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MacPro2006VBox

macrumors 6502
Oct 9, 2014
350
232
The 10A222 kernel (10.0.0d3) does support G5 since it did load and loaded kexts. I'm almost sure kernel is not the problem since it already started launchd but I can't help much without having a G5 machine.

Could it have been multiprocessor related? Just throwing stuff out there as to if that problem exists on an iMac G5 (another system I don’t have )… if it boots like G4’s do then that could be a clue. The only iMac I have is a G3 lol and that is only lucky enough to have a few 10.5 betas running.
 
I received several e-mails telling me I missed a lot by not returning to Macrumors. so I figured I'll give it one more go.

Results: No more information or help here.

On the latest G5 tower, I can boot either Tiger or Leopard, and I can choose SnowLeopard in Apple/System Preferences/Startup disk or in Startup Manager (start with Option Key held down) but with either method. SnowLeopard just starts booting, but shortly after the wheel starts turning, I get a Kernal Panic.

And my post was just the latest in a series of such complaints, for which no help appeared.

I have read your concerns.

I would like to share my vantage, my perspective of how your concerns have parsed.

The wikipost, to which I referred previously as a starting point, is for a project involving a little bit of rolling back one’s sleeves to tinker. It is a do-it-yourself project — not a do-it-all-for-you one.

When I edited the wikipost, I took great pains to not only make it apparent to newcomers how this is a project requiring that self-initiative, but also the pointers, links, and resources to get one on their way toward their personal goals with their getting involved in the project. In the clearest, most concise language I could, I strove to answer the most common questions asked of the project, with supporting links to the large thread, where needed. For the most part, this has helped most people either a tiny bit or even a great deal.

What should be clear to every reader of the wikipost is thus:

Running the early developer builds of Snow Leopard, for which carryover elements from Leopard make possible the ability to run it on a PowerPC system, involves specific workarounds to make it work well.

In fact, one generous user, way back at the beginning in May 2020, made a pre-installed image of Build 10A190 available to anyone who wanted to test-drive this work in progress by Apple, but who didn’t have the time, means, or know-how to troubleshoot the installation process itself. That pre-installed build is linked for download as one of the file sources in the wikipost itself.

This is all to say: the resources are there, even for folks with limited time to set it up on their PowerPC Mac.

Then you arrived here.

You are a new member.

Your first post was not one of curiosity or thanks or anything in good faith. It was to complain about this project, to the people who have volunteered on this project.

There was no hint of your having carefully read (or even browsed) the wikipost, or to consider what was probably required of both your hardware and you (as a user-tester), before diving into it.

Instead, your grievance was unfocussed, scattershot. It was, frankly, unhelpful — especially to the many folks who’ve donated their time, knowledge, desire to learn, and hardware to collect together everything this thread covers.

You also didn’t disclose which PowerPC Mac model on which you were thinking of trying SL-PPC. This is a relevant factor, some of which is covered in one of the wikipost’s tables.

You didn’t volunteer anything to indicate your efforts to try other than a tacit expectation that installing SL-PPC would be as autopilot-simple as popping in a grey, OEM DVD from Apple and letting the whole thing set it up for you as if it’s a final, consumer product — easy enough for one’s grandparents to set up, if following the on-screen instructions.

After that complaint, and after my response to that complaint (which went without a reply until today, almost one month later), what this emoted — conveyed — was an insincere desire on your end to try out, say, Build 10A190 (whether as a pre-installed image tested by folks like Action Retro, or the version involving a bit of hacking on the user’s end to set up on a PowerPC system).

Instead, you’ve come back to complain some more. This is unhelpful and, frankly, mildly offensive toward everyone who has donated their efforts and shared what they’ve uncovered. Whether this was your intent or not, it amounts to a borderline trolling, and no one needs that in their lives.

If you want to try out SL-PPC because it’s truly interesting, do the work. This isn’t a big ask.

