Can I install Snow Leopard on the new Mac Mini

Hello guys and gals its mesa3077boogie again. `

A few months ago I succeeded in installing SL on my Lion-based 2011 unibody Mac Mini in TDM. I immediately reverted to Lion once I realized the known machine issues and especially the "1/3rd benchmark scores" ,etc. That was months ago, before I realized newfoundglory addressed the errors that everyone esle who performed this was having.

At this point I am reading all of the posts in this thread to get a good feel for what needs to be done in order to permanently make my Lion-based 2011 Mini a SL machine.

Here's my question: once I install SL onto my machine using TDM, am I able to use time machine to back this up BEFORE all of the fixes disclosed in this thread are performed and applied? I often use time machine to revert my machine back to a previous date if something goes wrong.

I only have access to the host machine for installing SL in TDM on my machine for a limited time.

If something goes wrong in the process of applying the fixes disclosed in this thread for running SL on my Lion machine , I want to be able to restore my machine from the time machine back up that is holding the "unstable" SL initial install on it, in order to avoid borrowing my friends host machine AGAIN. This way I can try and retry to optimize SL on the Lion machine without having to bug my friend each time I make an error.

I hope this makes sense. Please answer when possible. I have been reading this thread for so long and just so much desire to permanently run SL, my favorite of all MAC operating systems on my Lion-based Mini.

Thanks guy and gals in advance!

mesa3077boogie

Hi,

Your patches work great so far on my model 5.3 mini with one subtle exception:

1) I have an OpenOffice SS doc with a password that I've opened several times under the patched 10.6.8.

Today, it did not accept the password.

2) I rebooted under 10.7.4 on same machine, opened the doc and the password was accepted.

3) Transferred the doc to my model 6.2 MBP running 10.6.8, opened the doc and the password was accepted.

4) Rebooted the 5.3 mini under patched 10.6.8, opened the doc, password not accepted.

5) Removed Open Office from patched 10.6.8 system with appCleaner, reinstalled it, opened doc, password not accepted.

6) Tried to save as with no password and got a general I/O error; tried copy/ paste to new Open Office SS with save with a password and again got a general I/O error.

7) It seems Open Office v3.4 under the patched 10.6.8 cannot handle password-protected SS docs for some reason. Open Office 3.4 accepted the password on the same document on the 5.3 mini under 10.7.4 and on the 6.2 MBP under 10.6.8.

8) I did install the drivers for a Dell 1355cn multi-function laser printer on all three systems; the printer is working fine on all of them. Perhaps the driver install on the 5,3 mini patched 10.6.8 system was the cause for the sudden appearance of the password issue; I can't think of any other change to that system that would cause the password problem to suddenly appear..

Any ideas on what can be done to fix the problem?

Thanks, Hank

Hi,

RE Time machine on unstable 10.6.8 on mini model 5.3, I'd advise against it. I tried living with the unstable 10.6.8 on my mini 5.3 and noticed application errors along with the system errors, most noticeably the disappearance of feature windows in Fireworks 8. When I applied the patches, all obvious problems, including the one with Fireworks 8, went away.

What I would suggest is that you follow the Amis/NFG recipe at the bottom of posting page 26 when doing your TDM install and use that as the basis for your Time Machine-based testing. Hope this helps.

drHankus, thanks so much for your reply!

I will research the information on the bottom of pg.26 as you said.

Its seems traffic on this thread has slowed down quite a bit. In the back of my head I feel that Apple will eventually remove this thread as it seems from the outside looking in that we are performing some sort of a "hack" on their machines. That's not the case if they would read the thread. Maybe they wont remove the thread, they will just deny warranty claims for us who performed the "downgrade". Just a thought.

I took every page (35 pages to date) of this thread and put it into a word doc. I'm editing out all of the extra non-sense and will eventually have a layman's version of the entire process for a DIY. This will take me some time to do as there is is over 500 replies to this thread, and I have not fully grasped the full process my self yet. You would be surprised how much easier it is to search key words on the 35 pages of this thread when everything is in one document.

