Yearly Archives: 2008

[MacOS] EPOS I. – EFI Post Install for White-Box PCs

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We were working quite some time on this. Now here is EPOS I. – the “EFI Post Install” Script for white-box PCs that are almost hardware compatible with Apple’s devices

“EPOS I.” is an “EFI Post Install” Script

What does it do?

EPOS helps installing retail DVD’s of Apple’s Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on white-box PC’s. EPOS is SlimBuild-Preboot compliant. And as such it makes installation very easy. Grab a copy of a SlimBuilt-Preboot CD image that matches your hardware (motherboard and graphics), then install Leopard and after installation run EPOS.

Technically EPOS I. automates the necessary steps of preparing MacOS’ native EFI partition and the installation of (legacy-) kexts to this EFI partition. The whole shebang was first discovered and described by Munky (all shouts fly out to him!). You may find his article here on the InsanelyMac forums.

Installation and Usage:

  • unplug ethernet cable from your white-box PC
  • copy EPOS I.zip to USB drive for instance
  • install Leopard from retail DVD using a SlimBuild-Preboot standard compatible CD (find links to tested disks below
  • boot installed Leopard using the SlimBuild-Preboot CD again
  • on first boot provide all the registration information required from Apple
  • see desktop for the first time
  • unpack EPOS I. and run it as ROOT from a terminal (have your SlimBuild-Preboot CD mounted)
  • EPOS takes about a minute to install everything
  • remove SlimBuild-Preboot CD from drive, reboot and let Apple’s autoinstaller grab the newest updates
  • enjoy a white-box Mek

Habit:

  • EPOS must be executed from the disk that will hold the EFI bootloaders.
  • If you are unsure what this means: better make sure you only have your DVD drive and your OS X harddrive connected.
  • I recommend using this script on a clean and fresh installed system, no other operating systems on the same disk!
  • prefers mounted SlimBuild-Preboot CD’s for getting kexts and the com.apple.Boot.plist
    (looks for /Volumes/SlimBuild-Preboot/initrd.img and /Volumes/SlimBuild-Preboot/com.apple.Boot.plist)
    if no SlimBuild-Preboot CD is found, EPOS tries to find Extensions in EPOS’ own Extensions folder

Supports:

  • autoextraction kexts from SlimBuild-Preboot CD
  • kexts in own Extensions folder
  • autoextraction com.apple.Boot.plist from SlimBuild-Preboot CD
  • com.apple.Boot.plist in own Plist folder
  • internally pretested with Leopard retail DVD’s 10.5.0, 10.5.1, 10.5.4 and 10.5.5

Notes:

  • Munky’s EFI Boot 6.1 included (found here)
  • compatible to Galaxy’s SlimBuild-Preboot creator 2.0 (Kudos!) found here
  • Tested with ximekon’s (Kudos, aswell) Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3 SlimBuild-Preboot CDs found here

Error handling:

  • integrated for a bunch of common errors, anyway it remains an ugly script

Todo:

  • code cleanup / rewrite ;-)
  • autoinstallation of custom kernels
  • GUI is in the works, but don’t ask for timelines, we all got jobs to feed our families

License & restrictions:

  • This script is freeware but may NOT be used for commercial purposes!
  • It may NOT be included in SlimBuild-Preboot Disks that contain original / modded Apple kexts.
  • that means until not everything is self enabled via homebrew or legacy kexts you may only include it in your private SlimBuilds but don’t distribute them, please.
EPOS 0.95 running on a sample system :


Feedback

You are welcome to leave a note here in the comment’s section or on the insanelymac forums.

Download EPOS

Please download from the version history overview below. Did you know our sponsors yet? No we neither. Because it’s just Google adds. Anyway these premium sponsors really got the coolest offers and moreover by considering them you help us in return maintaining this site free… :-)

Version history:

  • 0.5 semi automatic really much too ugly one day rapid prototype (not released)
  • 0.6 rewrote using functions (not released)
  • 0.7 autodetermining of EFI partition (not released)
  • 0.8 improved error handling for common errors we experienced (not released)
  • 0.9 included autoextraction for SlimBuild-Preboot images (not released)
  • 0.95 included com.apple.Boot.plist extraction (released) –
    » Download EPOS 0.95 here…
  • 0.95.1 (cosmetic) bugfixes (not released)
  • 0.97 com.apple.Boot.plist bugfix (released) –
    » Download EPOS 0.97 here…
  • 10.0 “the got rich as bill from writing even uglier code” version (will definitly be released) ;-)

[iPhone] Issues with iPhone DFU mode in MacOS 10.5.6

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According to forum reports the iPhone DFU mode, which is required to install custom firmware with PwnageTool, does not get detected properly after updating Mac OS X to 10.5.6.

That means you cannot Jailbreak or Unlock the iPhone currently. The iPhone Dev Team has investigated in to this issue and comes to the conclusion that this is not a countermeasure by Apple, but a bug in the new kernel.

The Phone Dev Team names possible fixes for 10.5.6. As always: you do this at your own risk!

1. Replace the following plugin kexts from within IOUSBFamily.kext with the ones from 10.5.5 and then rebuild kextcache (if you don’t understand this, then you shouldn’t attempt it!)

