Tag Archives: hackintosh

[OSX86] Building a Hackintosh with ProQ’s AnyOS Motherboard

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motherboard back

Prolegomena

With all those different Apple Computers available like Mac Mini’s, Mac Book Air’s, Mac Pro’s, why the hell should we consider setting up a hackintosh these days, since a Mac Mini comes at a price tag of only 600€ here in Europe?

Well the answer to this is quite simple. Hackintoshs aim at people who are basically interested in understanding and tweeking. If you just wanna use you Mac for Mails and a bit of internet-surfing a hackintosh is most likely the wrong thing for you.

But if you are artist for instance, dealing with audio- or video-editing a hackintosh definitely comes a lot more handy than an original Mac. The reason is simple: original Macs have become a lot less flexible when it comes to manual hardware upgrading during the last eight years. Let’s take the latest Mac Pro for instance. The design is still outstanding, but this design comes at the price that Apple entirely dropped the PCIe Bus architecture. What means, that we cannot use dedicated DSP, soundcards or videocards in that device anymore and need to switch to Firewire or Thunderbolt solutions. Which is an additional economical strain. Continue reading →

[MacOS] VMWare Fusion 4.1 Allows Installation of Snow Leopard Client and Leopard Client Versions

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Fusion 4.1 Allows Mac OS X Client Installations

With the release of Mac OS 10.7 Lion VMWare seem to have decided that all of Apple’s latest operating systems can be virtualized. VMWare Fusion 4.1. (released Nov 17th, 2011) thus allows the installation of all Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and 10.6. Snow Leopard versions; vulgo: the server and client editions.

Voicemail From Infinite Loop

The tiny downside is, VMWare seem to have gotten an urgent call from a fruity garage company in Infinite Loop soon after their release of VMWare Fusion 4.1. That’s why they issued VMWare Fusion 4.1.1 (released Nov 23rd, 2011) almost immediately, thus effectively reverting the capability of virtualizing the Mac OS X client versions.

Fusion 4.1.1 Update Bars Client Installations Again

That means: if you are running VMWare Fusion 4.1, you should consider not to upgrade to 4.1.1. If you have a Mac OS X client version virtualized it would not boot anymore after the update to Fusion 4.1.1. For all the others, VMWare does not distribute version 4.1 anymore, only 4.1.1. So you would have to search the net for download possibilities of VMWare Fusion 4.1. Luckily there are still legal sources for the 4.1 download. Update: the download link distributes version 3.1.1 (sic!) at the moment. You’re on your own finding the 4.1 download on the net (filename: “VMware-Fusion-4.1.0-529802-light.dmg”). Good luck.

screen-shot-2012-03-11-at-9-52-32-pm

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[MacOS] Backup Chameleon Boot USB-Stick

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1. Abstract

You have the situation that you installed Chameleon for security and compatibility purposes on an external USB-stick. For safety reasons you should consider making a backup. But all diskimaging (either Apple’s Diskutility, Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper) tools fail to create a proper backup since the bootblock is just not copied. So you end up with having to create a second usb-stick, but this takes time. So why not copying it? In the following article we’ll show you some basic steps to create a proper backup of your precious Chameleon bootable USB-Stick.

This session is not considered for newbies. You need to understand the steps and understand that you can completely destroy your system when you apply certain steps in a wrong way. The following steps comprise a forum threat on OSX86.net.

2. Walkthru: Backing up your Chameleon USB-Stick

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[MacOS] 10.6.2 Update Released – Intel Atoms Killed

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Apple’s 10.6.2 update closes lots of security holes that could be used to compromise systems. Safari, iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, and some other apps are rumored to be working more reliable after updating.

Apple pwns back

For OSX86 users on netbooks this update is far away from being recommended at the moment. The update now has proved what has been rumored some days ago: Intel Atom support has definitely been removed from the kernel.

Thus rendering Intel Atom based netbooks non working. Netbooks will not boot after updating as the following video by Stellarola shows. It shows the typical behaviour if the CPU is not supported by the kernel, OS X will instantly reset the system.

» Stellarola: Official – Atom not supported in 10.6.2…
» Apple: About the 10.6.2. update…
» Apple: Support Downloads for 10.6…

[MacOS] Update 10.6.2 to Break Intel Atom CPU Support

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According to Stellarolla’s blog the upcoming Snow Leopard update 10.6.2 and the Leopard update 10.5.9 will most likely break Intel Atom support. Thus rendering hackintosh installations on netbooks inoperable.

Although Apple does not provide products shipping with Intel Atom CPUs, the Mac OS kernel did support those. Now with the growing amount of hackintoshs it seems Apple tries to stop the use of their operating system on cheap an tiny netbooks.

