Hackintosh 10.5.5 Retail Rig - Starting at $305

[Kaido]

I have a long weekend starting tomorrow after work, I want to try your new approach to this and see just how well it works. I was going to ask you about using SD, but you have already answered that. Any special specs to set when making the image with SD?

Save as Disk Image
Read Only Disk Image
Compression Level = High

I'd do a generic user account such as "admin" with a default password such as "apple".

This system has really saved me a lot of time!

 

[mosslack]

Save as Disk Image
Read Only Disk Image
Compression Level = High

I'd do a generic user account such as "admin" with a default password such as "apple".

This system has really saved me a lot of time!

Thanks, guess I could have read your blog and found that out, but I had planned to do that once I get started.

 

[Kaido]

Thanks, guess I could have read your blog and found that out, but I had planned to do that once I get started.

I tend to get a little wordy ^_^

OT - just JB my ATV2. Works really nicely. XBMC is great and plays everything, menus are only slightly laggy. Plex has better integration (doesn't need to launch an app to get to the movies like XBMC does), but only does transcoding, which actually looks pretty dang good. Ties in with the scraper from the media server perfectly. Gimme streaming instead of transcoding and a movie wall and I'm in!

 

[mosslack]

I tend to get a little wordy ^_^

Actually one of the things I like about you, you go into detail which is very helpful, especially for those who are clueless!

OT - just JB my ATV2. Works really nicely. XBMC is great and plays everything, menus are only slightly laggy. Plex has better integration (doesn't need to launch an app to get to the movies like XBMC does), but only does transcoding, which actually looks pretty dang good. Ties in with the scraper from the media server perfectly. Gimme streaming instead of transcoding and a movie wall and I'm in!

So much to learn about this stuff, but then I'm only giving away an HTPC, at least I don't have to use it!

 

[mosslack]

@ Kaido: I played around yesterday a lot with your restore image method and liked it so much that I setup a 16 Gb flash drive with an install of 10.6.0 so I can use it to install on other systems. The way I figure, using iBoot or some other bootloader I can boot up SL on any system which is capable of running it and install either 10.6.0 or 10.6.6 on the hard drive of that computer running from the flash drive as I have included both images on the flash drive as well.

I do a lot of work with netbooks so I wanted to be able to install either image. This has worked well so far, and I put a few other tools like SuperDuper on the flash drive as well. It runs a little slow from the flash drive, but it does work.

In my experiments, I was able to go from hitting the power button to having 10.6.6 completely installed on my DS3L hard drive in 6 minutes and 54 seconds! Not bad at all. Thanks for this great tip.

 

[Ka0t1x]

Yep, our techs run around with a small 2.5" FW800 drive and doing a fresh install from an image is insanely fast, and usually the way to go. I've gone to only installing from a flash drive and ditched DVD media.

 

[Ka0t1x]

Kaido, about that RAID Card..How stable is this? Near production? I'm needing to build a lower power file server so I can put my main machine to sleep when not in use... I'd like to have OSX on it. Linux works but more possibilities with OSX.

 

[rolodomo]

I'm trying to figure out the easiest way to quickly restore an image of a BASIC working SL installation, but rely on Time Machine to do everything else. How is this method?

(1) Install second hard drive.

(2) In freshly installed SL, set the SL partition size on main drive to a SMALL size (e.g., 20 Gb approx.), which is equal to a partition size in the second hard drive.

(3) Boot Linux Clonezilla (off a USB flash drive) and copy the small SL partition to the small parition in the second hard drive. Clonezilla works well here because it is: 1) free and 2) only copies actively used disk space, but still makes an image (i.e., very fast).

(3) Set the SL partition back to normal size.

(4) If SL killed while tweaking, boot off the Clonezilla flash drive and reverse copy the small "working" image from the second hard drive in minutes. I can then use time machine (currently saving to a much larger partition on the second hard drive) to fairly quickly fill in the gaps.

 

[mosslack]

I'm trying to figure out the easiest way to quickly restore an image of a BASIC working SL installation, but rely on Time Machine to do everything else. How is this method?

(1) Install second hard drive.

(2) In freshly installed SL, set the SL partition size on main drive to a SMALL size (e.g., 20 Gb approx.), which is equal to a partition size in the second hard drive.

