Tag Archives: leopard

[MacOS] Apple recommends using Virus Scanners

Apple has released a technical note recommending the use of Mac antivirus software. For the first time Apple admits that Macs need protection like other operating systems aswell. Apple recommends three Anti Virus solutions:

The open source virus scanner ClamXav is not mentioned. Besides the major players Symantec and McAfee we can hope that Kaspersky also ports a version of their Anti Virus software soon. Or as Apple says:

“Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult.”

[MacOS] Switcher’s Hints 1001: Most Helpful Shortcuts

Mac OS is much more depending on mouse commands than Microsoft Windows. Anyway there are some shortcuts that make your switcher’s lives easier.

Key
Meaning
Cmd-Tab change between programs (not between windows)
Fn-F9 thumbnail overview of all windows
Alt-Cmd-Esc kill programs instantly
Shift-Cmd-3 screenshot of whole screen (saves on desktop)
Shift-Cmd-4 select part of the screen for screenshot (saves on desktop)
Shift-Cmd-4 + Space select active window for screenshot (saves on desktop)
Esc (in textfields) auto complete
Cmd-PageDown execute program/open subfolder (like return-key in MS-Windows)
Alt-Eject instantly eject CD/DVD
Alt-Cmd-Eject instantly go to sleep mode

Cmd-Key = Apple-Key

[MacOS] Switcher’s Hints 1001: Change the Dock to 2D

You don’t like the Dock in 3D? You like it in 2D but sadly this is available only if you put the Dock to the left or the right side of the screen? There is a simply command that can help you :-)

Changing the Dock to 2D

Just open a terminal and do the following:

  • myUser$ defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
  • myUser$ killall Dock

Et voilà, it looks like this:

Changing the Dock back to 3D

In case you want to change it back to 3D for whatever reason, do this:

  • myUser$ defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO
  • myUser$ killall Dock

And it looks again like default:

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[MacOS] MacOS X Leopard Update 10.5.5

Finally Apple released update 10.5.5 yesterday. Features of 10.5.5 include Apple’s recent security updates, Addressbook bugfixes and lots of other fixes (read all details here). To sum things up: Apple recommends to apply this update as soon as possible. And yes we will obey.

All genuine Mac users can safely update. There are no reports about problems. You may do so using the Software Update App.

OSX86 user may wait some days, we are just examining the steps. Most likely best thing is to download the Combo Update from here and use our instructions here. People report broken audio drivers on ALC883 chipsets (AppleHDA patcher solved this). We’ll get back to you once we checked out all the details.

[MacOS] VMWare Fusion 2.0 beta to include McAfee Antivirus

VMWare has released VMWare Fusion 2.0 beta for MacOS X. Fusion will integrate McAfee Antivirus solution with an upgrade and update plan for 12 months. Moreover Fusion 2.0 will be available as a free update for Fusion 1.0 customers.

Further features:

  • Application sharing: link filetypes from MacOS X to run a specific Windows program (on your guest) and vice versa, link filetypes within your virtual machine to run a specific MacOS program (on your host)
  • McAfee VirusScan Plus Subscription for 12 months
  • Language Support: Exptended Spanish and Italian Language support
  • Folder Mirroring: Link your documents, pictures etc. folders from within your Windows VM to your host’s documents, pictures folder.
  • Automattic Snapshots for further protection against viruses
  • Keyboard and Mouse shortcut mapping: link special Windows commands like “insert” “print screen”  to unused F-Keys like “F13″, F14” and so on
  • Improved DirectX integration thru hardware accelerated 3D graphics: even running 720p or 1080p videos smoother

Downloading the beta version as demo requires registration on VMWare site (go here). A free beta serial key is provided aswell.

See official VMWare trailer here:

[iPhone] QuickPwn 1.0 for MacOS X released

Our fellow iPhone Dev Team yesterday finally released QuickPwn for MacOS X. Sadly the Dev Team in the first place only provided a .torrent link (get torrent here) for distribution. We will come up with further details soon. For now: there are no reports about bugs about this version for Mac ,yet. Use “Archive Utility” to unpack, otherwise permission may be screwed up. Thumbs up for the Dev Team.

SHA1 sum: QuickPwn_1.0.0.tbz (via torrent) = 22ee0d6814a6bac9b1b9a8c7715dd714bd6bb449

[Update] Download QuickPwn 1.0 for Mac from these mirror locations now: RapidShare and iPhone-Hacks.com.

