New approach to OSX86 Tiger needed, what forum think?

[CptDodge]

Over the past few months, i've seen many a forum member write in with all manner of Tiger install problems. I myself am included in this. I've had many install problems relating to all manner of things, grey boot screen, hangs, video, audio etc etc. The one thing i have noticed upon carrying out the many installs is how the different machines i've used have been able to initially get as far as the install screen and use disk utility to format my harddrive. This is an interesting point because all the machines i used have different hardware in them but still the install DVD of 10.4.8 was able to at least get as far as the install screen of OSX so this implies that the OSX 86 DVD must be running some generic drivers and kexts that works on ALL the machines.

 

I know many of the developers try and improve on their install DVD's and provide as many drivers and kexts as they can so that the user can install whichever ones relate to there machine. Now, wouldn't it be possible to just make a generic DVD that will work in ANY machine which at least gets them to the install screen and install a very basic install set which gets the user up and running. Once the user is up and running, armed with all the information about there machine, they could log into a driver repository (have seen that word used around the forums on occasion) and download all the drivers they need for there machine and install them one by one. They could save the individual drivers to a USB key just incase something goes round and they have to restart from scratch again.

 

In a way, it's a bit like what windows does, they install a generic video driver and sound driver (maybe) and a few others, just to get the system up and running then the user armed with the proper drivers for there machine can then install the actual drivers for the video card and sound card and other bits of hardware.

 

This is probably why Apple likes to restrict what hardware works with OSX because it is just a minefield out there of thousands of third party manufacturers providing hardware. I think the forum proves this point 'cant get x video card working','cant get x audio working','why wont my mouse work?'. I'm sure you lot are familiar with that. Reading a few of the threads here you've got people recommending different OSX builds, two most popular being JaS and Kalaway but these have spawned others and has started to get people confused as to which build is best for them and there machine.

 

Wouldn't it make life easier for all involved for a very simplified cut down generic OSX install DVD for everyone to use and the developers could concentrate on developing drivers and kexts and once available add them to the driver repository. I think it would certainly reduce a lot of the install problems that many many forum members experience, don't you?

 

What do the forum members think?

 

Rog