[How To] Install Mac OS X 10.5.6 on Acer Aspire 6920g

[les_paulde]

How to install Mac OSX on your Acer 6920g?

 

DISCLAIMER: By writing this tutorial, I do not intend to promote the usage of pirated software, so if you like the way the software works, at least buy an official copy from Apple®! Also, using this tutorial/software is completely at your own risk so please make sure you've backed up your data, etc...

This tutorial was written to help the apparent plethora of 6920g users out there, who would like to run OSX on their laptops but have been running into problems during the installation. I myself have also had plenty of difficulties in the beginning, but by doing a lot of research and talking with others, I think there is now a way to run OSX with most of the laptop's hardware being fully functional.

 

At the moment, the hardware that is running and fully supported is as follows:

• NVidia 9500m GS (QE/CI enabled), with native fullHD resolution on lcd.
  
• Ethernet (Working)
  
• Webcam (Working)
  
• ALC889 Sound (Working, including auto-sensing)
  
• Intel Speedstep (Working)
  
• Battery meter (Working)
  
• Bluetooth (Working)
  
• 2 Finger Scrolling (Still to be improved)
  
• Cinedash Trackpad (Partially Working)
  
• Intel 4965 Wireless (Not Working)
  
• 5-in-1 Cardreader (Not Working)
  
• IrDA (Not Working)
  

And now on to the installation process. I am not going into dual-booting techniques, as these are being discussed all over the web; instead I'm only going to focus on the installation which will leave you with a functional hackbook! NOTE: I've tried to incorporate as much of the installs as possible during the install, but due to time constraints, I might not have exhausted all the possibilities, so if anyone has any comments or suggestions about this tutorial, feel free to contact me!

 

What do you need?

• iDeneb v1.4 (XxX_x86_10.5.6_Install_Disc_Universal_Final.v2) install disc
  
• A harddrive partition of at least 10Gb (I recommend at least 20Gb), ready to be formatted by OSX.
  
• CHUD tools (google)
  
• Sleepwatcher (google)
  
• The linked file to be unzipped to a folder on your osx drive after installation.
  

The Procedure:

Boot from the iDeneb install disc by setting your DVDROM device as first boot device. Just wait for the install screen to show up, and then click on 'Utilities' and then on 'Disk Utility', and erase your OSX partition using the 'Mac OS extended (journaled)' file system. Confirm that you want to erase it and close the window. Click next, agree to the user agreement, and then in the following screen click on customize. Here is where we need to select a few items to make sure the system can run properly. I will just list the packages that you will need to install that are not enabled by default, meaning that you should leave the options that the iDeneb installer selects by default enabled. The packages needed are:

 

Default --> Boot argument:

- uncheck verbose mode (if you want to see the apple logo on startup instead of scrolling text)

Optional Bootloaders:

- PCEFI v9.0

 

Kernel:

- Don't select any as it will then select the default vanilla kernel...

 

Chipset Support:

- ICHx Chipset Support

- JMicronATA

 

Graphics Driver:

- NVInject 0.2.1 512mb (!!!very important not to select the "GO" version, as this will not give you QE/CI enabled by default!!!)

 

USB Fixes:

- USB sleepfix (!!!very important as sleep will not work without this!!!)

 

Others:

- LocalTimeToggle (install only if you want to dual boot with windows as there will be a 2hr time difference between the two OSs otherwise…

 

Tools: (these are just suggestions to make your life easier, they don't take up much space…)

- kexthelper

- NTFS support (to enable full read/write access to NTFS drives)

- OSX86tools

- Mkexttool

- Geekbench

- xBench

- smartsleep (enables you to change the sleep mode, seemingly important to get sleep to work with the standard display timeout.)

 

After you've selected these packages, just continue and install the OS. I usually just skip the disc check because I know my disc is fine, but you might want to do this the first time you're using your own disc.

