Installing OSX

Having failed to install OSX from the completely genuine (not really) disk image that I had obtained, I opted to shell out a few quid for a completely genuine (yes, actually) install disk. I ebayed a box set with iWork '09 and iLife '11 which came with all sorts of goodies like word processors, video editors and so on. All for £69. Microsoft, are you listening?

I then had a whole new problem when I tried to boot the system. I got a kernel error. This just froze up the whole machine when I tried to boot. I took out the PCI-E Soundblaster card, and hey presto no more kernel errors. This did not bode well though, as I did want sound eventually. Anyway, ploughing on.

I then had exactly the same bloody problem as with the previous attempt. It would freeze when starting up the installer. What to do?

The solution was actually very simple, but hideously complicated at the same time. What I had to do was to change the boot parameters for the OSX Install disk. This is like adding [nomodeset] when booting a Live Ubuntu Image with dodgy video drivers installed.

The command that I needed to add on were:

PCIRootUID=1

Once I did that the system was prepared to boot. However the wifi was not working. This is a pain, because part of the installation procedure allows you to set up you itunes account, and it needs a network connection for this. It WOULD get an internet connection if I booted the installer in safe mode (by adding [-x] as a boot parameter). Which is just a joy.

The next problem is getting the system to boot without using the iBoot disk. To do so I needed to use the multibeast program to install whatever magical stuff it needed to install to get the system to boot from the hard disk. The two essential parts of multibeast are EasyBeast and the System Tools. Apart from that I just selected packages to get my wireless card working. Happily once I rebooted, I got wifi working just fine. My video card was not detected though, and I put this down to getting an install disk that pre-dated (10.6.3) my video card (6850 Ati). So I then upgraded to OSX version 10.6.8. And hurrah! The video started working properly! And the wireless card was fucked.

Brilliant. I rebooted in safe mode [-x], and the kernel messages flying past tended to suggest the wireless card was detected and working, but that was all academic because the video was now fucked and showing a grey screen only.

Fantastic. It was at this point, after much searching on the internet, that I discovered that I needed to use the further boot parameters:

max_valid_dma_addr=1024

to get the wireless card to work with the latest version of OSX. Apparently this has something to do with how much memory your system has. All I needed to do was to pop those parameters into the /Extra/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist file:

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string>arch=i386 max_valid_dma_addr=1024</string>

Having stuck those settings in I now have a machine happily booting OSX 10.6.8, with fully working video up to 1080p resolutions, and with fully working wifi. Sound, no so much. The Soundblaster card I have is working after a fashion, but it is unusably crackly. I need to try a variety of the VoodooHDA drivers to find the best one. Alternatively, I need to try it without the card to see if it will output sound over the HDMI cable from the Graphics card. At one point it had detected that as a possible audio out option, but I couldn't connect it up to a receiver at the time to find out if it was actually working.

Installing OSX on a Hackintosh

Because I don't have enough grey hairs I have decided to try to install OSX on my Intel PC Hardware.  Couple of reasons for this.  One, I have an iPhone and and iPad and I want to see what the fuss is about Apple Personal Computing without selling a kidney to buy their hardware.  Two, it's a technical challenge innit.

I HAVE managed to install OSX on an AMD Frankenmachine, and it seemed to work OK, but is very slow.  The graphics card does not support any of the Steam Games I have for OSX (Portal et al).  If I put a bigger graphics card in the Frankentosh the PSU cries enough and shuts down.


So I have decided to do it properly this time.  I started off with a completely genuine (not really) image of Snow Leopard.  I wanted to install it onto a USB Key so I could boot from that.  OSX didn't like the DVD Image.  It refused to write it to the USB Key.  It said it needed to be "scanned" and then refused to scan it.

I managed to find a useful OSX command which forces the machine to write the image without scanning it, and it is thus:

sudo asr -noverify -source "/[location of image]/Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg" -target "/Volumes/[mount point of USB Key]"

This did at least manage to write the image to the USB Key, and it does seem to boot when using the iboot system.  However it failed miserably at the bit which says "When you get to the installation screen, open Utilities/Disk Utility.".  It doesn't do anything, it just sits there spinning a circle for fecking hours.  Ah well.

This maybe because I have failed to follow all the previous instructions about removing all non essential hardware from the machine, resulting in it being festooned with TV Cards, USB Peripherals and so on.  Or it could be because the completely genuine (not really) DVD Image I was using is not really completely genuine.

So I have shelled out for a boxed set of Snow Leopard, iLife '11 and iWork '09, and I will try this again with the genuine kit when it arrives.