Tag Archives: OSx86

[MacOS] Settings for ASUS P5LD2 VM DH incl. Sleep Mode

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So guys you have bought an “ASUS P5LD2 VM DH” motherboard because it was suggested to be working, but something does not work. The following article will show you how to configure the BIOS to make Leopard 10.5.2 working with its vanilla stock kernel. Before starting over please do me the favor and tell me:

Where do you come from?

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Thanks for participating. You know what? I’d only buy the “Intel Bad Axe D975XBX” as an alternative to that board but that lacks the possibility to overclock… Ok so how to proceed?

My equipment:

  • ASUS P5LD2 VM DH
  • Intel Core 2 Duo 6300 (2 x 1.8GHz)
  • Sapphire ATI HD 2600 XT (256MB)
  • 2GB memory
  • Samsung 250GB

What to do

I assume you know what to do to get into the BIOS. Automatic hardware recognition is almost perfect with some little additions to make vanilla kernels work.

I use BIOS Firmware revision 0702. If you don’t have that revision yet, do the following:

In BIOS set the following configuration:

  • Menu: Advanced -> CPU Configuration
    • Set Execute Disable Function to ENABLED (see picture)
    • CPU NX
  • Menu: Power (see picture)
    • Set Suspend Mode to AUTO
    • Set Repost Video on S3 Resume to NO
    • Set ACPI 2.0 Support to YES
    • Set ACPI APIC Support to ENABLED
    • Suspend and Sleep Mode

That should do. Save and Exit and install Leopard and become happy. Intel GMA 950 onboard graphics supports sleep mode. But I’d recommend using the “Sapphire ATI HD 2600 XT” (see here, how to install this graphics card). Tell me what your experiences are…

If the above helped you, please visit our sponsor and help us maintaining that site:

[MacOS] XBox Media Center XMBC for OSX

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Yes it is true. The “XMBC on OS X” project maintains a version solely for OS X. It is running quite stable and look well known from my beloved XBox. It seems like the x264 implementation is a lot faster than the one inside VLC. But on the other hand XBMC has for instance issues with AAC 5.1 sounds. Means you need to transcode AAC5.1 to AC3. Rebooting to windows and using Zoom Player is faster I must admit…

Before reading on please do me the favor to answer this question:

Where do you come from?

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Thank you for participating.

id63_xbmc

However this project looks really promising. I wish the dev team all the best and encourage you guys reading here to donate some euros to the XBMC dev team. They really need it.

Project Page: Link here
Download: Link here

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[MacOS] Solutions to Issues with Leopard Graphics Update 10.5.2

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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

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“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] Enable and Disable Hibernation

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OSX supports real hibernation not only that sleep mode that costs electricity. It really supports it. But you gotta enable or disable it manually. So what to do:

  • open terminal window (I assume you’re logged in with your normal user account)
  • to disable hibernation, and enable standard sleep
    enter this: sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
  • to enable hibernation when closing the lid
    enter this: sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 1

Enjoy folks…

[MacOS] Change Time Machine’s Backup Intervalls

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We all know Time Machine is handy (at least since update 10.5.2 which fixed tons of issues). But one thing is not very handy: we usually cannot change the intervall of the backups. Before I will show you a simple solution please do me the favor to tell me:

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Do the following (I assume you’re logged in with your normal user account):

  • open terminal
  • for 30 minutes intervalls enter this:
    sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int 1800
  • for 60 minutes intervalls (standard) enter this:
    sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int 3600
  • for 6 hours intervalls enter this:
    sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int 21600
  • for 12 hours intervalls enter this:
    sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int 43200
  • and so on…

The simple formula is just a conversion from minutes or hours to seconds. Means: 1800 seconds = 30 minutes…
You can also go smack to the /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto file and edit it using a texteditor and change the StartInterval values. But I feel like the solution above might be faster… Kudos fly to mactricksandtips.com.

