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[Howto]Installing Mac OS X 10.4.8 on a Compal HEL-80 Notebook


GutBomb
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To those that don't know, Compal (not Compaq) is a laptop manufacturer that makes notebooks for Apple (MacBooks) and Dell (Inspirons). They also make "whitebook." laptops (generic). I originally posted this in a Compal forum (and got banned for it, because it's "illegal") and decided to post it here too. Thanks to all the guys that helped me figure this stuff out so I could write this howto.

 

Hey, I'm a Mac guy who just can't justify the expense on a 15" MacBook Pro. So I decided I would try something new. The Compal has a Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, A dedicated video card with 256MB RAM, and a 15 inch widescreen with 1680x1050 resolution (insane!!). Built in 1.3 megapixel webcam. Priced as configured: $1450

 

In comparison, a macbook similarly configured with a 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, A Dedicated video card with 256MB RAM, and a 15 inch widescreen with 1440x900 resolution. built in 640x480 webcam. Priced as configured: $2000

 

Things you gain by using a Compal:

Cheaper

Better webcam

higher resolution (if you can find this model anymore, i hear it's rare)

 

Things you lose by using a Compal:

No bluetooth

No internal wireless (i use a USB wifi card and it works perfectly)

No sound through headphones

the fingerprint scanner and memory card slot don;t have drivers available for mac os x.

 

I figured I'd save $550, and I'll show you how you can too!

 

Hardware and Drivers

You're gonna need drivers (known in the mac world as Kernel Extensions or kexts) Make sure to download these and burn them to a CD so you can install them, because right after the install you'll have no working network.

 

The internal wireless doesn't work (neither the gigabyte nor the intel) so you're gonna need a wireless card. I recommend wholeheartedly the Belkin FD7050. It works great and is only $30.

 

belkin FD7050 USB wireless card: http://gutbomb.net/wireless.zip

audio: http://gutbomb.net/audio.zip

video: http://gutbomb.net/video.zip

ethernet: http://gutbomb.net/ethernet.zip

webcam: http://gutbomb.net/webcam.zip

 

Getting and installing the system

Since you can't buy OS X in stores you're going to have to obtain a prepatched installation disc from somewhere. You can get them from various places (that is outside the scope of this article, please don't PM me, I can;t tell you where to look, but you can probably figure it out). The version i used is called "Mac OS X 10.4.8 [JaS AMD-Intel-SSE2-SSE 3 with PPF1 & PPF2]". It contains all the patches you'll need to get it to work and install on your machine. I chose to go all mac, so I didn't bother with partitioning for dual booting.

 

Download and burn the disc, then boot up with it. Hit F12 while the bios screen is up to select the CD to boot from. Wait a little while while the installer loads, and once it's up select all the items you want, and then the Intel CPU option. don't select any AMD or ATI stuff and you don't need the loginwindow replacement (you'll know what I am talking about when you see it in the installer). Don't select any of the common hardware drivers either, but do select the nvidia titan thing. don't select the ATI titan thing.

 

After you've installed you'll boot into a pretty welcome/first-sign-in thing. Do everything except register. when you get to the screen where it wants you to register just press cmd+q. I guess now would be a good time to tell you that on the mac, the cmd key has the apple logo and a cloverleaf logo on it. the compal by default uses ALT as the cmd key, and the windows key as the alt (aka option in macland) key. simple enough to swap the keycaps so you don't get confused later.

 

installing drivers

You're in! but right now you have to install your hardware so you can get online and play around. You may notice that even if you're in 32 bit color mode that you're seeing 16-bit color style bands on gradients. let's fix that first. go to the terminal (it's in "/Applications/Utilities") and type all of the following. special instructions will appear in brackets ([ ... ]):

 

sudo -s
[type your password]
cd /System/Library/Extensions/
rm -Rf /System/Library/Extensions.*
mv ./Titan.kext ~[your username]/Desktop/

 

leave that terminal window, we'll be coming back to it later.

 

This removes part of Titan, which is a video driver system. We're going to replace it in a sec with something else though that will fix the color banding.

 

Copy those drivers off your cd to your desktop and unzip video.zip. then go back to the terminal and type the following:

 

mv ./IOGraphicsFamily.kext ~[your username]/Desktop/
mv ~[your username]/Desktop/IOGraphics_NvEFI/*.kext ./
chown -R root:wheel ./IOGraphicsFamily.kext
chown -R root:wheel ./LaptopDisplay.kext
chown -R root:wheel ./NVidiaEFI.kext
chmod -R 755 ./IOGraphicsFamily.kext
chmod -R 755 ./LaptopDisplay.kext
chmod -R 755 ./NVidiaEFI.kext
reboot

 

Your machine should then reboot, and when you get back in you should have full resolution, 3d accelerated video with no more color banding on 32 bit mode.

