Can I install Snow Leopard on the new Mac Mini

One more thing... Has anyone noticed minor pointer anomalies?? Sometimes the pointer is slow to come back when it changes to a cursor or the beachball. I have to move the mouse around a bit to get it back. There is no more pixellation that I originally had before doing the plist mods but the cursor is sometimes erratic.

The Phantom Display problem.

Yes, we've seen the pointer anomalies. It's caused by a phantom duplicate of the main display, and causes the following:

1. Cursor updates are erratic.

2. There's an extra screen off to the right that you can move windows to.

3. Monitor wakup from sleep can fail.

4. The second monitor port (Thunderbolt) won't work.

I've just posted an invitation to folks over at the Discussions thread on "reverting the new Macbook Pro, etc., to Snow Leopard" to look in on what you've accomplished here.

There are some good coders lurking over there, and also on some other related threads. Let's see if they can make some contributions to what you're developing. The more minds working on this, the sooner it gets sorted out.

If you combine our nearly 40,000 views (up to this point) here with the over 20,000 views on that thread and other related ones, we've drawn over 65,000 views on this topic. Apple really does pay some attention to what happens in these Community discussions -- and the more views on a topic, the more attention it eventually gets. That doesn't mean it produces any action at Apple, but its the best pathway I know to get a policy "adjusted," and sometimes it works!

That's why I'm still nudging everyone I know at Apple, trying to get someone to loosen their "previous OS on current hardware" policies a little bit in this one instance -- and to facilitate what we're doing. And, in particular, to at least allow Snow Leopard client virtualization on Lion machines.

Looking in on the virtualization code can give you some useful hints on what resources are missing and needed to run SnowLep on Lion machines, by the way....!!

Downgrading a MBP is a bit different to a mac mini, because the MBP's originally shipped with a supported version of Snow Leopard!

Is anyone else having Bluetooth issues with SL and the 2011 mini?

If you have both SL and Lion installed on your Mac mini, can you check the RSSI (received signal strength indication) by option/alt-clicking on the bluetooth icon in the menu bar and navigating to the currently connected device (eg mouse/trackpad)?

Its strange... I get between -77dBm and -88dBm in Snow Leopard at close range (greatly improved by turning off Wifi), but a much improved -48dBm in Lion with Wifi switched on.

Does anyone else have symptoms similar to this? I am wondering if this has something to do with Bluetooth 4.0 in the 2011 Mac mini - If I download a file at high speed from the internet, it completely drowns the Bluetooth which screws up my magic mouse (jumps about) when in Snow Leopard, but in Lion its fine.....

I don't have Lion on the mini anymore, but my numbers are -55 to -65 for my KB & trackpad with wifi turned on. I don't have a very good signal path, either. The mini is vertical in a stand with the antenna facing away from the devices and I have a stainless steel desk surface which has caused lots of problems with other wireless mice.

Thanks, newfoundglory -- and I'm clear that MBP's shipped with Snow Leopard, which of course goes to the heart of our challenges on the Mini.

There are some good coders (I know of one example) who have a MacBook Pro and who've looked in on that Lion-to-SnowLep thread but have no reason to jump over to browse through our Mini-oriented discussion. Their System insights might contribute some new angle of looking at our problem, so I thought it was wise to invite 'em over here, if only for the challenge.

Some have responded and have drifted through here already; I've gotten a couple of emails from 'em. I guess we shall see if they generate something worth posting, or not!

I've been looking at two things recently:

1 - Making a bootable DVD or image of Snow Leopard, which can be installed directly. I have had success making a 10.6.6 restore DVD bootable on any Mac, but there are quite a few issues to overcome (probably coming from the fact its a restore disk for a MBP - from what I can make out, the 10.6.8 update introduced support for Apple hardware which was never released with Snow Leopard). Specifically, if you look in System Profiler under Bluetooth - the Product ID of 0x8281 (in hex, which is 33409 in decimal) isn't introduced to the IOBluetooth.kext plists until 10.6.8 (I checked 10.6.7 to make sure) - to me, it looks like Apple did this specifically to provide support for Snow Leopard on the 2011 Mac mini (and presumably the 2011 Macbook Air) as i'm sure this identifies the Bluetooth 4.0 chip in both the MM and MBA.

Because 10.6.8 introduced so many kext updates (again, I looked), I doubt it would be possible to bring those back into a 10.6.6 or 10.6.7 restore DVD due to the dependencies involved. So, it wouldn't be perfect. I know someone with an iMac who has a 10.6.8 DVD so i'm going to check the kexts on that and see what it reveals.