 

Congratulations, after a reboot and setting up your account (use a password!), you will have a smooth apple system working quite well already! QE/CI is enabled at the moment, just like Bluetooth (even the button next to the keyboard works), the webcam, the volume control of your Cinedash® trackpad (+ and – for volume control) and sleep.

 

 

Network Card:

I included the new AttansicL1eEthernet.kext in the driver package, its listed under 'all kexts'. Just follow method 2 under sound to install the network driver.

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EDIT: For some the new drivers dont seem to work, so just in case I will list the way I have my network card running using the old drivers. The old driver is attached seperately at the end of this post (ethernet_pkg.zip)...

 

Unzip the ethernet_pkg.zip file to a location of your choice. Using terminal, browse to the 'Ethernet' folder and type "sudo sh installrelease.sh" (without apostrophes obviously). Confirm with your password and after a reboot, you'll find that your ethernet is working just fine! (NOTE: after you put the computer to sleep, the ethernet will stop working but we will fix that at the end using sleepwatcher).

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Sound:

Thanks to DPyro, we now have a fully functioning audio driver for our 6920g, so I will explain how to install the drivers in order to make sure that you do not need to boot into Vista before your audio device will actually turn on and that they remain functional after the computer goes to sleep. As the process of making sound work is the same as making Intel Speedstep and battery management work, I've now created two methods, depending on whether or not you want to install these extra packages as well, as you can then just do them in one step. Method 1 is for people that do not want these packages, method 2 is for the people that do.

 

Method1:

First of all, we need to merge the kext files from the folder 'sound kexts' into an 'extensions.mkext' file, that the PCEFIv9.0 bootloader can use in order to load the drivers upon system startup. To do this, we can use the tool mkexttool (I prefer to open programs using spotlight – Alt + spacebar), otherwise its located under 'Applications --> Utilities'. Just simply drag and drop the kext files from the folder 'Sound' onto the 'pack' tab of the mkexttool window. This will put them in the list, and then all that's left is to specifiy the output folder, which needs to be /Extra (in other words, just create a folder 'Extra' on your OSX drive and build the extensions.mkext file inside this folder.) After rebooting, the drivers should now be installed, but your sound will not work quite yet.

 

Method2:

First of all, we need to merge the kext files from the folder 'all kexts' into an 'extensions.mkext' file, that the PCEFIv9.0 bootloader can use in order to load the drivers upon system startup. To do this, we can use the tool mkexttool (I prefer to open programs using spotlight: Alt + spacebar), otherwise its located under 'Applications --> Utilities'. Just simply drag and drop the kext files from the folder 'all kexts' onto the 'pack' tab of the mkexttool window. This will put them in the list, and then all that's left is to specifiy the output folder, which needs to be /Extra (in other words, just create a folder 'Extra' on your OSX drive and build the extensions.mkext file inside this folder.) After rebooting, ethernet, battery management and speedstep will work already, but sound still requires some extra work.

 

Sleepwatcher:

Alright, now to get sound to work (thanks to DPyro!):

 

First of all, install CHUD tools (just google it), as these add a crucial component to OSX for this driver to work. Next, install sleepwatcher, (also just google it) which will let you run scripts when the computer comes out of sleep. It's probably a good idea to reboot your machine before completing the final steps:

 

Copy the script sound.sh from the 'scripts' folder to the following folder: /Users/user1/ (user1 being your own username).

 

Then to make the scripts executable, browse to the folder /Users/user1/ using the terminal again. Then type and execute the following lines:

sudo chmod +x sound.sh

sudo chown root sound.sh

Then, finally, tell sleepwatcher to run this script each time the computer wakes up (which includes bootup). Open the included rc.wakeup file, and find the line

 

./Users/erv/sound.sh

 

inside the rc.wakeup file, and replace 'erv' with your own username. Then by replacing the file rc.wakeup (located in /etc/)* with the one you just edited, we can tell sleepwatcher to execute the script, and you'll find that sound will now keep working! Congratulations, you've just successfully applied scripts to make your Hackbook pretty much fully functional!