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[MacOS] Read HFS+ Drives and DMG Images on Windows

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english

As a dualbooter you are often confronted with the problem that you just saved a file on the other system. While being on OS X this is not a too big problem since you can at least access those NTFS (read only) and Fat32 (read/write support) drives. But being confronted with Microsoft Windows you are stuck.

But hey wait: try this nice Java Open Source Project: Catacombae HFS Explorer (link). It opens and extracts files from drives and images formatted in HFS+. Sadly it seems not be able to write to those disks. For having read and write access to your HFS+ disks I strongly recommend Macdrive 7.

tomanisch

Jeder von MacBook Pro oder Hackintosh Dualbootern kennt die Situation, dass wir gerade nach Microsoft Windows gebootet haben, aber eine bestimmte Datei leider eben unter OS X liegt. Für Leute, die nur lesend auf ihre OSX Partition zugreifen wollen, gibt es das Open Source Projekt Catacombae HFS Explorer (link). Schreiben kann dieses Programm auf HFS+ Dateisysteme aber leider noch nicht. Um lesend und schreibend auf die OS X Partition zuzugreifen, empfehle ich Macdrive 7.

[MacOS] Enable Quartz Extreme 2D

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english

T_h_e___f_a_s_t___w_a_y

  • open terminal
  • enter: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver Quartz2DExtremeEnabled 1
  • By the way: you may find this command on the net aswell: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver Quartz2DExtremeEnabled -boolean YES – it does perfectly the same like the first command and is only a matter of taste!
  • then reboot and be happy.

There is also another way via using QuartzDebug (search for it on the net, it required the Development tools on the Leopard disk)…

[MacOS] Experiences with Sapphire ATI HD 2600XT 256MB (Device ID 9588)

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Abstract

After having had too much hazzle with the Gigabyte ATI x1650 (Device ID 71c6) I decided to buy a new graphics card. What made me buy that ATI (or in general an ATI card) again?

Where to obtain

German users are provided with a link to Amazon.de where they can buy exactly the graphics card I used for the following howto. But in contrast to my fellow german users the american users cannot be provided with such a link, because Amazon.com doesn’t offer that card. Search it elsewhere or just order from the german Amazon store using this link: Sapphire RADEON HD 2600 XT PCIe ). This should be most hazzle-free way for you…

How to install (_t_h_e___h_a_z_z_l_e___f_r_e_e___w_a_y_)

Ok so, after having bought this new graphic card, don’t just install it yet into your tower or desktop. Instead boot your system into OS X while having your old graphics card installed. Follow those steps:

  1. Login into OS X as root.
  2. Get the new Netkas Natit Driver (link)
  3. install it to /System/Library/Extensions/
  4. Make sure you set the right permissions to the Natit.kext : open terminal and type: chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/Natit.kext
  5. shutdown your system, unplug electricity and replace your graphics cards
  6. plug power chord and boot your system.
  7. you should be done…

Circumventing issues

If anything does not work and your screen looks garbled. I recommend having an XP or Vista installed on another drive and use MediaFour’s MacDrive 7. So you can download the driver again and copy to your OSX partition and install it manually in single user mode (provide -s at OSX boottime).

id41_w2207screen

Sapphire ATI2600 XT 256MB
with HP w2207 (click to enlarge)

Final words

We hope you had some fun and we could provide you with some help here. If you are satisfied with this solution, you may consider our sponsors. They really got the coolest offers. Thanks :-)

Addendums for the german speaking community

Falls Ihr Fragen zu der Anleitung habt, bitte in die Kommentare. Wenn sich mehr als fünf deutschsprachige Leute melden, übersetze ich den Artikel. Ansonsten: wer exakt die Karte sucht, die ich verwendet habe, kauft bitte im deutschen Amazon Shop genau diese Karte hier: Sapphire RADEON HD 2600 XT PCIe 256 MB DDR3 128 Bit, Dual DVI, TV-Out, HDMI, OpenGL, DirectX10 Retail!!!

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

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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:

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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…