2 - Bringing kexts from Lion, back into Snow Leopard. I had great success with this, actually! I managed to get the version 4 kexts for Bluetooth running from Lion (including the HID kext) working fine in Snow Leopard. But, it worked only with existing paired devices, and paired (but wouldn't work) with devices never seen before. I copied over the version 4 framework too (the system prefs/interfaces/UI), but that broke things completely!!

I am one who has successfully installed SL on a 2011 mini (optional 2.7 GHz i7) with no major problems (thanks, of course, to newfoundglory's discovery of missing files).

There is, however, one niggling issue with display resolution...

The mini and my 24" LCD monitor both support 1900x1080 resolution.

If I boot the mini using Lion, the default resolution is 1900x1080 and it is usable: smaller text (the ruler by which I gauge such things) is crisp and readable. No complaints.

If I boot the mini in SL, the default resolution is 1600x900 and is also usable: crisp text. No complaints.

Under SL, looking in Sys Prefs' Displays pane I see no resolution above 1600x900. But thanks to a neat little utility called screenresolution, I can select any resolution that the mini hardware supports (see http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110830215724984).

If I change the resolution to 1900x1080 (1900x1080x16 and 1900x1080x32 options are there; I tried both), the display shows the higher resolution but it is not usable: smaller text is not crisp and mostly unreadable.

Why would 1900x1080 be so good under Lion but not under SL?

Maybe there's a fix (hello newfoundglory!) for native resolution issues?

Otherwise I'm very happy speeding along with this combination of new mini & SL.

Cheers, iX

Well my monitor is 1920x1080, and it works no problem. So, either you have done something wrong or there is something causing it to screw up.

Try the basics: reset the PRAM

Do you have another monitor you can try?

Are you connected via HDMI, or using HDMI to DVI adapter?

Does your mac think its connected to a TV?

Does you monitor have a display data channel (DDC) setting that you can disable through the monitors menu? (try rebooting mac mini after)

Thanks NFG. I'll try some of your suggestions.

"Well my monitor is 1920x1080, and it works no problem."

Does this mean that you can select 1920x1080 from the Sys Prefs' Displays pane? It is present in the menu as a choice?

-iX

Yes I had DDC turned on in the monitor; off now. The monitor HDMI cable was connected to the Mini-DVI port via an Apple adapter; it's now HDMI all the way.

I reset PRAM several times after the above changes.

No Joy. My Sys Prefs' Displays pane looks identical to yours except for the absence of "1920x1080" entry.

"Does your mac think its connected to a TV?"

How do I tell if this is so?

No other monitor of 1920x1080 resolution that I can try.

FWIW: System Version: Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549)

Thanks, iX

I have no problems to use two monitors (with Lion or SnowLeopard) with the resolutions:

Thunderbolt > Dell = 1920/1200

HDMI > Samsung TV = 1920/1080

I was able to use them after a clean installed 10.6.8 System (cloned) and also with a Macbook-pro-10.6.8 Clone

iX - i've seen this happen to Mac minis before, but I don't know the fix unfortunately - maybe try Google for this one and see what other people have experienced.

Also, for those who are using a 2010 mini to get a 10.6.8 image - I also get the second "ghost" display (which obviously doesn't exist). No idea what is causing this yet. Using a MBP definitely seems to work better for me.

newfoundglory: I'm wondering if the phantom display is caused by some configuration issue. I've already tried many alternatives, and I'd love to try an image you have created that has worked for you. I sent a friend request on the Macrumors forum, or please suggest another way to contact you.

I had installed the Mac Mini 2011 EFI 1.4 firmware update (wish I hadn't), perhaps it is a problem. The disc I'm using is:

"13-inch

MacBook Pro

Mac OS version 10.6.6

Disc version 1.0

2Z691-6796-A"

I'm using 10.6.8 update version 1.1, can't find a copy of the original 10.6.8 update.

Did the Snow leopard install as prescriped (thanks a lot!!) in mini I7 quard, geek bench before= 2785; geekbench after=8816. Looking good. Monitor connected to HDMI (DVI adaptor). No monitor on the mini display port. The mini still believes there is a monitor on the display port...

Solved the mouse pointer issue by turning on display mirroring.

Hope this helps others with the mouse pointer issue.

Happy new year!

Kasper