UPDATE: Dell Dimension 4550 10.5.6 success

[Groovely]

First post. I hope this is an appropriate place. I have an old Dell Dimension 4550 that I'd love to get OSx86 running on, but I'm a little new to all this. I've tried reading everything I can find for the past week and am in head deep and struggling a bit.

 

Attempt #1: iDeneb 10.5.5 Successful

I installed iDeneb 10.5.5 using the settings posted in the OSx86 HCL 10.5.5 and to my amazement it booted off the first try.

 

No ethernet:

The only issue was there was no ethernet support (box is useless to me without internet). I tried the only fix I could find which involved modifying the intel LAN kext, but I didn't really know what I was doing. The file listed there didn't exist on my machine, and I tried modifying the only intel kext in that folder on my machine, with not suprisingly no success. I had issues with the ethernet a while ago in windows too, and know it uses the 10/100 LOM Intel driver indicated on Dell's website.

 

Attempt #2: iDeneb 10.5.6 Failure

I didn't realize at the time that there was a newer version, so when I found iDeneb 1.4 I thought this might solve my LAN issue. I was surprised that using the exact same settings as the above 10.5.5 install:

 

I got a kernel panic on every reboot I tried, with verbose mode readout indicating the following (pic)

 

 

I'm currently trying the voodoo kernel method recommended at insanelymac reloaded, adding 10/100pro ve for ethernet (still the best guess) and nvkush for video (since it worked in 10.5.5).

 

Really new at this, so anyone who could offer any advice as to what might be going on, or what else I can try to have success, I would be very grateful for. I'm also currently download iAtkos and iPC to try those if this fails.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

~G.

UPDATE: SUCCESS!!!

It's a beautiful thing. Ethernet works this way and managed to get sound working with OSx86Tools and a AppleAC97 kext. Details now posted on 10.5.6 HCL

 

 

QUESTIONS:

 

 

1. Front row doesn't work, is it because of lack of video hardware?
   
2. Can anyone recommend a good AGP graphics card for this system? 1080p streaming could be the ideal, but not sure if that's attainable on this system.
   
3. How do upgrades work? I've looked around, but am struggling to understand how to use the 10.5.7 and 10.5.8 patches.
   

 

 

Hopefully this will help others along. Thanks in advance to anyone who could help me further.

 

 

 

~G.