MSI "big Bang" partially working

[tom emerson]

Ok, got my system "working" past the 50% mark [audio, networking, boots w/out CD, but video is limited to 1024x768]

 

MSI big bang motherboard

core i7/950 [standard clock rate]

24gb main memory

100gb main drive [salvaged from laptop upgrade]

Palit GTX460 [2gb]

 

IT TURNS OUT...

 

that I needed "-force64" as a boot flag. This solved some (all?) of the weird problems with this disk not being able to boot here, but worked OK as a USB boot drive on my laptop.

 

What would have been nice, in ANY of the "guides", would have been a list of current boot flags - I only found this as an off-hand comment buried in a thread here (as an alternative to another flag to artificially limit memory to 4GB - seems the fsck routine, in 32-bit mode, will fail if there is more than 4GB of memory)

 

So, can anyone point me toward a comprehensive list of the flags or parameters used by chameleon/empire/[url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url]/nawcom or any other bootloader-of-the-week?

[Hagar]

As many of the flags are provided by the bootloader and subject to change with each version, you have to refer to the bootloader's documentation for these flags.

[tom emerson]

As many of the flags are provided by the bootloader and subject to change with each version, you have to refer to the bootloader's documentation for these flags.

 

Well, perhaps my "newness" to the osx way of doing things has me saying or doing (or thinking) things "the wrong way" - I guess what I need is a "guide to the guides" - names of things I've picked up in the last two days include nawcom, empire, iatkos (?), [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url], chameleon, pystar, and now myhack, not to mention the really cryptic acronyms such as ahci, dsdt, efi, and kext. any given guide seems to throw two or three of these things at you with the expectation that somehow, "off the street", you will pick up on these terms and magically "know" how to deal with them. (even the dead-tree version of "OSx86: creating a hackintosh" falls victim to this mentality in places)

 

in some ways, it's like going back to the start of the Linux movement, where the easiest way to get your system set up was to find someone who had already done it and have them "do the work for you" while you watched (means, of course, having physical access to a guru )

[Markrtoon]

My goodness, with those specs, what the heck do you do on there?!

[Hagar]

Well, perhaps my "newness" to the osx way of doing things has me saying or doing (or thinking) things "the wrong way" - I guess what I need is a "guide to the guides" - names of things I've picked up in the last two days include nawcom, empire, iatkos (?), [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url], chameleon, pystar, and now myhack, not to mention the really cryptic acronyms such as ahci, dsdt, efi, and kext. any given guide seems to throw two or three of these things at you with the expectation that somehow, "off the street", you will pick up on these terms and magically "know" how to deal with them. (even the dead-tree version of "OSx86: creating a hackintosh" falls victim to this mentality in places)

 

in some ways, it's like going back to the start of the Linux movement, where the easiest way to get your system set up was to find someone who had already done it and have them "do the work for you" while you watched (means, of course, having physical access to a guru )

 

Well the first list of things you mention (nawcom, empire, iatkos (?), [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url], chameleon, pystar, and now myhack) are "brand names" of varying quality from people in the hackintosh "scene". The second (ahci, dsdt, efi, and kext.) are standard computing terms. I believe any of these are readily explained by a quick google.

 

I'd like to point out that my own experience with linux started by downloading mklinux for powerpc, and then, as now, reading documentation and trying for myself was the answer, I never had nor needed any "access to a guru"

 

This is a DIY kind of project, and pre-existing computer knowledge in necessary, reading, searching & learning is the way forward, if you expect hand-holding you are likely to be disappointed.