Probably this is another indicator that Apple is going to bring the long rumored tiny tablet Mac. Anyway for people willing to maintain MacOS on their netbooks the easiest way is to not update to 10.6.2 or 10.5.9 at the moment.

» Stellarolla: “10.6.2 kills Atom and other news”…

[MacOS] Psystar Release Rebel EFI

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As of yesterday the notorious Mac Clone manufacturer Psystar has released a commercial software called Rebel EFI. Rebel EFI prepares a normal PC to allow for the installation of Mac OS.

After downloading Rebel EFI,

[..] users simply insert a retail copy of the Snow Leopard DVD, follow the installation procedures and then install the application. The application automatically detects connected devices and downloads the appropriate drivers.

Rebel EFI features Psystar’s DUBL (Darwin Universal Boot Loader) and a Safe Update mode, that prevents users from installing updates that could break their systems. The Safe Update mode only installs Psystar approved updates.

In contrast to the EFI-X manufacturers, Psystar in the past has released several drivers for free to the OSX86 scene. The advantage of Rebel EFI in contrast to solutions like the Chameleon boot is that is already comes with an automized hardware detection and a bunch of downloadable hardware drivers. Chameleon on the other hand is available free of charge and a lot more powerful for users in the know. So decide for yourself which product fits your needs the best.

A single license for Rebel EFI costs about 50US$ and can be ordered here.

rebelefi_hardware

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[MacOS] Psystar Accounces OEM Licensing Program

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As of yesterday the Miami based company Psystar, which is still in legal trouble with Apple, announced to license their virtualization technology to third party manufacturers.

Computers preloaded with Psystar’s DUBL (Darwin Universal Boot Loader) would allow to make

“systems Mac OS X compatible. Psystar’s virtualization technology, specifically engineered for Snow Leopard, allows for seamless operation of the Mac OS on generic Intel Hardware and would be offered on all Psystar Certified machines.”

Find more information about this step in Psystar’s official press statement.

[MacOS] Comprehensive Gigabyte Hardware Specification List

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With the advent of Snow Leopard many users have issues installing it onto PC based hardware. Well this is not very curious, since a PC is no Mac. Anyway as Gigabyte motherboards proved to be very close to the original Apple Intel specifications many people decided to buy those boards.

With the release of Snow Leopard DSDT patching seems to have become a must. Installation attempts will most likely fail without it. The intention of this list is to provide comprehensive information on the most used Gigabyte motherboards.

The original idea for this list was by a guy called ximekon (find original list here on InsanelyMac forums).

Model North- bridge South- bridge LAN Fire- Wire Audio BIOS Link Last Check
P35
P35-DS3L P35 ICH9 Gigabit -,- ALC888 F9 08/29/2009
P35-DS3 P35 ICH9 Gigabit -,- ALC889a F14 08/28/2009
P35-DS3R P35 ICH9 Gigabit -,- ALC889a F13 08/28/2009
EP35
EP35-DS3 P35 ICH9 RTL8111B -,- ALC889a F4 08/28/2009
EP35-DS3R P35 ICH9R RTL8111B -,- ALC889a F4 08/28/2009
EP35-DS3P P35 ICH9R Gigabit Yes ALC889a F6 08/28/2009
EP35-DS3L P35 ICH9 Gigabit -,- ALC888 F6 08/28/2009
EP35-DS4 P35 ICH9R RTL8111B -,- ALC889a F6 08/28/2009
EP45
EP45-DS3 P45 ICH10 2 x RTL8111C -,- ALC889a F9 08/28/2009
EP45-DS3R P45 ICH10R 2 x RTL8111C yes ALC889a F11c 08/28/2009
EP45-DS3P P45 ICH10R 2 x RTL8111C yes ALC889a F8 08/28/2009
EP45-DS3L P45 ICH10 RTL8111C -,- ALC888 F10 08/28/2009
EP45-DS3LR P45 ICH10R RTL8111C -,- ALC888 F2 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3 P45 ICH10 RTL8111C yes ALC889a F8 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3P P45 ICH10R RTL8111C yes ALC889a F9 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3L P45 ICH10 RTL8111C -,- ALC888 F5c 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3LR P45 ICH10R RTL8111C -,- ALC888 F5 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3R P45 ICH10R RTL8111C yes ALC889a F9 08/28/2009

you cant see this line, do you?

The Golden Gigabyte Model Rules

  • if last character of the model name is a “number” or a “P” (i.e. EP35-DS3 or EP45-DS3P etc.) it means ALC889a audio chipset
  • if last or penultimate character of the model name is an “L” (i.e. EP35-DS3L or EP45-DS3LR) it means ALC888 audio chipset
  • if last character of the model name is an “R” (i.e. P35-DS3R or EP45-UD3LR) it means SATA Raid controllers
  • The P35 or P45 strings in the beginning are fairly self explaining I suppose (P35 always with ICH9 and P45 always with ICH10)

Your Help is Wanted

Weather these rules nor the list above might be 100% accurate. It is only what I found on the net and summarized from the list above.

