An iDiot's Guide To Lilu and its Plug-ins

[pastrychef]

we'll looks like I have power the AM so work will continue..

I think what this community needs is what was half heartedly started over on another board... a well kept and verified database, like an expert system, that keeps track of major components, motherboards, cpu, GPU, etc

you click on say a motherboard, then clover, OC, then it tells you which patches/drivers needed, verified working status, etc..

the boards are a vast, un-orginzed wasteland of mostly unusable information.. takes far to long to find answers.

read the OC documentation and its still quite superficial..

for me its not about just getting OS X to run.. it needs to run well, power management native, start up, shut down and sleep, etc.

every couple years between builds I forget half of what I figured out and its like starting from scratch... checking to ensure the proper system kexts are loading, dependencies properly linking so that those kexts are doing what they are supposed to do.. etc.

I did more reading last night.. and I found an article that talked about UEFI standards, apples use of a firmware update partition, and the fact that firmware updates are now bundled with OS X updates and if pre-checks determine, will install firmware and SMC etc updates as part of the upgrade/update process.

I still think that due to the specific order I did things and brining my old config.plist in and not updating it prior to doing a OS X point update, that it attempted and succeeded at pushing code into my board, and that is likely that link that never went away .. the install preboot from preboot... and the presence in my EFI/APPLE folder of 3 folders including multi updaters and lots of firmware updates...


open core will hopefully mature into a cleaner more versatile version of clover

not knocking any of the dev's or tools that they write.. the hackintoshing community has been a great experience since 2005 and I applaud everyones hard work.. certainly their contributions and skills are greater than what the rest of us are capable of!!

just make it more self-service friendly!!!

The Apple firmware updates that get placed in /EFI/APPLE/ will do nothing on hackintosh. You can avoid having the firmwares put there if you update the SMBIOS section of your config.plist to reflect the latest firmware of the system definition you are using.

Setting up a database for the thousands of motherboards would be a daunting task and require a lot of user participation. The difficulty is compounded by the moving target that is macOS. What works for one version of macOS may not work for another.

 

[dragonmel]

The Apple firmware updates that get placed in /EFI/APPLE/ will do nothing on hackintosh. You can avoid having the firmwares put there if you update the SMBIOS section of your config.plist to reflect the latest firmware of the system definition you are using.

Setting up a database for the thousands of motherboards would be a daunting task and require a lot of user participation. The difficulty is compounded by the moving target that is macOS. What works for one version of macOS may not work for another.

@pastrychef

thanks pastrychef

I don't know if you have been keeping up with my other threads.. and thank you for weighing in..

I had a fully working and rock stable (more so than my real macs) El Capitan running on a DX58so that I decided to try and migrate to Mojave since its completely EOL at this point.

I decided to do a fresh install on an old ZFS disk I had lying around

I created a unibeast installer with a 10.14.5 image, Legacy as recommended for this board

During install, used disk utility to format the drive GPT/apfs

installed fine and chose Mac Pro 5,1

after boot and installed multibeast, I believe I upgraded to clover 5045, and I believe I moved my old config.plist and DSDT.aml (edited) into the new EFI partition (likely downgrading my SMBIOS firmware version in the process - didn't think about the fact the Mac Pro 5,1 needed firmware upgrade for mojave)

Then I did a update to 10.14.6 ( this is where i think I screwed my motherboard NVRAM/firmware)

during that update which I didn't watch too closely out of habit it just works... I could no longer just boot the motherboard straight to the clover bootloader, I have to press F10 during boot and go to the one time boot menu and select the hard disk

in F2 bios setup, the disk list just show the one hard disk attached

but in the F10 menu I now have a permanent 'heading' if you will

the old list would be

[UEFI internal hard disk]
Bios disk

now I have

Mac OS X
[UEFI internal disk]
bios disk

if I select the UEFI choice I get to Clover

if I just let it boot or select the Mac OS X header it will go to a black screen blinking cursor for a second then a steady cursor. then nothing, have to CTL/ATL/DEL and reboot.. manually selecting the drive

