Can I install Snow Leopard on the new Mac Mini

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 got popups, that these system-extensions are not usable:

see: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3209335?start=446

and below

After 6 month with Leopard on my MacMini I build in a SSD in the mini (three weeks ago) and made exactly these things:
- start the Mini in FireWire-Target Modus

- install SL from an other Mac on the empty SSD

- migrate the user and applications

- install ComboUpdate 10.6.8 from an other Mac

- reboot the Mini and install NFG-package

- remove the wrong system-extensions

- reinstall the ComboUpdate

- repair permissions

Geekbench: 32bit ~ 7000 and 64bit ~ 7600

System boots in12 seconds

DeepSleep works well (eight seconds after booting)

With this System you should be able to boot every 1-4 year old Mac

(In Firewire-Target-Modus or with a clone on an external drive)

Beside:

I made a test with SnowLeo and MountainLion (with "real" drivers for the Mini) on my MacMini:

Handbrake 0.96 > Apple TV: Mountain Lion is 5% faster

Artlantis 4.1 > Rendering: Mountain Lion is 10% faster

Cinebench 11.5: Mountain Lion is 7% better

but Geekbench is 5% faster with SnowLeo!

MountainLion has some improvements (i.e. you can use "save as" in Textedit or Preview again!)

But of course MountainLion doesn't support Rosetta.

And some other little points are missing, which I easily can use with SnowLeo.

I will use SnowLeo as my main System.

Just getting a little disoriented in this topic?

What is the NFG package. Is it from NewFoundGlory? Where to get it, what does it do?

I have a 5,2 mini and I copied the plist and 2 kext files from Lion to Snow. Does it contain those 5 files or is it anything else?

yes,

Newfoundglory build an installer with these files and some more System-extensions, so we don't have to work with the terminal.

I just posted the Link to his installer (from march 2011) in my posting above

Ok thanks dimoe.

Those are some pretty good speed boosts with the new Mountain Lion, thanks for posting that information!

Next,

Im not fully comprehending what you are saying about the popups and extensions. I seen the list of extensions that you made in this post:

" I compared the new extensions with my old ones in my TimeMachine and marked newer and missing (red lines).

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/943870/Mini-Install-Package.png

Then I copied the newer back (as root user), repaired disk permissions and now I have

a geekbench of 6950

and AJA Test of 88 (first ifs fast, then it slows down)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/943870/AJA-Mini.png

If someone knows wich kexts are needed, here they are

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/943870/kext.zip "

Are you only getting popups because you are using the i7 dual core Mini and the NFG package was i7 quad core specific? Or are you saying that there is a list of extensions that I will manually need to remove or update that all who perform the NFG installer on any 2011 Mini will need to do?

If I'm understanding you correctly, You said (in the above text between the quotes from an earlier post) that you used your time machine to copy over different versions of extensions. Whats not clear is that was your time machine backing up Lion or the newly installed SL?

IF this is something I will need to do on my machine, can you please explain the process to me? I am headed to a friends tomorrow night for the second time with my Mini to attempt all of this.

By "repair permissions", do you mean boot from the Mini running 10.6.8 and open disc utility, select the drive or partition that SL 10.6.8 is installed on and simply click "repair permissions". Or is there something more involved than that?

Lastly can you address this question from my last entry?

"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 futureagain."

Thanks again!

Mesa3077boogie

Hi mesa3077boogi,

Are you only getting popups because you are using the i7 dual core Mini and the NFG package was i7 quad core specific?

no, these kext are for a Lexmark printer and a HP-Printer that I don't have.

Even "josefromaldea del fresno"got these popups: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3209335?start=474

that you used your time machine to copy over different versions of extensions

I just posted something old, because you asked what's about the kexts.

I didn't change any kext know, because everything works fine now.

By "repair permissions", do you mean boot from the Mini running 10.6.8 and open disc utility, select the drive or partition that SL 10.6.8 is installed on and simply click "repair permissions".

That's it

Question: ...

I said in my post above:

"With this System you should be able to boot every 1-4 year old Mac

(In Firewire-Target-Modus or with a clone on an external drive)"

Maybe someone will add .kexts for newer hardware, but at the moment this seems to be the "newest" System 10.6 which is possible.