/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBHub.kext

/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBCompositeDriver.kext

2. Use a USB hub in-between the DFU device and the Mac and insert/reinsert the iPhone’s USB cable.

3. Use a PwnageTool created .ipsw on Windows! Oh the irony!

If you did not update yet to 10.5.6 better don’t do it and wait for a fix or for 10.5.7 to be released.

[iPhone] iPhone 3G unlocked by iPhone Dev Team

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The release of the 3G unlock software (currently going under the name yellosn0w) is due to december 31., 2008. The unlock will currently only available for baseband version 2.11.07 or lower.

Between Chrismas and new year’s eve members of the team (planetbeing, MuscleNerd and pytey) will be giving a lecture about the security systems in both the iPhone 2G and 3G on the Chaos Computer Conference 2008.

Welcome to Berlin, guys. Enjoy the most interesting and inconsistent town in Europe, today :-)

[Windows] Slysoft to Change Update Conditions

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As of January 1st, 2009 Slysoft will change update conditions for their products. Lifelong free updates will cease to be offered in favor of an annual subscription. Licenses that have been bought before 2009 are not affected and will still containt the free lifelong update feature.

Until december 31st, 2008 (wednesday) Slysoft offers a special chrismas discount (20% off). As Slysoft ‘s products “AnyDVD” and “AnyDVD HD” in Germany are considered not legal  we cannot directly link their site.

[MacOS] Switcher’s Hints 1001: Moving Cursor in Terminal

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Mac OS has the wonderful feature that it’s got a BSD compatible Unix enviroment called Darwin as the basis. You can get to it by simply starting the terminal. Once getting used to it you even install Cygwin to your Microsoft Windows installation because it simply is a powerful way of controlling your computer.

Anyway typos and forgotten parameters is pita once you entered some longer commands. Going back to the beginning of the line is real pain, using the right/left cursor arrows takes forever. But there are workarounds…

The following list shows some of the most common commands that help to use the terminal more effectively – derived from the old unix days btw.

Key
 Function
Ctrl-A jump to beginning of the line
Ctrl-E jump to end of the line
Esc-F jump forward word by word (requires to hit Esc every time again!)
Esc-B jump backword word by word (requires to hit Esc every time again!)
Tab completes the names of folders and files

BTW: Did you consider our sponsors yet, they really got the coolest offers. Thanks for helping us maintaining this page free.

[Hacking] Berlin Students win “Capture the Flag” Contest

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The “UCSB International Capture The Flag” is a distributed, wide-area security exercise. It aims at testing the security skills of the participants.

This time the organizing team around Prof. Giovanni Vigna prepped a small network, that could be accessed only via remote. The goal was first to gain access to the network and then to disarm a connected bomb. Additionally the participants had to solve 13 coding riddles (like determining the output of a program that is only available in a small parts and not as a whole).

The Berlin Team ENOFLAG was the team to solve 12 of the 13 questions and to disarm the bomb. Congratulations guys, standing work!!!

[Games] GTA IV with heavy Issues on ATI Graphic Cards

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The PC version of the long awaited game Grand Theft Auto IV has yesterday been released to the european markets. First tests show the game is as outstanding as its console versions, released earlier this year. Anyway forums are full of bug reports by people using ATI based graphic cards. The game crashs even before it gets started. NVidia users also report issues, but at least it starts after some starting attempts.

The german Gamestar.de is currently doing a poll. This poll (with currently n=4787) shows that about 75% of the users experiencing heavy issues like permanent crashes. Only 5% say GTA runs seamless without issues.

You may rethink your Chrismas wishlist at this time. What about a Playstation 3? Besides the fact that the game plays wonderful on that device, it’s also got a Bluray/DVD/mp3/Xvid/DivX player included ;-)

[e-Biz] A Nasty Conspiracy Behind Psystar?

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What might sound like a conspiracy book by John Grisham is reality. Apple obviously believes that another company or even companies are secretly backing up Psystar. Groklaw.net explains that this might be an explanation why a major law firm took this case. Apple’s lawyers wrote:

(..) Apple will seek leave to amend this complaint to show the unknown John Doe Defendants’ true names and capacities when they are ascertained.(..)

Apple seeks revenge and these new claims read badly for Psystar. Apple even added claims for DMCA violation. So the main question is: Is Psystar about to go down, or do they have aces in their sleeves? You may find the whole article on Growlaw.net.

Unimpressed by this current development Psystar is continuing to sell their MacClones…

[iPhone] iPhone 3G Hardware unlocked in Vietnam

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CNet.com reports Tuan Anh Do, a 29 years old business man from Hanoi, now offers hardware unlocking services for the iPhone 3G. He is owner of a couple of cell phone repair stores and he now managed to find a rather painless way to unlock the iPhone 3G and offer that as a service to customers. Unlocking costs about 80US$.

Tuan Anh Do is well known to the iPhone scene as TAmobile (Link here). He was also the first to extract the bootloader from the first generation iPhones.

Unfortunately unlocking requires desoldering, binary modifying and resoldering of the baseband chip and is therefore by far not fool proof. Painless unlocking here means “painless” for experiences solder technicians. For the rest of us we either plan a Vietnam holiday or wait for a store to offer that service around the corner. Anyway, find the whole story and some more really amazing pictures on Dong Ngo’s article on CNet.com.

Picture is courtesy of CNet.com

iphone-3g-hardware-unlock-tamobile-5_610x406.jpg

[MacOS] Apple recommends using Virus Scanners

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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.”