so what I THINK happened is this

the clover 5045 with osxaptiodrvfix3 allows NVRAM to be written to my board
the update saw my old config.plist SMC/SMBIOS version and attempted and possibly succeeded in changing some values in NVRAM just like it would have on a real mac

nvram test variables stick, but I can't nvram -c .. I get an error that it can't delete something

also, in the clover boot selection list, I have a preboot, install preboot from preboot, Mojave (my apfs boot volume), and recovery

that is one too many

I believe that install preboot from preboot was the UEFI volume that OS X creates during a update / upgrade

thing is I have a standard diskuitil list (just showing the 3 volumes) and diskutil apfs list also looks normal

UEFI shell only works for me on a unibeast install thumb drive when booted legacy...

in shell a BCFG boot list does not show the errant Mac OS X header as a volume or the errant install preboot from preboot...

so basically I am stuck with a motherboard that now wont boot normally

clearing nvram doest work
downgrading Bios and reinstall bios with defaults didn't clear it
removing cmos battery wont clear it

that damn Mac OS X boot heading is there permanently

I have come across at least one other thread although I did bookmark it so can't find it again.. where someone else claimed that after a OS X update they were no longer able to boot anything other than the mac os volume.. I don't recall if this was a real mac user that had linux installed as well and was using the apple boot volume selector or not

thoughts?

any help that you could provide in looking at my logs, plists etc to ensure I am doing it right would be helpful!!

 

[pastrychef]

@pastrychef

thanks pastrychef

I don't know if you have been keeping up with my other threads.. and thank you for weighing in..

I had a fully working and rock stable (more so than my real macs) El Capitan running on a DX58so that I decided to try and migrate to Mojave since its completely EOL at this point.

I decided to do a fresh install on an old ZFS disk I had lying around

I created a unibeast installer with a 10.14.5 image, Legacy as recommended for this board

During install, used disk utility to format the drive GPT/apfs

installed fine and chose Mac Pro 5,1

after boot and installed multibeast, I believe I upgraded to clover 5045, and I believe I moved my old config.plist and DSDT.aml (edited) into the new EFI partition (likely downgrading my SMBIOS firmware version in the process - didn't think about the fact the Mac Pro 5,1 needed firmware upgrade for mojave)

Then I did a update to 10.14.6 ( this is where i think I screwed my motherboard NVRAM/firmware)

during that update which I didn't watch too closely out of habit it just works... I could no longer just boot the motherboard straight to the clover bootloader, I have to press F10 during boot and go to the one time boot menu and select the hard disk

in F2 bios setup, the disk list just show the one hard disk attached

but in the F10 menu I now have a permanent 'heading' if you will

the old list would be

[UEFI internal hard disk]
Bios disk

now I have

Mac OS X
[UEFI internal disk]
bios disk

if I select the UEFI choice I get to Clover

if I just let it boot or select the Mac OS X header it will go to a black screen blinking cursor for a second then a steady cursor. then nothing, have to CTL/ATL/DEL and reboot.. manually selecting the drive

so what I THINK happened is this

the clover 5045 with osxaptiodrvfix3 allows NVRAM to be written to my board
the update saw my old config.plist SMC/SMBIOS version and attempted and possibly succeeded in changing some values in NVRAM just like it would have on a real mac

nvram test variables stick, but I can't nvram -c .. I get an error that it can't delete something

also, in the clover boot selection list, I have a preboot, install preboot from preboot, Mojave (my apfs boot volume), and recovery

that is one too many

I believe that install preboot from preboot was the UEFI volume that OS X creates during a update / upgrade

thing is I have a standard diskuitil list (just showing the 3 volumes) and diskutil apfs list also looks normal

UEFI shell only works for me on a unibeast install thumb drive when booted legacy...

in shell a BCFG boot list does not show the errant Mac OS X header as a volume or the errant install preboot from preboot...

so basically I am stuck with a motherboard that now wont boot normally

clearing nvram doest work
downgrading Bios and reinstall bios with defaults didn't clear it
removing cmos battery wont clear it

that damn Mac OS X boot heading is there permanently

I have come across at least one other thread although I did bookmark it so can't find it again.. where someone else claimed that after a OS X update they were no longer able to boot anything other than the mac os volume.. I don't recall if this was a real mac user that had linux installed as well and was using the apple boot volume selector or not

thoughts?

any help that you could provide in looking at my logs, plists etc to ensure I am doing it right would be helpful!!