Thanks for replying and helping me drHankus. As of right now I'm looking at next week before I have a go at installing SL on my 5.3 lion-based machine.

mesa3077boogie

RE earlier post: Problem after installing print drivers on patched mini SL

I fixed the problem (Open Office SS doc w/password glitch) by installing the Dell 1355cn print drivers on my MBP 6.2 w/10.6.8, cloning that drive to the mini 5.3 and reinstalling the patches. The Open Office SS doc on the patched mini SL now accepts the password.

CAVEAT: If you tweak the mini SL w/patches system with a system change, it may break, and the break may be subtle.

SOLUTIONS:

1) Try and update SLsystem on host CPU completely before porting it to the mini and applying the patches.

2) If you must change the patched system later, I'd suggest making the change on the host first, clone the host to the mini and reapply the patches.

My macMINI boots SL and runs perfect with now. (thanks to newfoundglory)
After that, i'm trying to install SL on a new (mid 2012) MBP following this method... but it don't boot (allways grey screen)
¿any idea?

Well, I'm about to face the same challenge as CarloBandini: how to get some mojo working on a new mid-2012 MacBook Pro (non-retina 15" with i7 quad & NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB).

As with many of of the rest of you, the important final result for me is maintaining access to a couple of vital legacy PPC apps. Obviously, the task is somewhat more daunting than with the Mini, since the new MBP has even more built-in incompatibilities with SnowLep.

Any links, or guidance to a forum, anyone?

------

FYI, I note that we're now withing striking distance of 100,000 views on this thread. Since there's some useful work getting done, here, and the Support / Discussions admins apparently made an interim decision not to zap this thread a long time ago, I'm betting that it will survive for a while longer. So, thanks, Support / Discussions wizards and elves! -- we appreciate it!

And, as always, special acknowledgment to newfoundglory and MichaelLAX for their vision and persistance, which has cleared the way for so many contributions here by so many other creative coders and tinkerers.

Yes, we can can! Mostly, anyway! 😁 Free the Stubborn SnowLep / Rosetta 100,000!

I defer to NFG and other Apple tekkies for specifics but IMHO it seems that the architectures on the new MBPs are too different for any easy fix; new video cards, faster RAM, Ivy bridge vs sandy bridge CPUs etc.

Maybe the 100K and climbing participants in this forum will nudge Apple to prolong Rosetta, but based on past history, the odds of that happening are slim :-(

I hope those with the expertise have the time and motivation to attempt to prolong Rosetta either by grafting it to Lion/ Mt Lion or tweaking SL yet again so it'll work on the newer architectures.

Myself, I'm content to stay on the 'trailing edge' for the next year or so with the 5.3 mini running SL and Lion client and a MBP 8.2 doing the same with upgrades to Mt Lion etc for the Lion partitions. Perhaps at the end of that time, my Rosetta apps will all be replaced and it will no longer be needed.

yeah, i don't believe this is possible either - even if you got snow booting on the 2012 mbp, it would never have the perfect user experience you'd want - likely graphics issues, no support for usb3 would be another guess, possible wifi/bluetooth problems too?

If you have a 2012 mbp, please go to applications > utilities > system information

then do file > save to save a copy of your system report.

please post a link to it here, so that we can look at what drivers are needed for the 2012 model.

drHankus wrote:

...Maybe the 100K and climbing participants in this forum will nudge Apple to prolong Rosetta, but based on past history, the odds of that happening are slim :-( ...

Since Apple's license to include Rosetta in new versions of OS X have expired, and the technology underlying Apple's Rosetta is now owned by IBM, it is doubtful that any amount of nudging Apple will have any beneficial effect.

drHankus wrote:

...I hope those with the expertise have the time and motivation to attempt to prolong Rosetta either by grafting it to Lion/ Mt Lion or tweaking SL yet again so it'll work on the newer architectures...

