Full Remix Install Guide for Mac OS X

[Kai Cherry]

Attached is a PDF outlining what I did to get a full install of Remix on a USB drive. Not hard, but not for the meek. YMMV. I ran thru this a few times and did not manage to destroy any drives...but you aren't me. You mess up, it's on you. Be careful. if something isn't clear, stop, post your question here, etc.

GL/GB/HF,

-K

[sai...@gmail.com]

Yeah, thanks for the sharing.. I ran it great on my Macbook Pro Retina Mid 2015 now..

Appreciate..

[arju...@gmail.com]

Ext4 Matter dead link

[Gabor wraight]

Very nice. I took the whole thing a level further and am tripple booting my mac now.

Mac OS, Windows 10 and Remix OS.

I followed this guid: http://www.travisllado.com/2015/05/triple-booting-2015-macbook-pro-with.html

Instead of Ubuntu just install Remix OS using resident mode and add INSTALL=1 and then boot.

Formatted the drive ext4 with the remix installer.

Sweet stuff!

[Marcio Granzotto Rodrigues]

I'm stuck on "Do you want to install boot loader GRUB?". I've chose Yes but nothing happens

[Kai Cherry]

I attached it here. Let's see.

-K

On Monday, January 18, 2016 at 11:49:49 AM UTC-8, emilio...@gmail.com wrote:

i'm stuck at that part with the linux ext4matter because the link is not working.

[jarret...@gmail.com]

Linux EXT4Matter stops, showing only "Unmount of all volumes on disk2 was successful" under details drop-down and goes no further. Above progress bar says "Drag files to process". I'm running a macbook air mid 2011 with OSX 10.9.5.

[Kai Cherry]

Ok, let me boot back into Mac OS and have a look at why that would be

-K

[Kai Cherry]

Attached is the Linux Ext4 Formatter, fixed. Sorry about that...

MD5 (/Users/kaicherry/Documents/LinuxEXT4Matter-fixed.zip) = 4bd7c19e927ab80707db1bf60f20319f

[jarret...@gmail.com]

Thanks, though still does not let me get past: "Unmount of all volumes on disk2 was successful". Now shows "/dev/disk2s2" before this message.

Looking for alt way to format. Does ext3 work?

[Kai Cherry]

yeah i've tested this repeatedly on GUID-formatted usb drives and can't replicate. Make sure you are using the one I made today and quit Disk Utility before you do:

[jarret...@gmail.com]

Copy will try quitting disk utility first. Could have been the issue. No problems with typing the = sign BTW, just haven't been able to get an ext4 drive to show up in virtualbox.

[Kai Cherry]

When the installer starts, the drive won't be visible until you do Detect Devices. The device also needs to be captured by VirtualBox (click the USB icon and make sure there is a checkmark next to the device you want to use)

[jarret...@gmail.com]

Running your EXT4Matter after closing the disk utility still didn't work for me. Same result as above. I could see the drives in virtualbox, but they were both vfat, neither was ext4. 

I then tried using ExtFS (free 10day trial), to format the USB as EXT4. After some trial and error I found that if I selected format as EXT4 in Disk Utility (ExtFS adds this functionality), it says the drive is EXT3 when it's done, but if I run your EXT4Matter afterwards and then run virtualbox... it sees it as EXT4. So I gave it a shot. Only other hiccup was after selecting the EXT4 partition, it asked me a question about formatting file types... I hit cancel, and it then proceeded to ask me about GRUB, etc per your instructions. It's installing now in virtualbox. Will update with results.

[Peter Smith]

Kai,

I followed your guide but I am stuck I am only getting the fat partition for my USB stick ( 32Gb Lexar 3.0) 

Here is a copy of my Macbook Pro Specs attached.

Anyway I can get the EXT4 Partition created od do I have to do it manually if so what code would I have to type in Terminal using diskutil list I get the following for my USB stick.