  • If you derived a DSDT.aml clean from a BIOS (like using Koalala’s DSDT patcher) and you fixed it for OSX86, you may post it in the comment’s section – don’t forget to tell how much RAM you had while compiling the DSDT.aml (Don’t add individual graphic or wi-fi strings. Just add onboard-devices like onboard-audio and onboard-ethernet.)
  • If your board is not on the list check Gigabyte’s pages and post the specifications in the comments section below.
  • If your board is listed but details above are wrong: please post it in the comments section below.
  • If you know the LAN chipset of the board and it is not listed precisely above (saying Gigabit) please post it in the comments section.

Please always crosscheck with the official Gigabyte specification page for your model (links to your model are included in the BIOS column) before adding a dsdt.aml or anything that could burn your BIOS.

[MacOS] Is EFI-X illegally using 3rd Party Program Code?

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About a year ago a company called ASEM released a device called EFI-X. This device has been claimed to be capable of booting several Microsoft Windows versions and Mac OS X Leopard.

Legal concerns

From the beginning there were question regarding the legal status of the device. But ASEM claimed the device is legal, although it circumvents Apple’s binary protection using Apple’s copyrighted secret operating system keys (OSK1 and OSK2).

Technical issues

Anyway EFI-X devices had some issues. Many forums reported about problems with Bonjour and sharing in general. In the meantime articles from the official EFI-X support forums have been suddenly disappeared. Customers reporting issues or solutions and workaround to severe bugs have been banned from EFI-X support forums – our own help article to recover almost lost data was removed aswell and one of our members has been officially banned from their forums (the reason was this article in october 2008).

Examining EFI-X in deep

Now some frustrated customers who are on the other hand technologically very familiar have examined the EFI-X device in deep. One of the main points AsereBln found: in contrast to what EFI-X is stating: “Our approach is entirely different, (..) all our code and development is our own only” – they seem to be using program code that has been developed by the OSX86 community though. They seem to be using “Disabler.kext“. Moreover another user (RezRov) found out the EFI-X Windows update software seems to be violating the LGPL as it incorporates a modified USB device library (libusb-win32).

Use of possibly unlicensed 3rd party program code, possibly illegal use of Apple security keys, and customer support below grade for a 170€ (250US$) commercial product that seems to be the summary about a year after product launch.

Lessons learnt

We suppose end users should be aware of this possible hassle. Only an original Apple Mac is really hassle free and 100% compatible to a Mac. But if you are technologically interested and have the time and motivation search the OSX86 communities for setups. The OSX86 forums are full of knowledge and willing to help. But remember a PC won’t ever be 100% compatible to a real Mac.

[MacOS] Solutions to Issues with Leopard Update 10.5.7

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Applies to
You are either running an

The following solution has been reported to work on both systems. Chances are good that the solution might be working for you aswell.

Issues
You have been using the auto update feature in Mac OS X to update to 10.5.7. Instead of restarting your system crashs during reboot.

Solutions
You made a backup of your system before, right? Then Restore your backup of 10.5.6, if you didn’t backup: skip this step and give the rest a try anyway.

Native Apple Mac Hackintosh
00. (restore backup of 10.5.6) 00. (restore backup of 10.5.6)
01. shutdown your Mac 01. shutdown your Hackintosh
02. turn it on again and immediately 02. turn it on again and in Darwin boot menu
03. keep holding the SHIFT KEY 03. in Darwin Boot Menu apply these parameters: -x -f
04. you Mac will boot into SAFE MODE 04. your Hackintosh will boot into SAFE MODE and recreate the MKext
05. Login to Leopard 05. Login to Leopard
06. Download Combo Update 10.5.7 (Link) 06. Download Combo Update 10.5.7 (Link)
07. Ignore the Auto Update feature 07. Ignore the Auto Update feature
08. Install downloaded Combo Update 10.5.7 08. Install downloaded Combo Update 10.5.7

In case there is still something fishy. You may try to repair permissions after updating to 10.5.7, by following these additional steps:

09. Boot with your Install DVD 09. Boot with Boot 132 CD and boot your Retail Install DVD
10. Start Disk Utility 10. Start Disk Utility
11. Repair Permissions 11. Repair Permissions
12. Keep Praying 12. Keep Praying
13. reboot 13. reboot

I hope it helps. If you got more suggestions: don’t hesitate to share them in the comments section. Thanks for stopping by our site…