To set up the first time, to get it running, if buggy, that’s a weekend afternoon or evening to invest and to have the patience and due diligence to read and process what this community has learnt, step by step along the way.

But…

If you want to complain or expect this to be as hands-off as some final consumer product by Apple, then I submit this was never the project for you to begin with.

And if that’s the case, then best of luck with your future endeavours. Stick to Leopard 10.5.8 on your PowerPC and stick to whatever officially supported build of macOS your Intel Mac can run, because any tinkering beyond that risks of unfounded complaining no one needs to hear.
 
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MacPro2006VBox

macrumors 6502
Oct 9, 2014
350
232
I have read your concerns.

I would like to share my vantage, my perspective of how your concerns have parsed.

The wikipost, to which I referred previously as a starting point, is for a project involving a little bit of rolling back one’s sleeves to tinker. It is a do-it-yourself project — not a do-it-all-for-you one.

When I edited the wikipost, I took great pains to not only make it apparent to newcomers how this is a project requiring that self-initiative, but also the pointers, links, and resources to get one on their way toward their personal goals with their getting involved in the project. In the clearest, most concise language I could, I strove to answer the most common questions asked of the project, with supporting links to the large thread, where needed. For the most part, this has helped most people either a tiny bit or even a great deal.

What should be clear to every reader of the wikipost is thus:

Running the early developer builds of Snow Leopard, for which carryover elements from Leopard make possible the ability to run it on a PowerPC system, involves specific workarounds to make it work well.

In fact, one generous user, way back at the beginning in May 2020, made a pre-installed image of Build 10A190 available to anyone who wanted to test-drive this work in progress by Apple, but who didn’t have the time, means, or know-how to troubleshoot the installation process itself. That pre-installed build is linked for download as one of the file sources in the wikipost itself.

This is all to say: the resources are there, even for folks with limited time to set it up on their PowerPC Mac.

Then you arrived here.

You are a new member.

Your first post was not one of curiosity or thanks or anything in good faith. It was to complain about this project, to the people who have volunteered on this project.

There was no hint of your having carefully read (or even browsed) the wikipost, or to consider what was probably required of both your hardware and you (as a user-tester), before diving into it.

Instead, your grievance was unfocussed, scattershot. It was, frankly, unhelpful — especially to the many folks who’ve donated their time, knowledge, desire to learn, and hardware to collect together everything this thread covers.

You also didn’t disclose which PowerPC Mac model on which you were thinking of trying SL-PPC. This is a relevant factor, some of which is covered in one of the wikipost’s tables.

You didn’t volunteer anything to indicate your efforts to try other than a tacit expectation that installing SL-PPC would be as autopilot-simple as popping in a grey, OEM DVD from Apple and letting the whole thing set it up for you as if it’s a final, consumer product — easy enough for one’s grandparents to set up, if following the on-screen instructions.

After that complaint, and after my response to that complaint (which went without a reply until today, almost one month later), what this emoted — conveyed — was an insincere desire on your end to try out, say, Build 10A190 (whether as a pre-installed image tested by folks like Action Retro, or the version involving a bit of hacking on the user’s end to set up on a PowerPC system).

Instead, you’ve come back to complain some more. This is unhelpful and, frankly, mildly offensive toward everyone who has donated their efforts and shared what they’ve uncovered. Whether this was your intent or not, it amounts to a borderline trolling, and no one needs that in their lives.

If you want to try out SL-PPC because it’s truly interesting, do the work. This isn’t a big ask.

To set up the first time, to get it running, if buggy, that’s a weekend afternoon or evening to invest and to have the patience and due diligence to read and process what this community has learnt, step by step along the way.

But…

If you want to complain or expect this to be as hands-off as some final consumer product by Apple, then I submit this was never the project for you to begin with.

And if that’s the case, then best of luck with your future endeavours. Stick to Leopard 10.5.8 on your PowerPC and stick to whatever officially supported build of macOS your Intel Mac can run, because any tinkering beyond that risks of unfounded complaining no one needs to hear.