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:                            REMIX                  *32.0 GB    disk2

Peters-MacBook-Pro:~ lilsmith$ 

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated I've got this far with your guide I just don't want to give up now.

Thanks

Pete Smith

[lucky13820]

When I drag my drive on the formatter, it asks me for my password. Once I typed my password, there is nothing happening, it just shows drag files to process.

[Kai Cherry]

Ok:

1. Do NOT run EX4Formatter. Drag drive icon from finder desktop to app. It will launch.

2. Before you do this, format your usb device as I described. Do NOT use "Master Boot Record". This will not make a (hidden) EFI boot partition.

Again - Just drag/drop your drive's icon onto EXT4Matter. No tricks. There are none :)

-K

[arju...@gmail.com]

won't proceed ahead :(

[jarret...@gmail.com]

It works! Couple items to note. The screen on the virtualbox goes black for me after a while (~75% complete install) but you can see the disc and USB indicators at the bottom of the window are still working. Mistook black screen as it as being done the first time and shut down early. Let the indicators stop working before shutting down virtualbox the second time. Also on the second go around I paid a little more attention to the formatting question after selecting the ext4 partition. It asked how I wanted to format sda2 (ext4 partition). This time I said ext4.

This plus letting the install go for a while after the screen going black worked. Also, had to use the ExtFS app to format the partition to ext4 before running ext4matter app as mentioned in my post above. Otherwise it just stopped. I'm not an expert in such things, this us just what worked for me.

Im using a 64GB usb3 thumb drive in a USB 2 port. Full memory available, and fairly quick (sometimes hangs a bit whenever accessing the internet). Resident mode remembers all changes saved etc. Google play works with XDA link installer.

[Kai Cherry]

Screen cap attached. Best I can do :)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9EZsr1ZCZtwR0pMUUNaYkhtZDA/view?usp=sharing

[jarret...@gmail.com]

Sorry to be clear, when I said "run" ex4matter I was dragging and dropping the drive onto the app. Only way it worked for me was to format the partition to ext4 before dragging the drive onto the app.

[Kai Cherry]

You're doing it wrong, guy. It will not boot the installer unless you do INSTALL=1 as a kernel flag.

[Kai Cherry]

emilio...is your keyboard a QWERY keyboard? Just curious...

-K

[itanner...@gmail.com]

Hey, great guide!

I can't get my mac to boot into the USB drive after the installation finishes though. I feel like I'm missing something. Installation finishes, I quit VirtualBox, and restart my machine (without unmounting the USB or anything). It doesn't show up in the default bootloader or rEFInd. What am I doing wrong?

[Kai Cherry]

In my testing, I found this to be the case when:

1. There is no EFI volume (USB was not formatted with GUID Partition scheme so no hidden EFI volume is created)

2. There is an EFI volume, but during installation:

- GRUB/GRUB2 EFI install option, NO was picked instead of YES

- NO was picked instead of YES for the "Format Boot Drive" option

You can manually check this yourself in the terminal via diskutil list. When you plug in your USB that you installed on, there should be two volumes, one marked as EFI type named EFI. If it is there, mount it in the Finder like this: diskutil mount diskXs1 where X is the disk number. See what files are there.

-K

[lucky13820]

My bad, somehow I thought this is for install Remix on a internal hard drive. I was dragging the internal hard drive partition on to the formatter. 

[Kai Cherry]

In theory, you could do this, however the ext4 formatted in the installer is said not to work.

If you wanted to install to your internal and wipe Mac OX Ten, or if you had a Partition/volume you could install to that.

My formatter wasn't made to work on a partition on the the boot drive or the boot drive itself tho it could be made to

[Dan]

I was having issues with the LinuxEXT4Matter, so I just used the terminal, and I think it worked okay.  Maybe you can tell me if it seems right.

sudo ~/Desktop/LinuxEXT4Matter.app/Contents/Resources/mke2fs -t ext4 -L REMIXOS -F /path/to/volume

I got it to show up in the boot menu, and I can tell it to start Remix OS, but then it gets stuck on the black screen and cursor after displaying "A N D R O I D."  Do I need to edit the flags before running it from the USB?  If so what should they be?