(3) Boot Linux Clonezilla (off a USB flash drive) and copy the small SL partition to the small parition in the second hard drive. Clonezilla works well here because it is: 1) free and 2) only copies actively used disk space, but still makes an image (i.e., very fast).

(3) Set the SL partition back to normal size.

(4) If SL killed while tweaking, boot off the Clonezilla flash drive and reverse copy the small "working" image from the second hard drive in minutes. I can then use time machine (currently saving to a much larger partition on the second hard drive) to fairly quickly fill in the gaps.

You are making this far harder than it needs to be. Simply use SuperDuper (also free), to clone the basic install to the second drive. No real need to repartition as SuperDuper will only copy the basic install, not the entire drive.

 

[rolodomo]

You are making this far harder than it needs to be. Simply use SuperDuper (also free), to clone the basic install to the second drive. No real need to repartition as SuperDuper will only copy the basic install, not the entire drive.

Interesting, thanks! By clone of "basic install," do you mean the install DVD or the image of an installed OS? Can I restore from SuperDuper outside of SL, like in Linux?

 

[mosslack]

Interesting, thanks! By clone of "basic install," do you mean the install DVD or the image of an installed OS? Can I restore from SuperDuper outside of SL, like in Linux?

Image of the installed OS. I know Kaido did the disk image and used Disk Utility to restore it, but not sure anything in Linux will do that.

 

[Kaido]

Kaido, about that RAID Card..How stable is this? Near production? I'm needing to build a lower power file server so I can put my main machine to sleep when not in use... I'd like to have OSX on it. Linux works but more possibilities with OSX.

I got one for myself and will be doing in-depth testing this weekend - 4 drives in RAID 5, testing for shutdown, reboot, sleep, etc. Will report back!

 

[rolodomo]

Image of the installed OS. I know Kaido did the disk image and used Disk Utility to restore it, but not sure anything in Linux will do that.

Sounds good, but I need to avoid the partial re-install (to get to disk utility) step and not only because it would be bit quicker. My current video card (4870) crashes the install program before I can get to disk utility. I have to touch metal (swap in an old 9400 GT) for any installs, which really slows things down.

 

[mosslack]

Sounds good, but I need to avoid the partial re-install (to get to disk utility) step and not only because it would be bit quicker. My current video card (4870) crashes the install program before I can get to disk utility. I have to touch metal (swap in an old 9400 GT) for any installs, which really slows things down.

Hmmm, I run a 16 Gb flash drive with a basic 10.6.0 install on it for times like this, but not sure that would work with your video card. Let us know what you come up with and if your Linux program can in fact use the SuperDuper disk image.

 

[dlock13]

Is it possible to have an AMD CPU such as the Phenom II x4 955 run OSX via this method? Or would I have to look into a using different distros of iDeneb, etc..?

 

[Kaido]

Is it possible to have an AMD CPU such as the Phenom II x4 955 run OSX via this method? Or would I have to look into a using different distros of iDeneb, etc..?

You would need a custom kernel. The rest is just finding drivers (if they exist for your hardware). The downside to running a custom kernel is that you can't run updates like normal and you're often behind on releases due to the fact that the developers have to modify the new kernels to work on AMD chips. The current AMD kernel is on 10.6.5:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=237538

There may be more information available, but I don't keep up with AMD due to the headache

 

[dlock13]

You would need a custom kernel. The rest is just finding drivers (if they exist for your hardware). The downside to running a custom kernel is that you can't run updates like normal and you're often behind on releases due to the fact that the developers have to modify the new kernels to work on AMD chips. The current AMD kernel is on 10.6.5:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=237538

There may be more information available, but I don't keep up with AMD due to the headache

Well, the thing is, I was trying to budget build a new gaming rig, and I would love to have OSX as well as Windows 7. I was looking at the prices, and it looked like the price/performance ratio for AMD is better than Intel. I might look into running OSX via a custom kernel, but I'm undecided at the moment. I'm not building anytime soon, but I just wanted an idea.

Thanks Kaido.

 

[Zaap]

I have to say, if you're looking to build an AMD gaming rig and a Hackintosh, then you should consider one or the other but not both. AMD is just too much of a hassle to Hackintosh.

Think about it for a moment- all of us know that even with Intel, only certain motherboards and chipsets work, and pretty much exclusively select Gigabyte boards unless you want major hassles. So even the average picked-at-random Intel motherboard isn't going to make for a great Hackintosh, if it'll even work at all.

