OSx86 Hackintosh

[CherBear]

VM, VM, VM.......

http://www.virtualbox.org.

Have it, don't want to use it for this for a couple of reasons:

In order to get osx86 to work on this, it still takes a heck of a lot of troubleshooting and fine tuning. By no means is it plug and play.

I want to run it natively for performance and a sense of accomplishment. I like the challenge I guess?

 

[casm]

VM, VM, VM.......

Yes to this. It's the way to go.

http://www.virtualbox.org.

But for the love of God, NOT VIRTUALBOX.

Virtualbox may be free, but it's good for two things and two things only: demonstrating the truth behind the maxim 'you get what you pay for', and making VMWare / Parallels look really appealing. Virtualbox is notably slower than the other two and its VM tools are nowhere near as polished as the others' are. I'm happy to support OSS / free software, but at this point it's still too lacking in critical areas to make the hassle of living with it worthwhile.

Given the problems I've had recently with just getting Windows running acceptably in it (which led to my defection to VMWare, having previously been a Parallels user for 3 years), running a Hackintosh OS in it is probably not going to be an enjoyable experience. In a couple of years, given some further development, Virtualbox may be viable. I certainly hope that it is. But right now its shortcomings make it not worth dealing with.

So I go and try to boot back into windows, it seems mac has taken the liberty to install itself as the boot partition. fml.

Have you read through the instructions for using the Windows bootloader?

It sounds like the OSX86 system is installed - you just need to configure selection of which one to load at boot time (assuming I've read everything up to this point correctly).

 

[CherBear]

Yes to this. It's the way to go.



But for the love of God, NOT VIRTUALBOX.

Virtualbox may be free, but it's good for two things and two things only: demonstrating the truth behind the maxim 'you get what you pay for', and making VMWare / Parallels look really appealing. Virtualbox is notably slower than the other two and its VM tools are nowhere near as polished as the others' are. I'm happy to support OSS / free software, but at this point it's still too lacking in critical areas to make the hassle of living with it worthwhile.

Given the problems I've had recently with just getting Windows running acceptably in it (which led to my defection to VMWare, having previously been a Parallels user for 3 years), running a Hackintosh OS in it is probably not going to be an enjoyable experience. In a couple of years, given some further development, Virtualbox may be viable. I certainly hope that it is. But right now its shortcomings make it not worth dealing with.



Have you read through the instructions for using the Windows bootloader?

It sounds like the OSX86 system is installed - you just need to configure selection of which one to load at boot time (assuming I've read everything up to this point correctly).

Yes I am using the windows boot loader, some how I messed it up... not sure how. All fixed now, just had the boot flag on the wrong partition that didnt containt the boot loader.

 

[casm]

Yes I am using the windows boot loader, some how I messed it up... not sure how. All fixed now, just had the boot flag on the wrong partition that didnt containt the boot loader.

Okay... So to clarify: you can now boot both Windows and OSX86, correct?

 

[RedHeep]

How do you get that $9.95 copy of Office Mac if you work for the gobment. I could use one.

Microsoft home use program.

PM me your work email and I'll send it to you from work tomorrow.

 

[RedHeep]

Its ironic how the government practically gives licenses away... yet they come after me when I get one for free

Just kidding, I am a law abiding citizen. Only murderers and serial rapists would steal from the internet.

The federal government pays a licensing fee for each one of those licenses like everyone else.

You just can't afford the corporate price.

 

[CherBear]

Okay... So to clarify: you can now boot both Windows and OSX86, correct?

I am not sure. I havent played with it since I re arranged the boot loader.

I dont know how to make an entry for mac osx in the windows boot loader because vista cant even recognize the partition that I made on the main HD.
It is a 300gb HD, vista says it is a 267gb hard disk with 1 partition...

Im working on it.

EDIT:

I am using easyBCD, mac has an entry, but it points towards a file on the C drive. Not sure how that works out...
Stay posted for a screen shot.

 

[CherBear]

EDIT: sorry it is big, i am resizing it.
EDIT: now you can't even read it. soooper.

Just go here if you want to actually read it.

 

[beakie]

(X)ubuntu for over a year now, old laptop and my brand new one too. Windose 7 crashed 5minutes into my first boot, then again 20 minutes later, crashed once more burning the first Xubuntu boot CD... never had to worry about it again after Linux installed... byebye MS. course trying to get everything to work properly can take some time, and finding all the programs to do what you want (burn DVD's, ipod stuff, etc) can be trying... but no adware crap, no virus software and not worrying about the usual MS crap is so worth it.

the wife loves her Mac, and I do too, but just to used to how things works on these machines. I don't love having to fix the odd problem with her mac... if something does go wrong its normally 10x as long to figure out and fix it then one my machines.

does this OSx86 have much support?

 

[Audiophile]

I had a Vista machine that had used over 50% of the 110 partition (of 250gb) with games, Dev programs and MS Office. Tired of the boot times, I installed Ubuntu Linux, and haven't looked back. Now I have one partition, MS Office (using Wine), and still have 187gb left, and a 25 second boot time, and a big grin on my face.

 

[wolfpackjeeper]

I love my ubuntu setup. Laptop runs it, media machine runs mythbuntu, and the coffeetable runs ubuntu. It has evolved to the point where is is not even hard to get any programs you need. Just look in the repositories.