I did perform these steps three weeks ago, because I wanted a clean System on my SSD,

but I could have used a clone.

Thanks for your reply dimoe. I did see the info about the printers in the past but in the back of my head I figured I would deal with it when it came there and had that page book marked...

So basically I need to delete the printer kexts IF I get error messages, correct?

In the above steps you listed for installing SL on an SSD you wrote:

"

- start the Mini in FireWire-Target Modus

- install SL from an other Mac on the empty SSD

- migrate the user and applications

- install ComboUpdate 10.6.8 from an other Mac

- reboot the Mini and install NFG-package

- remove the wrong system-extensions

- reinstall the ComboUpdate

- repair permissions

"

In the 6th line down "- remove the wrong system-extensions" are you referring to the AppleIntelHDGraphics.kext and AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB.kext ? If so, arent those taken care of if I use the NFG installer? If not which system-extensions are you referring to?

After re reading your last post I did get what you were saying about installing SL on you SSD and being able to clone later. So therefore Im banking on cloning my newly installed 10.6.8 tomorrow night after the install it to have a backup fresh copy incase I screw something up.

Sorry you have to spoon feed me, Im just trying to wrap my head around it 🙂

Thanks so much!

mesa3077boogie

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.

Ok I got it. I did notice some users getting errors. If I get popups with these kexts, I will remove them.

Thanks for all your help.

mesa3077boogie

I succeeded in installing 10.6.8 on my 2011 Mini Server

My 64 bit geekbench benchmark score before the NewFoundGlory package was 2388

My 64 bit geekbench benchmark score after the NewFoundGlory package is 9706

I have not remmoved the unwanted printer drivers yet. I am having the same issues iXod was having with display prefferences only allowing up to 1600x900 resolution.?? My screen seems a bit 'foggy' compared to my Lion partition, this may have something to do with the resolution being set to 1600x900.

My install process:

I used an early 2011 iMac that was born with Snow Leopard 10.6.6 as my host machine. The host machine was updated to 10.6.8 with all current updates prior. I used the iMac's 10.6.6 restore DVD to install 10.6.6 on my Mini using target disc mode. After successfully installing 10.6.6 onto the mini and still booted from the iMac, I installed the 10.6.8 combo update onto my Mini. I then turned everything off, unplugged the FW cable and booted from my Mini. I then Installed the NFG .dmg installer package. I ran the geekbench benchmarks and saw that the NFG package brought my geekbenchmark score up to 9706 and then turned everything off as it was getting late.

Question 1: Doesnt the NFG package install the latest HD3000 graphic driver and kexts? If I have the lastest HD3000 drivers or kexts, shouldnt system preferences have a 1920x1080 selection? Has anyone been able to fix the issue with display prefs only allowing up to 1600x900? When I booted from the host iMac machine onto the mini running 10.6.8 with all the updates and applied NFG package, system prefs showed the option of running 1920x1080. But as I said, when I booted FROM THE MINI, my largest resolution available was 1600x900.

Question 2: I will be using SL for earlier versions ProTools. Therefore do I still need rosetta installed if this is the only reason I will be using SL 10.6.8? I installed one partition with rosetta and Qt7 and one partition without rosetta and Qt7.

Thanks!

mesa3077boogie

This is in regards to my 2012 Mini Server With Snow Leopard 10.6.8 with applied NFG package.

My Lion 10.7.4 Partition on the Mini server has several HDGraphics3000.kext files and other HD3000 files found in my system/extensions folder that my SL partition does NOT have. With dragging those over to the 10.6.8 partition yielded me an average of 300 more benchmark points..

My question is should the HD3000 kext files be on the 10.6.8 machine or should I just leave it the way it was with the NFG package installer?

As I stated in my last post, my SL 10.6.8 partitions only has up to a 1600x900 resolution available. This being with the NFG package installed. Strange. However , it LOOKS as if I am getting 1920x1080 resolution even with 1600x900 resolution selected.. ?

