Black Friday $400 Wal-Mart Laptop Thread

[poursoul]

I bought the "Black Friday" Wal-mart laptop (full specs can be found here - SSE3, PAE, and NX support as well) and have been very determined to get OSX on it. I first attemped to do a native install with a patched version of 10.4.3 8f1099. I received the error "Still waiting for root device"

 

I was able to circumvent this error by removing the jumper on the hard drive associated with cable select and adding the command "rd=disk0s1" during bootup. This would get me past the root device error, but then I got this error:

 

BSD root: disk0s1, major 14, minor 1

nfs_boot: networking is not initialized

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xC02AE0F8): nfs_boot_init failed with 6

 

I have read enough to know that this issue was hard drive associated. I then tried to put a HFS partition on the drive to see if it would recognize the drive better. I hooked up the laptop hard drive to my desktop with a USB adapter and ran the 10.4.1 install DVD. Suprisingly enough it did. I then got this error:

 

devfs_kernel_mount: failed to find directory '/dev', 2Load of /sbin/launchd, errno 2, trying /sbin/mach_init

Load of /sbin/launchd failed, errno 2

 

This just hangs forever with no hard drive activity.

 

I then decided to go a step further and just install 10.4.1 (using the full instal DVD native) on the laptop hard drive with my desktop system. It installed without a hitch. I attempted to boot off of the hard drive on my dektop system but it got the error "still waiting for root device" I figured this had more to do with booting through USB than with the hard drive itself. I then attempted to boot into OSX 10.4.1 on the laptopwhile using the argument "rd-disk0s1 -v" It froze without any error immediately after detecting the hard drive. It stayed that way for about 10 to 15 minutes then spat this out:

 

Dec 6 13:37:24 launchd: ioctl(SIOCAIFADDER ipv6): File exists

Checking disk

Mounting local file systems

HFS: created HFBT on OSX86

 

P.S. OSX86 was the partition name, sorry if that confused anyone.

It seemed to freeze up again after that, but there was still hard drive activity. I waited another 30 minutes and decided it wasn't worth the wait.

 

I then attempted to install 10.4.3 8f1099 again and got Many different errors and halts booting many different times. Out of the blue it did something I haven't seent yet, it booted into a blue screen with a blinking mouse cursor (btw it took about 30 minutes to get to this point.) After about 2 minutes of hard drive activity it would stop accessing the hard drive and just sit there with the blinking mouse cursor. I could move the mouse cursor if I had a USB mouse plugged in, but not with just the trackpad on the lappy. Keep in mind I did not change a thing. I simply rebooted a couple of times.

 

SO, TO RECAP:

 

I installed 10.4.1 on the hard drive via USB on a desktop system, then tried to install 10.4.3 8f1099 on it using the laptop with the boot parameter "rd=disk0s1 -v" and after rebooting many times I got "some kind" of GUI

 

To me this install really seemed like punching a square peg through a round hole with a sledge hammer.

 

I also want you guys to know that I asked for help many times during all of this. I asked about specific errors, I asked about specific issues I was having. In the end I got very little to no help. Everyone here should realise that if you want something done, you should probably do it yourself. With the exception of me helping you now ;-)

 

EDIT: Typos.

Edited December 7, 2005 by poursoul

[poursoul]

Nothing to say then? Really?

[poursoul]

Can anyone here just answer this. If I put in the boot parameter "rd=disk0s1" I am then booting from the hard drive if it is at that address correct?

 

Does anyone here know the common address for a CD-ROM. Lets just say it is master on the second IDE channel.

[fireshark]

should be rdisk1s0

[pflatline]

Nothing to say then? Really?

 

 

Ive been trying to get a black friday laptop working as well. Mine is stock,except I upgraded the memory with an additional 512meg sodimm. I tried replacing the CDROM with a different one. Still no difference. I my disk didnt have a jumper on it. I have a additional laptop hard drive Ive been hopign to install on,but with that hard drive,or the original,I still get the same problem,the still waiting for root device error. I have some suspicions as to whats wrong. I will list them so maybe we can get some comments. Some,all or none may be true.

