Updating Chameleon boot loader to latest SL and Lion ready

Installing Chameleon can be a pain! So somebody went so far and created a small tool which does it all for you. You can find it on kext.com site. The program itself is new and probably buggy, if you have no other choice or no clue give it a go. It simplifies installing and choosing boot options all in one small menu. Somebody might say there is an app for that, yes there is Lizzard, where you can edit your mac id, change boot options and so on. I found Lizzard to be quite problematic and have to deal with the mess it got me to. Sometimes shortcuts aren't the way to go. And really, if you know how to install Chameleon manually, then you know how to resolve few frustrating problems yourself like bad CPU recognition and so on. But hey, you don't need a degree in informatics to use a MAC :)

Champlist Hompepage: http://awesome-studio.tk

Here are screenshots of Champlist and some most important options:

Champlist will guide you through Chameleon install and setup. It will download the latest Chameleon trunk and install it on partition you will have to choose.

OPTIONS

General and CPU

Use kernel cache: means your system won't generate new cache every time you boot, its a standard -f boot flag in snow leopard.

Ethernet (Bulit-in): if your network card is compatible you can use it

Force HPET (High Precision Event Timer): needed for some motherboards which don't have it as option in BIOS. Google your board and your will know. You need it to work if you want sleep and hibernation

Legacy Logo: does what it says.

Use GUI: does what it says.

CPU: if your cpu is supported, you can enable c or p states.

USB and Flags

USB Bus Fix

EHCI acquire - in case osx has problems controlling your USB hardware (Plug and Play OS?)

EHCI hard - not a clue,

UHCI reset - reset?

USB Legacy Off - does what it says

npci=0x2000 solves some pci problems, helps booting Lion

Verbose Boot: do it if you want to see the matrix

Ignore Cache: loads every kext on the system and checks if there is a hardware for it

32bit = Atari mode

64bit = new Age 

Graphics and CD rom

Enabler - our good friend, detects your gfx. Use it when you have a compatible card

Use NVIDIA Rom - you can use external rom with your card.

Use ATI Rom - same as… 

Rescan - Chameleon will rescan at boot if there is a bootable CD/DVD in your drive, so you can choose it and boot from it.

Rescan Prompt - you can choose to rescan

Scan single drive - aha?

Others and Bios

Wait - time chameleon boot menu is waiting for your reaction

Wake

Force Wake

Drop SSDT - does what it says, SSDT is not DSDT

DSDT path - choose your DSDT file

SMBios path - where is it?

OSX Lion installation with Chameleon 2.0 for Lion

>>> Update <<< NEW OSX LION INSTALL GUIDE: 

here -> Hackintosh OSX Lion full install guide <- here

Requirements:

•   Snow Leopard hackintosh
•   Intel Core 2 Duo or higher
•   Supported GPU (GT120, ATI4870 etc.)
•   Retail Snow Leopard DVD (if not installed)
•   Snow Leopard 10.6.7 Combo Update (if not installed)
•   OSX Lion from App Store $29
•   iBoot 3.1 and MultiBeast 3.7.3 from www.tonymacx86.com
•   Chameleon RC5 r828 Found at insanelymac.com
•   DSDT.aml for your motherboard (if not already installed in your Extra folder)

Creating a Bootable Install Disc for Mac OS X Lion


1. Find the Mac OS X Installation file in Applications Folder. Right-click on it and choose “Show Package Contents”. You are looking for “SharedSupport” folder, inside you will find a disc image called “InstallESD.dmg”


2. Copy “InstallESD.dmg” to your Mac OS X Desktop or somewhere where you want it to be for the moment.

3. Burn It with Disk Utility.


//to be continued...




