Can I install Snow Leopard on the new Mac Mini

I don't have a 100% answer yet I can tell you you're doing something wrong. You need to make sure you start with an OS X build that has all the drivers for your machine. Simply installing from any SL build didnt work for me. I had to use a 10.6.8 v1.1 image installed from the same general hardware (for me it was a 2010 mini with Thunderbolt and HDMI. For others it was a similarly configured laptop image). I then used that image on the 2011 mini and followed newfoundglory's directions to add the corresponding kext files and it all worked.

When I used just the plain 10.6.3 retail image (which I was able to install on the 2011 Mini) I had exactly the same graphical glitch symptoms you are having - I believe you are missing drivers for your hardware. Hope that helps.

Here is how I installed 10.6.8 on a Mac Mini, in more detail than earlier descriptions:

1. Start Mini in Target Disk Mode (TDM), connect to 2011 MBP 13" 2.7 with a Firewire 800 cable.

2. Boot MBP from the Mac OS X install disc it came with, 10.6.6.

3. Use disk Utility to erase the Mini's HD.

4. Install 10.6.6 on Mini's HD (including Rosetta and QT7, of course).

I found the Mac Mini can't boot 10.6.6, so:

5. Reboot with option key, now boot MBT from Mini's HD.

6. Create a new user, again still on MBP.

7. Install 10.6.8 combo update v1.1.

8. Shut down MBP and Mini.

9. Now connect Mini to a monitor and boot from its own HD.

10. For good measure, and to make sure no drivers were missed, Install 10.6.8 combo update v1.1 again.

11. Add the Macmini5,* files as detailed by newfoundglory, adding the chmod 644.

(and have the phantom display issue)

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.

So I went out and bought the Mini Server. After going through the motions, I did a geekbench and it came up with 6225. It was much too slow (but still better than the 3500 when I first installed 10.6.8 without the plist modifications). So retracing my steps I found out that I took too many steps in getting it configured....

What I did was I installed 10.6.6 off of the MBP early 2011 dvd directly onto a spare drive hooked up via USB from my MBP. I then upgraded it to 10.6.8. I REMOVED the lion drive from the mac mini and copied the plist and changed the permissions. Next I cloned this to a 512gb SSD and put it into the Mini. Then - perhaps what caused a problem is that I went to the migration assistant and migrated all of the settings and programs from a Mac Pro Tower that the mini was replacing. After doing this, I did the geekbench and it came up with the dismal 6225.

So, I started all over again - installing 10.6.6. from the MBP and from the initial registration screen, I hooked up the Mac Pro and migrated all of the data from the get-go. I then updated to 10.6.8 and from the MBP, hooked up the Mini's Lion drive to copy the plist and permissions change. Put the SSD into the Mini and ran geekbench. Voila - I'm up to 8067. It's not as good as what newfoundglory got but good enough for me for the time being. If I start up the mini without extensions it goes up to 8935. Keep in mind this is done under 32bit.

So the lesson of the story goes - keep the installation with as little steps as possible. When I ran the Migration assistant after the install, something must have happened to change the speed. I did noticed that when doing the permissions change within Terminal, a quick message showed up saying that kext file that I modified was not original and it couldn't be used....

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

er... make that 1920x1080 in every instance in the previous post.

Just a typo. There is no 1900 resolution...

Symptoms remain unchanged.

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