 

Network card sleep fix:

If you used the older version of the network driver, it will stop working after you put the computer to sleep. To solve this do as follows: After having installed sleepwatcher, copy the file ethernet_reload.sh from the network driver package to the following folder: /Users/user1/ (user1 being your own username).

 

Then to make the scripts executable, browse to the folder /Users/user1/ using the terminal again. Then type and execute the following lines:

 

sudo chmod +x ethernet_reload.sh

sudo chown root ethernet_reload.sh

 

Then tell sleepwatcher to run this script each time the computer wakes up (which includes bootup). First edit the included rc.wakeup file in order to set your user directory correctly, then replace the rc.wakeup file (located in /etc/)* with the one you've just edited. This version of rc.wakeup will tell sleepwatcher to execute both the ethernet_reload.sh script and the sound.sh script used above. If for some reason you do not want to include the sound.sh script, just remove that line from wakeup.rc before replacing it.

 

To (be) continue(d):

Now that most things are working, I just wanted to note a few last things I did extra that others may also be interested in. Using smartsleep, I just set the sleep mode to smart sleep at the end, not sure if this has any effect but at least the laptop shuts down when its not being used or when the user presses sleep under the apple menu. Feel free to play around with this tool, as I did not notice anything going wrong trying any of the settings and it might make a difference for automatic sleep.

 

Wireless:

I'm still sorting this out, but as our Intel 4965AGN does not seem to be supported any time soon, I figured I should look elsewhere. Some users have reported that the Gigabyte Aircruiser N300 WI06N should work natively under OSX. I have ordered one, but until I've received and tested it, it remains merely a possibility. Obviously I will report any luck or trouble here as soon as I can! At least it seems promising to be able to get Wireless N working under OSX, and the card only set me back $25, so if this works I'll be more than satisified! Also, the replacement procedure of the Wifi card is a breeze on our 6920g, as it is located right at the front on the right underneath the laptop…

 

2 Finger Scrolling:

Alright, I think I've found a pretty nice configuration to at least get the scrolling part to work on our laptop. Unfortunately, there is no finger-tapping (tapping the mousepad to leftclick), but that might be due to something I'm overlooking in the .plist configuration file.

 

So basically, to install the drivers, just follow the instructions in the following thread: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...olling&st=0 (thanks to ranova).

 

After following those instructions, you can configure the way the FFScroll drivers work by editing the com.apple.driver.ApplePS2Trackpad.plist file, located in both /Library/preferences and /Users/your_username/Library/preferences. As I've already done the editing needed to get quite good results imho, you can just copy the com.apple.driver.ApplePS2Trackpad.plist file I included in this post to those two locations. After rebooting the FFScrollDaemon, the settings should work straight away. In order to reboot the scroll daemon, just type in the following commands into the terminal:

 

sudo killall -9 FFScrollDaemon

sudo /usr/local/bin/FFScrollDaemon

 

I think it would be nice if people could have a look at the plist file to see if we can still improve on this (especially finger-tapping would be nice I think). The more people will look at this, the more likely it will be to succeed fully. If you google "best ffscroll settings", there is a good thread I'm not allowed to link to, which explains what the individual settings do. By the way, we have to edit the second part (synaptics), as the first part is meant for the APLS glidepads. Enjoy!

 

 

 

Things that don't work:

It seems that putting the computer to sleep stops restart from working, not sure how we can fix that. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know!

