Workplace Shell Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Isnt BAMBIOS a big hack in itself? According to Amit Singh in a follow up at OSNews, "To EFI, our software looks like a regular EFI program which happens to be a bootloader. This bootloader contains a binary payload which is an entire BIOS, VGA BIOS, and other x86-specific glue needed to boot the machine. This binary payload is loaded into memory in the legacy BIOS space. To all software on the machine, it appears as if the machine has a traditional BIOS. An important aspect of BAMBIOS is that its goal is to be non-disruptive." The bolding is by me to emphasize an important goal of BAMBIOS. In otherwords, their objective is a much cleaner method as it would require no hacking of Windows code to provide a CSM type of solution. That is the kind of solution that will be required in order for it to be acceptable and legal for use in companies, schools, etc. The other thing is Amit has a long and respectable track record which means that there will be a viable dual boot capability. Their solution may not be the one to win though as it seems they haven't gotten to the level of booting XP yet. From what little information with regards to narf2006's method, it seems there is some level of hacking involved. It might be great for the objective of the contest (if none of it is fake as some are implying and he submits first) but it may not be the best for users. My thought is that its those ridiculous mac fantatics who are making the "fake" claims; they still don't want to acknowledge the fact that their precious "mac world" is no longer secluded from the rest of the software world. Realize that these Mac fanatics you speak of are like ALL fanatics, a vocal minority who tend to be exceptionally narrowminded, irrational, and often times ignorant of the facts. They unfortunately give all Mac users who don't fit that elitist profile a bad name. There are plenty of Mac users (including myself) who are awaiting both a dual boot and virtualization solution. Some folks want the dual boot ability to get the most performance for gaming. Others want virtualization to run apps which are not available for the Mac, to do testing for their web development. Others also want dual boot/virtualization in order to run other operating environments. The general theme is to be able to do away with having both a Mac and Windows box, etc. In otherwords, there are rational and sane Mac users who do realize the benefits and have been waiting for this for a long time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiefsalami Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 well put... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WandaLust Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Couldn't agree more. What the community (Mac/PC users) is just a bit of choice. The ability to use software they have purchased on hardware they want to use. Not be locked to using Mac on Mac hardware and Windows on PC hardware. I think we can all agree that Mac OS X is amazing and will not suffer just because you can dual boot to XP/Vista/Linux or anything else. We just want an option.... Some people (Professional) need XP but want to use mac also. Nuff said Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
autoy Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 OMG... video posted! proof of concept. Funny how they've hacked the apple boot screen too lol: http://www.vimeo.com/clip=54706 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouch Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Looks like it's been done then. If thats a fake i'm a monkey's uncle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plecky Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Stupid quicktime won't play the video here. Anyway, the onmac.net site is starting to get back on it's feet. The following update has been posted there a while ago: Latest Update No solution has been submitted yet. Should be in for testing by the end of the week according to the contestants. Sorry for the downtime on the site my old host, Zesthost suspended my account due to too much processor usage from the forum and blog. I am currently working to get the host to give me the access again to the files on the site as well as the databases. In the meantime, this page is it. If you need to submit a contest entry during this downtime, please contact me on AIM at the screenname sud0n1m. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spanky Deluxe Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 OMG... video posted! proof of concept. Funny how they've hacked the apple boot screen too lol: http://www.vimeo.com/clip=54706 Ohmygod, that's sooo cool!! Good news for people who want to keep using Windows for the odd app or game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrJägermeister Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Looks like it's been done then. If thats a fake i'm a monkey's uncle. Put notebook hardware in an empty iMac case and boot But I also hope this video is true, I want a MiniMac but I will never buy it if I don't know exactly that my MS or Linux Distros are running fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rastaman Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Kewl! this is so sweet if we can play on our Macs. My productivity will shutdown for sure :-) Ah playing AOE3, CIV4,... on my MacBook Pro with 256Mo of VRAM, i'm wondering how well the video card will be supported, i hope that the special firmware that i have heard about in the forums will not cause any trouble. Great! I hope this will be released as open source also. Many thanks to all the participants and donators of the contest if this is real. I will contribute later when i will have amortized ("amortit" in FR) my MBP, sorry! ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouch Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Maybe it's just me - but that doesn't actually show a dual boot solution which is what the contest calls for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
