opeter
macrumors 68030
I think it was made before the AI craze. But, maybe I am mistaken.
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10.6 Snow Leopard PowerPC Development
- Thread starter ChrisCharman
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I think it was made before the AI craze. But, maybe I am mistaken.
You should not really need Xcode as such. (In fact even original Unix tools are required mostly as a start-off point.)
We have the proper modern toolchain for C/C++/Python etc. (No Go, and C# and Rust support is minimal, but for most of languages the current standard compilers work.)
It was probably added when everyone wasn’t yet fed up with AI slope LOL
(Personally it is not the scenario where I would bother about visual design part. And for someone coming from DTP industry, the web is generally bad design-wise.)
The project itself was not / is not done via AI though. Both the work on the OS and my PPCPorts (of several thousands of ports, I think under a dozen have fixes largely relying on Claude, and three ports were written with Claude; in those instances they were tested, of course).
ultra0
macrumors newbie
There's no way to say for sure, but it really looks like it is.
Gotcha, I'll keep that in mind.
I see, good to know. I could try designing a little banner, if any of you are interested.
srp
macrumors regular
The Snow Leopard project is separate from the larger PowerPC Ports project. Barracuda develops and maintains ports for 10.6, and then I (and several others) build, test and patch for Leopard.
Snow Leopard has a wider availability of ports, but also a number of trade offs and bugs that prevent me from using it as a daily driver.
We have been working on centralizing some of the information and clarifying the difference between Snow Leopard and Leopard. You can checkout this website for a port index and some more information about the project (still work in progress): https://powerpc-ports.org
Andrew-R
macrumors regular
Is A5 image bootable on LSI SAS/SATA controller? I added new (invisible by motherboard sata chipset) SATA SSD (MSI S270 240GB) and succesfully formatted it as two partitions of equal size, downloaded A5 image from google drive, checked and restored it to first partition on new ssd, can see new OS in boot picker, but booting into it results in error 🙁
AppleMPTFusion.kext seems to exist there (and Get info in Leopard 10.5.8 Finder show it as Powerpc) , so not sure why it stops?
AppleMPTFusion.kext seems to exist there (and Get info in Leopard 10.5.8 Finder show it as Powerpc) , so not sure why it stops?
I dunno any related specifics, but a fact that an SSD is visible does not ensure it is bootable. I have an SSD on a PCIE card, which is not bootable by design, though visible and usable in 10.5 (in 10.6 it sends OS into KP due to broken AHCI kexts, sadly).
Andrew-R
macrumors regular
Ah, may be this is my case too?
Booted with shift key at Apple logo (safe mode). System initially booted into mode too high for my monitor but I copied display overrides from working 10.5.8 system to 10.6.8 like described here
Adding screen resolutions
I use a virtual machine for testing my application running on a netbook with a screen resolution of 1024x600. Is there any way in Parallels Desktop...
and it booted (again, in safe mode) so I finished set up, and logged in!
Set Screen sharing to ON, network and sound and GPU all seems to be working on first sight.
Oh, I need to disable energy saver/sleep mode!
Andrew-R
macrumors regular
Ah, it already set to infinity 😉
Copied Powerfox (G5 version from my Leo partition), seems to be working.
Safari also works (I use wired internet connection).
Now may be I should find what kext exactly prevent normal boot for my new Snow Leo 😉
But it might be long chase.
I looked at bootx page at
and may be there is unix way to move all kext not required to boot and graphics/audio/net/usb/sas ones to some other place where Mach/BootX will not looking.
But, probably this is task not for now now, for tomorrow's now
Copied Powerfox (G5 version from my Leo partition), seems to be working.
Safari also works (I use wired internet connection).
Now may be I should find what kext exactly prevent normal boot for my new Snow Leo 😉
But it might be long chase.
I looked at bootx page at
and may be there is unix way to move all kext not required to boot and graphics/audio/net/usb/sas ones to some other place where Mach/BootX will not looking.
But, probably this is task not for now now, for tomorrow's now
Two AHCI kexts are poisonous and should have been deleted from the image.
