Asus 1008HA with Snow Leopard Fresh Installation (Updated)

[ikeny]

(Updated Jan 2010)

The following procedures was used to perform a fresh installation of SL on my 1008HA.
What you'll need:
- SL Install DVD
- a working Mac with DVD (it could be your 1008HA with external USB DVD drive)
- an external HDD drive large enough to temporarily have SL installed and running (~10 GB or larger)
- USB thumb drive > 8GB

In the end of the installation process, what worked, what didn't?

Didn't: ethernet (but USB ethernet can be used)

Worked: variable fan, CPU speedstepper, battery meter, wifi (with Dell card), bluetooth, quick sleep and wake (Fn+F5/F6 to bring up backlight), proper screen resolution and brightness adjustment, touchpad with 2-finger scrolling, working speaker, headphone and built-in mic, fast boot up time (within a minute), restart without forced power-down, ...


A. Create a installation dmg image

1. Since the 1008HA does not have DVD drive, you need to use another Mac to create a dmg image of the installation DVD.
2. Open up Disk Utility, highlight the DVD partition, and select new image. Create a Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg image on the desktop.
3. Use an external drive to move the file over to your 1008HA

B. Install SL to your external HDD

(One may ask, why didn't you just install SL directly to your internal HDD. I tried restoring the DVD image to a thumb drive and using 'NetbookBOOTInstaller' to make a bootable, but the installation ended up with errors: Disk Utility does not work in repairing disk permission)

1. Go to a working Mac or Hackintosh
2. Connect the external HDD, use Disk Utility to format it to Mac Journaled (one partition, GUID)
3. Mount the Snow Leopard dvd dmg, or put the dvd in your drive if you have one
4. Use 'Go to Folder' under the 'Go' menu, navigate to System/Installation/Packages
5. Double click 'OSInstall.mpkg' to run it.
6. Install SL to this external HDD
7. Download Netbookbootmaker from here (I used ver. 0.8.3RC4) http://code.google.com/p/netbook-installer/downloads/list
8. Run Netbookbootmaker. MAKE SURE you direct it to the external drive. When complete, you can disconnect your external HDD.
9. Restore the DVD image to a (> 10 GB) USB stick (no need to run netbookbootmaker).

C. Boot 1008HA with external HDD, and SL installation to internal HDD
1. Restart, hit F2 to enter Bios. Under Boot, and Hard Drive, select the external HDD as the first device to boot from.
2. At the Welcome screen, setup an account (skip all registration and Mobile Me sign up).
3. Now use disk utility to wipe the internal drive. Use the partition option (create new single partition) rather than format.
4. Plug in the USB drive with SL installation files. Go to System/Installation/Packages, execute OSInstall.mpkg (installing to the internal drive this time)
5. Run NetbookInstaller this time (I used ver. 0.8.3RC4) (download it, or copy it over from another computer). Select the internal drive, and check only the first 2 options. (It did take a few minutes to complete).
6. Reboot into the internal HDD finally, and you should have a fresh installation of SL.

D. Booting into SL from internal HDD and setting up
1. Followed the Welcome/Setup screens and set up SL.
2. In my case, I have a Dell WLAN card, so wifi works natively. The Apple USB ethernet adapter (designed for Macbook Air) also works natively.
3. Run 10.6.1 update from here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL930
Then install other software updates: iTunes, Remote desktop client update, but uncheck the update to 10.6.2 (it will disable your bluetooth). All other updates are OK to install. As of this point, there is no solution to working bluetooth with 10.6.2 (the only option is to buy the external USB bluetooth, like the Kensington mini adapter) If you need internal BT, stay with 10.6.1.
4. Even with 10.6.0, or 10.6.1, I noticed that BT does occasionally disappear after restart. The solution is just to restart, without having to do anything else. It'll come back. Strange, but works.
5. To get CPU speedstepping, I added VoodooPowermini.kext (google for it) in the /Extra/GeneralExtensions folder. Run UpdateExtra before restart.
6. Set up audio (speaker + mic)
- download VoodooHDA.zip from this forum (you need to sign up as member)
http://www.s10lenovo.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3211&start=20#p22215
- unzip the file, install the kext file with b7kexthelper (google for it)
- don't restart yet, Repair permission with Disk Utility, run UpdateExtra, then restart.
- Install the pref file by double clicking it, agree and install for all users
- go to the VoodooHDA pref panel, select "2.Microphone" and slide the cursor to middle for 'Recording level'
- go to the Sound pref panel, under input, check to see that you mic is working.