 

1.) The driver expects DMA. This is incompatible or turned off by default.A solution might be to go into the driver source,which I understand is available as part of the darwin distribution and force it off. Another solution might be to write a small program that boots before the darwin loader to turn it on. A similar idea would be to actually modify the darwin loader itself to turn it on.

 

2.) The ATI IDE port is incompatible with darwin. This is not unreasonable as I dont recall hearing of anyone with an ATI chipset getting this to boot off the ATI IDE port. This could be part of 1.),and be the root cause of the DMA not working. It could also be something else wrong with the IDE. I looked in windows and it is using the microsoft IDE driver for the port. This tells me that either MS explicitly added support for ATI OR the MS driver works just fine as is. Lets assume for a second that the MS driver worked fine and didnt need to be changed. This means that the ATI hardware is VERY similar to what might be considered standard. Some pecularity of the darwin driver is incombatible with it. Ive read that Linux had problems and had ATI support added to fix the problem. It might be worth looking into what had to be done. Was it really big,or was it something small,it might be very easy to fix the drivers we have. (Someone correct me if I am wrong in my assumtion that all the source for this is part of darwin and freely available) If its something big,all may not be lost. We have a Linux driver for ATI,a Linux driver for normal IDE and a Darwin driver for normal IDE. It shouldnt be too much trouble to cobble something together using the linux drivers as a reference to what needs to happen to interact with the hardware and the darwiin driver as a reference of how to interact with the OS. Its just a matter of fitting the puzzle together,but all the pieces are there.

 

3.) Perhaps many of the problems are just caused by hardware being enumerated differntly on different platforms. The CD installer just may not know where to find it. I dont really have a good idea of what darwin names things or how it decides on the names. What I have notices though is that when I boot the disk on my desktop. (intel 865PE chipset with 3.0Ghz hyperthreading CPU and ATI 9800pro graphics) it comes up just fine. It calls my CDROM disk1s2. What I have gathered is that the format is disk(device)s(partition). THe 1s2 designation makes sense in light of an apple doc I found that describes how the first partition is the boot disk image that has the loader and the second partition is the actual CD. People have said that after installation they boot off their hardrive. People have talked of booting off disk1s1,1s2 and 1s3 that I have heard. From this,it seems that once it installs,it calls the hard disk "disk1sx" where x is the partition. Some people have had no problem with the CD but couldnt boot without explicitly forcing it to boot from disk1s1. What if the system is enumerating the disk as something other than 1s1? Ive tried 1s1-4 and 2s1-4 and it didnt seem to work. I havent had a chance to test all the combinations yet however. Im told that you should have the default boot device be your hard disk,not your CDROM,so everything I tried I now consider invalid (because I had CDROM as first boot device when I tried it) What I dont know are the possible names that the CDROM could have. If I knew those,I could try them all or at least the reasonable ones. Right now Im just guessing.

 

 

Things I have tried so far,partially in order (some steps were repeated when other changes made)

Boot from beta patched CD.

Boot from CD patched with release patch.

Boot from CD with the patch someone posted on this forum,that had via support and all.

 

Checked hard disk CS jumper,didnt have one.

Swapped out CDROM

Used boot paramaters rd=diskxsy where x and y are various possible device and partition numbers.

Tried ACPI and X86PC parameters,as well as -x -f -s etc.

Changed BIOS settings to boot from hard disk. (since hard disk was blank,second boot was CDROM,so it tried that next)

Reflashed bios with a new version that was available on HP site.

Tried to boot latest open source darwin to see if it got same error. (it did)

Tried booting on desktop to see if disk worked. (it worked fine on desktop)

 

 

All of these resulted in the same error that it was still waiting for the root device. I dont have alot of time to try right now as finals are coming up next week. After finals I plan on trying some more,and plan on exploring the possibility that we may need to create a driver.

[VaiOSX]

This laptop is just a rubbish, even Linux can't be installed.

 

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/topic-61681.html

[pflatline]

This laptop is just a rubbish, even Linux can't be installed.

 

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/topic-61681.html

 

 

I wouldnt blame the laptop,its the hardware support in linux that seems to be the blame. They seem to have problems running X. This isnt entirely unexpected. IT seems to be a reasonably new chipset with embedded graphics. I had similar problems long ago on a Compaq PIII desktop with integrated graphics.