It may be needed to boot from boot picker (I am not sure if it was resolved, on the Quad I was doing that, on 2.3 it boots fine directly), but not safe mode.
Andrew-R
macrumors regular
Developer Tools for 10.6.8 (developer version 😉)
Install these AFTER installing Xcode 3.2.6. They will overwrite unusable x86-only binaries.
Three [set of] components are here:
1. ld64 and its tools, ver. 97.17, which corresponds to Xcode 3.2.6. LTO is disabled.
2. Apple gnumake, ver. 3.81, same as in 10.6.8, just built for ppc.
3. cctools from darwin-xtools by Iain Sandoe (maintainer of GCC for Darwin), ver. 1.1.0. (ld64 components are dropped from here, since ld is much newer in xtools and may not be totally compatible with old Xcode gcc.)
Specifically, I installed the OS, installed standard Xcode 3.2.6, then installed these three pkgs.
Then I installed PPCPorts, synced sources, and I am able to build software (I have built several fundamental ports now). So ld, as, make and gcc work.
Notice, this does not mean that everything will work, since there are a lot of x86-only binaries which are not dealt with here (gm4, bison etc.). However, from what I can tell, this is a minimum that makes installation functional.
Archived pkgs:
Identical installers can be built from source using the following portfiles:
powerpc-ports/devel/sl-make at 46ca86130c9517fefd85f522897b98eddef30216 · macos-powerpc/powerpc-ports
Overlay repo with fixes to use with MacPorts on macOS PowerPC - macos-powerpc/powerpc-portsgithub.com
https://github.com/macos-powerpc/po...efd85f522897b98eddef30216/devel/darwin-xtools (use darwin-developer-tools subport)powerpc-ports/devel/sl-ld64 at 46ca86130c9517fefd85f522897b98eddef30216 · macos-powerpc/powerpc-ports
Overlay repo with fixes to use with MacPorts on macOS PowerPC - macos-powerpc/powerpc-ports
Notice, these ports cannot be installed (as a safety measure to not overwrite binaries in /usr/bin accidentally). Use them like you use `MacPorts` port: build the installer via MacPorts, then run the installer to install the software (outside of MacPorts).
Installers are built with `sudo port pkg ${port_name}`.
DISCLAIMER: If you install these, please make sure you know what you are doing, or at least try on a clean system with no valuable data, so that you can wipe it out if something goes wrong. While I have tested this and confirmed working on a clean installation of 10.6.8, no guarantee is given whatsoever, as usual.
Is this still preferred method of getting ppcports working on 10.6.8_A5 ?
Apple download for Xcode 3.2.6 leads to sign-in, and apparently Macintosh Garden does not have it directly, their link lead to same apple page) so I used Archive.org link:
GFortran for Mac OS X 10.5 to 10.7 and Xcode 3.1.3, 3.2.2, and 3.2.6 for 10.5 and 10.6 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Includes GCC for 10.5 to 10.7, GFortran for 10.5 to 10.7, and Xcode 3.1.3, 3.2.2, and 3.2.6 for 10.5 to 10.6Xcode 3.1.3 for Mac OS X 10.5Xcode 3.2.2 and 3.2.6...
archive.org
currently downloading ...
Is this still preferred method of getting ppcports working on 10.6.8_A5 ?
Apple download for Xcode 3.2.6 leads to sign-in, and apparently Macintosh Garden does not have it directly, their link lead to same apple page) so I used Archive.org link:
GFortran for Mac OS X 10.5 to 10.7 and Xcode 3.1.3, 3.2.2, and 3.2.6 for 10.5 and 10.6 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Includes GCC for 10.5 to 10.7, GFortran for 10.5 to 10.7, and Xcode 3.1.3, 3.2.2, and 3.2.6 for 10.5 to 10.6Xcode 3.1.3 for Mac OS X 10.5Xcode 3.2.2 and 3.2.6...archive.org
currently downloading ...
Please make sure you install exactly Xcode 3.2.6. (And after then update the tools.)
