Voodooprojects

Chameleon => General Discussion => Topic started by: blast9999 on May 20, 2009, 02:34:10 AM

Title: Hex Strings, EFI Studio & com.apple.Boot.plist
Post by: blast9999 on May 20, 2009, 02:34:10 AM

I have Chameleon installed on my main hdd, and also on a new install of 10.5.7 on a stick. To get my GT8600 card to work with QE/CI I have used efi studio previously on the hdd, but now it's not working on the stick. When I use efi studio to add the string to the plist, which one would it mod, the stick or hdd plist? I see a long string in the plist now. Is there a way to read the hex to see what string I have in there? Maybe a directory of common strings would be nice. When I unplug the main hdd, I can't boot from the stick alone, and I need the hdd with its Chameleon to boot the stick. In this case would my system be using the plist from the main hdd, or from my stick os?


Moderator Edit: Changed title to reflect what's being discussed.

Title: Re: Editing plist
Post by: Lord Anubis on May 20, 2009, 05:26:57 PM

_{<Generaly speaking>}
The purpose of chameleon is to prepare the system ( HW ) so that a vanilla/retail macosx can run on that hardware.

If you remove the drive/Partition/Stick/item/whatever Chameleon is installed on, then you can't prepare the system and therefor not run any vanilla OSX install.

If you need some settings for preparing the system then you need to edit the plist on the 'Chameleon' Partition/Stick/EFI/whatever.
^{</Generaly speaking>}


What EFI studio is doing with which plist I dont know.
HTH

Title: Re: Editing plist
Post by: blast9999 on May 21, 2009, 05:57:59 AM

I've noticed that EFI studio edits the plist in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration and not the one in the /Extras folder. It makes a .backup file too.

Title: Re: Editing plist
Post by: rocksteady on May 21, 2009, 08:17:12 AM

Quote from: blast9999 on May 21, 2009, 05:57:59 AM

I've noticed that EFI studio edits the plist in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration and not the one in the /Extras folder. It makes a .backup file too.

argh! these tools were made for the days when hacking+messing S/L/E was necessary.

Do whatever you need with EFI studio and place the modified com.apple.Boot.plist in Chameleon's /Extra. Then delete the modified one in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration, rename the backed-up one and leave everything under /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration untouched.

Wherever you have an /Extra, be it your stick, HD, or your washing machine, there should be a com.apple.Boot.plist file, and this is the one that'll be used for booting.

No /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist, then /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist will be used

When people realize the luxury that Chameleon provides, they'll start posting thank-yous instead of issues  :)

[edit: fix typos]

Title: Re: Editing plist
Post by: blast9999 on May 22, 2009, 11:10:00 PM

Yes, I do realize the power of Chameleon, awesome! :o
When playing around with the plist, I saw the different video plist strings affect the system by moving them to the /Extra folder. So, the plist in the live part is the one that is honoured, not the plist in the first hdd that originally starts Chameleon. The problem for me now is to identify, and move into the /Extras folder, the modded kexts from the S/L/E folder. I got most of them copied over to the /Extras folder, but can't be sure since the installer doesn't identify the file, instead just describes it. I see (using iPC 10.5.6) there is a folder made with the original kext in it, which is one way to find the mod kexts.

Title: Re: Editing plist
Post by: rocksteady on May 23, 2009, 11:38:55 AM

Quote from: blast9999 on May 22, 2009, 11:10:00 PM

When playing around with the plist, I saw the different video plist strings affect the system by moving them to the /Extra folder. So, the plist in the live part is the one that is honoured, not the plist in the first hdd that originally starts Chameleon.

I think we're talking about the same thing using different words. Keep in mind that Chameleon also gives you the luxury (http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,351.0.html) to explicitly specify which com.apple.Boot.plist file to use:

Additional useful command-line options:
config=<file>             Use an alternate Boot.plist file.

Edit: hotlinked the Documentation topic