kernel004

Straight forward 10.6.3 upgrade guide

I’ve written a simple and pretty straight forward upgrade guide on how to successfully upgrade from 10.6.x to 10.6.3. I’ve made sure that everything works and I’ve made it simple for everyone to understand.

More after the jump

Prerequisites  :-

These articles are important to read as its important to understand few key aspects before reading this tutorial. You’ll then begin to see that a pattern emerges out this when there is a major upgrade

[TUTORIAL] Upgrading to OSX 10.6.2 | Prasys’ Blog (to understand the basics of upgrading)

Empire EFI | Prasys’ Blog (as a bootable disc just incase if something goes bad)

Creating a Recovery USB Drive for OSX86 Snow Leopard | Prasys’ Blog (your own a la carte restoration disk)

Mac OS X v10.6.3 Update (Combo) or Mac OS X v10.6.3 Update (if you’re upgrading from 10.6.2)

Legacy Kernel (10.6.3) or Legacy_Kernel (10.6.3) Installer (required if you’re using Intel Pentium 4/D , Intel Atom , Intel Core i3 series and mobile and other variants of Core i series and as well as for AMD Users)

SleepEnabler.kext.10.6.3.zip or SleepEnabler.10.6.x.zip (recommended) (Needed if you want Sleep working)

QE CI Exotic cards 10.6.3.pkg (For ATI users) (obtained from netkas)

Important Notices and Known Bugs with 10.6.3 and Hackint0shes

Its important to read this as there will be known bugs with 10.6.3 and few other stuff. My Guide takes care of them but its my duty to notify you and how to fix them :-

• AppleHDA Issue (Only applicable if you’re using native Apple Audio  Driver ) – Apple has removed support for a variety of ALC codecs such as ALC888. So if you’ve been using native audio driver. You’ll have to use drivers from 10.6.2 or earlier. Alternatively you may want to try VodoooHDA. VodoooHDA users are unaffected by this. So if you’re using VoodooHDA , you don’t have to worry about this
• Intel GMA Issue – Apple has also removed 64-bit drivers for Intel Graphics. If you were on x86_64 OSX86. You might have to revert back to 32-bit version or use your old 10.6.2 kexts
• Sleep/Wake Issues - Some users have also reported that when OSX wakes they lose sound , usb and couple of other things. The exact cause for this is still unknown , however I’ll update it once I manage to trace it
• Fix USB Issues – For some motherboard (especially if you’re using an AMD Chipset or the newer boards with USB 3.0) this update breaks USB 2.0 support. The only way to fix it by using an older version of IOUSBFamily.kext (which is from 10.6.2 or 10.6.1)
• Graphics Performance Issues - It seems that a lot of folks do complain the graphics performance has significantly dropped from 10.6.3 to 10.6.2. You may want to use older drivers , however its not recommended. This applies to both nvidia and ati graphics card

How-To :-

1. First thing first , download the combo updater or delta updater. Do not bother to use Apple’s auto updater functionality , it just breaks couple of things. Its recommended to download the dmg and run the pkg manually.

2. Once you’ve downloaded. You’re required to remove SleepEnabler.kext. This kext can be located either in your /System/Library/Extensions folder or /Extra/Extensions or your EFI partition. Once you’ve removed this file kindly rebuild your extensions by either using Conti’s pfix (bundled with myHack) or Kext Utility  or via Terminal. Reboot your Hack once you’ve done that

3. Now in a clean state be sure to backup your /System/Library/Extensions by duplicating it . In other words simply Copy and paste the folder in another location. In this case I’ve pasted within the Library Folder. This is important as OSX 10.6.3 breaks a lot of stuff , for instance native sound driver and USB 2.0 compatibility on certain motherboards . Its important for us to have our last known working extensions.

Duplicate your working OSX extensions as its vital to get some hardware working with 10.6.3

4. Run OSX 10.6.3 Combo Updater or Updater once you’ve finished copying everything. (Note : If you’re using a patched kernel , the Combo updater may not run , giving you an error. To fix this you must get modbin’s test7 kernel. You may simply google for this)

5. Once you’ve done installing , DO NOT RESTART. Rather run pfix again and be sure to include the new SleepEnabler.kext . Once you’ve done that you may restart. However if you’re running this on Intel Atom/Pentium D (and other unsupported processors) and AMD processors 0 you may want to replace the patched kernel otherwise you’ll be stucked in an infinite loop . For ATI users you may have to install netkas’ exotic package before restarting and if you’re using Intel graphics with 64-bit kernel , you may have to boot into 32-bit

6. Just pray that everything works and everything is in place. Suppose if something is broken there are couple of ways to fix. The important part is that the system boots and you’ve GUI and your stuff there.

7. To fix issues such as with applehda and usb issues. Simply go to your 10.6.x Extensions folder and copy respective files such as IOUSBFamily.kext (for USB) and applehda.kext (for apple native audio driver) and place’em back in Extensions folder and be sure to run pfix or Kext Util once you’ve done that and it should be working. Alternatively you may want to navigate to kexts.com to find if there are any patched kexts for 10.6.3 !

I wish you all the best in this upgrade process !