P. S. If you gonna build from source a lot, you may need to replace a few tools in /Developer which are Intel-only with correct versions. No need to do that pro-actively, my set-up is minimally sufficient. If something later on complains, picking /Developer/usr/bin/as, for example, instead of /usr/bin/as (which is replaced with working version by xtools), replace old x86-only as with a symlink or a copy of the correct one.
Andrew-R
macrumors regular
I tried this on 10.6.8_A5 itself, using PPCPorts and qemu 5.1.0 (higher versions like 6.1.1 compiled on Leo with some manual patching but failed to even reach OF prompt).
Sadly -cpu 7457 apparently bugged in this version, and default (G4?) for mac99 machine does not boot restored to virtualhdd image ...
I guess 9.0+ may work better, but depending on host and compiler? I getdifferent results on OSX Leopard + gcc14/16 and Linux with gcc15 on same ppc (G5) Hardware ...
I wonder if using -shadow method from this
Can't mount dmg image as read/write
Hello I've downloaded a bootable .iso image that I'd like to write to an USB stick under OSX (10.6). I've converted the image with the command hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ./X15-65804.img ./X15-
I tried it on 10.6.8_a5 itself, and shadow file indeed was created. I promptly deleted it without converting back to original ...
hdiutil also supports checksum -t type (where type is in ALL-CAPS, like SHA256 for example) so may be checksums should be added in 1st post if not already, because you do not need any additional software to calculate them? On OSX I mean ...
Also, hdiutil ssupport http sourcing, and even some certificates (https?) even in Snow Leo, so maybe this can be utilized for centralized master image everyone can pull via http and mount or restore?
I also wonder if some version of community apple update server can be set up, even with specialized tool ?
(for not interfering with normal Apple update, still working but dangerous on SL PPC for obvious reasons).
Was protocol for those updates reversed? May be few packet captures from qemu VM can be made now, while system still working, and analyzed later?
In general, I think I like to learn how to make pkgs/scripts (modded FCP 7 installer by info posted here on macrumors,but it was one-off) and how to mod installer disk for OSX while keeping it bootable.
But due to 1st post size limit I think I better to make my own thread?
I also wonder if few remaining kext caches in A5 image may be responsible for my machine not booting into A5 specifically without "shift" pressed at boot up? (I set multi-boot OF command as my booting cmd, so Mac boots into graphical boot pucker and waits my selection - method from 68kmla).
May be @barracuda156 can publish .shadow file relative to master A5 image so people will have something smaller to dl and merge ? Bsdtar seems to be primary candidate for inclusion...
I also really like to hear more A5 on qemu stories, may be it only works on narrow range of versions :/
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Andrew-R
macrumors regular
Ah, there was fix in the end of 2021:
Something simple enough to try right away ...
edit: it was probably false alarm. Changing this mmu type for 7457 in slightly different file in qemu 5.1.0 dies not prevent black screen on boot if this cpu selected even in OF.
But plain G4 seems to boot, just .. slowly! Like 10 minutes on grey apple logo before kernel show up its messages.
I was using 1gb of virtual ram and 256 mb of translation cache - this was too muc for poor Mach, and qemu segfaulted, eating above 2.5Gb of virt memory.
Limiting mem to just 512m and default tb-size allowed Snow Leopard on emulated PPC to go further into boot.
Hopefully it boots as I write this msg.
Something simple enough to try right away ...
edit: it was probably false alarm. Changing this mmu type for 7457 in slightly different file in qemu 5.1.0 dies not prevent black screen on boot if this cpu selected even in OF.
But plain G4 seems to boot, just .. slowly! Like 10 minutes on grey apple logo before kernel show up its messages.
I was using 1gb of virtual ram and 256 mb of translation cache - this was too muc for poor Mach, and qemu segfaulted, eating above 2.5Gb of virt memory.
Limiting mem to just 512m and default tb-size allowed Snow Leopard on emulated PPC to go further into boot.
Hopefully it boots as I write this msg.