Also, I'm using a very large USB, so I'm currently only using a partition of it for Remix OS.  I hope that will not cause any problems.

[Kai Cherry]

Dan, it depends on your Mac. if it stops for you at ANDROID_ you probably need boot flags for your GPU. If it has 2 GPUs, you'll need to do like i915.modeset=0 and then nouveua.modeset=1 for an nVidia or (I believe) radeon.modeset=1 if your other gpu is an ATi model. if you just have one and it is either an nVida or ATi, use the appropriate flag and skip the i915 one.

This gets most people past the stuck ANDROID_

-K

[itanner...@gmail.com]

I followed this guide to the letter and your other guide as well, yes for each option during installation and there is an EFI partition. Hmmm

[danny...@gmail.com]

My iMac(17,1) has a Radeon R9.  I tried adding the boot flag, but I'm not sure I put it in the right place or whether anything else is missing.  Would you mind telling me what it should look like?  This is what it defaults as:

setparams 'Remix OS 2016-01-12'

search --set=root --file /android-2016-01-12/kernel

linuxefi /android-2016-01-12/kernel quiet root=dev/ram0 android boot.hardware=remix_x86_64 androidboot.selinux=permissive DATA=

initrdefi /android-2016-01-12/initrd.img

Do I need something after  DATA= perhaps?

And where would radeon.modeset=1 go?

Thanks for all the help, this is a bit of a learning experience for me:)

[arju...@gmail.com]

Can Someone please give the exact commands, of what to type in the terminal!?

It just won't work for me :(

[davide...@gmail.com]

I've noticed that the guide isn't working if you use a partitioned usb stick, when I drag the partition to the app it simply open doing nothing, am I mistaking something? :( Thanks in advance for the work though!

[arju...@gmail.com]

No need to go through all this trouble for a macbook pro retina 13 2015 user.
Create a windows machine in VM/boot into windows
Download efi version
Use the tool with efi version
And it finally creates a bootable drive!
The legacy iso is specifically not supported on the Mac, no idea how it booted for others.

[arju...@gmail.com]

I managed to dual boot it, but after setup screen, nothing loads up in resident mode. Only the mouse cursor is visible.

Where do I need to type in the boot flags, if any and what are they??

[Kai Cherry]

arju - the purpose of this is not to make a "bootable drive"...it is to do a full install of Remix OS. Without running the installer, the most space anyone is going to get on a FAT32 flash drive is 4Gb.

Additionally, the ISO version actually works on many macs, just not the most recent ones.

-K

[arju...@gmail.com]

I've installed it on my macbook pro retina 13 2015.

Just extracted the EFI ISO, and managed to boot it up. For the limited storage size, I'll try and figure out something

At least for the rMBP 2015, its good news, cause earlier it wouldn't even boot!

No matter what I Did it wouldn't boot up for me.

[Davide Ziliani]

Has anybody installed successfully Remix OS on the Mac HDD with dual booth ?

If yes could you please post a detailed procedure with printscreens ?

[Gabor wraight]

I am tripple booting my macbook pro 15" mid 2015(force touch, UEFI) now.

Mac OS, Windows 10 and Remix OS.

I followed this guide: http://www.travisllado.com/2015/05/triple-booting-2015-macbook-pro-with.html

Instead of Ubuntu just install Remix OS using resident mode and add INSTALL=1 and then boot.

Formatted the drive ext4 with the remix installer.

[Gabor wraight]

[airwa...@gmail.com]

I just made the USB installer then copied everything over to a 8GB partition. Booted to the USB where it first says can't find press any key to continue. Dont press anything and just remove the USB stick. Then press any key. It will auto boot to the partition instead.