 

 

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Good extra reading material for the curious ones amongst us:

Network Card:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/lofiversi...hp/t140907.html

 

Sound:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=140941

 

Sleepwatcher:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...0941&st=240

 

Battery:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...IBatteryManager

 

Speedstep:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=119370

 

2 Finger Scroll:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...2+finger+scroll

 

 

Major thanks go out to:

DPyro (Sound)

Taruga (Sound)

Marionez (Ethernet)

Mercurysquad (Speedstep)

~Eureka (Battery meter)

Ranova (2 finger scroll)

Reader02 (Ethernet)

 

 

 

footnotes

* /etc/ folder is only accessible once you've enabled viewing hidden files and folders. This can be accomplished by executing the following command under terminal:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

6920g_drivers.zip

ethernet_pkg.zip

com.apple.driver.ApplePS2Trackpad.plist.zip

[DPyro]

Nice guide

 

I think you have a typo though. The wireless card in my laptop reports as an Intel 3945ABG, not Intel 4965. Also, reader02 posted new drivers that supposedly fix the sleep issue with the LAN driver.

 

EDIT:

Actually I just checked the Acer site and it appears that there are different versions of the 6920g, one with the 3945ABG and the other with the 4965AGN.

[les_paulde]

cheers man!

 

Yeah I guess Acer is using different ones for different models. Mine is definitely a 4965AGN, but hopefully I will receive the Gigabyte before the end of next week...

 

I edited the tutorial and included the new ethernet kext in the package as well, thanks for pointing that out!

[DPyro]

Didn't notice until now, but the VoodooHDA drivers have been released. I just tested them and they don't work quite as well as the drivers I made, but they are still in beta. Just something to keep an eye on

[manu9940]

Hey everybody!

thanks for your tutorial , makes things very simple now ! But i've 2 questions:

-Which kernel do I have to choose during the installation?

And i don't understand when you use mkexthelper with the /Extra folder ; what do you have to do with this ?

Thanks for your help !

Manu9940

[les_paulde]

Hey manu9940!

 

I added the kernel part to the tutorial, just to make it clear that you can leave the options there unchecked so that the installer will select the default vanilla kernel.

 

The mkexthelper tool is a way to create the extensions.mkext file, which the PCEFI_v9 bootloader uses to load extra kext drivers which we need for our ethernet, battery management, sound and Speedstep. By dragging and dropping the driver kext files from the 'kexts to merge' folder into the 'build' screen of mkexthelper, you can create the extensions.mkext file which you need to put in the /Extra/ folder under your osx partition. Hope that makes it clear!

 

Good luck!

[Riwe89]

I have a little problem... I've downloaded iDeneb and burned it at 4x speed with PowerISO (It's the lowest speed i can select), but when i put in de DVD and restart my laptop, nothing happens... The only thing that i see is a black screen with a blinking line at the top left corner of my screen and nothing will happen, not even after 10 min.

 

I also have Windows 7 beta on my c-partition, just in case of... (situations like this) and want to instal the hackintosh on my d-partition...

 

Do you know what the problem can be?

[les_paulde]

hi Riwe89,

 

are you sure you set your bios to boot from the cd instead of the harddrive partition? If its set to boot off the dvd it should automatically load using the apple bootloader...

[Riwe89]

hi Riwe89,

 

are you sure you set your bios to boot from the cd instead of the harddrive partition? If its set to boot off the dvd it should automatically load using the apple bootloader...

 

 

No, i looked at it and it was already set on loading CD-drive first...

[ysomagic]

Hi,

 

I read your topic. it's a good work.

 

I have a question for you, I have acer 6920g but I don't use boot-132 so no vanilla kernel.

 

Is there a way to make the sound working for me without reinstall the os?

 

 

I mean is there a sound kext made as the lan kext attansic, w$ich is working perfectly "One I just need to added it in s/L/e with kexthelpe as attansic?r"

 

really, really want the sound working.

[les_paulde]

I'm not sure if this is gonna work, but if you have the PCIEFI_v9 bootloader installed, you could try putting the alc889.kext and HDAenabler.kext into the extensions.mkext file under /extra. Alternatively, you could try and use kext helper to install the two sound kext files, which will place them under System/library/extensions.

 

let us know if it works!

[ysomagic]

 

Thanks to reply so fast.