Last edited:
If you find a correctly-working version of Qemu that is newer and better than what we have in PPCPorts, PR is welcome. I can fix compiling pretty easily, but I never used Qemu, so I do not know how to test it LOL
1. I have no experience of making OS images, so it is not something I can “just do” in the same sense as “new gawk does not compile on 10.5, fix that”. I have to spend time on this.
2. Without a claim of expertise, it seems to me that it is sensible either to start from an image known to work for sure and provide an installer to replace some stuff or design a fresh image (which is better, but see #1). Unless either is shown to work robustly, existing piece-meal solution, despite minor inconvenience, is fine, since it works reproducibly (well, few details are missing, but only for compiling from source / development case, where I assume minimal expertise on a part of user anyway).
Andrew-R
macrumors regular
5.1.0 surely provides things like -M mac99,via=pmu emulation, essential for Leopard. But for some reason it remain slow ... for this specific use case. Finnix 111 boots in 3 minutes, SL PPC - well, half-hour until welcome screen?
I will try to make it into new port or port diff, but for now I had strange issue about my LSI controller failing from the bus, I hope it will not do this again!
Andrew-R
macrumors regular
So, not sure what helped, but after removing stale kext cache AND selecting 10.6.8_a5 as boot volume and re-applying multiboot trick
AND removing power cord for few minutes
My machine boots fine into all 3 OSes - 10.6.8_A5, 10.5.8, Linux
Small thing I noticed there is no ppc folder in
so bless --bootinfo fails unless you provide it with 10.5.8's
/usr/standalone/ppc/bootx.bootinfo
as argument.
Code:
sudo nvram boot-command=multi-bootAND removing power cord for few minutes
My machine boots fine into all 3 OSes - 10.6.8_A5, 10.5.8, Linux
Small thing I noticed there is no ppc folder in
Code:
ls /Volumes/10.6.8_PPC_A5/usr/standalone/
bootcaches.plist i386/so bless --bootinfo fails unless you provide it with 10.5.8's
/usr/standalone/ppc/bootx.bootinfo
as argument.
Andrew-R
macrumors regular
also, http image mounting works!
It downloaded nearly 1 Gb anyway (out of 3.5 Gb) but stil
It downloaded nearly 1 Gb anyway (out of 3.5 Gb) but stil
Code:
hdiutil attach -owners on https://download.macintoshgarden.org/apps/10.6.8_PPC_A5.dmg
hdiutil: attach failed - Authentication error
power-mac-g5-user-usr:~ andrewrandrianasulu$ hdiutil attach -owners on http://old.mac.gdn/apps/10.6.8_PPC_A5.dmg
/dev/disk2 /Volumes/10.6.8_PPC_A5 1
power-mac-g5-user-usr:~ andrewrandrianasulu$ mc /Volumes/10.6.8_PPC_A5\ 1/Andrew-R
macrumors regular
I punched "rosetta" into google and got few links ..
github.com
Main result, based on Unicorn framework (and Unicorn in turn based on qemu). More like instrumented multiplatform loader/exucutor (?) so probably slow, but none the less promises to support macos AND powerpc (not sure if x86-64 to ppcbe is supported?)
edit: c++ thing that in theory should do some linux elf executing/emulation, not sure on how wide range of hosts.
github.com
edit 2: usercorn - a bit like qiling, but in Go 🙁 Also seems to be dead/inactive 🙁
github.com
edit 4: linux/Windows userspace emulation in c++ on many platforms, incl. (modern?) macos. No ppc in sight, but based on unicorn too, so may be?
github.com
Another link from link trail is just HN discussion about rosetta 2 and OG Rosetta and companies and ppl behind technology
news.ycombinator.com
Happy digging? (because I suspect Aplle will not feel any hurry in releasing those closed-source intel-only components for us to recompile ...)
I also hope to read documentation for darwinbuild, and hope it works now 😉
GitHub - qilingframework/qiling: A True Instrumentable Binary Emulation Framework
A True Instrumentable Binary Emulation Framework. Contribute to qilingframework/qiling development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
edit: c++ thing that in theory should do some linux elf executing/emulation, not sure on how wide range of hosts.
