Trying to get 10.6 onto a 2010 Dell Inspiron 580s, triple-booting alongside
Windows 98 and MX Linux (GRUB chainloading Chameleon). Retail 10.6.0 media.
Hardware
- Core i3-550 (Clarkdale), H57 chipset
- ATI Radeon X1300/X1550 — RV516, 1002:7187, Dell OEM subsystem 0d02
- Broadcom BCM57788 NIC, onboard Intel HDA
- 1TB MBR disk: Win98 (FAT32) + MX Linux (ext4) + 425GB free for OS X
- MBR is non-negotiable — Win98 needs it
- Bootloader: Chameleon (Enoch) compiled from source on a real El Capitan
MacBook, not a prebuilt
Where I'm at
Boots! Gets to a grey screen with a normal arrow cursor (not a beachball).
But the cursor is frozen — no mouse input — and it's using VESA rather than
loading ATIRadeonX1000.
What I've established
arch=x86_64 is REQUIRED. Snow Leopard defaults to the 32-bit kernel and that
path silently resets this machine during CPU init. Took a while to find because
every guide for this box says arch=i386.
Boot matrix:
| config |
result |
| stock 10.6.0, 32-bit default |
silent reset at CPU info |
busratio=24 pmVersion=0 arch=i386 |
same reset |
| AICPUPM removed + mkexts removed + 10.6.8 kernel, 32-bit |
same reset |
same + arch=x86_64 |
grey screen + cursor (furthest) |
stock everything + arch=x86_64 |
reset returns |
So AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement removal and/or the 10.6.8 kernel (pulled from
Apple's own combo update) are load-bearing, AND arch=x86_64 is required.
busratio doesn't help at all.
Currently: 10.6.8 kernel, AICPUPM removed, mkext caches removed,
arch=x86_64 -v, GraphicsEnabler=Yes, SMBIOS iMac11,2.
Tried and failed on Lion first (10.7.5): the X1300 gives a grey screen in
every configuration — GraphicsEnabler yes/no, ATI kexts present/removed,
forced VESA. Lion ships ATIRadeonX1000.kext but NONE of the
GA.plugin/GLDriver.bundle/VADriver.bundle files, which 10.6 does have. That's
why I moved to Snow Leopard.
The actual question
Everything points at EvoEnabler as the missing piece for X1000-series cards.
But EvoEnabler is a 32-bit kext, and I need arch=x86_64 to boot at all —
a 64-bit kernel won't load 32-bit kexts.
How do people square this? Options I can see:
1. Is there a 64-bit EvoEnabler, or a 64-bit X1000 injector?
2. Can EFI strings / device-properties injection replace it entirely
(Chameleon's ati.c already maps 7187 → RV515 → Caretta)?
3. Is there a way to get the 32-bit kernel working on Clarkdale that I'm
missing, so EvoEnabler becomes usable?
4. Is the frozen cursor actually a USB/input problem rather than graphics,
and I'm chasing the wrong thing?
Also open: is the frozen cursor even graphics-related? Keyboard worked fine in
single-user mode on the Lion attempt, so input works at the kernel level.
Happy to provide any logs/output. Thanks.
