Hackintosh 10.5.5 Retail Rig - Starting at $305

[imported_jonnyc]

A favor,

Can one of you guys with a deep understanding of the underlying processes of hackintosh explain the process in lamens terms.
I've read so many guides now, and alot of them speak in computer tongues making it difficult to conceptually understand exactly what is happening in a hackintosh install and more importantly what each program does. from my understanding

Boot-132 is the first step, this is essentially priming the bios ?

after this priming, os x is installed, but before the install the underlying disk is formatted in the OS X framework by the computer being hackintoshed ?

After this the actual install is allowed to take place ?

after that an app like chameleon is run to install appropriate kexts (essentially deleting and adding apropriate drivers)

then it is a 99% functioning system ?


I know there are a ton of guides out there but the fragmentation and different methods really cause confusion when trying to conecptualize the process and understand the place of boot-132 and chameleon and other software.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Zaap
So far, Chameleon 2.0 is as close as it gets to just that. It is very good at this stage. If they fix just a few more issues with it, it could be exactly what I've been waiting for in a bootloader. I could actually install it on a client's system to give graphical multi-OS booting (no more "just hold down F12!" and trust that it won't screw up at some point and leave a non-tech savy person unable to boot thier own system. That's the benchmark I'm waiting for.

Agreed. Simple/foolproof = winner.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: jonnyc
A favor,

Can one of you guys with a deep understanding of the underlying processes of hackintosh explain the process in lamens terms.

In a nutshell:
Mac OS X runs on Apple hardware. OS X includes drivers (called kexts) to get hardware to work. OS X talks to the computer via EFI (Mac's version of BIOS). When you install OS X on a PC, the first thing it looks for is EFI - which your PC doesn't have (it has BIOS). Some newer boards have EFI, but they're not Apple's EFI. So the first thing to do is slap on an Apple EFI emulator (PC EFI_v9 Chameleon is the way to go right now). The install method (to use a Retail Leopard DVD) is called BOOT-132. This way you don't have to use a "cooked" distribution like Kalyway or iPC.

Next you need drivers to get your PC hardware to work. This is where the headache comes in. You have to be VERY picky about choosing a motherboard and video card (pretty much everything else works fine) because there aren't many third-party drivers available, so you have to find really compatible hardware to begin with or it simply won't work. Apple includes drivers for Apple hardware, but not for PC hardware. I like the two Gigabyte boards I use (DS3L & UD3P) because there are a lot of good drivers available for them, which make them work well.

So for installation, you need some way of fooling the Leopard DVD into thinking that it's installing on Apple hardware. So you burn a BootCD that contains Linux (syslinux), which boots up and sets up the EFI environment and loads your drivers into memory. Then you swap the disc out with Leopard, and it thinks it's installing on a Mac! Once you're done installing Leopard, you reboot with the BootCD in the drive, then install EFI & the drivers to the hard drive. And that's pretty much it! Aside from that, some CPUs aren't supported by Apple (such as AMD CPUs), so you need a special modded kernel (the stock kernel is referred to as "vanilla"). Other drivers require different methods of installation (such as patching, being installed to a DSDT file or Boot Plist, etc.). The Uinstaller app is simply an easy way to do all the commands in one easy package.

So that's why it's hard to make your own "kit" for a motherboard - you have to find and test all the drivers and get as much working as possible. It can take months to get a really good package together and to clean up all the crazy little bugs that go along with this project.

A deeper explanation will be on the Wiki when it launches, but that's it in a nutshell - an EFI emulator + appropriate drivers for your hardware (assuming those drivers exist at all) is what you need to run Leopard on your PC.

 

[imported_jonnyc]

Thanks !
I think it's starting to click.

So riddle me this, do i use the your method with the P35-DS3L which seems in many ways to be the most straightforward method on the interwebs.
Or should I use the X58-UD5 which I know is compatible, but has a very wonky guide on insanely mac that seems to be written for hackintoshers who've been around for years.

I know the board is supported, although i'm under the impression its not supported to the same extent that the P35 is. Do you think with the appropriate Graphics card (7300 GT) I could use your write up on the X58-UD5 and just install the appropriate UD5 kexts rather than the P35 with a GUI installer ?

*The cost differential is a bit hard to swallow, ~$100 for the X58 setup, but if it costs me an extra 100 hours in time to set it up properly it would definitely change things.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: jonnyc
Thanks !
I think it's starting to click.