 

On the quality of the laptop. I have little to complain about,expecially for 400 dollars,a laptop with wif,and a CDRW is a good deal. I dont particularly like AMD and my experience has been that their chips never are stable,at least for me. I allways have blamed the motherboards. The laptop seems to verify this as it is as stable as my intel system desktop. I was actually impressed with the integrated graphics. They can run games (I play FFXI and Eve-Online) and they will run on it,slowly,but its way better than you get with intel integrated graphics. Battery life isnt as good as I would like,and the screen has a faded spot (need to call them about that).

 

These laptops actually go for around 600-800 on the HP website,so I am very happy with mine. (If it wasnt for the price,I would never have purchased an AMD notebook. Since I accepted that its not exactly what I would prefer,I feel that if it runs windows ok,then considering the price,its all good. THe only issue is going to be if I want to run linux on it,which I probobally will,if I cant get OSX to run. I suspect I will have to do a text mode install and then go ahead and download the ATI mobile graphics product driver and instal get X working. Its allways nice to get Linux to install perfectly with no geeking around,but my experience has allways been that if you get a system with a newer chipset,either graphics or motherboard, that linux simply wont work without tweaking (if at all) for a while. Unfortunatly, while windows drivers are made bfore the hardware reaches market, Linux drivers are often made after its discovered that a certain piece of hardware does not work. Its just the way it is. In any event, in a month or so the linux community will have all the problems installing on these chipsets sorted out. While they may have to wait untill after the fact,they allways get it going pretty quick after that.

 

 

EDIT: Actually,it seems that ATI has already taken care of it. The problem is neither with Linux OR the laptop. The problem is between the keyboad and the chair. The used must not have downloaded the ATI drivers that they provide for both video and IDE. Now its just too bad cant find a darwin driver. =(

[VaiOSX]

The problem is between the keyboad and the chair

 

You're right, but HP is just an ink tanks company.

 

their computers suxx, same as Packard Bell who use NEC Versa mobo for their laptops, except one point, they use a home made BIOS who prevent to boot from DVD's.

 

Now, if you want OS X 100% compatible, just buy a real Mac.

Edited December 8, 2005 by VaiOSX

[mortis]

have you tried installing 10.4.3 using the >VMWare to Native< method?

[Chimera]

You're right, but HP is just an ink tanks company.

 

Really? Tell that to the Federal and State governments who use HP Unix equipment. I use HP-UX hardware and software for 90% of my job, and I write payroll checks for 9000 people every 2 weeks.

 

Back on topic, I would partition the drive into 2, install Windows + VMware and do a VMware install of OSX to the 2nd HD partition, then boot off that partition natively. I had to do this with one of my machines, it runs great native but wouldn't install from the DVD.

[poursoul]

Alright! not just an informative post, but a knowlegable person as well!

 

I didn't realize up until recently that every damn time I put in "rd=disk0s1" during boot up it was telling it to boot from the HD. I feel f'in retarded.

 

Anyway, you have some solid theories about it just not detecting (or loading an approprite driver) for the ATI chipset, or for the IDE ports in specific. I am not a linux person in any way shape or form... so "compiling drivers" really isn't an option for me. Does anyone else out there see a viable option for our case?

 

In regards to the vmware to native install. I have never used or owned vmware.

 

In regards to the posts about HP being {censored}. This is the first HP system I have ever owned, and only the second machine I haven't built myself (have gone through countless setups via frankenstiening) and I have no complaints. It does need more memory, but that is not a problem with the machine. As stated, the vid chipset is much faster than any Intel {censored} (albeit slower than other Nvidia or ATI solutions) and everything else is pretty snappy. I installed WinXP Media Center Edition '05 on it and it runs just great. Still needs more memory though... damn car payments...

[poursoul]

I would partition the drive into 2, install Windows + VMware and do a VMware install of OSX to the 2nd HD partition, then boot off that partition natively. I had to do this with one of my machines, it runs great native but wouldn't install from the DVD.

 

Unfourtunately I believe I have given up on this until a major breakthrough/real intel macs come out in january. I am content in running OSX on my desktop and having full battery life on my lappy.

 

If anyone does want help though I will be more than happy to help.

Edited December 8, 2005 by poursoul

[pflatline]

You're right, but HP is just an ink tanks company.