[MacOS] Solutions to Issues with Leopard Graphics Update 10.5.2

I got to know this issue for the first time when I installed a clean Leopard 10.5.1 to my HackMac and then upgraded like Netkas recommends. Since I remembered the old Tiger times and my bunch of problems with my x1650 ATI (read some hints for the ATI x1650 here), I decided to reinstall the system from the peek without applying the Graphics Update. And this way it works. The only thing that may happen: as long as you do not install the Graphics Update, further updates may not be shown in the update manager.

Because all that hazzle with the x1650 graphics I had, I decided to get a new card (ATI Radeon 2600HD XT – read how to install it).

Last week I decided to update my MacBook Pro aswell – which was still running on Tiger. See the way I did it here. Ad the funny thing in the end was… Ok I upgraded to 10.5.2, did the reboot thing and did the Graphics Update and… tatatata….

Description of the Issue

My MBP did not show me any login screen anymore. Instead I got a fixed mouse pointer in the upper left and a second mouse pointer that could be moved. But no windows or login possibilities. Before reading on what I did, please do me the favor and tell me:

Where do you come from?

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Solving this damn issue manually

I can’t exactly say what those Apple Devs thought by themselves when releasing this Graphics Update but the internet is full of articles where people tell this update f*cked their systems. Ok lets try some things…

  1. turn off your system
  2. turn on and hold the following keys to reset PRAM: "command","option", "P" and "R" (means 'Apple-Key' and 'Alt-Key' and 'p' and 'r')
  3. your system will do the well known startup “boom” sound again and reset itself.
  4. hold the keys until you heard the “boom” sound three times
  5. let the system try to boot
  6. if everything is fine now: open your windows and shout “Thank you Alexander”
  7. if booting still fails shout whatever you feel like
  8. then do the following:
  9. in case you don’t have a second partition with the full installation of Leopard on it, you can now ask yourself why you did not read this article before. Instead get your Leopard DVD at hand and reboot your system holding the “ALT” key and choose to boot from DVD. Those of you who yet have a second partition and followed the guide mentioned above do the same but choose the second partition to boot.
  10. click thru all the messy questions and
  11. start the “Disk Utility” then
  12. choose your harddrive where the screwed Leopard install is on
  13. and click “Repair Disk Permissions
  14. wait forever for this task to complete (in my case it took about 25 minutes, I first thought it hangs but it did not…)
  15. reboot your system
  16. you should be done now

Additional notes:

The steps I performed above are intended to be applied to a system with genuine Apple hardware. This will not work on HackMac systems!!!

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[MacOS] Install Leopard from .dmg Image to your System

“and first for something complete different”: Muzaq… coding or administrating system can’t do without gooood muzaq. Check our latest tunes here :-)

This time we’re gonna install Leopard from a .dmg image instead from DVD. The purpose is having a repair and recovery system by the hand in case you need it. My story is this: after having had a clean install of Leopard finished and having had applied all the updates, my MBP simply crashed again and again (two mouse pointers error – I found a solution in the meantime: that bug belongs to the Leopard Graphics Update – read it here howto fix it), since at that point I could not fix it, I then decided to reinstall. Something seemed fishy and would hopefully be gone after another fresh install. But as you expect: the same problem occurred again. I then decided to restore my previous tiger install and installed the Leopard DVD to a second partition. This way nothing can stop me, whereever I am, whatever does not work…

Ok what to do now?

I assume

  • You don’t have a bootcamp partition installed
  • means your harddrive is single partitioned
  • You got Tiger installed
  • You know the size of your harddrive (you can also find out in “Disk Utility”)

Now, let the game begin…

    1. Insert Leopard installation DVD into your drive
    2. Start “Disk Utility” to make a .dmg image of your installation DVD (see picture)
    3. click the Mac OS X Install DVD (highlight it) and choose New Image

 

beforedmg

  1. Choose Read as type of image and name it Mac OS X Install DVD(see picture)

    makedmg

  2. Wait forever (15-20minutes)
  3. Close Diskutility and
  4. Open terminal and enter:
    sudo diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 139G "HFS+" "LeoInst" 10G
    (in this example the total harddrive size is 149GB = “139G + 10G”)
  5. This command resizes the first partition to 139GB and generates a second partition formated in “HFS+” with size of 10GB. The name of the second partition will be LeoInst (disk0s1 is in this case the EFI partition – see here, what makes the EFI partition so interesting, system partition starts at disk0s2 – that’s the partition we’re gonna resize and split into disk0s2 and disk0s3)
  6. After having executed this command successfully you need to reboot
  7. After reboot open “Disk Utility” again
  8. You should now see two partitition on your harddrive (see picture)

    LeoInst

  9. Click on the second partition named “LeoInst”
  10. Click “Restore”
  11. As Source choose your Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg image (should be located on the desktop!)
  12. As destination drag and drop the second partition called “LeoInst”
  13. click “Restore”
  14. Wait about forever to have the DVD copied to your drive (again 15-20mins)

    diskutil01

  15. Close Disk Utility
  16. Go to “System Preferences” and choose “Startup Disk”
  17. Choose your Mac OS X Install DVD (which is in fact now a partition) as start volume
  18. reboot system and install Leopard

Additional notes

These instructions are intended to be applied to genuine Apple systems rather than HackMacs. In my case I used my MacBook Pro. Because of the different .kexts to be applied to HackMacs this guide will not work for those systems! Be warned!

