spartango Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Not long after REVENGE's call to arms, the OS X live dvd team has struck gold! We now have a working Live dvd construction method that is easy to follow and works quite well. In fact, it will work on either hackintosh and legit macs, depending on the kext's and boot loader used! This method works because OSX has a disk image boot system in place to support its network boot system. IOHDIXController and kernel can take a path to disk image supplied to them, and mount it as /, via "imageboot", which recognizes a disk image as an attachable filesystem. Further, Apple has setup a system to take a read-only disk image and attach a shadowfile to it, so that it is writeable. Intended to support a network boot system by making the user's session local and non-persistent, it is implemented in /etc/rc.netboot. Basically, vndevice (/usr/libexec/vndevice) attaches a shadow file to the dmg, and enables a copy-on-write strategy on that device--writes to the dmg are diverted to the temporary shadow file. This is much like what happens on a linux live dvd, albeit with Unionfs. Normally the shadowfile is created on a local disk or network share, on either nfs or hfs. Under my method, the shadowfile is created on ramdisk formatted with hfs, and the system behaves exactly as if it were booted with netboot. The difference is that I specify that the dmg to boot from is local(file:///), and then manually start a customized rc script. The script behaves like rc.netboot, except i create a ramdisk and setup the shadowfile there instead of on a local disk. After that / is R/W and OS X boots normally into finder...and beyond. More details in the link below to the InsanelyMac X Labs! http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=144128 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krrr Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 wow that is nice start to 2009 . thanks for the post here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realityiswhere Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Now THIS is front page worthy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
syn909 Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Awesome thanks for contributing! I have been waiting for something like this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Drift Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 That looks nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glubbdubdribian Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Wow. well done everybody! definitely gonna try this as soon as i have the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3Dman Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Thanks a lot that's really a front page news Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rorydaredking Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 All I can say is wow! And Like everyone has said, this reallly is front page news. Cheers R Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Nice work guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pito Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Thanks for nice gift for my birthday! Congratulations... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~pcwiz Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Awesome, great work!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jafodia Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Good news! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swad Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Great job, guys. Pretty incredible stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macfinity Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Wow, A smashing start to 2009 indeed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
namio Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Not long after REVENGE's call to arms, the OS X live dvd team has struck gold! We now have a working Live dvd construction method that is easy to follow and works quite well. In fact, it will work on either hackintosh and legit macs, depending on the kext's and boot loader used! This method works because OSX has a disk image boot system in place to support its network boot system. IOHDIXController and kernel can take a path to disk image supplied to them, and mount it as /, via "imageboot", which recognizes a disk image as an attachable filesystem. Further, Apple has setup a system to take a read-only disk image and attach a shadowfile to it, so that it is writeable. Intended to support a network boot system by making the user's session local and non-persistent, it is implemented in /etc/rc.netboot. Basically, vndevice (/usr/libexec/vndevice) attaches a shadow file to the dmg, and enables a copy-on-write strategy on that device--writes to the dmg are diverted to the temporary shadow file. This is much like what happens on a linux live dvd, albeit with Unionfs. Normally the shadowfile is created on a local disk or network share, on either nfs or hfs. Under my method, the shadowfile is created on ramdisk formatted with hfs, and the system behaves exactly as if it were booted with netboot. The difference is that I specify that the dmg to boot from is local(file:///), and then manually start a customized rc script. The script behaves like rc.netboot, except i create a ramdisk and setup the shadowfile there instead of on a local disk. After that / is R/W and OS X boots normally into finder...and beyond. More details in the link below to the InsanelyMac X Labs! http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=144128 Are there any specific details/instructions on what you need to do to make it boot an intel imac? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enli Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Thats a wonderful gift from XDev team. Great job guys ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spartango Posted January 4, 2009 Author Share Posted January 4, 2009 Oh, i wish i had an intel mac(sort of, for odd reasons)... It should be really straightforward on an intel mac if you build off of an existing OSX install DVD...Same procedure applies, just stay away from hackintosh bits. Thanks guys, and give it a try! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cartri Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Could it be burned to a Flash Drive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McPhil Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 how about a 'bay release for us lazy folks. also, i dont happen to have a retail of mac laying around and its gonna take 2 weeks to download one with all these {censored} leechers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pyrates Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 I do like this. I wonder if those with special hardware that requires tweaks can create custom OS X live dvd's? And can a live dvd have more then one image on it? Like maybe create a small rescue image to boot from with all the rescue tools that you'd need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryu-ka Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 Looks very nice! Great job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dispnt Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 wonderful thank you for the great job Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timbojill Posted February 25, 2010 Share Posted February 25, 2010 can someone write down the custom settings for this ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rexley Posted March 2, 2010 Share Posted March 2, 2010 Aw I need to try this one.. sounds promising indeed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterA Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 Looks interesting. I'll investigate to see if this is what will work with my Asus 1000HA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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