E. Improved Trackpad Driver
1. Download from SL_PS2_Voodoo.zip and unzip it
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index. ... pic=175372
2. Add these 2 kexts to /Extra/GeneralExtentions
AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext (replaces existing AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext)
VoodooPS2Controller.kext
3. Remove ApplePS2Controller.kext in /Extra/GeneralExtensions
4. Run UpdateExtra and restart
5. Double click VoodooPS2.prefPane to install (for all users)
6. Go to /Library/PreferencePane, delete Synaptics Trackpad.prefPane
7. Repair permission (just in case) and restart.

F. Fix for screen backlight after sleep
1. Google for CHUD, install it (I used version 4.6.2). It took some 5 minutes to finish, be patient. (Restart)
2. Google for SleepWatcher, download ver. 2.0.5
3. Mount the sleepwatcher.dmg, run both installers, sleepwatcher and its startupitem
4. Google for EEEboot, download veer 1.11, mount the .iso file.
Then mount the EEE-Utilitles.dmg within the iso file.
Go to /Fixes/Dimming control wakeup and Ethernet
Run "Set Up Wake (run only once)", enter your password in the Terminal window that popped up.
5. Now you can unmount everything to clean up your desktop.
6. Create the last_brightness file
in terminal, type:
sudo touch /etc/last_brightness
sudo chmod a+w /etc/last_brightness

[stimpmania]

Hey ikeny, thanks a lot for that great tutorial. Worked perfectly for me, although I didn't have Leopard on my 1008HA before installation.

One question: Did you change anything to the BIOS of your 1008? I deactivated Hyper Threading but don't know if thats really needed. My BIOS version is 0602.

Thanks, stimpmania

[dizzuncan]

I've got a 1005ha (basically the same computer, but slightly bigger) and I've installed snow leopard to the External drive. The install ended with an error message, but it still booted fine with chameleon 2 rc3, after installing netbook installer. So far, i've had more luck with this guide than the other guides around for doing the same thing. I'll let you know how it ends! thanks a lot for this excellent guide. I never would have searched a lenovo forum for it lol.

[dizzuncan]

Okay for some reason, I was unable to open up disk utility, in snow leopard, from the external hard drive. So I decided to partition the interior drive using disk utility from an iDeneb disk. But for some reason, that caused the external drive to refuse to boot... help plz? any idea why I couldn't open up disk utility while running SL from the external drive?

[dizzuncan]

also, I can't get "Netbookinstaller" to run in snow leopard without crashing. any ideas there?

[dizzuncan]

Okay everything is up and running. working absolutely great. thanks so much for the guide. What i did, since disk utility wouldn't run in SL, and neither would netbook installer, is I installed ideneb to the external, and installed snow leopard to the internal via ideneb. snow leopard works far better than ideneb did. So happy I got it to work. Thanks again for the guide.

[ikeny]

Instructions to fix screen backlight after sleep now added. See first post (part F.)

To stimpmania - No changes in BIOS, I am still using 0801. I disable hyperthreading for the installation, and re-enabled it after.

To dizzuncan - 1005's BIOS does not allow you to disable CPU hyper threading like the 1008. In the past, there's been a problem with Leopard installation. Those with 1005 could only get it to work with iDeneb, not the vanilla approach with retail DVDs. I don't know how much that has changed with Snow Leopard, and I don't own a 1005 to test it. So everything posted here only supposed to be for the 1008 only.

[apple]

Hey Ikeny, thanks for posting such an informative tutorial. I had great success installing SL following your instructions. Now that I have used the netbook for a few days, I did noticed a couple things I am wondering if you've also experienced.
1) Webcam only works in PhotoBooth, not iChat.
2) CD/DVD remote disc doesn't seem to work.
3) Battery life only lasted about 4 hours. Any way to check if ASUS Super Hybrid Engine is working?
4) What's the best way to install iWeb & iPhoto w/o USB CD ROM or remote disc?

[ikeny]

To apple -
1. Same here. It works with Skype though.
2. Never try that. I have external DVD drive.
3. My battery life is about 4 hours too. No Asus SHE because that's for Windows only.
4. Use another computer with drive to rip the disk into .iso or .dmg. Transfer over with thumb drive, mount the iso or dmg and run installer.

[ikeny]

Quick note about 10.6.2 update:

I tried the two methods currently available:
- patched 10.6.2 mach_kernel
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3569&start=10#p24937

- netbookInstaller 0.8.3 (RC 4) with vanilla 10.6.2
http://www.meklort.com/?p=111

Both were successful, but bluetooth was lost. Nothing is recognized in System Profiler.
I will update when I find out more.