Another 10.6.2 install method for A150

Here's the method I used to get SL up and running on my A150. The boot cd method wouldn't accept either of the two DVD drives I tried and restoring SL to a USB worked but always failed to complete the install. I've used this method a couple of times and it works fine.

This method involves booting Leopard from an external drive and using that to install Snow Leopard to the netbooks hard drive, it's a bit lengthy but it works.

Stuff what you need:
An Aspire One with 1GB of RAM (According to SL's specs, it might let you off with 512mb, I don't know).
An external drive >= 8GB in size.
iDeneb 1.4 on a DVD
Snow Leopard (on a disc + USB DVD drive or a disc image on an external drive)

What works and what doesn't:
WiFi - Works great after swapping the card for a DW1390 which is natively supported.
Ethernet - Requires a kext.
Sleep & Hibernation - KP's when trying to resume :-/
Trackpad - Works great, even supports two finger scrolling =D
Webcam - Works out of the box
Audio - Requires a kext, headphones and speakers work but not internal mic.
GMA 950 - Works out of the box at full resolution, issues with external monitors.
SD Card slots - Wont mount even if inserted before boot


Step One:
Install leopard to an external hard drive or USB stick. For this I used iDeneb 1.4. You can connect a USB drive and USB DVD drive to your AAO and install it that way, but I just booted the DVD in a laptop and installed it from there. Just choose the iDeneb base package and the Aspire One 150 package, leave the rest.

Step Two:
Boot Leopard from the USB stick or USB hard drive by taping F12 burring the BIOS. If your drive doesn't appear then reboot and try again. At the chameleon bootloader type without quotes "-x". It will take a little while to boot, after that follow the setup process and you'll be presented with the desktop. It's lacking drivers but that really doesn't matter.

Step Three:
Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities) and click on your AAO's hard drive, choose 'Partition' and choose a single partition, this guide will not go in to dual booting. Call the drive whatever you want, this can be changed later. Use Mac OS X Journaled unless you're using an SSD, in which case use non-journaled Mac OS Extended. Now Hit Apply.

Step Four
It's finally time to install Snow Leopard =D First mount the install DVD, connect a DVD with the disk in or mount the disk image from another external drive. If you can find a way of packing it on the the Leopard drive that will work too.

Open finder and choose Go > Go to folder. Type /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages/ and press return. Now launch OSInstall.mpkg, note, NOT OSInstall.pkg. Follow the prompts and choose the aspire one's internal drive. I chose to uncheck everything but Rosetta and X11, but you can install whatever packages you want. Let the installer do it's thing.

Step Five:
Almost there, if you were to reboot at this point it would kernel panic immediately, not cool. Download Netbook Installer here. Ignore the warning about an unsupported device, choose the AAO's internal drive, check the chameleon boot loader and general extensions, and let it do it's thing.

Now you can reboot, Snow Leopard will take a while to boot, so just give it time. You should see the welcome video but there wont be any sound, so just hum along if you know the tune

Updating to 10.6.2:
All you need to do is perform the official software update. Apple > Software Update > Show Details > Uncheck everything but the 10.6.2 update > Install. That's it, your AAO will reboot as normal.

However it is advisable to back up the 10.6.0 kernel first

Code:

sudo cp /mach_kernel /mach_kernel_10_6_0

Then if you need to boot from it, type this in to chameleon:

Code:

mach_kernel_10_6_0

Fixes and Tweaks:

Audio: download this kext and use kext helper to install it then reboot. You'll have both external speakers and headphones working with autoswitching (What a novelty? ) however the internal mic will not work.

About This Mac: ATM will show the correct RAM info but show the CPU as "1.6GHz Unknown". Install this package to get the CPU string updated.

Since neither Sleep or Hibernation work on OS X on the AAO, you might want to install InsomniaX or an SL compatible DoNotSleep.pkg. If you do put your AAO to sleep, when it resumes it will simply reboot and when ever it boots try to load the sleep image which will fail. If this happens boot your external Leopard drive and use Netbook Installer to reinstall Chameleon and general extensions.

You can go to System Preferences > Trackpad and enable two finger scrolling, which works much better than edge scrolling on the tiny trackpad.

 

Re: Another 10.6 install method for A150

Thank you so much!!
Just finished installing, and works perfectly.
I Just have one question, Can I update to 10.6.2 through software update?

 

Re: Another 10.6 install method for A150

Glad it worked Was there anything extra you think I may have missed out in the guide?

As for 10.6.2, you could follow these instructions. Haven't tried it myself though (I have school work on here ;-P), I'm also not sure if it requires the 10.6.1 kernel and if it does whether you could get that separately. If you do try it please let us know how it goes

 

Re: Another 10.6 install method for A150

Hello,
Thanks for the link, I just updated to 10.6.2 without a problem. I did not even have to boot into the 10.6 kernel as said in the link. But, I would back up the 10.6 kernel just in case by opening terminal and typing sudo cp /mach_kernel /mach_kernel_10_6_0 (then enter your password). I just used software update from the apple menu and just rebooted. It runs great. Your guide is perfect and is not missing one step.

Thanks

 

Just updated and it worked fine, thanks for the tip

 

Regarding the Sleep/Hibernation issue, what options in Power Saver can be used without getting KP's?

Right now I've got it set to "never" for both Computer Sleep and Display Sleep, with nothing checked on the three boxes below.

Can any of them be safely used? I'd like to at least have Display Sleep, but I'm paranoid to let it do anything since it took quite a few tweaks and terminal exercises to get it running right. The last time it went to sleep I discovered the "endless-panic-reboot-now-I-need-to-reinstall" issue.