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Help out a novice in OSX


BatDragon
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Hi all, this is my first post so be gentle on me if i have entered it into the wrong section.

 

I have been wanting to play about with the MAC OSX for a while, also to help out a friend of mine that has a mac when things go wrong. I am running a multi boot system as my main PC Windows 7 (both 32 & 64 Bit), Vista (both 32 & 64 Bit), XP Pro & Zorin (a Ubuntu based system). It is an AMD Hex core 3.2GHz with 8 GB ram, a 512 Nvidia graphics card (not a gamer) and about 7TB of storage.

 

Ok si i have been trying to find a solution to getting OSX to run on that, but every time i do it mucks up my other installs as it re configures the MBR and it is a pain in the bum to fix, so what i have done is acquire another pc for the tast of playing about with OSX. It is a DELL Dimension 3000 (It was free so i am not complaining) i have upped the RAM to 1GB as i had some laying about that fitted into it. So my main questions at the moment are these,

 

1. What information about the system would i need to get to start asking questions (and google searches) on what is compatible for OSX to run on it?

2. As it is a low spec machine, would it be limited to which version of OSX that would be able to run on it (eg, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion etc)?

3. what are the diferances between the versions of OSX?

 

That will do for now. I am installing XP back on to the Dell so i can start to work out what exactly is in the box. I know that it will be using the onboard graphics card, and i believe the chip is a Celeron 2.9GHz but apart from that i am in the dark until i finish the install and get CPUZ up and running.

 

Any advice and pointers in the right direction would be great.

 

Many thanks

 

BD

 

I have now got the PC spec by using CPUID. i have attached it. so any help would be very much welcomed.

 

Cheers

 

BD

Demension 3000 spec.txt

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calling FAQ team? doesnt newcoms mod cd have an option for hex core AMD i forget?

 

your most likely going to be able to run with that setup. it is recommended that you install with 4gb of ram for compatibility reasons then work on getting it up to full speed.

your MBR will break but i have a workaround for you. get a usb sata bridge and a small HDD and experiment with that.

 

i will get back to you asap but for now please look at newcoms mod cd as an installation method with retail snow leopard disk for £25 or $50 its cheep right? i know it is.

 

oh yes also at the mmoment you are limited to 10.6 SL and wont be able to run lion because AMD has no patched kernel until apple releases the source code so Devs can get to work

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Thanks for the response, I have seen the patches for the hex core, but like I said, I am going to go down the route of installing it on the Dell system I now have for suposed ease and it was that one I was asking about and if the limitations of the pc mean I can only go to a certain level of OSX.

 

Thanks

 

BD

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Like Acro says, you could have just bought a second hard drive instead of a whole PC!

 

"Supposed ease" that's a good one...that old Dell is going to give you a hard time for sure...you'll have to wade through some very old posts to find the information you need to get OS X running on a PC that old. My first Hackintosh was on similar (though superior) hardware from the same period - an Asus P5P800SE Socket 775 board with i865/ICH5 chipset, but I had a Geforce 7600 GT AGP video card and a top of the line Pentium 4 model 651 with EM64T in it. I kept it running up to 10.5.8.

 

Your Dell has integrated Intel 865 video and a socket 478 Celeron..I guess only OS X Tiger has drivers for integrated video that old. If drivers exist at all. If you can get Tiger running on it, it should run great though. It's more or less on par with the first Intel Macs from the same period, except for the inferior CPU of course. You'll need to use a patched kernel, you can only use an unmodified kernel on Core microarchitecture CPUs and up. I don't know anything about patched kernels for Tiger, it's before my time. I believe most people used the ToH kernel then, which AFAIK was what later evolved into the Voodoo kernel - which you won't be able to use on Tiger.

 

Personally, unless you're in it for the fun and the challenge of it, I'd just drop it. There's only so much you can do with Tiger, even on Intel iron. There's lots of new software you won't be able to use etc.

 

I'd get another hard drive for your new PC, at least this way you can use current information and run a semi-current OS X. Max you'll be able to run on the AMD is 10.6.8, since there is no patched kernel available for Lion. But it should be easier to get OS X up and running on that than the old Dell.

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Oh bum lol, The best laid plans eh.

 

Ok then for the AMD here I come.

 

One more question, has anyone (or collectivly) put together a list of hardware and linked it to the associated patch like

 

OS Snow Leopard

Graphics cards Driver

Nvidia GeForce 210 series Use this one

Nvidia GT 430 Fermi Series Use this one

etc

 

Processors Patch

AMD A6/A8 Series (FM1 Socket) Use this one or

This one or

This one

 

AMD Athlon X2 & X4 Use this one or

This one

 

And the list goes on

This could of been built up by the people who have created the patches and the ones that have actually used a particular patch/driver and had success.

 

Does this exist or am i just dreaming of an easy solution.

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At the top of the screen, click on the OSx86 Wiki link and read the hardware compatibility tables.

 

Visit http://www.osx86.net/

 

Search the forums for "guides" for your system and find what other people did to get their systems working. Sometimes using Google is more efficient for the search if you include terms like InsanelyMac or Mac OS X

 

Using all three of these methods will often get you a solution to your problem.

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Yes, there is no such list.

 

Also, there are no "easy solutions". The solution is to google, forum search and read until you have collected the information you need.

Everything I'm posting for you here is widespread and readily available everywhere.

 

AMD CPUs use a patched kernel. Kernel must match OS version.

You cannot run Lion and above on systems with an AMD CPU because there is no patched kernel available.

 

For Nvidia cards you need to use Chameleon's GraphicsEnabler or an injector.kext like NVEnabler or ATY_Init. You can also inject the required device properties via Device Properties String in /Extra/org.chameleon.Boot.plist or via GFX0 Device in your DSDT. In the end all of these serve the same purpose: Inject required data into the IORegistry for the OS X Nvidia drivers to hook on to so that they'll load for your video card.

 

For most Nvidia video cards the drivers that ship with OS X will work fine. For Fermi architecture cards on Snow Leopard you must install the Quadro 4000 drivers from nvidia (works with 4xx series Fermi cards and below). On Lion, Fermi-based cards (including 5xx) will work with the built-in drivers, although Nvidia sometimes releases updated drivers that you may install if you wish.

 

Sometimes, especially on older versions of OS X, you might have to manually add the device ID for your video card to the appropriate driver in order to get it to load for your card. Google 'guide for all nvidia boards' for detailed information on that.

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