Now add the additional complication of that same problem, PLUS a completely different processor architecture. Only a select few AMD boards are going to be able to work, and then only with major hacks.

Then on top of it you've got the graphic card issue- a card that's great for Windows gaming (certainly if we're talking bleeding edge) may not work at all under OSx86.

If you're really serious about OSx86, you might want to approach it like this: what's your budget for your gaming rig? Someone here could likely take the same price range and spec you a decent Hackintosh build with the most cost-effective OSx86 compatible graphic/gaming option as well, and see how it stacks up.

I also gotta add- I build a lot of client systems, business and gaming machines. AMD hardware is a little cheaper, but only in a few select cases have I seen where it really does stack up to more bang per buck vs. Intel.

Almost every time one of my clients that want me to build task-specific machines for them have cheaped-out and went AMD to 'save a few bucks' it turns out a slightly more expensive Intel rig performed the task much better. (For example- video encoding. AMD processors look great on paper for this, but similar class Intel processors KILL them every time, sometimes by shocking amounts.) I know the AMD fans may disagree with me, but it's been my experience that you pretty much get what you pay for.

 

[Kaido]

Well, the thing is, I was trying to budget build a new gaming rig, and I would love to have OSX as well as Windows 7. I was looking at the prices, and it looked like the price/performance ratio for AMD is better than Intel. I might look into running OSX via a custom kernel, but I'm undecided at the moment. I'm not building anytime soon, but I just wanted an idea.

Thanks Kaido.

You can do it if you don't mind staying away from the latest updates. My wife's Hackintosh has been on Leopard 10.5.6 for like the last 2 years, but all she uses it for is Lightroom, Photoshop, and Safari, so it's a tool that runs specific software to do specific things for her - an appliance. Kind of depends on how you want to approach it.

Also keep in mind that mostly it's a research project - you can sink a lot of time into it and get really frustrated If you have a board that someone else has already found drivers for, then you're in luck, otherwise you're going to have to spend a lot of time researching on forums and testing things out. Just depends on the route you want to go.

 

[mosslack]

You can do it if you don't mind staying away from the latest updates. My wife's Hackintosh has been on Leopard 10.5.6 for like the last 2 years, but all she uses it for is Lightroom, Photoshop, and Safari, so it's a tool that runs specific software to do specific things for her - an appliance. Kind of depends on how you want to approach it.

Also keep in mind that mostly it's a research project - you can sink a lot of time into it and get really frustrated If you have a board that someone else has already found drivers for, then you're in luck, otherwise you're going to have to spend a lot of time researching on forums and testing things out. Just depends on the route you want to go.

I'd actually like to do one just to see how it's accomplished, but I have no plans at the moment. As usual, too many other projects going right now to try, but I'm interested in hearing how it goes.

 

[Sophie424]

My 2-year stable Hack (it's a Intel BOXDG31PR) has started going beach-ball on me after successful boot up. Would memory test would be a good place to start? Any pointers to the specifics on doing this? Any way to do this from a USB stick?

Thanks!

[EDIT: ran overnight memtest.iso off a CD, no failures. Hmmph. Running DiskWarrior now.]

 

[Kaido]

I'd actually like to do one just to see how it's accomplished, but I have no plans at the moment. As usual, too many other projects going right now to try, but I'm interested in hearing how it goes.

Oh, it's nothing fancy, you just install a customized kernel into your system. It's the same idea as using older kernels in the Atom systems to get them to work, except the AMD kernels have mods to talk to AMD chips. But if you're doing a new system, you also have to find all of the drivers and whatnot for your board, card, etc.

 

[Kaido]

Kaido, about that RAID Card..How stable is this? Near production? I'm needing to build a lower power file server so I can put my main machine to sleep when not in use... I'd like to have OSX on it. Linux works but more possibilities with OSX.

Status update - so far it has been very stable for me. I am using it in a UD3P (Core 2) system. I've heard there may be issues with P55 boards, but I can't verify that. Good for me so far!

 

[mosslack]

Currently booted up on my DS3L system and just finished the update to 10.6.7. No problems so far. My system uses VoodooHDA and that still works fine after the update. I'm also in the process of backing up my MSI P55-GD80 system in order to run the update on it. Keep in mind, I don't use sleep on any of my systems so no word on the status of that from me.

 

[Zaap]

Didn't even know it was out. Updated my backup partition without a hitch, then the main.