I have zero experience with legacy boot. I have never even looked in to it so have no idea how it works.

As far as I know the Preboot Install option is present on every Mojave install. If you don't want it to show in the Clover boot menu, you can configure config.plist to hide it.

I have no idea why clearing CMOS or upgrading/downgrading BIOS doesn't clear your NVRAM. To me, that seems like a problem not related to Clover.

 

[jaymonkey]

I think what this community needs is what was half heartedly started over on another board... a well kept and verified database, like an expert system, that keeps track of major components, motherboards, cpu, GPU, etc

@dragonmel,

Hackintool has started to implement something like that but so far it's only for IGPU specific patches, but it could be expanded to include specific ACHI patches/Clover settings and SSDT's ..etc.

But it would be a lot of work to maintain and what works for one system may not work for another depending on what PCIe devices are installed/BIOS revisions ... etc.

Apples use of a firmware update partition, and the fact that firmware updates are now bundled with OS X updates and if pre-checks determine, will install firmware and SMC etc updates as part of the upgrade/update process.

Apple does sometimes include firmware updates in MacOS updates and sometimes as standalone updates .. which are extracted/copied to the Apple folder in the EFI partition.

However they are vey model specific and are installed by Apples own EFI boot loader, I highly doubt that anything would have been pushed into your motherboards Flash/CMOS/BIOS memory as Clover simply does not have that ability.

You can safely delate the Apple folder in the EFI partition at any time ...

Cheers
Jay

 

[dragonmel]

@dragonmel,

Hackintool has started to implement something like that but so far it's only for IGPU specific patches, but it could be expanded to include specific ACHI patches/Clover settings and SSDT's ..etc.

But it would be a lot of work to maintain and what works for one system may not work for another depending on what PCIe devices are installed/BIOS revisions ... etc.




Apple does sometimes include firmware updates in MacOS updates and sometimes as standalone updates .. which are extracted/copied to the Apple folder in the EFI partition.

However they are vey model specific and are installed by Apples own EFI boot loader, I highly doubt that anything would have been pushed into your motherboards Flash/CMOS/BIOS memory as Clover simply does not have that ability.

You can safely delate the Apple folder in the EFI partition at any time ...

Cheers
Jay

yeah.. thats my point though

clover did permit it.. the latest osxaptio3 fix is allowing NVRAM to be written

the 'Mac OS X' header/drive group/ whatever it is was not there before using the latest clover and doing the 10.14.6 update. I have never had a volume or installer that I have named that, and it even comes up if I boot the board with no drives/devs attached.. so its not getting it from clover, the EFI partition etc

its not in clovers boot loader list, its not in the bios drive list (just the one time boot menu), its not in the UEFI BCFG dump.. its nowhere to be found which means its been written into some part of NVRAM that I can't see or clear, or some other option rom or other location of the UEFI bios.

prove me wrong

there is no other explanation

 

[dragonmel]

I have zero experience with legacy boot. I have never even looked in to it so have no idea how it works.

As far as I know the Preboot Install option is present on every Mojave install. If you don't want it to show in the Clover boot menu, you can configure config.plist to hide it.

I have no idea why clearing CMOS or upgrading/downgrading BIOS doesn't clear your NVRAM. To me, that seems like a problem not related to Clover.

so you are saying its normal that all installations have preboot, install preboot from preboot, OS X, and recovery partition in the clover boot menu even though the APFS lists only preboot, OS X, and recovery?

and I am not legacy booting at this point, and as far as I know was not legacy booting el cap either, I think its leftovers from a previous install on the el cap drive and it was migrated with migration assistant from el cap to mojave.