So riddle me this, do i use the your method with the P35-DS3L which seems in many ways to be the most straightforward method on the interwebs.
Or should I use the X58-UD5 which I know is compatible, but has a very wonky guide on insanely mac that seems to be written for hackintoshers who've been around for years.

I know the board is supported, although i'm under the impression its not supported to the same extent that the P35 is. Do you think with the appropriate Graphics card (7300 GT) I could use your write up on the X58-UD5 and just install the appropriate UD5 kexts rather than the P35 with a GUI installer ?

*The cost differential is a bit hard to swallow, ~$100 for the X58 setup, but if it costs me an extra 100 hours in time to set it up properly it would definitely change things.

Well, Hackintosh guides are kind of weird because your target demographic is hard to define. There's a senior crowd at InsanelyMac that the X58 guide applies to, but then again, those more advanced users don't really need a guide per-say, because they already know what to do. So it ends up behind a somewhat difficult guide for the rest of the users because it's not quite as user-friendly as other guides (not knocking it, he did a GREAT job on it, it's just oriented towards the more technical users). So it comes down to time/money/power vs. hassle - you can build an X58 system for a bigger cost with more of a time investment in setting it up and get a more powerful machine, or you can build a DS3L or UD3P-based system and have a pretty easy setup.

I uploaded my "How a Hackintosh Works" mini-guide, read through it and see if it makes sense:

http://leopardsoup.pbwiki.com/howstuffworks

 

[imported_jonnyc]

Wow. That bridges the gap.

The disconnect for me was I didn't realize that the boot CD was essentially cold starting the system.
The boot disc essentially jump starts the system. Once jump started a permanent solution to starting is implemented with Chameleon !

I'm going to go the P35 way, and pray you write a X58 guide sometime in the future.

Kaido that's an awesome explanation. Thanks for the link.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: jonnyc
Wow. That bridges the gap.

The disconnect for me was I didn't realize that the boot CD was essentially cold starting the system.
The boot disc essentially jump starts the system. Once jump started a permanent solution to starting is implemented with Chameleon !

I'm going to go the P35 way, and pray you write a X58 guide sometime in the future.

Kaido that's an awesome explanation. Thanks for the link.

Exactly, the BootCD is simply jumper cables to get your system up and running Haha, good analogy! The same stuff we install on the hard drive is on the CD, but installing it to the hard drive makes it permanent - but you can't do that unless you have a temporary system (the BootCD) available to install it initially. Installation used to be a HUGE hassle, but it's so dang easy now - you just install from a REAL Leopard disc!

Have you looked at the UD3P? I'd recommend that if you're buying a new board...onboard Firewire, 8 USB, 8 SATA, native SATA compatiblity in 10.5.7...

 

[fyleow]

..

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: fyleow
Hey Kaido is sleep working fine with the UD3P? I'm running on a P965 DS3 which pretty much works 99% except I'm having issues getting sleep working. I have a Chameleon install with very few modified kexts. Waking up from sleep has issues...the display comes back eventually but it's slow and the mouse/bt keyboard doesn't seem to work well.

Yup, sleep works 100% on the UD3P. It's nearly instant to wake. Also, with a third-party network card, Ethernet wakes up instantly too! What drivers are you using on your DS3, and also for your video card?

 

[fyleow]

..

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: leglez
Wow haha 100 pages and almost 2,000 posts.

Well it's official -

2000+ posts
100+ pages

:thumbsup: I'd say it's about time for a new thread! haha. By the time 10.5.7 comes out and I test it, I should have the rest of the articles up and be ready to post a new thread, whoo!

 

[imported_jonnyc]

Damn ! I already bought the board !

 

[Zaap]

Originally posted by: jonnyc
Damn ! I already bought the board !

I wouldn't even sweat it. While the 'extras' are nice on the P45 boards, the P35 boards actually work just as good, and performance for most real-world tasks is about the same. And most of the 'extra' stuff you can add with PCI cards.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Zaap

Originally posted by: jonnyc
I already bought the board !

I wouldn't even sweat it. While the 'extras' are nice on the P45 boards, the P35 boards actually work just as good, and performance for most real-world tasks is about the same. And most of the 'extra' stuff you can add with PCI cards.

Yup, I'm just surprised he found one

 

[imported_jonnyc]

They let me exchange it for the UD3P, Am I going to be ok to use the "old" UD3P guide posted mid March ? Hope so can't wait !

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: jonnyc
They let me exchange it for the UD3P, Am I going to be ok to use the "old" UD3P guide posted mid March ? Hope so can't wait !