 

My problem is just solved, a friend send me a link to a thread on google, there is some guys who developped a beta kext for voodoo bootloader. It was post about 1h ago and it works perfectly for me.

 

I tried some stuufs with Dypro kext but to make them work I need to install boot-132 by elliot.

 

 

So solved however thanks for help.

[aimski]

Okay, so I have followed this great guide, and I have got everything you state that works working fine but I still have no SOUND. I have the volume control working from Cinedash and it displays on the screen. I have options under the output in system preferences/sound to select internal speakers. I have ran the script for Sound.sh replaced the rc.wakeup file in /ETC. Still nothing. Someone Please help!!!!!!! What am I doing wrong.

[les_paulde]

Okay, so I have followed this great guide, and I have got everything you state that works working fine but I still have no SOUND. I have the volume control working from Cinedash and it displays on the screen. I have options under the output in system preferences/sound to select internal speakers. I have ran the script for Sound.sh replaced the rc.wakeup file in /ETC. Still nothing. Someone Please help!!!!!!! What am I doing wrong.

 

 

Hey mate!

 

EDIT: I just realized that the wakeup.rc file contains a reference to my specific username (erv), and will therefore not work universally. Please find the line

 

./Users/erv/sound.sh

 

inside the rc.wakeup file, and replace 'erv' with your own username. Sorry for this, I totally overlooked it. I will edit the tutorial accordingly as well...

Do you have any chance of booting into vista and then restarting into OSX? That way we can check if its the drivers or the activation of the soundbridge where the problem lies...

 

Did you install the CHUD tools as well?

 

You could also try installing the ALC889.kext and HDAenabler.kext by using kext helper, perhaps this might help. You are using ideneb 10.5.6 with default kernel?

[aimski]

Thanks, I tried what you stated, I changed that to my user name made sure that the sound.sh was in the right place and still no sound. Thanks for your help, I must have something else set wrong. I'm not sure where to go next or what to try next. any thoughts?

[les_paulde]

Thanks, I tried what you stated, I changed that to my user name made sure that the sound.sh was in the right place and still no sound. Thanks for your help, I must have something else set wrong. I'm not sure where to go next or what to try next. any thoughts?

 

Hey man, thats very weird! Are you sure you are running the standard vanilla kernel from iDeneb 10.5.6? If so, all it took for me to get sound to work was to pack the ALC889.kext and the HDAenabler.kext file into extensions.mkext using mkexttool, and place this file under /extra/. After a boot into vista and then rebooting into OSX, my sound was working perfectly.

 

If you can't boot into vista, then you're gonna have to use the sound.sh method. Make sure chud tools are installed and then just run the sound.sh script manually as follows:

 

1. using terminal, browse to folder containing sound.sh script.

 

2. Make it executable: sudo chmod +x sound.sh

 

3. Run in terminal: ./sound.sh

That should be all, your sound should work now. If not, then I would maybe start to wonder if you are using the same soundchip as me. Which 6920g version do you have? I have the 6920g-834G32Bn, just for reference...

[manu9940]

hey guys !

-I did a new installation on mac osx and everything is working so so great ! even the sound ! thanks to les_pauldes and DPyro for their excellent work!

But i've a small problem , i've to put his ./sound.sh in the terminal in every start of mac osx ohterwise i don't have the sound.

If someone can help me ! Thanks.

- secondly , I've tried to install Windows xp on this computer and I noticed that the driver for the card reader is named jmb 385 . or there is something similar with the netbook card reader . ( dell mini 9 espacially ) .

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=136470

 

i don't know if it can help us , i just post it , it's maybe an clue to solve the problem , or try to fix it .

I'm not an expert in hackintosh ... so

Anyway thanks for this great job !

I'm so happy to have a mHackbook with sound working !

Manu9940

[aimski]

Okay, this is weird, if I open terminal and run the commands manually, then it works and I have sound. After I reboot it doesn't load the sound.sh, so I have to open terminal and run the script. At least I know how to get sound. Thanks for your help. This is great!!!!