I’d like to add 10a96 was very easy to setup after running the scripts found in the 10.6PPC archive.
 

barracuda156

macrumors 68020
Sep 3, 2021
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On the latest G5 tower, I can boot either Tiger or Leopard, and I can choose SnowLeopard in Apple/System Preferences/Startup disk or in Startup Manager (start with Option Key held down) but with either method. SnowLeopard just starts booting, but shortly after the wheel starts turning, I get a Kernal Panic.

And my post was just the latest in a series of such complaints, for which no help appeared.

Which exactly Snow Leopard version you refer to?
 

MacPro2006VBox

macrumors 6502
Oct 9, 2014
350
232
The only reason I can think of is that because of the fact that the D3 kernel was compiled for G4, due to the person involved only having a G4… there’s G5 specific support missing from the kernel. Has anyone tested it with an iMac G5 yet?
 

ChrisCharman

macrumors 6502
May 10, 2020
471
640
Bournemouth, UK
The D3 kernel wasn’t recompiled as there is no public source available. I have tested @educovas 10A222 image on a second Powermac G5 (7,3) that i’ve just acquired, and experienced the same G5 related issues.

Upon closer inspection, i’ve narrowed down the issue, somewhat, to something in /usr that was replaced but i’m unsure specifically what as of yet. The kernel functions as well as the D2 kernel, it’s something else that launchd/loginwindow are responsible for that is causing the hang before reaching the desktop. A thorough inspection of the ‘changed files folder’ should hopefully shed some light on the matter. My assumption is that something has been recompiled in /usr to target ppc7450 for example instead of generic ppc.
 
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ChrisCharman

macrumors 6502
May 10, 2020
471
640
Bournemouth, UK
Try booting with RAM restricted to 4 GB.
The machine only supports 4GB unlike my other PowerMac G5, and it’s only recognising 2GB at the moment for reasons i’ve yet to discover - only recently picked this machine up.
For default GPUs it was there in 10a190, AFAIK. (My ATI was out of luck, but NVIDIA had it.)
Graphics acceleration was not supported on any builds previously as outlined in the seed notes, there were some workarounds to gain some graphical improvements but not proper hardware acceleration for QuartzExtreme, though system preferences reported which cards would support it. @B S Magnet confirmed that @educovas graphics fix, using a custom stub and components from 10.5.8 restores full graphics acceleration on supported systems in build 10A096. This also works in 10A190. Detailed several pages back.
 
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MacPro2006VBox

macrumors 6502
Oct 9, 2014
350
232
The machine only supports 4GB unlike my other PowerMac G5, and it’s only recognising 2GB at the moment for reasons i’ve yet to discover - only recently picked this machine up.

Graphics acceleration was not supported on any builds previously as outlined in the seed notes, there were some workarounds to gain some graphical improvements but not proper hardware acceleration for QuartzExtreme, though system preferences reported which cards would support it. @B S Magnet confirmed that @educovas graphics fix, using a custom stub and components from 10.5.8 restores full graphics acceleration on supported systems in build 10A096. This also works in 10A190. Detailed several pages back.

What post detailed this?
 

mac57mac57

macrumors regular
Aug 2, 2024
148
93
Myrtle Beach, SC
I tried out Snow Leopard PPC on my PowerMac G5, and it worked, but it was too buggy and too incomplete to be used effectively.

As an alternate, I tried out Sorbet Leopard on the same hardware and I LOVE it... fast, sleek and effective.

I recorded my Snow Leopard PPC and Sorbet Leopard installs and results at the Retro Computing blog and software archive (www.retro-computing.com). Lots of more detailed information, along with screen shots and problem workarounds, to be found there.
 

barracuda156

macrumors 68020
Sep 3, 2021
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I tried out Snow Leopard PPC on my PowerMac G5, and it worked, but it was too buggy and too incomplete to be used effectively.