Way beyond my expertise, but it seems doubtful for technical as well as licensing reasons that anyone will be able to transparently "graft" Rosetta into Lion, Mountain Lion or any of its successors.

About the most we could hope for is some open source emulator, such as how SheepShaver and its Classic Mac OS8 and OS9 emulation works on existing Intel Macs (http://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/sheepshaver_mac_os_x_setup and http://www.everymac.com/mac-answers/mac-os-9-classic-support-faq/run-macos-9-on- intel-macs.html).

This is of course, what is currently being accomplished with the installation of Snow Leopard (with Rosetta) into Parallels 7 in Lion (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439), but perhaps it could be done more elegantly and without the additional expense of Parallels.

Great summary of the situation. I didn't know about the licensing issues back, months ago, when when I was pushing every Apple connection that I had, asking 'em to revisit the Rosetta decisions. The license renewal would have been very expensive for Apple, and at renewal time, it just wasn't making sense any more.

Your suggestion regarding a freestanding Rosetta-like utility is a good one. Maybe we should be talking to IBM? :-)

Wow that Rosetta has some dam fine programming. It is so fast! I used the advise in this topic to patch a 5.2 model, and it works flawless the 2 weeks I use it now. Adobe CS 1 blows CS6 out of the water in terms of speed, never mind the processor emulation. So I keep it as main workhorse, and use CS6 for the 2% time I need newer functions.

Hello Guys, thank you for your continuing support.

These questions are in regards to Amis V2 instructions and the NFG package installer.

Assuming that I just installed SL onto my 2011 mini in TDM and updated it to 10.6.8. my question is:

1) When installing the NFG package installer do I install the package from the host machine while in TDM to the Mini, OR do I boot from the Mini and install the NFG package from the Mini?

2) Does the NFG package installer perform ALL of the steps found in the Amis V2 instructions or will I still need to perform the steps in the Amis V2 instructions regarding "fix the kernal extensions using terminal" ?

3) After I fully install SL 10.6.8 on the 2011 Mini and perform all the steps in the Amis V2 instructions and or NFG package and everything is up and running, will I be able to use disc utility to clone the drive to an external while booted from the Mini, or will I have to use something like carbon copy cloner? As stated in earlier posts , I wish to have a "base system" to boot back to and use for backup for incase I change or ruin something in the future.

thanks,

Mesa3077Boogie

1) Boot your Mini with 10.6.8 and install the NFG Package

(I had to remove 16 .kext-files afterwards: BJUS...kext, 14x HP...kext, Lexmark...kext)

2) you don't need the terminal if you use the NFG Package

3) you can clone it with whatever you want while it is running or started from an external disk:

Disc Utility, CarbonCopyCloner, SuperDuper, CloneX, SynchronizePro...

dimoe, thanks for such a fast response!

Why did you personally have to do all of this: "(I had to remove 16 .kext-files afterwards: BJUS...kext, 14x HP...kext, Lexmark...kext)" ?

I have the Mini i7 Quad 5.3 model. Are you saying taht I will have to do all of that too? Or did you have to do that on your specific machine for various reasons? Please clarify.

And just for clarification, are you saying that the NFG .dmg installer package performs ALL of the Amis V2 instructions meaning that there would be no need to perform any of the other steps in the Amis V2 instructions?

Lastly. Premise:

Say that my Mini i7 quad 5.3 model machine has all of the NFG .dmg package installer installed and/or Amis V2 directions applied and 10.6.8 is installed and is up and running.

Question:

Theoretically, should I be able to have a clone/backup of my Mini on an external drive that would be able to be cloned to any other same exact machine or my same machine again in the future WITHOUT having to do another TDM install of 10.6.X causing me to perform all of the steps in the Amis V2/NFG .dmg package in the future again.

dimoe, I have been reading this thread for MONTHS and have seen your name and posts from the beginning and its nice to hear from you directly!

Thanks,

mesa3077boogie