Installing Kexts
You should install all kexts you need (including FakeSMC, VoodooPS2Controller, etc) to /Library/Extensions (/L/E) or /System/Library/Extensions (/S/L/E) for 10.10.x and prior using a kext installer or Terminal. Think carefully about "kexts you need". For example, if you needed HPRAIDInjector.kext for a SATA chip locked in RAID mode, you'll need to install it in order to boot (without it, the system would be unable to mount root and would get stuck early in the boot process).
Of course, essential kexts should be installed to EFI/Clover/kexts/Other as they are needed to boot the installer (during updates) or the recovery partition.
It is a mistake to install everything to Clover/kexts. Contrary to popular hackintosh myth, it does not result in a cleaner install (the opposite is true). Many kexts will not work from Clover/kexts, so installing them to /S/L/E where they can be included in kernel cache is the best approach.
People often ask me why I install kexts to /S/L/E (or /L/E on 10.11).
I have many reasons:
- placing them in /S/L/E (or /L/E on 10.11+) and including in kernel cache, makes kextcache do a lot of error checking.
- if you develop kexts, error checking is very important!
- some kexts don't work from Clover/kexts (AppleHDA injector, CodecCommander, BrcmFirmware*)
- the idea behind Clover/kexts is to have a set of *stable* and *minimalistic* kexts that will allow booting of the installer/recovery, not full functionality
- so...the kexts there I tend to not update as often and the full set is not there (less unneeded kexts, less problems)
- placing kexts into kernel cache for day-to-day use is "more native" (as it would be on a real Mac) vs. injection (which is very non-Mac)
IMO, placing kexts in Clover/kexts for injection when not needed is like "flying blind." I don't know about you, but I would not board a plane with a blind pilot (no offense to the blind).
You might be wondering if this will result in duplicate kexts being loaded due to the kexts in EFI/Clover/kexts being injected when they are also installed to the system volume. The answer is no, not generally. With config.plist/SystemParameters/InjectKexts="Detect", kexts in EFI/Clover/kexts are not injected when FakeSMC.kext is in kernel cache. Because FakeSMC.kext is always a "kext you need", you will always install it to the system volume, which will put it in kernel cache. Kernel cache, of course, will not have FakeSMC.kext when booting the installer or recovery, so in these cases the kexts in EFI/Clover/kexts *will* be injected as you would expect.