 

their computers suxx, same as Packard Bell who use NEC Versa mobo for their laptops, except one point, they use a home made BIOS who prevent to boot from DVD's.

 

Now, if you want OS X 100% compatible, just buy a real Mac.

 

 

Actaully HP/Compaq doesnt make the laptops. Very few of the major brands make their own (if any at all). The motherboard detects as a Quanta. They have made them for Gateway and AST to name a few. Like PCs, laptops are pretty much the same.

 

There are bad ones and better ones, but among the brands,(not counting packard bell,the Yugo of computers) I pretty much look for things like the quality of the plastic case and such. You expect the motherboard to be made in tiawan and one of the big LCD manufacturers to have made the flatpanel. Hard drives come from a handfull of manufacturers,CDROMs are pretty much the same. Yea,sometimes there is a really bad one. The gateway solo 2100 comes to mind. We leased 20 of them and not one made it to the end of the lease. My experience has been that ,failing the stability issues that I have seen on all of the AMDs (excep this one,but I havent had it long,so it may still prove to be a problem), the big problems that you see with laptops are broken latches and hinges. Thats the difference for instance between the Dell lines. The inspiron version has a cheaper case made of thinner plastic,the Lattitude has a higehr quality case and the mobile workstation has the better case with a Quadro or FireGL mobile graphics adapter. The mother board,hard disks,displays ,etc are all exactly the same. (1000 dollars for a plastic case that cost them $2 more. Talk about nice profit margin)

 

In any event,we are here to try to get OSX/Darwin working an ATI express 200M chipset in general and the ze2308WM in specific,not to debate the relative quality of various brands of laptops. As for,if you want it running 100%,get a real mac, we cant. There is no X86 mac available. That doesnt even get into the fact that its not so much having OSX that interests many of us,but just getting it to run. Its a novelty. Its the same reason I spend months getting NetBSD to boot up on an old MicroVax. Yea,I could have bought a newer microvax that it supported 100%. I could have just ran NetBSD on a PC. That wasnt the point. I had a microvax,with its whirring fans and blinking lights,sitting in my livingroom, serving up data. It was slow,and powerhungry,but it was a cool.

 

As the mac fan that you seem to be,rather than telling people to get a mac if they want to run it,you should be encouraging them. Think about it. We all know that OSX is an amazing OS,a mac GUI bolted onto a BSD unix. Whats not to like. People like me know what it is,but have never really used it. I would expect mac fans to be hoping that a certain percentage of PC users that get OSX to work however slow or broken, will be so impressed with the legendary mac interface, and the stability and power of a real unix system, that they might actually go buy one of the X86 macs at their next upgrade cycle.

[poursoul]

Well put sir

[pflatline]

Well put sir

 

 

I too have to give up for now,at least untill next friday when finals are over. The partitioning and installing with VMware idea sounds possible. I was also thinking of perhaps making a 5gig partition on the hard disk,and copying the cd over to it. (perhaps do this on my desktop) The idea would be to use that partition,which might read instead of the cd that doesnt. I expect that I would still boot off the cd,then tell it to use the right partition when it gets to the darwin prompt.

 

As for the designation of the hard disk,Im not sure abotu that. Some people claim they have gotten the cd to work like this. THis is what makes me think that some systems may actually be calling it something else,and that this might be why some systems cant seem to find the install CD. We need someone knowledgable about OSX to fill us in on that.

[VaiOSX]

@ pflatline & poursoul

 

You guys, should consider staying on Windows, your mentality doesn't fit with OS X.

 

Before claiming things about OS X, you should go and buy a Mac mini, and then we'll be able to continue this chat.

 

(i'm not a mac fan... i own several different computers, none of them has windows installed on it, i'm sure you know why...)

 

I too have to give up for now,at least untill next friday when finals are over. The partitioning and installing with VMware idea sounds possible. I was also thinking of perhaps making a 5gig partition on the hard disk,and copying the cd over to it. (perhaps do this on my desktop) The idea would be to use that partition,which might read instead of the cd that doesnt. I expect that I would still boot off the cd,then tell it to use the right partition when it gets to the darwin prompt.

