3 kext from Lion to SL, and applied the terminal commands (no extra chmod was needed).

Then installed the 10.6.8v1.1 combo updater ontop of the SL partition (still from the MBPro via target disk).

I am trying to run the Dell U2711 at 2560x1440. I don't currently have the correct mDP>DP connector, but am not convinced it will help. Now when booted in Lion, the mDP to DVI works (1920x1080 max resolution), as does the HDMI>DVI at same resolution.

But under SL, only the HDMI port is working, and I have the ghost monitor (and pointer glitches) so many others have reported.

At one point I did manage to get an image from the mDP>VGA on the Dell at an odd res (something like 2048x1134), but after fiddling with the various adapters and the display arrangement, I now appear to have killed it completely: All I can see on the Dell monitor is the "ghost screen" with nothing on it but a desktop bacground.

I am at home now and have done some Google research. Apparently Command + F1 will force display mirroring. I hope this will then make the SL partition display correctly to the Dell monitor.

Anyway. It seems that my SL install lacks correct drivers for DP output.

Now some questions: Only Colacin talks about the TB/DP driving the Dell U2711 correctly. That machine is a Dual core i5 (I presume also with the Intel HD3000). So the difference is one of hardware and also of kext.

NewFoundGlory got the server to work fine (but used a SL image from a 2011 MBPro).

Woudl it possibly help if I copied the 5,1 kext across instead of the 5,3 kext?

What if I were to plug the Dell Monitor into the DP during the SL install? Could that make a difference in helping it be detected?

Finally, could this thunderbolt update help?

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1476