What, if anything, does Chameleon overwrite on a Mac OS X partition, etc.?

Chameleon > General Discussion

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rcfa:
I got almost everything running, except for a few things that I need to clarify for my own sanity:

A) there are a bunch of files installed into /usr/standalone/i386/ am I correct in the assumption that these are IN ADDITION to what Mac OS X installs there, and that they DO NOT overwrite any standard files?

B) the documentation says:
--- Quote ---stage2 loader (boot) can be placed as a regular file in the boot
partition's root folder. It has precedence over the embedded
startupfile.
--- End quote ---
Given that I installed Chameleon with the EFI partition layout to keep the Mac OS X partition as clean as anyhow possible, what does count as "boot partition's root folder" in the above context? The root folder of the EFI partition, or the root folder of my Mac OS X partition? Preferably the former, but right now I have the boot file in both places, but I'd love to nuke it off the root folder of my Mac OS X root partition...

C) Analog to question B) above: where to the dsdt.aml files belong in the case of an EFI partition install of Chameleon?

D) Anywhere a tutorial or description that explains all the DSDT.aml voodoo?

E) what is CD-ROM rescan mode? Would that allow Chameleon to boot e.g. an Apple Install DVD, which in my current configuration it seems not to be able to do...

F) what for are DropSSDT, SMBIOSdefaults, USBBusFix, EHCIacquire, UHCIreset options? I don't seem to need them, but maybe they would solve some of the minor issues I'm seeing, and besides, I'd like to understand what's going on and when they might be needed...

G) in the documentation, the various values seem to be indicating "Yes" or "No" values, but the Chameleon installer creates a .plist that contains y and n values. Are these interchangeable, or should I change these to "Yes" and "No"?

H) in the various options, which file paths refer to the EFI partition from which Chameleon runs, and which refer to the actual Mac OS X partition? e.g. dsdt.aml files seem to go into the EFI partition, but the sleepimage wouldn't even fit there... Is there a way to specify which of these partitions is to be used when giving paths to some of the options?

I) for multi-word keys and values, are the quotation marks only required when entering them on the command line, or also when using them in the com.apple.boot.plist file? If they are not required in the latter case, will Chameleon be tolerating them when they are present anyway?

J) maybe it's just me, but I'd prefer if Chameleon's installer would install a complete com.apple.boot.plist file with ALL OPTIONS supported present, and their values set to their respective defaults. This would remove a lot of guesswork about how the file and the various options should look like and what they default to. So it would at all times be clear what settings are in effect.

K) Is there a way to boot the Apple Install DVD with Chameleon? It seems it doesn't see the disk, even if it's inserted and present....

L) Any tutorial available anywhere on the SMBIOS.plist file and what to do with it?

rcfa:
To answer part of my own questions by using a quote from rocksteady that I found in another thread:

--- Quote ---There are 2 files (boot0 & boot1h) that get installed in places you wouldn't normally look at (MBR/bootsector)

The rest of Chameleon's files can be installed either in your Leopard partition or in the EFI partition of your HD (EFI partition is hidden and you'd have to manually mount it every time you want to make any changes to it):

Chameleon's boot file gets installed in the root (/) of your Leopard partition or in the root (/) of your EFI partition.
The famous /Extra folder gets created in the root (/) of your Leopard partition or in the root (/) of your EFI partition.
Chameleon's com.apple.Boot.plist may reside inside the /Extra folder of your Leopard partition or in the /Extra folder of your EFI partition.
The *.kexts that you want Chameleon to load in order to stay vanilla, will reside inside the /Extra/Extensions folder of your Leopard partition or inside /Extra/Extensions folder of your EFI partition.
If you make a .mkext out of your KEXTs then this should be in /Extra.
--- End quote ---

This is a nice summary and answers a subset of my file location based questions. Unfortunately not all, in particularly it doesn't answer anything in relation to DSDT.aml and sleepimage path specifications, respectively if there's a way to indicate if a specific file is supposed to be relative to the root of the EFI partition or to the Mac OS X partition...

rocksteady:
Hi Ronald,

Nicely documented questions, covering the whole of Chameleon's functionality. Most of them (at least in a basic level) can be googled. Some of them can be traced back to the cesspit that insnelymac has become, and all of them can be answered by the devs if we cut them some slack, leave them to do their thing until they reach a production/live/gold release of Chameleon.

If you take a closer look @ the Official Docs, you'll find the answer about the DSDT location:

--- Quote ---DSDT=<file> Use an alternate DSDT.aml file
(default paths are /DSDT.aml or /Extra/DSDT.aml)
--- End quote ---

You can enter boot options while at the Chameleon's boot screen using SMBIOSdefaults=No format, or you can integrate them in your com.apple.Boot.plist for a permanent effect using the xml/plist format:

--- Code: ---<key>SMBIOSdefaults</key>
<string>No</string>
--- End code ---

CD/DVD booting from Chameleon installed on a HD is not there yet, what you can do is restore your Install DVD on a USB stick and use that (it'll be noticeably faster too)

If you'd like to insert live links to other posts here in this forum, you can do so by:

--- Code: ---[url=http://blah.blah.blah.html]quote from rocksteady[/url]
--- End code ---

[edit:corrected member's name]

rcfa:

--- Quote from: rocksteady on May 22, 2009, 01:17:17 PM ---If you take a closer look @ the Official Docs, you'll find the answer about the DSDT location:

--- Quote ---DSDT=<file> Use an alternate DSDT.aml file
(default paths are /DSDT.aml or /Extra/DSDT.aml)
--- End quote ---

You can enter boot options while at the Chameleon's boot screen using SMBIOSdefaults=No format, or you can integrate them in your com.apple.Boot.plist for a permanent effect using the xml/plist format:

--- Code: ---<key>SMBIOSdefaults</key>
<string>No</string>
--- End code ---

--- End quote ---

Thanks. The confusion about the .aml file was mostly that it wasn't clear if it's just a file name or a file path to an alternate file that's the argument, i.e. if it's
DSDT=/Extra/SomeNonStandardName.aml
or
DSDT=/Some/Non/Standard/Location/DSDT.aml
or
DSDT=SomeNonStandardName.aml
From trial and error, it seems to be the last of these three.

As for the plist thing: the confusion is because the Chameleon installer creates plists with y and n entries, rather than what I'm used to Yes and No entries (like you showed above).
So I'm trying to figure out if
a) Chameleon uses a slightly deviant version of the plists
b) is tolerant and either format works
c) the Chameleon default plist is buggy and needs all the y and n replaced with Yes and No.

Thanks.

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