 

As for the designation of the hard disk,Im not sure abotu that. Some people claim they have gotten the cd to work like this. THis is what makes me think that some systems may actually be calling it something else,and that this might be why some systems cant seem to find the install CD. We need someone knowledgable about OSX to fill us in on that.

 

It won't works like this, the only solution is to find a way to start on the DVD or image.

 

If you copy the content (eg. with Carbon copy cloner or disk utility) to a harddisk partition, at the boot sequence, OS X is gonna tell you that you can't boot from this volume and you must start from the original DVD.

Edited December 9, 2005 by VaiOSX

[maq]

If these guys are having the same problem I am, the critical issue has nothing to do with starting from a DVD or an image on a partition. I've tried both, and I'm guessing some of these guys have too. I don't have the same computer, but I have similar or identical hardware, and I haven't found a single workaround for any version of os86.

[poursoul]

@ pflatline & poursoul

 

You guys, should consider staying on Windows, your mentality doesn't fit with OS X.

 

Before claiming things about OS X, you should go and buy a Mac mini, and then we'll be able to continue this chat.

 

What? Guy, I own a G3 iBook. You don't have to have a mentality to own a PC, why would that differ if I were to own a Mac? Seriously, zealots get under my skin. Just because we are PC guys or we are hardware minded doesn't mean that we "don't belong" elsewhere. What the hell.

 

P.S. We are not "claiming things" about your most holy of OSs. We are making conjecture because we are not receiving input from others. Now, do you wanna help or make another rediculas comment?

 

P.P.S. Nevermind, I just looked over your previous posts, seems that you like to be a real jerk around here. I also noticed that you are helpful to people. Why don't you just skip being spiteful at the MS/hardware crowd and just help.

Edited December 9, 2005 by poursoul

[pflatline]

What? Guy, I own a G3 iBook. You don't have to have a mentality to own a PC, why would that differ if I were to own a Mac? Seriously, zealots get under my skin. Just because we are PC guys or we are hardware minded doesn't mean that we "don't belong" elsewhere. What the hell.

 

P.S. We are not "claiming things" about your most holy of OSs. We are making conjecture because we are not receiving input from others. Now, do you wanna help or make another rediculas comment?

 

P.P.S. Nevermind, I just looked over your previous posts, seems that you like to be a real jerk around here. I also noticed that you are helpful to people. Why don't you just skip being spiteful at the MS/hardware crowd and just help.

 

 

I think it really bothers some people that we can run this on a PC. Yea,it may take some work,but thats what makes it fun. =) There is a steep learnign curve here,asDarwin has some signifigant differences to its BSD cousins,but once we are past the learnign curve there is no reason that we will not be able to write drivers using the BSD and Linux drivers to show us how the hardware works and the Darwin source to show us how to interface to darwin. Ironicaly this is a trap that apple themselves built. It does make you wonder why they ever did that,if there was any chance of it runcing on a PC. I cant think of one piece of software that uses a hardware dongle (which this basicly is) that cant be cracked. I predict that in a year or so dead and obsolete x86 macs will be sought after on ebay. In fact,buying a refurbed x86 mac mini will probobally be a very good option. You rip out hte TPM chip, slap it on a PCI or Cardbus card and you can now run the os without the patch. Also,more boards are coming with the TPM chip. Apple will probobally just use those,with their own tpm so if you beg borrow or steal an apple tpm,break out the soldering iron,and you have a mac.

An interesting question is the legitamacy iof such a "Hacintosh". If I buy a mac ,and modify my hardware,say add a upgrade processor,or a new video card, thats reasonable. Mac users and PC users both do this all the time. If I replace the motherboard,and save my TPM chip,lets say on every apple in my buisness,could apple sue me becuase Im not running it on mac hardware? (If I buy it and run it on a normal PC,they probobally could,becuase I dont have a valid license,becuase the license is ONLY going to be valid on a mac by my best guess.) Thats reasonable,the software vendor has a right to say that you can only use their software with their hardware. Ill may decide to ignore it,but I dont dispute their right to do it. (I never felt the need to justify my actions by pretending that its somehow moral or "ok". ) If I repair my macss with non-apple parts though,now it doenst sound quite so reasonable toay I cant still run mac OS. If apple were microsoft it would e illegal abuse of monopoly power. Apple is not a monopoly however,so they can do it untill such a time that they are. It might fly. Now what if I replace the case too. Not uncommon among PC users. Our systems often dont get upgraded,but instead slowly evolve. Are evolved macs,still macs,even if there is no mac hardware left except the TPM chip? What consitutes it no longer being a mac? Maybe its like the science fiction books where you get 50.1% of your brain replaced with electronics and your now property instead of a person. Better weigh those parts before you put them in.

