Snow Leopard on Acer Aspire 5738ZG

[goatchild]

Hello,

 

So I bought a laptop and I thought "Why not erase Win7, and try install the best OS out there in it and see what happens?"

I spent a couple of weeks checking out the sites, downloading stuff and trying things out, and this is what I've done so far:

 

My laptop specs:

 

Pentium Dual-Core 2.1 GHz

4 GB (DDR3 SDRAM)

15 in. TFT Active Matrix LCD

500 GB 5,400 RPM Serial ATA

Dual Layer DVD±RW/DVD-RAM

ATI MOBILITY RADEON HD 4570 512 MB

4 x USB 2.0, HDMI

Integrated Wireless LAN

IEEE 802.11b �€� IEEE 802.11g

 

STUFF:

I used a real Mac, myHack installer, an external hard drive, and a Retail OSX 10.6 DVD Disc.

 

ME HACKING:

- Using my real mac I restored my OS X Retail Disc to a partition on my external hard drive (using disk utility I created a dmg image, then restored it to the partition) and then I installed myHack installer on it.

- I tried to install os x in my laptop this way. I connected the hard drive to the laptop, choose the hard drive has the boot device, booted successfully, but at the end of the installation an error occurred and I could not boot from the OS installed on the laptop. So I created another partition on the external hard drive and using my real mac, I located OSinstall.mpkg on the installation partition, and installed OS X on the new one. Afterwards I installed myHack installer on this new partition after the os x installation.

- I then tried to boot from this new osx86 installation on this 2nd partition on the hard drive and I succeeded.

- Then I installed OS X on the laptop disc, using the same method as before: locating OSinstall.mpkg etc., afterwards I installed myHack installer.

- I then booted successfully with the laptop disc installation.

- I updated to 10.6.2, and I used the "pfix" in the terminal, a little terminal command that is installed on the OS with the myHack, it fixes permissions and rebuilds the boot cache and Extensions.mkexts (I use "pfix" whenever there seems to be any problem like kexts not loading etc, and it works almost every time, not sure why).

- Boot... OK.

PS: in myHack installer I choose graphics disabled, and later I unchecked applePS2Controller, cause in the link below there is a AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext kext that works in combination with VoodooPS2Controller.kext.

 

STUFF THAT WORKS:

- Airport works out of the box with no patches or anything. (Sweet! )

- ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570, I can have native res using dong's kext and this method, but with no QE/CI.

- Trackpad ok with voodoo ps2 from this link. Double finger scrolling ok!

- Sound ok with voodoo HDA. But mic not working.

- Battery ok with voodoo battery.

- I also use VoodooPowerMini.kext but not sure what it does.

- Disc burning ok.

- Webcam ok right out of the box.

- For USB, I had to trash AppleHPNet.kext (what does it do?)

 

NOT WORKING

- Ethernet, couldn't find a way to make it work. Using a app called "Hardware Info" it shows my Ethernet card as: Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5764M Gigabit Ethernet PCIe. I used the AppleBCM5751Ethernet.kext with no success.

- No bluetooth.

- Can't make the OS go to sleep mode, even if I close the lid. It freezes.

- Sometimes when I restart, or start the laptop, the boot freezes (rarely some KPs :censored2: , and I have to restart again using verbose, and again and it works.Why?)

- I like using VMware, there are some useful windows apps I use. But when I start the Virtual OS, Kernel Panic! (Why?)

- No mic.

- Keyboard layout. Because I use the Portuguese Keyboard Layout, there seems to be a difference between Portuguese Standard Layout, and the Portuguese Mac Layout, and some keys are swapped. You guys know of any app that allows to create or edit the OS X keyboard layout?

 

Here's my list of kexts in the /Extras/Extensions:

 

AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext

EvOreboot.kext <--- myHack

FakeSMC.kext <--- myHack

IONetworkingFamily.kext <--- myHack

LegacyAppleRTC.kext <--- myHack

NullCPUPowerManagement.kext <--- myHack

RadeonHD.kext

SleepEnabler.kext <--- myHack (doesn't work for me)

VoodooBattery.kext <--- don't remember, from voodooprojects.org maybe.

VoodooHDA.kext

VoodooPowerMini.kext

VoodooPS2Controller.kext

 

My com.apple.Boot.plist :

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>DSDT</key>						//Not sure what it really does, or if it is working.
<string>/Extra/dsdt.aml</string>	 
<key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>		 //Ethernet still not working.
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>1024x768x32</string>	 //my res works in 1366x768 without changing this.
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>chocolate_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>arch=i386</string>
<key>Theme</key>
<string>Default</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>5</string>
<key>USBBusFix</key>	//not sure if it works cause I trashed AppleHPnet.kext.
<string>Yes</string>
</dict>
</plist>

 

Overall I am pleased with my osx hack. But I'd love to have QE/CI enabled. You guys know of any recent development in support for Mobility Radeons? I know 4330 can have QE/CI, what about mine?

 

I'm using DSDT.aml but I'm not sure if it works or if it improves anything at all. I used DSDT Patcher GUI.

 

Do you guys know of any way to improve my hack (mic; QE/CI; Ethernet; etc) ? Also, if you find any error here, regarding language (english not my native language) osx86 jargon, or methods in this little mini-guide, please correct me, I'm willing to learn.

 

Thank you.

:pirate2:

[Spado]

I have absolutely to thank you... I have the same notebook (maybe the previous model of 5738ZG with Vista and 320GB HD, but still ATI and 2.1ghz )..

By the way I haven't done anything yet... For now I'm working on my desktop where I don't have anything important on the HD and so I can test all things ...

By the way I'm still not able to search kext and things like this... I would be really pleased if we could talk (you can add me on messenger ... I sent you a PM with my address.)..