Audiphile, what does office have that you needed to go to the trouble of using wine for? I love openoffice.

 

[Audiophile]

I do too, but unfortunately I have to turn in documents in Office 7 format, otherwise I have no problems with Open Office. :cheers:

 

[RedHeep]

Open office works good for me too.

But the real version works way better

Entourage is a much much better email program than whatever apple puts on there.

 

[casm]

Just go here if you want to actually read it.

Okay. Two questions:

1) How much space did you allocate to the OSX86 partition?

2) In Gparted (which I haven't used in a while, so bear with me if I'm off-track here), did you mark the OSX86 partition type as HFS before formatting it, or just format it as HFS without setting the partition type?

WRT #2 above, I'm thinking that the partition may have been marked as type NTFS or FATxx. This is based on what I'm seeing in that screenshot of EasyBCD - if I'm reading it correctly, it references C:\ for both partitions, which makes me think that the OSX86 partition is marked as a type other than HFS. It is seeing the OSX86 MBR, however - so if I'm off-base on the partition typing, try pointing Gparted at \NST\nst_mac.mbr on your OSX86 partition and see if that causes it to load.

I don't have a test environment I can easily replicate this in, but I'll see about grabbing a copy of OSX86 later and duplicating where you're at with it. It'll be in a VM, though (I don't have a spare PC I can throw at this right now), so things may not be 100% accurate in relation to your setup.

 

[CherBear]

Okay. Two questions:

1) How much space did you allocate to the OSX86 partition?

2) In Gparted (which I haven't used in a while, so bear with me if I'm off-track here), did you mark the OSX86 partition type as HFS before formatting it, or just format it as HFS without setting the partition type?

WRT #2 above, I'm thinking that the partition may have been marked as type NTFS or FATxx. This is based on what I'm seeing in that screenshot of EasyBCD - if I'm reading it correctly, it references C:\ for both partitions, which makes me think that the OSX86 partition is marked as a type other than HFS. It is seeing the OSX86 MBR, however - so if I'm off-base on the partition typing, try pointing Gparted at \NST\nst_mac.mbr on your OSX86 partition and see if that causes it to load.

I don't have a test environment I can easily replicate this in, but I'll see about grabbing a copy of OSX86 later and duplicating where you're at with it. It'll be in a VM, though (I don't have a spare PC I can throw at this right now), so things may not be 100% accurate in relation to your setup.

1.) The osx partition has 33 gb of free space.

2.) I did not use Gparted to format the drive as HFS, the Osx86 installer has a built in formating and partitioning tool that I used to format that specific partition as HFS. I think it is a primary partition, it was some how marked as the boot partition (I am not too sure how the mac boot loader works).

After using Gparted to set the windows partition back to boot, I am able to use the windows boot loader to access both Vista and Osx86.

How ever mac doesnt recognize my built in keyboard, nor do I have a USB one handy, so it wont let me progess through the loading menu. :bawl:

I am trying a new distro (iAtkos v7) in hopes of better support.

 

[casm]

After using Gparted to set the windows partition back to boot, I am able to use the windows boot loader to access both Vista and Osx86.

Ah, OK. I see where things are now. Much clearer. You're fine for disk capacity, at least for an experimental install.

How ever mac doesnt recognize my built in keyboard, nor do I have a USB one handy, so it wont let me progess through the loading menu. :bawl:

Gotcha. I suspect that your BIOS is emulating your keyboard as PS/2 rather than USB. You might be able to tweak this in the BIOS, but take a look at this in case you can't; it may be of some help.

I seem to recall that there were versions of OS X way in the dim, distant past that had PS/2 support. I don't know if that got pulled out at some point, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did (or if it only ever supported PS/2 chipsets and devices that were Apple-blessed). ADB support was definitely in there, but that's nothing to do with PS/2.

I am trying a new distro (iAtkos v7) in hopes of better support.

If you can check out the stuff above before doing a reinstall, you might be able to save yourself that headache. Just sayin'. If your keyboard is emulated as PS/2, though, I suspect you're going to have the same problem regardless of which distro you try unless those kernel extensions are included as part of the installer (and loaded at install time).

 

[wolfpackjeeper]

Thanks for the email Redheep. That never got disseminated through my command, hope to have a copy on the way soon for the wife.

 

[CherBear]

Ah, OK. I see where things are now. Much clearer. You're fine for disk capacity, at least for an experimental install.



Gotcha. I suspect that your BIOS is emulating your keyboard as PS/2 rather than USB. You might be able to tweak this in the BIOS, but take a look at this in case you can't; it may be of some help.

I seem to recall that there were versions of OS X way in the dim, distant past that had PS/2 support. I don't know if that got pulled out at some point, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did (or if it only ever supported PS/2 chipsets and devices that were Apple-blessed). ADB support was definitely in there, but that's nothing to do with PS/2.



If you can check out the stuff above before doing a reinstall, you might be able to save yourself that headache. Just sayin'. If your keyboard is emulated as PS/2, though, I suspect you're going to have the same problem regardless of which distro you try unless those kernel extensions are included as part of the installer (and loaded at install time).

From what I can dig up, iAtkos v7 has better kext support for PS/2 devices than the other distros. Maybe this can get me somewhere.

I will look into adjusting settings in my bios, although I have a feeling that the only solution will be kexts.