2006/2007 Mac Mini & OS X Lion hack question

[El Burro]

Will be installing OS X Lion on a HD in a few days. I'm just wondering if the OS X will stop working if future updates are ever added to OS X Lion. Has this been or will it be a problem?

 

[GGJstudios]

Will be installing OS X Lion on a HD in a few days. I'm just wondering if the OS X will stop working if future updates are ever added to OS X Lion. Has this been or will it be a problem?

Lion is no longer available for sale. No, earlier versions of Mac OS X don't stop working simply because updates are no longer available, or if updates are added. You can always elect not to install updates, if you choose.

 

[Intell]

On some 10.7.x releases of Lion it has been a problem. The fix was to remove the PlatformSupport.plist again and it would work again. Some of the updates put it back in place when installed.

 

[El Burro]

On some 10.7.x releases of Lion it has been a problem. The fix was to remove the PlatformSupport.plist again and it would work again. Some of the updates put it back in place when installed.

How do you do htat if it's bust? Do you have to remove the HD and externally boot it or something?

And, what if you just cleared the contents of the PlatformSupport.plist so thtat hte file is there, but that is unreadable and locked?

Reason is because I don't want my parents, if they ever end up updating it, getting a bricked OS X when I'm not around.

 

[Intell]

When it is turned on after the update, it will say something like "unsupported machine" in white text on a black screen. Only the Mac Mini 1,1 will do this as the Mac Mini 2,1 is fully supported. To fix it, the file is to be deleted. Any changes done to the file will be undone and the file replaced when the combo update is installed. Even if the file already exists, this is how updates work.

 

[El Burro]

When it is turned on after the update, it will say something like "unsupported machine" in white text on a black screen. Only the Mac Mini 1,1 will do this as the Mac Mini 2,1 is fully supported. To fix it, the file is to be deleted. Any changes done to the file will be undone and the file replaced when the combo update is installed. Even if the file already exists, this is how updates work.

So you would need to take the hard drive out of the mac mini put it in an enclosure and then USB or firewire boot it to remove that plist file?

 

[Intell]

That or boot the Mini into Target Disc Mode and remove the file. Target Disk Mode is the easiest and preferred way.

 

[El Burro]

That or boot the Mini into Target Disc Mode and remove the file. Target Disk Mode is the easiest and preferred way.

Ah ok. I don't have a firewire cable, can I use USB cable?

I guess the second alternative which is easy is to use an installer CD and use the terminal from that, however, I have an old Tiger cd. If I booted into that installer and opened the terminal with that, would I be able to view/edit OS X Lion's file directories or did Apple do something to prevent that from happening.

And is Lion good with the 2.33 Mac Mini w/ 4GB of RAM or is it sluggish?

Not even sure if Lion is usable, or still fast.

 

[Intell]

A USB cable will not work. Only a FireWire cable or a Thunderbolt cable (only if both computers have Thunderbolt ports). You can use Tiger's Terminal from the installation disc to edit Lion's filesystem to remove the the file. Lion works rather well on a 2.33Ghz Mac Mini with 4GB of ram.

 

[RoyQ]

Actually, the platformsupport.plist will be restored before OS X Lion asks the user to restart it in order to finish the update process, so one can again modify platformsupport.plist or simply delete it at that time as how she or he did that. No need to use any Installation Disc for Terminal or to switch to Target Mode.