Can I install Snow Leopard on the new Mac Mini

Very good to hear!! Will try it myself as soon as i can get a hold of this OSX version.

Does anyone have an idea were to find/buy the Snow Leopard 10.6.8 Macbook disk?

And will the ".plist" files be updated with an update?

Just to clarify - This is not a 10.6.8 restore disk. My MBP actually shipped with Lion, and I used a 10.6.6 restore DVD (Build 10J3210) for the Early 2011 MacBook Pro to install Snow Leopard and then updated that to 10.6.8 - I believe there is also a 10.6.7 restore DVD (Build 10J4139)

You may find that a retail DVD of 10.6.3 works okay after updating to 10.6.8 (target disk mode), but it *may* be missing drivers for some hardware (check SD card, HDMI, thunderbolt, bluetooth/wifi etc). Maybe someone could do some investigation and check this?

The reason why I am sceptical about retail DVD's, is that on my 2010 Mac mini server I tried to change from the Server OS to Client OS, and at the time had to find the 10.6.3 client restore DVD as it contained the SD card drivers not found in the 10.6.3 retail disk and software update at the time. However, it may have been possible to extract them from the Server version.

I don't see any reason why Apple would add support for the Mac Mini 2011 into any future Snow Leopard update - as its technically already supported. The plists just describe the thermal profile of a mid-2011 mac mini and enable dynamic scaling of the CPU.

I'm going to try this now. I have a core i7 MacBook from early 2011 and my minis are i5s. ?It's totally worth a shot. Thanks!

I just did this:

Installed retail SL 10.6.0 to the mini (i5) via target disk mode from a c2d iMac (2006) and updated to 10.6.8 while still in target disk mode.

Copied the plist files mentioned by newfoundglory from the original Lion install that came with the mini.

-However -

I followed the instructions but I think there's one missing - after doing the 'chown' step you need to do a 'chmod' to 644. I tried the 'kextcache' commands but got an error saying they were not authentic and would not be linked. After the chmod I did not have this error message.

Necessary(?) command to do after chown root:wheel Macmini5*:

chmod 644 Macmini5*

Geekbench score before the kexts were linked: 5170. After: 6588

HDMI-to-DVI out to a Dell U2007 works fine (1680x1050)

Thunderbolt out to DisplayPort on a Dell U2711 works fine (2560x1440)

Further testing tomorrow, but so far it looks promising.

Yeah, I probably should have put the chmod in there as well. Oh well, if you get errors follow the above!

5170 to 6588 doesnt sound like a massive increase? my quad-core went from about 3200 to 8700!!!

True - but it's in the range for what's listed on Geekbench. Maybe the kexts make a lot more difference on the core i7.

Thanks for the tip on this, BTW. 🙂

newfoundglory wrote:

5170 to 6588 doesnt sound like a massive increase? my quad-core went from about 3200 to 8700!!!

That would make total sense if the problem is not exploiting the multi-cores appropriately -- quad-core is more "broken" than the dual-core.

colacin wrote:

True - but it's in the range for what's listed on Geekbench. Maybe the kexts make a lot more difference on the core i7.

Thanks for the tip on this, BTW. 🙂

As Snow Leopard now geekbenches faster than Lion for me, hopefully it does for you as well 🙂

I've been waiting on a solution for a few months now. I intend to get a quadcore i7 with SSD.

Please can I confirm that after changing the kext files:

1/ Does the new quadcore mini run without any of the graphical hitches others were reporting?

2/ Does the quadcore support a high resolution display from the TB output (i.e. DELL U2711 at 2560x1440).

Anything else I should know? I will probably have to try using the SL retail DVD.

Cheers. M

Seeing as this is an important post for me and my work, I'm going to post what worked for me.

First and foremost - TYVM to newfoundglory. All signs point to my ability to use three 2011 Minis we were currently using as bookends...

I had an updated Snow Leopard 10.6.8 v1.1 image from an Apple Mac mini "Core 2 Duo" 2.4 (Mid-2010) that I've been using successfully for all hardware up until the Mid-2011 Minis.

So I used that image and followed newfoundglory's instructions to modify and update the image:

BUT there are serious performance issues, as Snow Leopard doesn't seem to speedstep the processor correctly with a machine identifying itself as being a Macmini5,x, so any of:

Macmini5,1 - dual core with Intel HD3000 graphics

Macmini5,2 - dual core with AMD graphics

Macmini5,3 - quad core i7 (server)

Basically to fix this you need to modify a kernel extension, and update the caches - You need access to a copy of Lion for this - I used the copy of Lion which came preinstalled on the second hard drive.

USING the Lion partition (either using Finder > Go to folder…, or by using the Terminal) you need to go to:

/System/Library/Extensions/IOPlatformPluginFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/ACPI_SMC _PlatformPlugin.kext/Contents/Resources/

FIND Macmini5_1.plist, Macmini5_2.plist or Macmini5_3.plist (depending on your Mac mini 2011 model, or copy all of them if you aren't sure).

