Blog | OSX | mechdrew

Since some do not know about meklort’s site yet, I’m relaying some information he posted yesterday about the development of NetbookInstaller and NetbookBootMaker. From his blog:

I’ll be releasing NebookInstaller 0.8.3 RC5 no later than the 20th (or 21st) of december. If all goes well, NetbookInstaller 0.8.3 final will be released on Christmas day (after all, it’s Christmas, and it’ll be 6 months from the initial NetbookInstaller release).

I find this exciting, personally. Since the final will probably be the same as RC5 and might be released on Christmas day (“If all goes well”) then I will probably update the guides (all four of them!) hopefully in time for Christmas but no later than the new year. There’s a bunch of fixes waiting for us in the next release so the process should go more smoothly no matter which guide you use.

A few questions were raised concerning NetbookCD 0.8.3 RC4 in my post about NetbookInstaller 0.8.3 RC4, so here’s some explaination. (And now I’ve updated the guide to resolve a bunch of incorrect steps.)
This is only concerning NetbookCD. If you want to know more about NBI, check out the old post.

NetbookCD 0.8.3 RC4 has the capability to boot into (i.e. recover) a bad 10.6.2 install thanks to it’s kernel-modifying bootloader. This is great for those that need a rescue disc. However, lost from the RC3 version is the auto-installing NetbookInstaller script at the end of the Mac OS X Snow Leopard installation process. (10.5 Leopard has never had this feature in NetbookCD, so nothing has changed for Leopard users.) This is more of a convenience loss than a functional loss. Essentially, you can still use the disc to install, you’ll just need to use it again to boot into your hard drive after the install is complete. You will need to run NetbookInstaller after the first boot so that the CD is no longer required. The short version of this paragraph: Use NetbookCD 0.8.3 RC4. Don’t worry about the technical stuff.

Now, once you have used NetbookCD to boot into the Mac OS and setup your account, you need to take a few more steps. (You would have to do this no matter what version of NetbookCD you had used.) There is one huge problem that has come to my attention lately (and the guide HAS NOT been updated to reflect this information) (the guide has now been updated with the proper steps) and that problem is that NetbookInstaller 0.8.3 RC4 does *not* generate a dsdt.aml file like it is supposed to; it doesn’t actually generate a working file if there isn’t one already there. So when you use the NetbookCD guide, you should do the following: Use NetbookInstaller 0.8.3 RC3 first to create a dsdt.aml file. Once that is done, load 0.8.3 RC4 to install the bootloader, extensions, and to generate the dsdt.aml file. (You are checking it again because once the file is there, RC4 is able to update without any problem.) You must install the RC4′s bootloader in order to install the 10.6.2 update correctly. Once you are done with NetbookInstaller, install the combo update either using Software Update or the downloadable version, restart, and reinstall the extensions using RC4. (Sometimes the hardware extensions, such as sound, are affect by the 10.6.2 update so you should reinstall them, even if no problems appear at first.) After another restart, you should be fine.

While this post may be helpful to other guides for educational purposes, it is meant to only apply to the NetbookInstaller 3 guide, which uses NetbookCD. It is in this context that it can only be truly understood.

If there is one major flaw with my guides is a lack of explaination. They contain a lot of dos and don’ts, but nothing that really tells you why you can or can’t do something. It’s kind of like going through a ritual without understanding what is going on.

I’ve started writing commentaries for the guides, starting with the most-used one, NetbookInstaller 1. (Find the commentary here.) It’s only a start, and could use some improvement, but it’s the best I’ve got right now. Over time it will improve. I hope it can help people become better educated about their Mac netbooks.

Previously I had mentioned that I was waiting to update the NetbookInstaller 1 guide because NetbookBootMaker 0.8.3 RC4 had a glitch that caused it not to work properly on Leopard. Since that time I updated the NBI 3 guide with a new NetbookCD, and it turns out it has a problem as well (although not major). Recently it came to light that there is a second issue with NBBM/NBI: if a dsdt.aml file is not present, it will not create one. It will update a preexisting dsdt.aml, but not create it. So feel free to use the software as an update tool, but for now the main guide will stick with 0.8.3 RC3 for fresh installs.

(The dsdt.aml file allows the netbook to properly communicate with the power management and BIOS features of the motherboard. Without it, startup is slow and function keys will not work.)

I bit the bullet today: 10.6.0 is currently running on my Mini 10v, with 10.6.2 downloading as I type. One major reason for my hesitancy is the fact that I am running a rather touchy triple boot setup. I could get either Windows XP or Windows 7 installed with Mac OS X, but not both. I need XP for some legacy software (okay, it’s just Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition, LAN multiplayer requires IPX) and of course I’m going to have the latest Windows OS if I’m going to multi-boot. Since they don’t play friendly together with the usual hybrid GUID/MBR partition scheme that NetbookInstaller helps set up, I needed a MBR-only solution to fix it.

