Installing Mac OS X Leopard on the Apple TV (1st generation)

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JasonJJJ

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Jan 21, 2022
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Nixontheknight said:
ok now I have a question, when you run the final command before the unmount, is the partition supposed to show back up on the desktop if I do it correctly? it didn't, but I'm curious
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when you finished restore, just plug the drive in the appletv then its done
 
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caver01

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Oct 30, 2021
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I had Tiger runing just fine on the internal drive.

I had mine functioning as an IOS print server for a while before I setup a Pi to do the same thing. However, I have new interest in getting this running again. I think I still have a drive already setup—just need to swap it back into the case.
 
Nixontheknight

Nixontheknight

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Nov 3, 2021
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caver01 said:
I had Tiger runing just fine on the internal drive.

I had mine functioning as an IOS print server for a while before I setup a Pi to do the same thing. However, I have new interest in getting this running again. I think I still have a drive already setup—just need to swap it back into the case.
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I think I'll use mine to play some videos on loop once I set up my computer repair shop
 
scj312

scj312

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Oct 29, 2021
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scj312 said:
As an update, I've been working on getting Snow Leopard running on the Apple TV. I have it booting most of the way, but the system reboots when the WindowServer starts. I need to do some more experimentation with different video connections and resolutions, as well as some driver nonsense to see if I can get this to boot the rest of the way.
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Well, Snow Leopard booted right up connected to a TV with component video, and after completing setup, works perfectly fine with HDMI on the monitor I was previously using! Unfortunately, there are some significant issues that I need to work out. But hey, it does work, and it feels smoother than 10.5.8 did, interestingly enough!

Screen shot 2022-01-30 at 1.47.46 AM.png​
 
Nixontheknight

Nixontheknight

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Nov 3, 2021
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scj312 said:
Well, Snow Leopard booted right up connected to a TV with component video, and after completing setup, works perfectly fine with HDMI on the monitor I was previously using! Unfortunately, there are some significant issues that I need to work out. But hey, it does work, and it feels smoother than 10.5.8 did, interestingly enough!

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Can you provide an image so I can put 10.6 on my Apple TV?
 
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caver01

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Oct 30, 2021
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Inspired by your progress, I pulled down my ATV and plugged it in. It looks like I left the replacement HDD in there from years ago as it booted right into OSX. Mine is running 10.5.8, an iDeneb image. I must have installed this over Tiger before I put the project away. It still had the flashing front panel LED which I believe someone fixed in the interim. in any case, it does not seem too bad, actually. I will definitely give your image a test on the internal drive when you are ready.
 
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Nixontheknight

Nixontheknight

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Nov 3, 2021
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caver01 said:
Inspired by your progress, I pulled down my ATV and plugged it in. It looks like I left the replacement HDD in there from years ago as it booted right into OSX. Mine is running 10.5.8, an iDeneb image. I must have installed this over Tiger before I put the project away. It still had the flashing front panel LED which I believe someone fixed in the interim. in any case, it does not seem too bad, actually. I will definitely give your image a test on the internal drive when you are ready.
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I actually installed the image the original poster provided onto my Apple TV’s internal hard drive and it works just as well
 
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caver01

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Oct 30, 2021
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Nixontheknight said:
I remember that the Computer Clan tried Tiger on an Apple TV and it ran horribly
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I remember that it ran horribly too, but it may have been unresolved misconfiguration, as I remember there was a process that would start pushing the CPU utilization way high and mine would eventually overheat/hang/crash. Having just booted mine again and finding it on 10.5.8 surprised me, as I don’t remember setting it aside working this smoothly. It’s a lot better than I remember.
 
scj312

scj312

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Oct 29, 2021
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Fixing the issues with Snow Leopard isn't going so well. I'm not sure what the root cause of these issues are, but it's almost like mathematical operations are not working correctly:
  1. The time is blank. As in, there is no time. When trying to set the date and time, it goes negative (??!!)
  2. When fixing the audio driver to recognize the Apple TV ALC885 audio, there's a kernel panic whenever audio is played.
  3. Graphical issues galore! A lot of interface elements are calculating sizing and positioning ever so slightly off, which adds up to most things not looking right, and some things being unusable. For example, Setup Assistant on 10.6.8 never fades in, so the setup process must be completed on a Mac.
  4. Finder and Quick Look eat all of the CPU. I wouldn't be surprised if it was related to the above issues.
All of this adds up to a more-or-less unusable experience. I've tried multiple different versions of 10.6, different kernels, various graphics and audio injectors, setting time from Terminal, disabling Quick Look, etc, but all of the issues remain. For the sake of science, I will upload a pre-installed, fully-updated image that anyone is welcome to try out and help solve these problems--if we can get this to work correctly, it will be great, as it runs much smoother compared to Leopard.
 
