OS X Lion on ASUS G51Jx-X3

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Gamer's Republic ASUS G51Jx-X3 OS X Lion Installation Guide

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I've learned OSx86 stuff the hard way and realize what a turmoil it can be for a fresher. Also I can be very forgetful sometimes. So, here I'm compiling all that I did to get OS X Lion working on my ASUS G51Jx-X3 notebook.

 

Well folks, here is OS X Lion (10.7) entering the Gold Master phase. That means its feature-locked and is ready to retail. While I tried installing the developer preview, I hardly had any success even booting the installer. It was mostly because I did not try much.

 

However, now that we have the final build of the OS, here is how to get it up and running on your (now an year and a half old) G51Jx-X3 gaming laptop.

 

Use my Snow Leopard guide as a reference point. It explains every little thing in detail.

 

The preamble: Hackintosh is not for the lazy. You WILL run into walls and things WILL seem not working out. If that is a problem, don't read any further.

 

Disclaimer: This ain't gonna blow your laptop, nor is it gonna eat your wife and kids, but your data is **NOT** safe. BACKUP.

 

WHAT STILL NEEDS TO BE DONE

1. There is no way to adjust brightness. The hotkeys don't work in Lion. This is pretty annoying. Also, our screen is so darn crappy, it makes my eyes bleed. However, I've found a way to make things work. I use this amazing little utility F.lux in combination with a color profile (look for it in the attached .zip file as BEST.icc) that really boosts the Gamma and makes the display bearable.

2. Upon every boot, Lion tries to detect a bluetooth keyboard. Have to hit Cmd+Q to make it go away.

 

WHAT YOU NEED

1. OS X Lion

2. A working Hackintosh or Mac to prepare for intallation.

3. An 8GB USB Drive. Apple is progressively ditching the optical media, and so are we.

4. Chameleon RC5 rev 828 and PC_EFI 10.6. This is the only combination that worked for me. I tried [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url], PC_EFI alone and XPC, but none got me past the bootloader.

4. A separate internet connected device. Errors and {censored} happen. You will need to look them up to troubleshoot.

5. A pair of USB Mouse and Keyboard. Its infinitely frustrating that ASUS continues to use PS2 interface while OS X doesn't even recognize those devices. So, until you get the PS2 kexts running post-installation, you would need these.

6. A working Snow Leopard 10.6.8 instllation, if you are taking the upgrade route.

 

There are, as always, two ways to get the new OS X working. Fresh install and Upgrade. Upgrade is THE easiest way to get lion up and running. If you followed my last guide to install OS X Snow Leopard, upgrading would be a breeze. (Almost) All the kexts would work out of the box and you'll be good to go in about 25 mins. However, If you insist on a fresh install (which is literally just an added hassle if you have a working Snow Leo) the exact same kexts may falter as happened with me.

 

PRE-INSTALLATION

 

Follow these steps to prepare for installation, no matter if you upgrade or install afresh.

1. BUY Lion. No, seriously. How sick do you have to be to pirate something as amazing as OS X that is still priced as unbelievingly low as $29? Go to Mac AppStore an buy it. If you don't have a working Mac, well download it from elsewhere. Then when you are successful with the hackinosh, do buy it in the AppStore. This doesn't deduct your pirate-points. Remember, pirates are people with principles and cheating the likes of Apple is plain awful. (end of my moral rant)

2. Update your BIOS to v208.

3. Now that you have the OS, it's time to prepare a bootable USB. Grab your drive, clean erase it with 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' using Disk Utility. Find the 'Install Mac OS X Lion.app' (I downloaded as a Mac Developer), right-click to show package contents and navigate /Contents/SharedSupport/InsyallESD.dmg. Mount the .dmg and using Disk Utility, restore the dmg to the USB disk. (If you end up with a little different version, tell me what you got in the comments and I'll tell you how to make a USB out of it.)

Now, Install Chameleon RC5 rev 828 using the (unofficial) installer. Make the invisible files visible, using Terminal:

 defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

After this, you should be able to see the "boot" file in the root of your USB disk. Replace it with the "boot" file from the PC_EFI 10.6. This combination works pretty well and would boot Lion as well as Snow Leopard (tested on 10.6.8 and 10.6.7).