Creating a Bootable USB Drive and Mac OS X Lion installation


1. Follow the steps 1 and 2 from "Creating a Bootable Install Disc for Mac OS X Lion".


2. Open "InstallESD.dmg" and mount "BaseSystem.dmg"


3. Open DiskUtility and partition your USB stick.


4. In DiskUtility choose your new partition on USB stick and click the restore tab. 


5. Drag the Mac OS Base System image in the source and your USB stick partition in destination and click restore.

6. Your partition will be renamed to Mac OS Base System.
Go to System/Installation and delete packages folder.


7. From mounted BaseSystem.dmg copy Packages folder back to Mac OS Base System on your USB stick.


8. You also need to copy this to your USB partition root folder, just drop it on USB Stick icon:


you will have to use Terminal to see hidden files on your drives, just type this: “defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true“


>   disk_label boot.efi 
>   kernelcache 
>   mach_kernel
>   MacOSX_Media_Background.png.


9. Install Chameleon on your USB Stick (my guide to install Chameleon here)


google: Chameleon RC5 Lion Installer on OSX Lion release day.


or use: latest Chameleon 2.0 Found at insanelymac.com

10. Copy your Extra Folder from your Snow Leopard partition to USB Stick root partition.


11. Restart


12. Boot from iBoot cd you burned before and choose Mac OSX Base System partition as the one you want to boot from.

You should be able to boot off your USB Stick aka Mac OSX Base System partition and start installing OSX Lion. During installation you should open DiskUtility and reformat/repartition your old Snow Leopard drive if you want to use only OSX Lion.

Chameleon RC3 - new bootloader

Release Candidate 3 seems to me to be the last before the "Golden Master". The new support for Snow Leopard is working (even with RC1 and RC2 with the right boot file), everything else seems to work as it should. RC3 has a small flaw though, you can get the binaries at the moment. There is no installer for it, and no proper instructions too. It's definitely a "download", but installing would be risky if you don't exactly know what you are doing. In RC3 you will find support for Leopard and Snow Leopard. In your Extra folder you'll find three new: 10.5 and 10.6 and Common, for extensions for leopard and snow leopard and common kexts.

New bootloader - xpc 0.50 (early beta)

Chameleon just went from RC2 to RC3 to help people adopt snow leopard. Netkas updated PC-EFI 10.3 for more Snow Leopard goodness... But there is new player on the scene: XPC bootloader. You can find screenshots on Taruga's blog. I have to say, it doesn't looks better than Chameleon, apparently it has better groundwork though. People report that the booting process is more mac alike. There is no resolution switching and the transition from loading screen to desktop is very smooth - just like in real macs.

Chameleon 2.0 install guide

>>>Update<<< NEW LION INSTALL GUIDE: 

Hackintosh OSX Lion full install guide 

>>>Update<<< Chameleon 2.0 for Lion here: 

OSX Lion installation witch Chameleon 2.0 for Lion 

/Update
30/3/
Finally!!! More news follow! Download here: Chameleon

//Update

After weeks of waiting the public release candidate is out. I have to say they did a very good work on Chameleon! GUI looks great and I can't wait to customize it for my needs. But first things first: how do I install it on my hackintosh? The readme file doesn't say much to novice osx86 user, so if you don't feel comfortable with using Terminal, better wait for the final version and better install instructions.

Install:

1. Make sure you have EFI installed. It should be in /Volumes/EFI {Menu>Go>Go to Folder>/Volumes/EFI}

2. Open Disk Utility and find your startup disk and choose information, you will need the Disk ID

Radme says:

example installation is on /dev/disk0s2

-Install boot0 to the MBR:

sudo fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk0

-Install boot1h to the partition's bootsector:

sudo dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk0s2

-Install boot to the partition's root directory:

sudo cp boot / {don't have to cd anything}

That isn't a lot for an installation guide, and you have some folders like Extra and i368 you don't know what to do with. Let's start!

To run commands found in readme you have to cd the i386 folder. {Terminal> cd /drag and drop the i386 folder}

Before you run radme commands you still have a folder called Extra where all the graphics are in. This must be moved to /Volumes/EFI together with smbios.plist

You can do that in Terminal with cd /drag and drop the Extra folder and run cp -R smbios.plist Themes /Volumes/EFI/Extra {Check first if Extra folder already exists, when not create one}

If you have modified com.appple.Boot.plist you will have to copy it to /Volumes/EFI {If you played with osx86tools, or added your graphics or audio card to EFI you have to do this}

More help installing Chameleon on chameleon.osx86.hu