Now regarding another test I did. I installed Snow Leopard 10.6.6 onto my Mini from an iMac onto a separate partitioned drive in my Mini Server. The I applied the 10.6.8 Combo Update, however I did NOT boot the Mini from the iMac in TDM and I did NOT install the NFG package or perform the Terminal Fixes that are included in the package installer. When I got home , I tried to boot the Mini to that specific 10.6.8 partition and it would NOT boot correctly. When turned on, you could hear the SL welcome music as if it was playing but the screen would turn on as it was not getting any graphics. So I then dragged the appropriate files over (Amis V2 instructions, etc) and then , boom, it booted. I performed the Terminal commands (per Amis V2) and my average geekbench score is now 9520 running the 64 bit test. NOW when I look at the screen resolutions in sys pref's I ONLY get a 1920x1080 selection, and no other resolution setting are listed..? Interesting.

Hi Everybody !

Just followed David Amis' instructionas and installed SL in my Mini Server 5,3. EXCELLENT results !!!

The Mini got over 9300 score in Geekbench (64 bit). Everything works fine, except the bluetooth mouse, that keeps on freezing.

BTW, the link to the Kexts is not working anymore. I got the chance to download them before the link died, so should I post another link just in case anybody needs them ?

Also, I've seen that NGF has kindly created an installer, which is poster later in this thread. Will that fix the Bluetooth issue ?

Thanks a lot ! You guys Rock !!

Javi.

ya go ahead and post kexts again for more people to come who may want to go that route. The NFG installer package is the same as performing the AMIS V2 instructions only with all of the 'work' already done for you.

As far as the Bluetooth and and mouse problems, what you get is what you get. I get similar issues. I have all my installs done several different ways for testing purposes. I have yet to see how actually stable the SL system is for real life work such as work use with ProTools (the whole reason I did the SL on Lion Machine switch). The hype on this thread has seriously died down, so I doubt anyone who knows code is actively pursuing a fix for the known issues.

Do you have a 1920x1080 resolution option in your screen preferences? As stated above , mine only goes to 1600x900 but 'appears' to be actually giving 1920x1080. A few other posters have the same issues but I have not seen where anyone has *fixed* the issue.

Do you have an SSD or upgraded RAM? Those benchmarks are pretty good!

My average score for SL on My Lion server is 9520. I have an OCZ vertex3 120GB and an OCZ Agility3 60GB drive, and 2 8GB sticks of 1333MHZ RAM. On a clean install of Lion 10.7.4 on the same machine my average is 9700 but I have achieved 9818 which is spectacular (not sure why benchmark scores bounce around so much?) As it stands right now my SL average benchmark score is 9520 and that is satisfactory IMO.

Hello mesa3077boogie, and thanks for your reply.

Here's the link to the Kexts, just in case anybody needs them...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/iiqc91syrwl8w9m/MacMini2011%20Snow%20Leopard%20kexts.z ip

I think that I've figured out how to make the Bluetooh work: I just plugged in a USB Bluetooth adapter (for which SL doesn't need any specific driver). It's been working very nice for two days now (Magic mouse and wireless keyboard, running Pro Tools 10).

I do have a 1920 resolution option. I'm using the HDMI port. It works perfect in the 3 monitors I've tried it on.

I also have upgraded Ram (8gigs), all the memory is seen -and used- by the system. No SSD here 😟

I get almost the same results in Geekbench (a little lower: aroound 9400). But I just left the original 2x750 gigs HD. I didn't even try Lion, since the experience I had using it on another iMac we have around in the studio was pretty disappointing.

Best !

In case Apple yanks this thread my email is mesa3077boogie@gmail.com

Javi, what are you mainly using your mini for?

I dont want to get too far off topic, but I noticed you said studio, (music? desigh?)

Hey Im just throwing this out there Javi. Would you by any chance be able to clone your system to an SD card so that I can see what drivers and or kext files that you have that I dont that are leaving me with only 1600x900 resolution?

I can send you an SD card as well as a prepaid return envelope. Maybe you can do a generic install of a Snow Leopard system where you dont actually name or password your system upon install. ? Just throwing it out there, Im not offended if you say no 🙂

So basicall you are using a USB dongle for bluetooth rather than using the faulty built in bluetooth? And no problems there?