 

Also, add your DSDT to the root of the USB and FakeSMC.kext to your System/Library/Extensions folder. Now, you have to repair permissions on FakeSMC.kext to make it usable. In terminal:

 sudo su
[your password]
chown -R 0:0 [drag the FakeSMC.kext file here from S/L/E]
chmod -R 755 [drag the FakeSMC.kext file here from S/L/E]

 

This should be enough for now. Here you have a bootable install USB drive for Lion.

 

INSTALLATION

 

Well, this is pretty simple. Plug in the installed USB, boot from it, interrupt the bootloader countdown, select the install USB, use -v -f flags during boot and everything will go just like a real mac.

If you are upgrading, choose the drive that has Snow Leopard installed on it.

If you are installing fresh, chose any drive with atleast 10GB free space.

See through the install process and be patient.

 

POST-INSTALLATION

 

# If you Upgraded:

Well, there isn't much to do. As I said, Lion would boot out of the box, however you still need to boot from the Install USB, interrupt the boot sequence, and then select the partition that you upgraded with Lion.

Once inside Lion… Well, take a moment to rejoice. You've done it!

Now, Wi-Fi won't work. I know, I know we all bought and installed those pansy Broadcom wireless cards which worked amazing with 10.6 and now its all toast. But, kexts are here to rescue. Replace the stock kexts with IO80211Family.kext and IONetworkingFamily.kext (look into the .zip package at the end of the post). Use either 'Kext Utility' or Terminal. Don't just dump them into S/L/E.

Now install Chameleon RC5 rev 828 on this drive and replace the boot file from PC_EFI 10.6, just the way you did on the USB drive.

Reboot.

That's it.

 

# If you are installing afresh:

You still have a long way to go. To begin with, you need another working installation of OS X on the same machine to install the kexts and DSDT OR you can use Terminal from install USB. Depends on what you got.

 

If you have another installation: Boot into it. Install Chameleon RC5 rev 828 on this drive and replace the boot file from PC_EFI 10.6, just the way you did on the USB drive.

Install the following kexts (look for the attached .zip file at the end of this post) by copying into S/L/E and then using the Terminal:

1. FakeSMC.kext

2. IO80211Family.kext

3. IONetworkingFamily.kext

4. VoodooHDA.kext, VoodooHDA.prefPane and voodoohdahelper (there are istallation instructions in the folder)

5. VoodooBattery.kext

6. VoodooPS2Controller.kext and VoodooPS2.prefPane and the accompanying kexts

7. AsusHotkeys.kext

8. AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext

 

Now, copy your DSDT to root (the disk you installed Lion to, don't ask what's 'root' again)

Also, copy smbios.plist and com.apple.Boot.plist to 'Extra' folder in the root. Copy and replace com.apple.Boot.plist to Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ as well.

 

If you want to install from the terminal:

Once your Installation completes, Boot into the USB again. When installation screen appears, Goto 'Utilities > Terminal' and type in (assuming that the drive you installed Lion on is called "Lion"):

 

cd System/System/Library/Extensions/
cp -R FakeSMC.kext /Volumes/[b]Lion[/b]/System/Library/Extensions/
chown -R 0:0 /Volumes/[b]Lion[/b]/System/Library/Extensions/FakeSMC.kext
chmod -R 755 /Volumes/[b]Lion[/b]/System/Library/Extensions/FakeSMC.kext

cd /
cp -R DSDT.aml /Volumes/[b]Lion[/b]/
exit

 

This would copy the very essential FakeSMC.kext and DSDT into your Lion installation and would allow you to boot. Then you could install the remaining stuff from inside. Be warned, keyboard and trackpad won't work. Have your USB peripherals ready.

 

 

Cross your fingers and reboot. I can't really explain but this exact configuration works pretty well with upgrade but when installing afresh, things aren't as pretty. You experience may vary. Let me know in the comments.

 

 

Now that you have everything working, I advise you to buy a Magic Trackpad from Apple. Lion's real strength is in its multitouch gestures. Our crappy trackpads are no good.

 

Copyright and Credits: This is just a compilation of information already available on the interwebs. The sole purpose of providing downloadable files is user convenience. I've had my share of experience with dead links and changed content. I think its in the best interests of the end user and is not an effort to undermine or steal credit for the amazing work of the OS86 Devs. Guys, if you have some spare cash, consider donating to these guys.

 

Download the files only if you agree to abide by the specific licensing terms of every component of the package.

 

Jul 12 00:38 am - OS_X_Lion_10.7_v1.zip