GitHub - h311d1n3r/Arion: A high-performance C++ framework for emulating executable binaries
A high-performance C++ framework for emulating executable binaries - h311d1n3r/Arion
github.com
edit 2: usercorn - a bit like qiling, but in Go 🙁 Also seems to be dead/inactive 🙁
GitHub - lunixbochs/usercorn: dynamic binary analysis via platform emulation
dynamic binary analysis via platform emulation. Contribute to lunixbochs/usercorn development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
edit 4: linux/Windows userspace emulation in c++ on many platforms, incl. (modern?) macos. No ppc in sight, but based on unicorn too, so may be?
GitHub - momo5502/sogen: 🪅 Windows & Linux userspace emulator
🪅 Windows & Linux userspace emulator . Contribute to momo5502/sogen development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
Another link from link trail is just HN discussion about rosetta 2 and OG Rosetta and companies and ppl behind technology
Why is Rosetta 2 fast? | Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com
Happy digging? (because I suspect Aplle will not feel any hurry in releasing those closed-source intel-only components for us to recompile ...)
I also hope to read documentation for darwinbuild, and hope it works now 😉
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Andrew-R
macrumors regular
Also, because I am on 10.5.8 now, but had 10.6.8 disk mounted I looked at some files in /sbin there .. and yeah, Leopard's ls does not show some file sizes correctly, likely due to hfs+ compression introduced with 10.6.x
So, image was naturally created on/for 10.6.8 and then some frameworks, Finder, kexts were back-transplanted to it, right?
github.com
And here on MR forums thread from 2009 still lives ...
forums.macrumors.com
Since this discovery I unmounted my 10.6.8_A5 system volume, just in case 😉
So, image was naturally created on/for 10.6.8 and then some frameworks, Finder, kexts were back-transplanted to it, right?
GitHub - RJVB/afsctool: This is a version of "brkirch"'s afsctool utility that allows end-users to leverage HFS+ compression.
This is a version of "brkirch"'s afsctool utility that allows end-users to leverage HFS+ compression. - RJVB/afsctool
github.com
And here on MR forums thread from 2009 still lives ...
A Hidden Snow Leopard Feature: HFS+ Compression
As you may already know, in order to reduce the size of Snow Leopard many of the system files are stored compressed. There are some technical details about this new compression in Ars Technica's Snow Leopard review but no details about how to use it for your own files. So I looked through the...
forums.macrumors.com
Since this discovery I unmounted my 10.6.8_A5 system volume, just in case 😉
Andrew-R
macrumors regular
Currently downloading tarballs from
with wget -A "*.tar.gz" -i URL
It seems that whole set of tarballs was once mirrored on macosforge, but now it on some js heave Apple website, so not easy to dl in same form usable for darwinbuild!
Previous set of tarballs for 10.5.8 was weighting 1.2 gb, nearly 800 files. No way I will build them by hand!
with wget -A "*.tar.gz" -i URL
It seems that whole set of tarballs was once mirrored on macosforge, but now it on some js heave Apple website, so not easy to dl in same form usable for darwinbuild!
Previous set of tarballs for 10.5.8 was weighting 1.2 gb, nearly 800 files. No way I will build them by hand!
Is that different than what Apple has at https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions ?