I have been booting both with UEFI and so I just went into the Mojave volume and deleted all the clover installed files that are put on the drive during a legacy install

the standard line on the boards is that to un-install clover you just drag EFI to trash.. but that is incorrect

if you look at the clover package with pacifist its installing other things on the boot volume in the /usr and elsewhere on the drive... /etc for rc.scripts etc.. so its more involved to wipe it than just dragging EFI to the trash

also, if a drive was legacy booted and a MBR PBR written with fdisk440 or whatever... that likely needs to be wiped clean somehow if UEFI booting so as to not confuse things...

 

[pastrychef]

so you are saying its normal that all installations have preboot, install preboot from preboot, OS X, and recovery partition in the clover boot menu even though the APFS lists only preboot, OS X, and recovery?

and I am not legacy booting at this point, and as far as I know was not legacy booting el cap either, I think its leftovers from a previous install on the el cap drive and it was migrated with migration assistant from el cap to mojave.

I have been booting both with UEFI and so I just went into the Mojave volume and deleted all the clover installed files that are put on the drive during a legacy install

the standard line on the boards is that to un-install clover you just drag EFI to trash.. but that is incorrect

if you look at the clover package with pacifist its installing other things on the boot volume in the /usr and elsewhere on the drive... /etc for rc.scripts etc.. so its more involved to wipe it than just dragging EFI to the trash

also, if a drive was legacy booted and a MBR PBR written with fdisk440 or whatever... that likely needs to be wiped clean somehow if UEFI booting so as to not confuse things...

Yes, the Preboot thing is normal.

The stuff installed on your boot volume are:

• /Library/Preferences/com.projectosx.clover.intaller.plist
• /Library/Receipts/, a bunch of files with names starting with "org.clover.". The actual number of files depend on the number of files you actually had the Clover installer install.
• /usr/local/bin/bdmesg, clover-genconfig, espfinder, partutil

I don't know what gets installed on legacy installs.

 

[jaymonkey]

the 'Mac OS X' header/drive group/ whatever it is was not there before using the latest clover and doing the 10.14.6 update.

its not in clovers boot loader list, its not in the bios drive list (just the one time boot menu), its not in the UEFI BCFG dump.. its nowhere to be found

prove me wrong

@dragonmel,

Check to see if you have a hidden volume with that name that is being picked up by your BIOS/UEFI
In Terminal execute the following command :-

diskutil list

Cheers
Jay

 

[dragonmel]

@dragonmel,

Check to see if you have a hidden volume with that name that is being picked up by your BIOS/UEFI
In Terminal execute the following command :-

diskutil list

Cheers
Jay

nope.. as I said.. diskutil list, and diskutil apfs list are normal just showing preboot, Mojave, Recovery partitions

the motherboards boot drive selection menu only knows and cares about physical devices...

when going into bios, there is only one drive available in the list, and again, booting without a drive .. the 'Mac OS X' descriptor is still there .. but only in the F10 one time boot menu..

so clover isn't putting it there on boot.. its in the NVRAM, or firmware of my board at this point

and I have never installed or called a volume Mac OS X on this board...

so during that 10.14.6 update, with the latest aptiomemfix allowing OS X to write to my NVRAM, it was able to inject something in there that I can't see or delete.

 

[dragonmel]

Yes, the Preboot thing is normal.

The stuff installed on your boot volume are:

• /Library/Preferences/com.projectosx.clover.intaller.plist
• /Library/Receipts/, a bunch of files with names starting with "org.clover.". The actual number of files depend on the number of files you actually had the Clover installer install.
• /usr/local/bin/bdmesg, clover-genconfig, espfinder, partutil

I don't know what gets installed on legacy installs.

ok.. and I am saying that I have 2 preboot in my clover list, not 1

and the install was done UEFI only... but on this board I have to use an install thumb drive that was made as legacy boot.. supposedly a quirk of the DX58so no being able to boot unibeast in UEFI mode properly..