 

next unzip the audio.zip and double click the resulting ALC883Audio.mpkg. go to the end of the install until it wants to reboot. then go to a terminal and do the following:

 

sudo -s
[enter your password]
cd /System/Library/Extensions/
rm -Rf /System/Library/Extensions.*
chown -R root:wheel ./ALCinject.kext
chmod -R 755 ./ALCinject.kext
exit

 

Close the terminal window, go back to the audio installer, and click reboot. when you get back into the system you should have sound. once you're back in, unzip ethernet.zip and double click the resulting RealtekR1000_release package. do the same as above, once you get prompted to reboot, go to a terminal and do the following:

 

sudo -s
[enter your password]
cd /System/Library/Extensions/
rm -Rf /System/Library/Extensions.*
chown -R root:wheel ./RealtekR1000.kext
chmod -R 755 ./RealtekR1000.kext
exit

 

click reboot on the installer. once you're back in go to the apple menu and choose "system preferences." go to the network preference pane and it should say it detected a new ethernet device. that's good. pick it from the list and just click "apply now". you should have working ethernet now. unzip the webcam.zip, mount the resulting dmg, and run the installer. no terminal hacking on that one. finally it's the wireless. unzip wireless.zip, and run the installer for 10.4. no terminal hacking here either, just reboot. once you've rebooted go back to the apple menu, system preferences, network preferences again, and it will say there is a new port detected. go to it's properties and click apply now. then slam that card in your usb port, go to the new wlan app in your dock, click the setup menu and choose "open setup window." it will search for a network. enter your wireless network information and away you go.

 

Updates

You can go ahead and do any system updates you want EXCEPT OS updates. for now anything above 10.4.8 doesn't work well on the HEL-80. Also, NEVER install an OS update from "system update" as these will kill your installation and you'll have to reinstall. Also steer clear of "security updates." Any other updates from there should be fine.

 

Enjoy your new HackBook!

 

My compal has an empty space for a case badge on the back. I am thinking of designing one, and sending it to a company that does custom badges. The company will only make a minimum of 10 badges, so if i end up doing it, I'll buy all 10 and for a couple bucks I'm sure I can send you out one too for your hackbook.

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hmm, i know this hasnt been updated in a while, but everything is working fine for me except for the web cam, also, the gigabyte wireless card works 100% if you follow this thread. any alternative to the webcam drivers for my hel 80? product id is 0x624f and vendo id is 0x0c45

 

i tried searching but i couldnt find anything :-(

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Just installed 10.5.2 on my FL92. Video is OK out of the box but sound & Wireless still need some work. Will update you. Thanks for the walktrought but it was too late as i joined the forum after i got my X running :(

From Sunny Bahrain.

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I did some scouring and I found some of those kexts, so here we go

 

Video: NVInstallerV.41 you will want to select the go drivers

 

Audio: ALC883 -3LineOuts (This will give you full use of the headphone port, however you will need to manually switch the the audio out option in the system preferences tab.

 

The more I find I'll post it on here. Since I don't have a high bandwidth website I can't post some of these, however if you search for them in the forums or in a search bar you should find them without a problem.

 

Like I said I'm still working on the webcam etc. Also I had to replace my wifi card with a Gigabyte one I replaced with an intel chipset when I was using Gentoo (ironic lol)

 

Anyhoo hope this helps get more compal users up and running. Also important to note, 10.5.2 most of this stuff works out of box so to speak, however the 10.5.3 upgrade breaks it, so you will need to reinstall the video kexts and audio.

 

10.5.4 is a non breaking update, everything works without having to restore the kexts.

 

Another issue I've found is that after 10.5.3 shutdown doesn't work. Anyone know of a fix? Also I can't get my battery meter to show up.

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Hi i have a COMPAL EL81 coreduo 2.0ghz and make all things work with Ideneb 10.5.4 , only memorystick reader don't work (at this time)

 

webcam: sonixmacdrivers ( yes , a mac driver in the sonix site and work fine!!)

wi-fi: gygabite using athros driver (select when install)

battery meter: ACPIbattery.kext (look around in others Forums)

PCMCIA: i found search here in other forum

Firewire: only work when i update the compal bios to 122b version

all usb working fine

sleep and stand up fine.

graphics gm950 with quartz and all funcionallity

audio built in/out ok (select when install)

all things in keyboard ok (function key like a charm)

ethernet ok

 

so, the only thing to do is put ENE memory stick reader to work!

 

SERIOUS, MY COMPAL IS BETTER THAN MACBOOK!!!

 

P.S. shortly im gonna change the processor to core2duo

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Well, I'm trying to install OSX 10.5 on a external HDD with the help of Compal FL90. The problem is that the OSX 10.5 DVD doesn't boot:

- It's a DVD that came with MacBook Pro

- Linux tells that it has 7,7 GB of size, but can mount a ~500M partition-something "WindowsSupport" that has some things for windows/bootcamp -- so I'm guessing, that at boot it also sees the VFAT/ISO part of the DVD and can't boot.

 

Any ideas how to boot this DVD? :D

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Hi i have a COMPAL EL81 coreduo 2.0ghz and make all things work with Ideneb 10.5.4 , only memorystick reader don't work (at this time)

 

webcam: sonixmacdrivers ( yes , a mac driver in the sonix site and work fine!!)

wi-fi: gygabite using athros driver (select when install)

battery meter: ACPIbattery.kext (look around in others Forums)

PCMCIA: i found search here in other forum

Firewire: only work when i update the compal bios to 122b version

all usb working fine

sleep and stand up fine.

graphics gm950 with quartz and all funcionallity

audio built in/out ok (select when install)

all things in keyboard ok (function key like a charm)

ethernet ok

 

so, the only thing to do is put ENE memory stick reader to work!

 

SERIOUS, MY COMPAL IS BETTER THAN MACBOOK!!!

 

P.S. shortly im gonna change the processor to core2duo

 

 

i've also got a compal HEL81, how did you get your wireless to function? Is it onboard?

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