autoy Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Maybe it's just me - but that doesn't actually show a dual boot solution which is what the contest calls for? Have you seen the partitioning scheme? I think there is room for osx. What they don't tell us is what os selector will they use... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
INFNITE Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 it'd be cool if you boot up using windows, it will show that Windows boot screen, and if you boot OS X, you'll get the normal gray Apple boot screen. Any word on driver support for wireless internet, sound, video card? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John the Geek Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 it'd be cool if you boot up using windows, it will show that Windows boot screen, and if you boot OS X, you'll get the normal gray Apple boot screen. Any word on driver support for wireless internet, sound, video card? ATI has drivers for the x1600 video card, and the wireless is a typical BroadCom chipset. Should just work, (I hope) but I haven't tried it myself yet. We'll see. =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stratus Fear Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Maybe it's just me - but that doesn't actually show a dual boot solution which is what the contest calls for? Yeah, I noticed that too, but when you have both OSes installed and can easily hold down the option key at boot to get a menu, what's the point? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lane Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Interesting... If this is in fact the case I may reconsider my canceling the Macbook... For anyone who wants a direct link to the video : CLICK HERE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pu7o Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 There's also some things that I didn't like seeing in that movie. Notably, that the Ethernet adapter wasn't properly detected, hence no network Also, to note that Narf is clearly using an external HD for this, since the device manager shows a maxtor drive in addition to the one with the iMac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John the Geek Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 There's also some things that I didn't like seeing in that movie. Notably, that the Ethernet adapter wasn't properly detected, hence no network Also, to note that Narf is clearly using an external HD for this, since the device manager shows a maxtor drive in addition to the one with the iMac. Yes, but you'll also notice that there is something in Network Adapters, hence the [+] next to it. It's not expanded, but maybe wireless is working and the onboard Ethernet isn't? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weeguy Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Well, Windows XP doesn't come with an extensive set of drivers. Even my Thinkpad didn't have network, sound, wireless drivers from a fresh installation of Windows. There're probably drivers out there that support the hardware present on the new Intel Macs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveM Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Well, Windows XP doesn't come with an extensive set of drivers. Even my Thinkpad didn't have network, sound, wireless drivers from a fresh installation of Windows. There're probably drivers out there that support the hardware present on the new Intel Macs. Exactly I'm betting it won't be hard to find Ethernet drivers, even generic. There's also some things that I didn't like seeing in that movie. Notably, that the Ethernet adapter wasn't properly detected, hence no network Also, to note that Narf is clearly using an external HD for this, since the device manager shows a maxtor drive in addition to the one with the iMac. He could have just had that attached at the time. It's not clear whether he is booting off of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stratus Fear Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 There's also some things that I didn't like seeing in that movie. Notably, that the Ethernet adapter wasn't properly detected, hence no network Also, to note that Narf is clearly using an external HD for this, since the device manager shows a maxtor drive in addition to the one with the iMac. This is because XP never had drivers for that Ethernet chipset. The chip is a Marvell Yukon. You can easily snag these from the Internet using another PC, I'm sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
autoy Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Yeah, that's as easy as downloading the proper driver from marvel yukon and you're done. Now, what bothers me is the video driver. I thought ATI made a custom firmware to interface with EFI. That must have been hacked too, so will they be able to install the usual catalyst drivers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AirmanPika Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Also, to note that Narf is clearly using an external HD for this, since the device manager shows a maxtor drive in addition to the one with the iMac. Actually he is using the internal drive. My iMac uses the same model. The USB device looks to be a 256MB Flash drive. It shows up at the beginning also when he's showing the partitioning scheme. I did a quick lookup and got this on the HD Model... Maxtor 6L160M0 160GB SATA 150 7200rpm 8MB Hard Drive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aumpak Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Ok he made it! Great job! Now where are the intructions for us to do it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
autoy Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 I guess instructions will not be published until the testing is done and all is ok. Patience is a virtue Now watch imac sales go UP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miazmaticdotcom Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 I can't get to the video through Vimeo, or through the direct link. I smell trickery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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