Granted, this was two months ago. It’s been working fine, but it took a lot of trial and error to get there. You can see why I would hesitate to mess around with it anymore. When I got Snow Leopard, I fully intended to install it, but I needed it to install on MBR, and Apple had changed the OSInstall.mpkg structure so that the Leopard MBR mode wouldn’t work.

Well, after two months I am still no closer to actually figuring out what is needed for the mod. I had to download two different pre-hacked files before it would actually work. Before I started the install process, I made a bit-for-bit backup of my harddrive using the dd command line tool just in case it screwed up everything.

I was actually very surprised that I didn’t run into more problems. The only real gripes were a very inaccurate progress bar during the install and slow performance on the first boot after that. A little help from NetbookInstaller and all is well again.

Like most others, I’m not impressed immediately by any of the upgrades, but perhaps over the next few days things will become more apparent.

Update: I just finished the 10.6.2 update. I’m impressed again by how easy it was. Instead of the normal Combo Update route, I was able to just run NetbookInstaller and then use the Software Update app. Of course, now it says the CPU is a Core Solo, and I did have a minor hiccup with sound (I had also installed some additional kexts that were conflicting with it) but overal it was really easy.

Good news! meklort has released another release candidate for 0.8.3 which fixes the 10.6.2 kernel issue. Use only if you need to update to 10.6.2, since I won’t be updating the guide to reflect the update just yet. You can get it from the Google Code download page.

Why am I not updating the main guide? Because there is a bug in NetbookBootMaker currently for regular Leopard users, and I prefer to use only one NetbookBootMaker file for the entire guide. You’ll know it has been addressed when I update the guide. I will in the meantime be working on updating the NBI3 guide since I have a new NetbookCD ISO ready to go for it. It should be up later tonight.

I finally took a look at my Troubleshooting page and I nearly gasped at how outdated it was. Everything was still stuck at the time DellEFI was at 1.1! (For those who don’t know, DellEFI was the old software that got replaced by NetbookInstaller months ago.) Tonight I did a complete revamp of the page, removing a lot of unnecessary and obsolete items and adding more “substance” to each item. Hopefully this will help others learn more about what is actually going on in some of the more advanced tips.

I also added a hardware page (Tip 1) that will hopefully explain why some stuff works and others don’t, it could use some more content so if you have any favorite accessories that you use or questions about why some netbooks don’t work, please leave a comment or use the Contact page to send me an e-mail.

Big news folks: NetbookInstaller 2 has been written and uploaded! This guide allows those who do not have a Mac running Leopard or Snow Leopard to install Mac OS X via USB disk drives. This includes steps for Windows, Linux, and Tiger! After weighing all the options I finally found a solution for Windows that didn’t require a bunch of bloated software, and it also makes the techniques similar for all three operating systems.

I’ve also made a few adjustments to the NetbookInstaller 1 guide, and guide 3 has been updated to reflect the newer NetbookCD 0.8.3 RC3 ISO that has just been uploaded. Go check it out, have fun, and of course leave your comments or e-mails about your experience with these new updates.

Since the 1.1 version, a few changes have been made overall to the NetbookCD project. First of all, it has officially become a part of the NetbookInstaller suite, so the version number is going to be the same as NetbookInstaller, 0.8.3. I know this is slightly confusing, especially to those who are new to the scene, but overall meklort and I think it will help keep things consistent.

Thanks to some work meklort has done, NetbookCD now behaves similar to a flash drive that has been prepped with NetbookBootMaker without modifying the Install DVD, meaning that it will automatically install the extensions and bootloader when the Mac OS X installation is finished. Currently it only works on Snow Leopard, but the final release should have this feature on Leopard as well.

Finally, meklort has modified the Chameleon cdboot code so that only one ISO is needed for both 10.5 and 10.6, no need for dual versions like it is with 1.1 and before.

Since it still needs a few tweaks, the 0.8.3 is branded as a Test version. You can try the new and improved NetbookCD by downloading it from the following links:

ISO (54.4 MB)
Compressed ZIP (30.9 MB)

I finally got the NetbookInstaller 4 : Direct Install from Mac to SSD/HDD guide written and posted. I’ve also done a little rearranging on the guides page. There seem to be a few too many people trying to use the old methods, which is somewhat ridiculous considering that they are outdated and no longer supported. As such they are still at the same address but I have moved the links to a new page, which can be accessed from the Guides page. Now that I have the actual install guides updated from the DellEFI days, I have one more monumental task: the Windows-only guide.

Good news on that front, though: meklort has been working on making the NetbookBootMaker app into a cross-platform program that will run not only on Mac OS X but also on Windows and Linux. I will try to create a guide before then, but once that new app is out everything could change. No time table on the new version, and don’t ask me, I’m not directly involved in the development.