 

As for the rude poster earlier, why are you so upset. If you hate the idea of running OSX on generic hardware,why do you post here. We have very little information to go on,and we are speculating. I never claimed any of my suggestions were cannon. THey were just speculations. Its how you solve problems. I dont agree that you cant get the install disk to boot off a partition though. First,it looks to me that installer treats the install disk just like any other partition. MYunderstanding from the apple docs is that there are two partitions on the DVD that the loader sees. The first one contains the boot loader. Thats what we get to boot and give us the darwin prompt. That part works. The second partition is the actual data. This is the part that we cant see. If,as otehrs have suggested,it can see the hard drives,just not the DVD,it seems reasonable that we could make a partition,format it with the correct file system,and copy all the installer data there. My first thought,not knowing much about darwin is that we just tell it rd=diskxsy with x and y being the disk and partition numbers and it should install from there. (after all,hard drives AND cd roms are designated in the form diskxsy. It may be that the installer expects it to be in one place though. (My desktop calls the CD disk1s2 when booting.) If thats the case,its not a big deal. Like any unix,its all in the install scripts. Go in,point it to the right place and you should be in buisiness.

 

 

That actually brings up a really good idea along with a question. How soon can we get networking up and running. Can we do it when we boot from the CD? If so,could we just write (or steal from NetBSD) some scripts to mount the CD via NFS (or even SMB =) ),and do the install over the network. I KNOW its not supported,at least acording to what Ive read,but is there a reason that it wont work? We should be able to mount that partition any way we want and it should look just like the CD. This is a classic method of getting a unix to work on new hardware. Im thinking that we might be able to hack a OSX install to disable the local console,boot off NFS,install its files on an NFS share,and accept remote telnet connections. This means if it runs,hardware or not,you can get in there and fix whatever is wrong. I dont know enough about darwin yet to know if this is feasable (it is in all the BSDs,Linux, etc). Some feed back from the mac gurus would be helpfull.

[killbot1000]

So has anybody made any progress on this laptop. Other than it NOT BOOTING FROM THE DVD the hardware seems like it would be pretty compatible with mac, especially since this sempron has SSE3 support and NX and PAE. The graphics are ATI, and the ethernet is REALTEK 8139. Has anybody made anymore progress on this thing?

[pflatline]

So has anybody made any progress on this laptop. Other than it NOT BOOTING FROM THE DVD the hardware seems like it would be pretty compatible with mac, especially since this sempron has SSE3 support and NX and PAE. The graphics are ATI, and the ethernet is REALTEK 8139. Has anybody made anymore progress on this thing?

 

 

Not yet,now that schools out Im goign to try again,.

[simian]

I have an idea but I'm doubtful that anyone might be able to help out.

 

Here's what I found out. I was running into the same situation when I tried to install Ubuntu linux. Same thing, cd would start loading the install and then just stop.

 

How did I get it to work? I disabled buggy APIC interrupt routing. I'm thinking we need to do that some how with the install. How to do that? Yeah...

[poursoul]

I was able to boot the Ubuntu live CD just fine, are you talking about the install disk?

 

EDIT: Nevermind, that was a stupid question, you just said you were trying to install it, heh.

 

P.S. APIC stands for "Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller"

 

It may have to do with the osx install not properly utilizing the PATA controller and it may not. No way to tell unless some one here knows how to disable APIC on the install disk. That's not even saying that it is even used for osx.

Edited December 17, 2005 by poursoul

[killbot1000]

So anybody have any luck on this so far? Just curious

[Dippyskoodlez]

So anybody have any luck on this so far? Just curious

 

I'm wondering aswell, as im typing this from the wally world laptop, and i almost have the 8f1111 wesley patch almost done, I'll apple the jas patch instead of the wesley and then burn it to see how it goes, if noone replys back by then.