Catalina Kext location and issues

[foster]

I am going to recommend that kexts that are needed to make our systems fully function in macOS Mojave or Catalina be places in the EFI partition only

We place all kexts in EFI Partition/EFI/CLOVER/kexts/other and no longer place them in /System/Library/Extensions - apple can overwrite them or in /Library/Extensions - where hardware that is compatible with real Macs kexts are installed

If Mojave wont use a newer kext then working kext be in 10.14 and the newer one in 10.15.
I dont have this issue Mojave no longer exists on my system.

Another advantage we do not need to worry about file ownership or permissions. The EFI partition is a MSDOS FAT partition which only has about 8 flags that chmod can set (one byte) and no ownership settings at all.
Also adding a kext is easy as using finder to place it in the correct directory on EFI partition, restart and it loads
no need for kext beast or hacintool etc to install the kext

Yes this might mean it takes a few extra seconds for a system to boot. when its booting normally, grab a drink or whatever

If you decide to still use /Library/Extensions for your system specific kext's do not place them in EFI Partition as well
Duplicates in EFI kext folder and /S/L/E or /L/E has to tendency to break that kext or cause Kernel Panics
Keep FakeSMC in EFI partition that way installers and recovery can load it.

 

[astrobruin]

I like the suggestion, and am curious if there are any downsides other than slower boot times? It certainly would seem to simply things a lot.

Here's a related/example problem I'm having: I had a working version of Catalina, but installed a newer networking kext AppleIntell1000e.kext (something like that). Now it won't boot; the kext causes a panic. With Mojave, I could boot from a different working disc, use Multibeast to install the kext to the Catalina drive, and repair that Catalina drive with KextWizard. Tried that, didn't work. I didn't realize Catalina required a bunch of extra steps to install kexts.

Can't figure out how to fix the problem (I can't even repair permissions to the Catalina drive - it's greyed out as an option in KextWizard). I may need to just wipe the disk and reinstall.

But presumably this all could have been avoided if I had just kept the kext in the EFI/Clover/kexts/other folder, no?

 

[Jevens]

Some kext do not work in efi partition. Like my custom powerplay table kext for Radeon vii it must be placed in L/E for proper function. It is recommended to place all kexts in L/E. Did anything have changed in Catalina?

 

[foster]

I am going by my experience which I also found a woman on youtube that has built many Hacks
including on latest AMD CPU
her guide details placing kext's in efi folder even for Mojave

I think the main reason to do it is for when you run more than one major release of macOS on a hack you are not having to duplicate kexts into each /Library/Extensions. If latest versions of the kexts work for all versions of macOS you use.

Plus I like the idea I don't have to use kext tool, or extra terminal commands to make the kexts work

There are exceptions as you pointed out.

I have built 2 hack's, I am also slot machine owner and have electronics knowledge

 

[quietman]

Point taken but will work for 32bit or 64bit kext as Catalina is all about 64bit!