[les_paulde]

Okay, this is weird, if I open terminal and run the commands manually, then it works and I have sound. After I reboot it doesn't load the sound.sh, so I have to open terminal and run the script. At least I know how to get sound. Thanks for your help. This is great!!!!

 

hehehe enjoy!

 

My suspicion is that SleepWatcher also runs the script upon initial boot up, if told to do so by the rc.wakeup file. I never have to run the sound.sh script manually anymore, perhaps you could try to set this up as described in the tutorial?

 

Glad to hear your laptop is also up and running Manu9940! Sound i would advise the same as aimski, try to get it to load automatically using sleepwatcher.

 

Thanks for the note about the memory card reader, I will definitely look into this as well. Also, I'm making some progress with the 2 finger scrolling, so I hope to be able to put something up one of these days!

EDIT: the current drivers do not work. They do make the cardreader show up, but it doesnt recognize a card being inserted, nor can you browse it. Definitely an interesting feature to keep an eye out for though, if anyone sees anything useful related to this, please feel free to post it here! I will do likewise...

[manu9940]

I was happy to help you les_paulde , hopefully we have get something for the card reader.

But i don't understand this sentence , I mean how to do it :

Then, finally, tell sleepwatcher to run this script each time the computer wakes up (which includes bootup).

Thanks

Manu9940

[benjaminc1]

Hey,

 

Thanks for the great guide, I got OSX installed om my 6920, but I have some questions:

when customizing the installation, I couldn't find PCEFI v9.0, the NTFS support tool (although i can browse my win partition just fine), Mkexttools and Smartsleep in the list.

 

Maybe I overlooked something, but I browsed that list like 3 times...Any ideas what's going on?

 

Thanks,

Benjaminc1

[les_paulde]

I was happy to help you les_paulde , hopefully we have get something for the card reader.

But i don't understand this sentence , I mean how to do it :

Then, finally, tell sleepwatcher to run this script each time the computer wakes up (which includes bootup).

Thanks

Manu9940

 

The solution is written in the next sentence:

 

"Then, finally, tell sleepwatcher to run this script each time the computer wakes up (which includes bootup). Open the included rc.wakeup file, and find the line

 

./Users/erv/sound.sh

 

inside the rc.wakeup file, and replace 'erv' with your own username. Then by replacing the file rc.wakeup (located in /etc/)* with the one you just edited, we can tell sleepwatcher to execute the script, and you'll find that sound will now keep working!"

 

Basically, it involves editing the rc.wakeup folder to specify the location of sound.sh and then copying it into /etc/. (the way to see the /etc/ folder is explained in the footnote, as /etc/ is a hidden folder.)

 

Hey,

 

Thanks for the great guide, I got OSX installed om my 6920, but I have some questions:

when customizing the installation, I couldn't find PCEFI v9.0, the NTFS support tool (although i can browse my win partition just fine), Mkexttools and Smartsleep in the list.

 

Maybe I overlooked something, but I browsed that list like 3 times...Any ideas what's going on?

 

Thanks,

Benjaminc1

 

I think you're using a different iDeneb distribution than me, I am using the XxX_x86_10.5.6_Install_Disc_Universal_Final.v2 distribution. If you google it, you can find it. The older version is missing the usbsleepfix as well, so you will need this particular version. I attached an image of the installation screen where you can see which packages need to be selected. Good luck!

[benjaminc1]

Ah, I see, thanks for the clarification. I hope everything works from here on.

 

Thanks again for the help,

Benjaminc1

[guruk]

i did not had time to test, but should this work.. specialy audio on the 6920g...

you are a PRO !!! i look for this since monthes

 

great work

greets

chris

[guruk]

Hi, I do not find this kexts_to_merge folder. I guess it should be in this 6920g_drivers.zip ?

Or where can I find it?

 

greets

chris