MacGyver Posted October 19, 2020 Share Posted October 19, 2020 Hi all, For background, I was (and am) a DOS programmer who didn't (and mostly doesn't) do Windows, but I do Unix. Alas, my laptop came with Windows 7, in 2011, and I was too lazy to do anything about it, until last year in December, at which point I transitioned to using Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu) full time as my main system. There is one reason why I still sometimes need Windows, and that is iTunes, to sync my iPoders (I have two Touch 5th gen. and a Classic 160 GB). Days ago, I jailbroke one of my iPod touch devices, and discovered that you can use it as a Unix terminal server that you can SSH into. Unix on an iPod seems like overkill to me, but all right, I can live with it, haha. I have a little experience with MacOS classic, but none with OS X. Now, I am trying to get an OS X install running under VMware. I tried installing Catalina, but it gets stuck on the Apple logo screen at a point when the progress bar is near the end. I have now acquired a 10.4 Tiger ISO, but I can't get it to boot. Is there anything I can do? I would post in the virtualisation forum, but it seems I can only post here. Regards, Albert. Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/345471-getting-started-with-macos-x/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacGyver Posted October 19, 2020 Author Share Posted October 19, 2020 About the hardware specs: DELL Precision M6600 Quad Core Intel Core i7-2720QM Intel HD Graphics 3000 (I used to have AMD FirePro graphics but I had to pull it out due to a memory defect) Forget about Tiger? I thought an older MacOS would go along better with my somewhat old hardware. Useless? I have a Windows 98 VM that I use on a daily basis -- that's more than 20 years old. In any case, I'm not sure I am going to use it for anything more than playing around and seeing for myself a bit what OS X is. What version would be better under the circumstances? Discourage VM? Well, I'm aware of the pros and cons of VMs versus bare metal, but a VM is the only viable option at this time. Sure, I'd like to have eg. a MacBook, but I can't afford that right now. -Albert. Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/345471-getting-started-with-macos-x/#findComment-2741277 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacGyver Posted October 19, 2020 Author Share Posted October 19, 2020 I'm downloading High Sierra, and will give it a try. -Albert. Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/345471-getting-started-with-macos-x/#findComment-2741291 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacGyver Posted October 20, 2020 Author Share Posted October 20, 2020 Neither High Sierra nor Lion worked out. They just "hang" at some point during the loading phase, even though the animated mouse pointer would suggests it isn't hung. Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/345471-getting-started-with-macos-x/#findComment-2741396 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacGyver Posted October 20, 2020 Author Share Posted October 20, 2020 I successfully booted the MacOS X 10.8 Mountain Lion CD! I successfully installed it too. But it won't boot. I used the boot disc's Terminal utility to set nvram boot-args="-v", so now I'm getting useful boot messages automatically. I tried adding init=/bin/sh to the boot-args too, but it seems to have no effect. The last 3 lines of the boot messages before it hangs are: hfs: hfc_btree_open: BTOpenPath error -32730 considerRebuildOfPrelinkedKernel com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily triggered rebuild Resetting IOCatalogue. Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/345471-getting-started-with-macos-x/#findComment-2741428 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacGyver Posted October 22, 2020 Author Share Posted October 22, 2020 No ideas? I know little about the MacOS X startup sequence, but I've figured out that it uses /sbin/launchd instead of /sbin/init. Where does launchd take its configuration from? Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/345471-getting-started-with-macos-x/#findComment-2741724 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacGyver Posted October 24, 2020 Author Share Posted October 24, 2020 I switched to QEMU, and I was successful in setting up a 10.15 Catalina environment. Being new to MacOS X, is there anything in particular I should try or take a look at? Is there a MacOS key combo that corresponds to the Alt+Tab found in MS Windows and typical Linux GUIs? So far, I don't find it particularly intuitive or easy to use, but at least part of the reason for that, is probably that I have prior experience of other systems, ie. a bit of Windows brainwashing, so to speak. Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/345471-getting-started-with-macos-x/#findComment-2742015 Share on other sites More sharing options...
shantur Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 Things which I learnt when I moved to Mac from Windows long time back. Windows - Mac Alt + Tab = Win / Cmd + Tab Ctrl + X/C/V = Win / Cmd + X/C/V Alt + F4 = Win / Cmd + W Exit App = Win / Cmd + Q Spotlight Search = Win / Cmd + Space In MacOS the Menu bar is per application rather than per window in Windows. You might close all windows but the app will be alive. Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/345471-getting-started-with-macos-x/#findComment-2742155 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacGyver Posted October 29, 2020 Author Share Posted October 29, 2020 Thanks, that's useful. I already figured out some of them on my own. What are some of the "sights" to see in MacOS? Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/345471-getting-started-with-macos-x/#findComment-2742503 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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