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How to Install Snow Leopard on VirtualBox

Tarandeep Singh

snow-leopard-virtualbox-windows Last time when I wrote the How to Install  Snow Leopard on VMWare guide, I had users who were seeking Virtualbox version, and I had it promised.

After 2 months of experiments, fighting in the dark, and with help from black Trinitron, the work is done and I think its time to reveal it.

Who doesn’t love Open Source? And when a Open source product is better than a paid application, we adore it. So is the case with Virtualbox. Virtualbox 3.1 is an amazing platform for Virtualization, It’s not only free, but also much faster than VMware in Disk I/O, Network I/O, RAM optimization, CPU Usage,  Hypervisor level operations. Hats off to Sun–Oracle.

Note: This is a Retail installation guide, hence little more tricky. If you don’t mind an osx86 distro inside virtualbox and want ease of installation, tryout Install Mac OS X Hackintosh in VirtualBox [Snow Leopard] instead.

Before you begin, make sure you have enough CPU, RAM, Disk resources to share for the virtual machine.

Hardware Requirements:

Software Requirements:

Brief: We will be installing Osx86 Leopard then upgrading to Snow Leopard Retail, that is 100% upgradeable to 10.6.2 and Works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7. Alternatively, You can install Snow Leopard directly via an OSx86 Distro like SnowOSX (but that won’t be upgradeable, unless you use SnowOSX v3.6 which is already 10.6.2. But the upcoming 10.6.3 update won’t be possible). So let’s go the usual way (Leopard then Snow Leopard Retail), though it’s upto you to choose.

Let’s Get started:

Phase I: Install Leopard on Virtualbox

Step 1. Create a new Virtual Machine with name “Leopard”:

Step 2. Open Virtual machine xml.

Windows 7: C:\Users\fx<Your User>\.VirtualBox\Machines\Snow\Snow.xml

Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\fx<YourUser>\.VirtualBox\Machines\Snow\Snow.xml

Add string to the section <ExtraData> for the XML:

<ExtraDataItem name="VBoxInternal2/SupportExtHwProfile" value="on"/>

Step 3. Switch on Virtual Machine and install Leopard distro as-usual. (You can check Install Leopard on PC guide, if you are new to OSx86).

Alright, Leopard setup would succeed and  is up and running after reboot.(Make sure you change boot priority to “Leo” Hard disk in VM settings).

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For installing Snow Leopard, proceed to Phase II

Phase II. Installing Snow Leopard

Step 1. Close VirtualBox and patch it with files from here (32 bit) and here (64 bit)

Update: I heard Virtualbox 3.1.4 Beta works out of the box, without patching. I haven’t tried that though.

Step 2. Attach the following Three disks to the virtual machine under “Storage” tab:

Step 3. Boot Leopard and Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilties ) and Format the new “Snow” with “Mac OS Journaled”

Step 4. From the addon image “MacUtils”, Run “unHideIt” and then browse to /System/Installation/Packages( inside Retail disc) and run OSInstall.mpkg

Step 5. Select “Snow” disk and customize install to remove unnecessary packages (languages, printers) and Install. Installation should finish without any problems.

Step 6. Install Chameleon from the “MacUtils” on to “Snow” drive. [How to Install Chameleon]

Beyond this point, all changes are made to /Volumes/Snow

Step 7. Let’s setup some drivers:

Step 8. Fix permissions by using Terminal (from Applications > Utilities):

su
cd /Volumes/Snow/System/Library
chown -R root:wheel Extensions/
cd /Volumes/Snow/Extra
chown -R root:wheel Extensions/
kextcache -a x86_64 -K /Volumes/Snow/mach_kernel -m /Volumes/Snow/System/Library/Extensions.mkext /Volumes/Snow/System/Library/Extensions
kextcache -a x86_64 -K /Volumes/Snow/mach_kernel -m /Volumes/Snow/Extra/Extensions.mkext /Volumes/Snow/Extra/Extensions

Nice! Hold down your patience we are almost done.

Now, Shutdown Leopard and move on to Final Phase

Phase III: Creating Snow Leopard machine

Step 1. Alright, Let’s create a new Virtual Machine, name it “Snowfx” or whatever you wish to. Create it exactly as we did in Phase I : Step 1. Only additional step is t configure Networking:

And add the following to Snow Machine XML:

<ExtraDataItem name="VBoxInternal/Devices/e1000f/0/Trusted" value="integer:1"/>
<ExtraDataItem name="VBoxInternal/PDM/Devices/PcExt/Path" value="VBoxDD3"/>

Step 2. Run the Virtual Machine and you will land into desktop with everything (including internet) working.

Note: If your mouse doesn’t work use this Kext. For me it worked as-is.

Go ahead and update to 10.6.2. And when the upcoming 10.6.3 is released, you will be able to upgrade without issues.

There you are, running the latest Snow Leopard, sweet! Enjoy the speed and cost benefits VirtualBox has to offer, Praise the Sun and love Open Source 😀

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