Well, issues are known and easily fixable. In essence, everything amounts to Finder being buggy. If you do not need outgoing Network sharing (which does not work, AFAIK), it is perfectly usable, once you either replace Finder with something better (Path Finder works fine, for example, and there are some open-source apps) or tolerate list/column view in Finder (which works fine) and lags in updating mounted disks (restart Finder, mounted disks show up normally).

On a positive side, you get a generally better software support than on 10.5.
 
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mac57mac57

macrumors regular
Aug 2, 2024
148
93
Myrtle Beach, SC
In addition to PathFinder, TotalFinder is another very good Finder alternative.

Finder bugs CAN be worked around, but I cannot find a workaround for File Sharing not working, and that is the kiss of death for Snow Leopard PPC for me.

I WAS working on getting around this by installing a third party FTP server when I found Sorbet Leopard. Sorbet feels faster, seems more stable, and pretty much ANY Leopard app will run successfully under it. Not the case with Snow Leopard PPC, where every app had to be tested to see if it would work... many would not. Snow Leopard on PPC is not a supported configuration, and many programs just don't work in this hybrid environment , or won't allow themselves to work.

For now at least, I am sticking with Sorbet Leopard, FireWire Issues and all.
 
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barracuda156

macrumors 68020
Sep 3, 2021
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In addition to PathFinder, TotalFinder is another very good Finder alternative.

Finder bugs CAN be worked around, but I cannot find a workaround for File Sharing not working, and that is the kiss of death for Snow Leopard PPC for me.

I WAS working on getting around this by installing a third party FTP server when I found Sorbet Leopard. Sorbet feels faster, seems more stable, and pretty much ANY Leopard app will run successfully under it. Not the case with Snow Leopard PPC, where every app had to be tested to see if it would work... many would not. Snow Leopard on PPC is not a supported configuration, and many programs just don't work in this hybrid environment , or won't allow themselves to work.

For now at least, I am sticking with Sorbet Leopard, FireWire Issues and all.

What exactly do you need with file sharing? Local server worked for me (to install port from PowerMac to PowerBook, both on 10.6), FTP works for me via FileZilla.

Not sure what you mean by FW issues. AFAIK, FW works fine in 10a190.
 

mac57mac57

macrumors regular
Aug 2, 2024
148
93
Myrtle Beach, SC
File Sharing: I have multiple Macs, and they must all "see" each other in Finder so that I can easily exchange files among them. This is "File Sharing" (AFP, specifically) and it is typically enabled in the Sharing Preferences panel, but on Snow Leopard PPC, that panel simply locks up into the spinning beachball on my PowerMac G5 DP 2.3 GHz.

The FW reference was to a Sorbet Leopard problem, where FireWire devices eventually lock up Finder.
 

barracuda156

macrumors 68020
Sep 3, 2021
2,195
1,469
File Sharing: I have multiple Macs, and they must all "see" each other in Finder so that I can easily exchange files among them. This is "File Sharing" (AFP, specifically) and it is typically enabled in the Sharing Preferences panel, but on Snow Leopard PPC, that panel simply locks up into the spinning beachball on my PowerMac G5 DP 2.3 GHz.

Via Finder it is broken, yes, and preference pane is dead.

There should be a way to enable it via command line, or in the worst case copy needed configs from 10.6.8. I did not have a pressing need to fix this, since most of my syncing is via git, but I will try to look into that. Would be nice to have it working.
(The issue is not specific to PPC, AFAIK, it is also broken on x86 in 10a190.)

The FW reference was to a Sorbet Leopard problem, where FireWire devices eventually lock up Finder.