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dronecatcher

dronecatcher

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Oct 28, 2021
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When you've booted into OSX from the USB can you see the internal drive and then prep that for the install image?
 
scj312

scj312

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dronecatcher said:
When you've booted into OSX from the USB can you see the internal drive and then prep that for the install image?
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You can access the internal HDD while booted from USB. I have not tried restoring the image that way, but theoretically it could work.
 
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caver01

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Oct 30, 2021
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And if I recall, when I installed an image on my internal drive, at the time, hacking the ATV1 did not have a convenient usb patchstick solution yet, so we were pulling off the rubber boot and removing the HDD to set it up on a mac running Tiger.
 
dronecatcher

dronecatcher

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Oct 28, 2021
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scj312 said:
You can access the internal HDD while booted from USB. I have not tried restoring the image that way, but theoretically it could work.
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That's great. I have an ATV on the way and wanted to avoid buying another PATA/IDE/SATA/USB adaptor - the one I bought years ago died after a week!
 
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JasonJJJ

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Jan 21, 2022
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scj312 said:
Fixing the issues with Snow Leopard isn't going so well. I'm not sure what the root cause of these issues are, but it's almost like mathematical operations are not working correctly:
  1. The time is blank. As in, there is no time. When trying to set the date and time, it goes negative (??!!)
  2. When fixing the audio driver to recognize the Apple TV ALC885 audio, there's a kernel panic whenever audio is played.
  3. Graphical issues galore! A lot of interface elements are calculating sizing and positioning ever so slightly off, which adds up to most things not looking right, and some things being unusable. For example, Setup Assistant on 10.6.8 never fades in, so the setup process must be completed on a Mac.
  4. Finder and Quick Look eat all of the CPU. I wouldn't be surprised if it was related to the above issues.
All of this adds up to a more-or-less unusable experience. I've tried multiple different versions of 10.6, different kernels, various graphics and audio injectors, setting time from Terminal, disabling Quick Look, etc, but all of the issues remain. For the sake of science, I will upload a pre-installed, fully-updated image that anyone is welcome to try out and help solve these problems--if we can get this to work correctly, it will be great, as it runs much smoother compared to Leopard.
Click to expand...
scj312 said:
Fixing the issues with Snow Leopard isn't going so well. I'm not sure what the root cause of these issues are, but it's almost like mathematical operations are not working correctly:
  1. The time is blank. As in, there is no time. When trying to set the date and time, it goes negative (??!!)
  2. When fixing the audio driver to recognize the Apple TV ALC885 audio, there's a kernel panic whenever audio is played.
  3. Graphical issues galore! A lot of interface elements are calculating sizing and positioning ever so slightly off, which adds up to most things not looking right, and some things being unusable. For example, Setup Assistant on 10.6.8 never fades in, so the setup process must be completed on a Mac.
  4. Finder and Quick Look eat all of the CPU. I wouldn't be surprised if it was related to the above issues.
All of this adds up to a more-or-less unusable experience. I've tried multiple different versions of 10.6, different kernels, various graphics and audio injectors, setting time from Terminal, disabling Quick Look, etc, but all of the issues remain. For the sake of science, I will upload a pre-installed, fully-updated image that anyone is welcome to try out and help solve these problems--if we can get this to work correctly, it will be great, as it runs much smoother compared to Leopard.
Click to expand...
will os x lion ever work on an appletv lol? Im looking forward for snow leopard, please upload when you're ready
 
scj312

scj312

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Oct 29, 2021
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JasonJJJ said:
will os x lion ever work on an appletv lol? Im looking forward for snow leopard, please upload when you're ready
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Unfortunately the Pentium M processor in the Apple TV is 32-bit only, and Lion was only compiled for 64-bit. IIRC the first developer preview still had 32-bit code, but from recollection, that was not a pleasant build to use.
 
J

JasonJJJ

New Tinkerer
Jan 21, 2022
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scj312 said:
Unfortunately the Pentium M processor in the Apple TV is 32-bit only, and Lion was only compiled for 64-bit. IIRC the first developer preview still had 32-bit code, but from recollection, that was not a pleasant build to use.
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So pity, but im ready to tackle snow leopard, please upload it asap, im willing to try it
 
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