binaryfactory.ca

Here are a few quickies I learned in the past few days:

10.5.6 upgrade

10.5.6 seems to be easier to install from 10.5.5 than 10.5.4 . 10.5.4 to 10.5.5 only messed up the video on my test, and I did not bother fixing it before going to 10.5.6 , which as usual messed with my keyboard, but not with the trackpad. With the help of the on screen keyboard, I was able to re-install the Video kexts and keyboard kext from this pack (Thanks Vivarey! – http://files.binaryfactory.ca/windtools/10.5.6%20upgrade%20pack%20v2.zip ). A reboot later, and the keyboard/trackpad are working fine, USB is working fine, webcam works.

Sound switching

Another thing I found out is sound switching to headphones, which didn’t work properly in 10.5.4, and I had some issues with my first 10.5.6 that I did not bother fixing with (not related to the update).

You will need the CHUD tools as well as a switch script. Install CHUD and run the switch script to switch audio output. I have indexed the script in Quicksilver so I can easily trigger it – however, it will prompt for a sudo password. It is doable to compile an applescript with the password embedded, however, I don’t mind typing the password in and hate hard-coding passwords into scripts, as well as storing them. Get the switch.sh script here: http://files.binaryfactory.ca/windtools/switch.sh . As far as CHUD goes, I am not allowed to distribute it but you can get it from Apple for free if you register as a developper, or maybe you can find it somewhere else!

USB Problems

While I was back on 10.5.4 , I experienced USB troubles related to Kernel/Extension mismatch. My USB mouse would sometimes only work when plugged in at boot, and sometimes my iPhone would just not be recognized. I have not used this new install for too long on 10.5.6 but for now everything seems to work fine. So if you are experiencing USB mismatch issues with an older version, especially if you have used the MSIWindOSx.iso installer, you might want to try updating it.

I received my MSI Wind netbook yesterday. It is the Linux version, so the hacks using the HD install helper to install Mac OS to another partition are not good for me, and I don’t own another Mac, so I can’t restore the ISO to the USB Stick easily.

I’m planning on using it as a portable internet machine (duh), along with my iPhone and PdaNet for 3g tethering, as well as using it at home hooked to an external monitor and keyboard as a low-power desktop and torrent device.

All files listed here are available for download at the bottom of this post.

First, grab a 4gig+ USB stick and the OS X Installer ISO.

Format the USB stick using Fat32.

Boot your current Linux installation, and run this as root:****as pointed out in a comment below, this may not be necessary at all. However i find it good practice to wipe the MBR before installing an OS that wasn’t really designed to handle being installed on systems with other boot loaders than its own****

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=512 count=1

Be sure to replace the X with the proper letter for your hard drive. This will destroy the partition table and master boot record.

Then, using Leopard HD Helper version 0.3 (Google to find it, newer versions might be better) we will create the bootable OS X Install USB stick.

Run DDMac.exe

In the first field, browse to your previously downloaded OS X Iso.

Select the USB drive as the destination. You will get a warning about the driver, ignore it.

In my case, I unchecked boot.ini – you would leave it if you were running the tool directly on the Wind to install from another partition.

Leave the other checkboxes checked, then click Start (the only button).

Sometimes, start is grayed out. Browse to the ISO, check and uncheck a bunch of stuff and it usually becomes available. Browsing to the ISO, unchecking the “write” box (between the destination pull-down menu and the start button’), choosing the destination and checking Write again seems to be a good combination most of the time.

Once you click start, it will take around 10 minutes, and the progress bar isn’t a big help. It helps if your USB Stick has a LED, because the app does not take much CPU and you could think it has died. Be patient, grab a cup of coffee..

Once it is done, remove the USB Drive properly, and connect it to the Wind. Boot it by using the F11 menu on the Wind.

Once you get to the Select Destination screen, you  might not see your hard drive at all, only the USB stick. Go in the Utilities menu, then chose Disk Utility. From there, you should see your HD and be able to format it properly. I used only 1 partition, even though I am a fan of having my “/home” on another one, simply  because I have no OS X experience and figured one partition would be OK for now.

The install should proceed normally. Once finished, sound should already work, as well as standby, some FN keys like volume, etc.

We can now install the RTL8187SE Wifi Driver from RealTek. Simple run it, it will install the driver and the GUI to configure it (it will not be detected as a native airport device).

Once that is done, install the Ethernet Kext (Kernel Extension) file to enable Ethernet (another reboot might be required). How? Grab Paul O’Brien’s Wind driver package, and simply drag the RT1000 Kext to the Kext helper utility included in his package.

Once that was done, I ran a Software update to 10.5.6.

This killed my Keyboard, trackpad, and messed up the video driver.

I hooked up a USB keyboard and mouse, logged on, and found on the web the Vilerey Update package which contains all the Kext files you will need to reinstall to make the keyboard and trackpad work. You might have other devices not working such as the Network card, those drivers are also included..

Files:

http://files.binaryfactory.ca/windtools/

Leopard HD Helper 0.3

RTL8187SE Wifi Driver

Paul O’Brien’s package. Thanks Paul, great package, I hope you don’t mind me mirroring it here !

Vileray 10.5.6 upgrade package v2

The only other files required are an OS X Iso (I Used MSIWindOSX.ISO )