COPY these back to the the same location on your Snow Leopard partition.

REMEMBER, depending on how you copy the plist file(s) you may have to change ownership of the file(s). The plist file should be owned by root and the wheel group on Snow Leopard.

Using Terminal and Snow Leopard partition:

sudo su -

[enter your admin password]

cd /Sy*/Li*/Ex*/IOPla*/Con*/Pl*/AC*/Con*/Res*/

chown root:wheel Macmini5*

chmod 644 Macmini5*

FINALLY, update the kernel caches using Terminal by typing:

kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel

kextcache -system-caches

THEN, reboot your Mac mini!!

I had to install Lion from the Recovery partition to a blank partition on an external drive in order to get the necessary kext files.

I don't know about display resolutions, yet all the random screen issues I was experiencing are gone.

I ran a 32-bit Geekbench after the install and it was around 5900 which seems on par with the diagram I found.

I also ran a stress test for 12 hours and there was one error yet no kernel panics.

I'm going to continue testing yet this seems to be a solution for me.

Thanks to everyone for your help.

Just a tip for copying files in a way that you don't have to muck with permissions or ownership -- use tar with the 'p' (preserve metadata) flag on the unpacking side. For those unfamiliar with command-line magic, some instructions:

Be booted up, with both Lion and SL partitions mounted. Launch Terminal. At the command prompt, type sudo su and then enter your password when it says to do so. You are now logged in as root, and have the ability to easily trash the whole system, so be careful and if you're not confident in your abilities you might want to seek more expert assistance.

at the prompt

cd /Volumes

ls -l

(that's el ess space dash el, as in list -long) It will show you all of your disk mounts, including the root partition (which is the one you are booted off of.) My /Volumes looks like this:

sh-3.2# cd /Volumes

sh-3.2# ls -l

total 8

drwxrwxr-x 11 systems staff 442 Jul 7 19:26 Data

lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Nov 27 10:43 XServe250 -> /

Notice the mountpoint name XServe250 which is followed by the characters

-> /

that indicates that the machine is currently booted off of XServe250. If both of your partitions are bootable, they will probably both be root/admin rather than systems/staff like my Data drive is.

ok, the syntax for tar-through-a-pipe is this

cd source-directory ; tar -cf - filename | (cd target-directory ; tar -xpf -)

so for me to copy the contents of /Volumes/Data/AMP4Backup to /Volumes/XServe250/AMP4Backup, the command would be

cd /Volumes/Data/AMP4Backup/; tar -cf - ./ | (cd /Volumes/XServe250/AMP4Backup/; tar -xpf - )

If I understand nfg's instructions correctly, the copy command to fetch over the plists from Lion would go like this:

cd /Volumes/Lion-partition-name/System/Library/Extensions/IOPlatformPluginFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/ACPI_SMC _PlatformPlugin.kext/Contents/Resources/; tar -cf - Macmini5_*.plist | (cd

/Volumes/SnowLeopard-partition-name/System/Library/Extensions/IOPlatformPluginFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/ACPI_SMC _PlatformPlugin.kext/Contents/Resources/ ; tar -xpf - )

With Lion-partition-name and SnowLeopard-partition-name being the mount point names that you figured out by doing your ls command on /Volumes

Great!

MacMini 5.2 with i7 2,7GHz:

Geekbench (32bit) with Snow Leo in August:1700

Geekbench (32 bit) with Lion: 6700

and now Geekbench (32 bit) with SnowLeo and your MacMini 5.2 Resource: 6900

I used a Mini 2010 for preparation, Snow Leo Retail-installation DVD with an update to 10.6.8

Thanks

Message was edited by: dimoe

Works perfectly for me, too! We need to find mikethebook, who began this thread, to get him to pop some SOLVED! points onto newfoundglory's account!

FYI -- obviously, my months of optimism that Apple would allow a sensible solution didn't work out. And, VMWare sources say that they got a complete sign-off from Apple on the virtualization option for Snow Leopard client, but that someone higher up ultimately zapped it after release with no warning; this was not a simple misunderstanding. Ah, well!

Anyway, GREAT WORK, newfoundglory! A good, elegant hack is always the best answer, anyway, because it looks for the best outcome, not just a kludgy workaround for an obstacle. Also from Dimoe, Cathy, Baltwo (I had resolution concerns, too!), Layne and other for pointers that made this very nice hack not-exactly-a-no-brainer but even more straightforward!

Since I've been the "speedometer keeper" -- if you haven't noticed, this thread has now logged just under 40,000 views.

We've had a surge of visits, again, since newfoundglory found a way to convince the 2011 Minis to play well with others!!

Also, if someone has the time and knowledge to package these steps and resources, drivers, etc. into an installer or a patcher -- or can ghost that "best" working system into an uploadable form, you might want to post it somewhere on a forum, a tech site or a newsgroup, to make it widely available and easily usable for Mini owners who don't know root from soundflower.

I don't have the knowledge to pull that off and make it actually deliverable and workable, but from what I can see it ought to be do-able.