I'll post the updated one in the next day or two.

 

[Jack Flash]

Question. Doing a Hackintosh build for a friend (convinced him to sell his iMac ) and the front panel of his case has an Azalia Audio plug. What do I need t do special for that?

Also, this is the Ep45-UD3R which is identical save a missing Ethernet and PCI-E 16x slot. The packages should work for it, no?

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Jack Flash
Question. Doing a Hackintosh build for a friend (convinced him to sell his iMac ) and the front panel of his case has an Azalia Audio plug. What do I need t do special for that?

Also, this is the Ep45-UD3R which is identical save a missing Ethernet and PCI-E 16x slot. The packages should work for it, no?

You'll need to do two things:

1. Install the plugin with onboard audio (it's labeled)
2. Connect the case's HDAudio cable (not AC97) from the headphone jack to the onboard speaker pins (see the manual) and then set the audio output in System Preferences to 'headphone out'.

Don't know if the UD3R works. Give it a try and let us know how it turns out

Edit: Also in case you're wondering, onboard motherboard RAID doesn't work with Hackintoshes, there aren't any drivers for it. But you can use Apple's Software RAID or a Mac RAID card.

 

[Kaido]

Acer Aspire Revo review:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/0...cer-aspirerevo-review/

With GPU-accelerated programs, it handles 1080p no problem. The issue is that Flash is currently not fully GPU-accelerated, which means that Youtube and Hulu stutter. I'd like to see how this fares with an Atom 330 (dual-core) instead of the Atom 230 (single-core), and also see its performance under OS X. 2ghz Atom chips were recently announced, so those might make good candidates for Flash playback with the current CPU-driven implementations.

They also said HDMI with audio works great! Bluray plays fine in PowerDVD. Can you imagine a netbook with a dual-core Atom and the 9400m?

 

[imported_jonnyc]

It worked ! used your older kit Kaido, couldn't wait.
You made this so easy, Mr. Jobs would be very angry if he got hold of you. If you need money for protection let me know.

Thanks again for making this so easy, super fun experience !

 

[Sophie424]

Hey Kaido, I just noticed your post on the MSI Wind Top. Do you think this will be Hack-friendly at some point soon? Touch as well?

That touch screen, if its good res + physically stable to use a pen, would be a killer unit itself!

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: jonnyc
It worked ! used your older kit Kaido, couldn't wait.
You made this so easy, Mr. Jobs would be very angry if he got hold of you. If you need money for protection let me know.

Thanks again for making this so easy, super fun experience !

lol

I didn't actually create any of the parts, I just assembled them in a more readable manner

I'm uploading more of the documents to the Wiki right now, about 1/3 done so far. Hoping to have the majority uploaded & formatted by this weekend. As soon as 10.5.7 comes out (and I test it), I'll start a new thread and ditch this massive beast here

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Sophie424
Hey Kaido, I just noticed your post on the MSI Wind Top. Do you think this will be Hack-friendly at some point soon? Touch as well?

That touch screen, if its good res + physically stable to use a pen, would be a killer unit itself!

Should run fine. I've helped people install Leopard on both Atom 230 system and Atom 330 systems, and it runs just peachy. They all use the same parts - Atom chips and GMA950 video cards. I'd really like to see if the GMA950 driver works on those newer Atom systems that have DVI output (I know VGA works).

The only unknown right now is the touchscreen on the all-in-one models, nobody knows yet if they have a Mac-compatible driver for them. I'm considering getting one of those 18" Windtops...they have a $599 model that has a dual-core Atom AND a built-in DVD drive, which is pretty neat, especially considering it has a touchscreen. There's a single-core version for $529 as well. Don't really know what I'd use it for though, lol.

 

[Sophie424]

Please let us know if you get one, especially your Hack + Touch experience! Would be great if they'd knock off another $100 or so to ditch the XP

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Sophie424
Please let us know if you get one, especially your Hack + Touch experience! Would be great if they'd knock off another $100 or so to ditch the XP

Will do! Just wish I had more disposable income, right now it's all getting sucked into school

Mostly I'm waiting on the ION platform - I'm very curious as to (1) whether or not it's Hackintoshable, and (2) if YoutubeHD/Hulu can play on the Atom under OS X (the 330 seems to be faring well so far...). Might have to wait until a 2ghz Atom/9400m combo is released or for a Flash update to move the video acceleration over to the GPU from the CPU.