[MacOS] Update to MacOS X 10.5.2 fails – One solution here

english

So guys as written here on “Incomplete-News” there have been several cases in which the way Netkas described did not work and the system crashed after reboot again and again. To get into more detail: after having done all the steps Netkas described here your system hangs and it doesn’t matter what you do it won’t boot. Before showing a possible solution please do me the favor and tell me:

Where do you come from?

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Reason is: during update it obviously (sometimes) removes the dsmos.kext but Leopard running with vanilla stock kernel and PC EFI on whiteboxes requires dsmos.kext in order to boot into GUI. Precisely: the “dsmos.kext” is required for decoding of Apple Protected binaries inside the GUI.

What to try:
1. See if dsmos.kext / R3D3 is still there where it should be

  • boot into single user mode – means: on the darwin bootscreen press any key and set the option “-s”
  • examine if the dsmos.kext is still there (this depends on the installation you used: sometimes also R3D3 is used. In iAtkos and Kalyway only “dsmos.kext” is used)
  • typically “dsmos.kext” is to be found in /System/Library/Extensions folder (we ain’t got no experiences with r3d3 but we assume it to be placed aswell in /System/Library/Extensions folder but better google it!!!)
  • If it is not there it is very likely it has been lost during update process (why it seems to get lost in some cases has not been yet been found out)

2. it is not there: so reinstall the dsmos.kext

  • if you don’t have a Windows XP or Vista as a second operating system: sorry guys. Find yourselves another way to reinstall dsmos.kext (like booting to install DVD and copying via USB stick or CD to harddrive for example)
  • if you do have Windows, start it and fire up your fox and fetch a copy of “MacDrive 7” (there is a trial version on Mediafour’s Website, get it, install it and reboot it – you’re gonna like this piece of software, don’t hesitate to buy it)
  • get the EFI pack from the net aswell (try these google searchterms: “dsmos.kext digitmemo” it should be the first hit), since the EFI Pack contains the dsmos.kext
  • when downloaded, copy dsmos.kext to your Mac Partition (MacDrive seemlessly integrates into your system, you will have the Mac Disk shown as a normal drive in your windows explorer (!)) into the folder /System/Library/Extensions
  • restart your Hack OS and use again “-s” to boot to single user mode
  • make the drive writeable using: “/sbin/fsck -fy” and “/sbin/mount -uw /”
  • then “cd /System/Library/Extensions”
  • then “chown -R root dsmos.kext”
  • and “chgrp -R wheel dsmos.kext”
  • do the “exit” and the system may reboot (or crash) once or twice and then it should boot up to 10.5.2

Et voila,
the most beautiful operating system in the world
running on a regular ugly machine ;-)

Enjoy…

deutsch

Ok Leute. Ich denke, die oben stehenden Zeilen sind recht einfach verständlich. Ich werde das hier nicht nochmal auf deutsch wiederholen. Es sei denn, es melden sich Massen von Menschen, was ich für nicht sehr wahrscheinlich halte. Dennoch: falls Ihr Fragen habt, zögert nicht und nutzt die Kommentarmöglichkeiten unten…

[MacOS] HowTo Update to MacOS X 10.5.2

Update: 02.07.2008 Update 10.5.4 is out now, read our notes here.
Update: 01.06.2008 Update 10.5.3 is out now, read our instructions here.

Abstract

As most of you know Netkas is constantly working on the EFI Emulation for standard PC-Bios based motherboards. As of now you can even use the Software Update (auto-update feature) included in Tiger or Leopard. Means: no hassle with kernel panics whatsoever – assumed you have a system which is close to Apple hardware (like Intel Core 2 Duo and Intel Chipset onboard)… But with revision 10.5.2 a minor issue occurred.

In short: don’t use auto update. Although Netkas released a tutorial which discribes a workaround I would encourage you to wait for a working solution. Chances are very high you screw up your system nevertheless – like a friend of mine did. Wait a solution will be posted here within the next few days… *erm* it took a little longer and it has been written for update 10.5.3 rather than 10.5.2 but the steps and the approach is almost the same – see here