There's a list of Mac OS X releases with links to the project versions:
https://opensource.apple.com/releases/
I use a script to get the map of project versions to Mac OS X releases, download the tar files to project folders (e.g. tarballs/IOPCIFamily/IOPCIFamily-144), and create symbolic links in Mac OS X folders (e.g. 10.6.8/tarballs/IOPCIFamily)
Using that arrangement, here's a command that shows what versions of Mac OS X used what versions of IOPCIFamily:
Code:
cd /Volumes/Work/Darwin/DarwinNew/opensource.apple.com/tarballs/IOPCIFamily
grep "IOPCIFamily" $(find /Volumes/Work/Darwin/DarwinNew/opensource.apple.com -maxdepth 2 -type f -name 'tarballs.txt') | \
perl -pE 's|.*opensource.apple.com/(.*)/tarballs.*/(\w+\-.*).tar.gz|\1 \2|' | sort -V
Code:
10.1 IOPCIFamily-3
10.1.1 IOPCIFamily-3
10.1.2 IOPCIFamily-3
10.1.3 IOPCIFamily-3
10.1.4 IOPCIFamily-3
10.1.5 IOPCIFamily-3
10.2 IOPCIFamily-9
10.2.1 IOPCIFamily-9
10.2.2 IOPCIFamily-9
10.2.3 IOPCIFamily-9
10.2.4 IOPCIFamily-9
10.2.5 IOPCIFamily-9
10.2.6 IOPCIFamily-9
10.2.7 IOPCIFamily-12.4
10.2.8 IOPCIFamily-12.2
10.2.8.G5 IOPCIFamily-12.4
10.3 IOPCIFamily-21
10.3.1 IOPCIFamily-21
10.3.2 IOPCIFamily-21
10.3.3 IOPCIFamily-21
10.3.4 IOPCIFamily-21
10.3.5 IOPCIFamily-21
10.3.6 IOPCIFamily-21
10.3.7 IOPCIFamily-21
10.3.8 IOPCIFamily-21
10.3.9 IOPCIFamily-21
10.4 IOPCIFamily-32
10.4.1 IOPCIFamily-32
10.4.2 IOPCIFamily-32
10.4.3 IOPCIFamily-34
10.4.4.ppc IOPCIFamily-34
10.4.5.ppc IOPCIFamily-34
10.4.6.ppc IOPCIFamily-34
10.4.7.ppc IOPCIFamily-34
10.4.8.ppc IOPCIFamily-34
10.4.8.x86 IOPCIFamily-79.1
10.4.9.ppc IOPCIFamily-34
10.4.9.x86 IOPCIFamily-79.5
10.4.10.ppc IOPCIFamily-34
10.4.10.x86 IOPCIFamily-79.5
10.4.11.ppc IOPCIFamily-34
10.4.11.x86 IOPCIFamily-79.5
10.5 IOPCIFamily-103
10.5.1 IOPCIFamily-103
10.5.2 IOPCIFamily-103.1
10.5.3 IOPCIFamily-103.1
10.5.4 IOPCIFamily-103.1
10.5.5 IOPCIFamily-103.1
10.5.6 IOPCIFamily-106
10.5.7 IOPCIFamily-110
10.5.8 IOPCIFamily-110
10.6 IOPCIFamily-113
10.6.1 IOPCIFamily-113
10.6.2 IOPCIFamily-113
10.6.3 IOPCIFamily-113
10.6.4 IOPCIFamily-113
10.6.5 IOPCIFamily-115
10.6.6 IOPCIFamily-115
10.6.7 IOPCIFamily-115
10.6.8 IOPCIFamily-144
10.7 IOPCIFamily-144
...
15.2 IOPCIFamily-664.60.9
15.3 IOPCIFamily-664.81.2
15.4 IOPCIFamily-681.101.1
15.5 IOPCIFamily-681.120.3
15.6 IOPCIFamily-681.140.3
26.0 IOPCIFamily-726.0.5
26.1 IOPCIFamily-726.40.2
26.2 IOPCIFamily-726.40.2
26.3 IOPCIFamily-726.40.2
26.4 IOPCIFamily-726.100.6
26.5 IOPCIFamily-726.100.6I think the only stuff that might have gotten lost on official Apple sites are a few pre-release versions (not of the OS, just select tools). Of those, tbh, I don’t remember anything of particular value.
Right. Stuff from before Mac OS X 10.0 has to be obtained from elsewhere.
For example, Mac OS X 10.0 has xnu-123.5. I have these older versions:
xnu-10.tar.gz
xnu-68.4-1.1.tar.gz
xnu-103-3.1.tar.gz
xnu-103-3.1 was helpful in finding a bug (unimplemented behaviour) in DingusPPC CPU emulation related to G3 nap mode in Mac OS X 10.0 Public Beta (now an available OS option at infinitemac.org).