Comments on: MSI Wind U100 netbook: How to update to 10.6.2

By: Massimiliano

Massimiliano — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:02:45 +0000

from Linux just do: mount -o force /dev/sdX /mnt/blabla
Now you can rename the file, unmount and reboot to leopard.

By: Massimiliano

Massimiliano — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:58:39 +0000

I give a try to this. Thanks.
There is another possibility, for those who have dual boot with Linux: you can mount HFS partition from Linux.
Normally it’s mounted read-only, but you can use some “force” option to mount it with write permission (as this is journaled filesystem).
In this case you

By: marco

marco — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:29:08 +0000

many thanks!!all works fine!
mp

By: Jan

Jan — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:16:23 +0000

That’s clever! Thanks!

By: Iceman

Iceman — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:23:42 +0000

There is no need to boot into single user mode.
Just this:

sudo cp /mach_kernel /mach_kernel_old

Do update to 10.6.2.
On reboot, while camaleon appears, type:

mach_kernel_old

And it will boot flawlessly.
After this, login in your 10.6.2 and just rename old kernel to default kernel:

sudo mv /mach_kernel_old /mach_kernel

By: Jan

Jan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:11:49 +0000

I just installed the modified 10.6.2 kernel from http://insanelywind.com/forum/.....#038;t=449 and it works great! Make sure you deactivate SleepEnabler.kext unless you like to get kernel panics. There’s a working SleepEnabler.kext in that thread available too. The new SleepEnabler kext won’t work with the old kernel so make sure you don’t apply it before replacing the kernel.

By: Jan

Jan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:06:40 +0000

Here’s some output of the Wind’s boot partiton’s root directory:

-rw-r–r–@ 1 root wheel 18672224 Nov 12 21:01 mach_kernel
-rw-r–r–@ 1 root admin 18676624 Nov 10 20:30 mach_kernel.new
-rw-r–r–@ 1 jan admin 18672224 Nov 10 06:57 mach_kernel.old

The active mach_kernel should be 18672224 bytes, not 18676624 bytes.

@nasKar: Have you been using a distro or some install scripts to install 10.6.0?

By: nasKar

nasKar — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:43:06 +0000

My Wind is running 10.6.2 now. Though I had to change the identifier to /dev/disk0s5 because I have an Ubuntu partition as well. Thanks!
Karim

By: Jan

Jan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:28:43 +0000

Hmm… odd. I applied this method to 2 different 10.6.1 Winds and it worked right away! As you already mentioned, it looks like you’re still booting the new kernel. It’s a proven fact (not just by me) that the old kernel works in 10.6.2 and that the kernel is replaced exactly the way described above once you’re unable to boot from the internal partition. Are you 100% sure you made a backup / replaced the kernel on the right partition, the one you mounted using the mount command into /Volumes? Did you cd to /Volumes? I’m still trying to figure out where you left the beaten path.

By: Akbar Foo

Akbar Foo — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:10:11 +0000

No, I’m not booting the wrong partition, and I DID read your post carefully. To clarify, I should have said, “on reboot after replacing the kernel”.

There is no possibility of booting the wrong partition because I physically removed the USB drive on reboot after replacing the kernel.

I did not use a third-party installer in the process of following your instructions. I made a copy of the 10.6.0 kernel, went through the 10.6.2 upgrade, booted from the original installation medium into single-user mode, mounted the relevant partition as writable, found the new kernel from the 10.6.2 upgrade, issued “cp mach_kernel mach_kernel.10.6.2″, issued “cp mach_kernel.10.6.0 mach_kernel” to copy the old kernel over the new one, checked permissions and file size to make sure mach_kernel was the one from 10.6.0, then issued a sync and rebooted.

Certainly, the behaviour is like what I might anticipate from a kernel without atom support, but I checked and double-checked that I was booting a 10.6.2 installation with a 10.6.0 kernel.

I only mentioned that I re-ran netbook installer for the purpose of indicating that I replaced the kexts and rebuilt the kext caches after installing 10.6.2, in case something about the upgrade replaced my original, working kexts or caches, or possibly messed up chameleon.

By: Jan

Jan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:54:25 +0000

You’re booting the wrong partition. Please re-read my post carefully. You have to boot from the USB boot stick that you (hopefully) used to install SL in the first place. I wasn’t referring to a third party installation program, which I presume this netbook installer is. I have no idea what this script does, I’m always using an as vanilla as possible installation process.

By: Akbar Foo

Akbar Foo — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:53:03 +0000

I tried this, but it did not work. On reboot, the wind shut itself down (physical power off) not far into the boot process. Using “-s” to boot hangs the machine with no particular error, with “-v” shedding no particular light on the matter. Safe boot with “-x” shuts off the machine, too.

I tried repairing permissions and even re-running netbook installer, with no change.