Dell Dimension 4600

[dellimac]

Hello. I have a Dell Dimension 4600 with XP and I'd love to put 10.5.6 on it. I tried iAtkos, iPC, iDeneb, and Kalyway. Kalyway and iAtkos don't work at all, and iPC only boots once. iDeneb works best, but the graphics resolution can't be changed, my ethernet shuts off constantly, my wireless card doesn't work, and my PCI ports don't work.

My specs are-

Dell Dimension 4600 with a Pentiun 4 2.8 Ghz

Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro AGP

Ati Radeon 9200 PCI

Linksys WMP54G (I think V4, it is the smaller version)

Intel Pro100VE Ethernet

2 GB's or RAM

150 Gig HD EIDE

80 Gig Stock HD EIDE

generic Firewire 400 card

2 DVD Burners

SoundMAX integrated audio (AC97)

 

What do you think is the best distro to install on the computer? And what are the best options to select, and how can I get certain parts working. Those parts are the WMP54G wireless card, which doesn't work at all. The intel pro100ve only works sometimes; when I reboot, it sometimes doesn't turn on. My Radeon 9000 pro doesn't have a resolution that can change, and the audio doesn't work at all. Sleep is also not working. Please... Can someone tell me how to get mac running well on this PC.

Thanks, Dellimac

[Lanceomni]

If I were you I would start with iDeneb. Install choosing the bare minimum of options including NOT selecting any graphics options as this will give you default graphics and a working OS to start with. You can then go one by one down the list and fix each problem. The only exception to this is your chipset. If you are not sure then under the chipset option you can select all of them except for the ones which conflict. So if there are multiple options with similar names only choose one.

 

I would consider disabling Hyper Threading in the bios as this sometimes causes problems.

 

Always boot using the -v boot-flag so that you see useful information during the boot process. If your system hangs then you can post about the last line you see.

 

The second you can get into OSX you will want to backup your extensions folder and kernel. That way if you install something and bork your install you have a backup copy and a 5min fix instead of a full reinstall. Ive included directions on backing up those files at the bottom of this post.

 

Place your system specs in your signature so they appear on every post. I would consider looking up your Chipset and placing it in your signature too.

This can be done via My Controls: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?act...rCP&CODE=00

Please follow the rules described in this thread (Most importantly keeping your signature to no more than 5 lines of normal text: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...p;hl=signatures

 

Backing up your Extensions Folder & Kernel Using Terminal

In short:

sudo -s
mkdir /backup
cd /System/Library
cp -r Extensions/ /backup/
cp -r /mach_kernel /mach_kernel.backup

 

Steps explained:

1. Give yourself root privileges so that you can modify files.

sudo -s

2. Make a backup copy of your kexts. First we will make a directory called "backup" in our root directory to store them. Open Terminal and type:

mkdir /backup

3. Change directories to /System/Library This will shorten some of the commands we have to type in.

cd /System/Library

4. Copy your kexts to the new "backup" folder.

cp -r Extensions/ /backup/

5. Backup your kernel (Using mach_kernel.backup as a boot option will load your backup)

cp -r /mach_kernel /mach_kernel.backup

[dellimac]

Thanks for the great response. How should I install the extra drivers one by one as you said? Should I boot into the CD each time, or allow hidden files to be shown and just install their packages from inside OSX and then restart?

[Lorenz1]

Install the iDeneb Appz from the DVD druing OS install and then use Pacifist inside OSX to install the drivers.