As you may have read, last week we got a couple of shiny new iMacs. We did however see this as an opportunity to re do the computer room.
We’ve been living in this house for over 4 1/2 years now, and as with most people, the house just gets cluttered.
When we first moved in, we both had a PC each, both with 17″ CRT monitors, as we’ve upgraded our main machines, we’ve then built up a “server” machine to host the media on, and to be a terminal for me to dial in to.
In the last 4 1/2 years, we’ve upgraded the main PC’s twice, and then finally changed to iMacs, however I’ve always just kind of unplugged 1 machine, and plugged in the next, which means that the floor seems to get tangled up in cables.
We also had the server machine sat on one of our original desks, which was just taking up far too much room.
A couple of years ago I discovered, it was possible to run the mighty Mac OSx operating system on hardware that wasn’t Apple.
As the versions of Mac OSx have come out, newer of the custom install disk have been released, the community has grown, and custom drivers have been written for the non-Mac hardware.
Over the last 2 years, I’ve tried multiple disk and had varied success….however, I’ve finally cracked it ! Last week, using the disk iATKOS_v7, and after 6 attempts, I was finally able to install, and run Mac OSx version 10.5.7.
The issue that I’ve had over the past couple of years, is that Apples tend to run on the Intel based chipset and processors, but as you can see from the below, my machine couldn’t be much further from a mac specs. Having an AMD Processor and ATI motherboard was the probable cause for my 2 years of failing.
Current Machine Spec.
AMD 6000+ Processor
4Gb Ram Memory
1 x 500Gb Western Digital Drive (SATA)
2 x 250Gb Western Digital Drives (SATA)
1 x PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-112 (IDE)
ATI HD2900 1Gb PCI-e Graphics Asus M2R32-MVP :-
Onboard AL1988 SoundCard
ATI SB580 Chipset
Marvell Yukon 88E001 Gigabit Network Controller
I had to switch out the DVD drive, as this caused problems with earlier version of the DVD, where I would get a kernel panic while trying to initialize the setup.
Anyway, back to the success story. The iATKOS_v7 DVD booted like a charm and took me into the setup, went into the Disk Utilities and Erased my drive to Mac OS Journal
Back to the installer, next, next, next and Customize.
The previous attempts, I used the ATI Video drivers, the Marvell Yukon Network drivers, but no joy.
Once the install had finished, I was presented with the standard OSx welcome screen, entered my name. Due to having no working network card, I had to manually enter my details, as these would have otherwise been populated with the associated details on my apple account, after these Tada ! MAC OSX Desktop.
The video was only in 1024×768 and the was no network but we were getting there.
Downloaded the Marvell Yukon Driver from here, and followed the instructions
Downloaded the ATI HD2900 from here and followed the instructions.
Restarted, and I had full working gigabit network, and my 22″ Widescreen monitor running at 1680×1050 and 19″ monitor running at 1280×1024 !
As I was feeling brave, I decided to click on the Software update version, it downloaded and installed all the updates, and even took me to version 10.5.8 !
To get the LCD working on the Logitech G15 Keyboard, Logitech are kind enough to provide Mac Software found here , As my keyboard is a Microsoft UK layout, the ” and the @ were in the wrong place, so downloaded the Microsoft British driver from here
Finally, I couldn’t get used to the acceleration Apple implement to their mouse drives, and wanted to have the old boring 1:1 ratio, no matter how fast I moved my mouse, I found a little util called SteerMouse, which can be downloaded from here
All in all, that’s it, I now not only have my MacBook Pro, I also have a fully working Mac Pro.
Below is a list of useful software I’ve found
Adium for all your instant messenger needs MenuMeters for all your monitoring needs NeoOffice, a Mac only version of Open Office Skype, mac version
As with most Windows users, we all get used to it’s little quirks, think “oh well”, when you see the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), hold the power button down when it decided to lock up and show all your open apps as (Not Responding)….well I’ve had enough.
I’ve used non-linux based operating systems for many many moons, since that day that everything was branded as “IBM Compatible”, when DOS was a sold operating system, and DOS Shell was a simple way of managing your files. These days I talk about where when you had an option to fire up windows, or just run at a command prompt …..ah simple times.
I saw Windows 3, then add sound in 3.1, then add network support in 3.11 for workgroups. I saw them make Windows the primary operating System in Windows 95, add 32-bit support in Windows 98 SE, really not sure what ME was all about, apart from it had prettier icons, and a higher crash rate than a destruction derby….NT, 2000, 2003, 2008, XP, Vista…….and with Windows 7, with Direct X 11 on the horizon (I wonder if it’s a sign ….7/11), but I think it’s time for me to leave the Windows gravy train, and head for greener pastures…that’s right people, I’m heading to the dark side.
On Friday, I’ve order myself a new shiny Macbook Pro ! Woot !
I bought an Apple Ipod Touch 32Gb a month or so ago, and had forgotten what it was like for something just to work !
Now I know apple aren’t the cheapest, but you do get what you pay for. The touch is a £250 MP3 player…..I know, however once you’ve got one in your hand and start to add apps, add your own music you will instantly fall in love with it. This I hope is what is going to happy with the MacBook.
Specs are as follows
Intel Core 2 Duo (2.4GHz) processor.
2GB DDR2 RAM.
250GB hard drive.
15.4in glossy TFT widescreen display.
Slot-loading 8X SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD+RW/CD-RW).
nVidia GeForce 9600M GT graphics with dedicated 256MB memory.
802.11 N WiFi.
Bluetooth.
Built-in iSIGHT camera.
MAC OS X v10.5 Leopard and iLIFE 08.
It’s due for delivery on the 14th (don’t ask, I found a bargain that saved me over £200, so willing to wait)