The most reliable system is the released 10.5.8. (Wonder what went wrong so badly in that mod as to get FW broken.)
 

mac57mac57

macrumors regular
Aug 2, 2024
148
93
Myrtle Beach, SC
Indeed, there is a Terminal command to enable File Sharing, and it appears to work, but File Sharing does NOT get enabled! It was after this that I decided Snow Leopard PPC was too buggy to use, and moved on to Sorbet Leopard. It's FireWire issue might be "the kiss of death" for others, just like File Sharing in Snow Leopard PPC was for me, but I am OK without FireWire. Really, my FW800 e thermal hard drive works for a few hours, and that is enough to do backups, so I am OK with it.
 

barracuda156

macrumors 68020
Sep 3, 2021
2,195
1,469
Indeed, there is a Terminal command to enable File Sharing, and it appears to work, but File Sharing does NOT get enabled! It was after this that I decided Snow Leopard PPC was too buggy to use, and moved on to Sorbet Leopard. It's FireWire issue might be "the kiss of death" for others, just like File Sharing in Snow Leopard PPC was for me, but I am OK without FireWire. Really, my FW800 e thermal hard drive works for a few hours, and that is enough to do backups, so I am OK with it.

Just for the record, it did not work either way, right? You could not see SLPPC system from another Mac and vice versa?
 

mac57mac57

macrumors regular
Aug 2, 2024
148
93
Myrtle Beach, SC
SLPPC could not see other Macs on the same network, and the other Macs could not see SLPPC. For reference, the network is wired, not wireless, and the machines are all connected on the same subnet. It all works flawlessly under Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard, but not under SLPPC, which is a real shame.
 
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File Sharing: I have multiple Macs, and they must all "see" each other in Finder so that I can easily exchange files among them. This is "File Sharing" (AFP, specifically) and it is typically enabled in the Sharing Preferences panel, but on Snow Leopard PPC, that panel simply locks up into the spinning beachball on my PowerMac G5 DP 2.3 GHz.

The FW reference was to a Sorbet Leopard problem, where FireWire devices eventually lock up Finder.

Three things:

1) Could you share which build you installed on your G5? Was it 10A96 or 10A190?

2) Out of box, either of those builds, in order to restore feature parity and stability, requires borrowing components, frameworks and extensions from 10.5.8. If you haven’t already, have a look at this thread’s very first post, the wikipost, and open the Table 4 spoiler.

1723119389891.png


I’ve pasted the part involving IP network support over FireWire. This necessitates copying over one of the kexts from 10.5.8 (denoted by first column with version numbers, fourth column from left). At least for the build on which I’ve done nearly all of my testing, 10A96 (second version column), it required grabbing v1.7.7 of the IOFirewireIP.kext from 10.5.8 to replace the v1.7.3 of 10A96. I have field-tested this kext in 10A96 to verify network connections over FireWire IP (between my SL-PPC 10A96 mule and an early Intel MacBook Pro), and I know the 1.7.7 kext fixed that issue.

Build 10A190, what most folks are using, shipped with another version of the kext (which itself may be an orphaned fork in the SL-PPC development stream, as evidenced by the later, but lower version number shipped with 10.5.8). If you’re using 10A190, you’ll see the table lists v2.0.1 in slate grey (which mostly means the actual version number is higher than in 10.5.8, but doesn’t imply better functionality).

Considering how both 10A96 and 10A190 builds preceded 10.5.8 by almost a year, you may consider trying out the 1.7.7 kext from 10.5.8 to see whether that restores networking over FireWire for you.

Many of the contents from the 10A190 column on Table 4 are either a cursory inspection of version numbers (i.e., what I could see in the Pacifist view of 10A190 install), or are case-by-case findings by other users who discovered what 10A190 needs to run more smoothly.

I wholeheartedly recommend having a look at Table 4 if you’re interested to port over 10.5.8 components to the build you’re using. Speaking of FireWire, there are also some other kexts/frameworks involving FireWire, mostly around audio, which may also need to be ported from 10.5.8. Use the colour coding on the table to assess what your install might need.

3) Comparing “Sorbet Leopard” with Snow Leopard for PowerPC is to compare a walnut with a cherry: they are different creatures entirely. The former incorporates most of the community findings for tweaking a standard 10.5.8 install, from sources as The Leopard Thread wikipost.
 
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