Has anyone thought to *not* use OS X to boot the OSX86 install DVD?

[iPirate]

I was just thinking... would it be possible to have a Linux distro (e.g. similar to Puppy Linux) that would reside in RAM and could read off pre-prepared dmgparts burned (as .dmgpart files) onto separate CDs, DVDs, USB external drives, anything mountable by the Linux distro.

 

I remember my friend's old iMac G3 used dmgparts on its (OS X install) discs to install the OS by copying a pre-prepared drive image: it just copied a dmgpart at a time onto the internal HDD and asked for the next disc when each was copied over (thus, asking for the next dmgpart). I once copied all four dmgparts to my internal drive and they mounted as a clone of a fresh install of Mac OS 10.1

 

So, I was wondering if someone could get a Linux Distro to copy from dmgparts (that a retail DVD could have installed onto via Pacifist, with all relevant updates installed) and then copy/install files off a last volume to modify the vital things needed to make the PC bootable (in, say, Leopard), and the last CD/DVD could be customisable for each PC setup, so that would be the only thing that would be significantly different between installations.

 

That system, IMHO, would make it much easier to start with a retail DVD, would involve very small downloads, and should make it much faster to install Leopard to a PC.

 

Does anyone think that this is a good suggestion?

[iPirate]

Anyone? I ask this due to being at the ends of the earth in terms of internet and don't have the time or the bandwidth to download DVDs that might not work. I don't really have the time for long complicated series of terminal commands either.

 

I am having an unsuccessful time hacking my Retail DVD, and I think it a shame to have to download another ~4 gigs just to use something I already have!

[Superhai]

What are you asking for, what are you trying to do?

[iPirate]

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I have been given the impression that one can do an OSX86 installation using another Mac by installing from a retail disc to an external HDD, and then patching certain files. I was thinking that instead of having these 4.7GB torrents that people download, have much more manageable "kit" torrents, where someone with a retail disc could simply and easily create a set of install discs for their home PCs, or their PC-using friends (I'm a realist here).

 

A retail disc owner could just install to a disk image, use hdutil in the terminal to create dmgparts from that retail image (thus providing the main body of the install disc/s) and burn those as files onto separate DVDs (or even CDs if they had the patience), followed by the patcher disc that would patch the necessary files.

 

Forgive me for being a bit imaginative here, but how I envisaged it, the installation would involve 3 or more Discs, at least one being a DVD(-R/RW, wouldn't really matter, up to the disc burner).

The first disc (most likely a CD) would have something like Puppy linux, where it can run totally within the RAM. Perhaps to save on RAM usage, certain pre-installation applications such as a Partition Management Tool (Gparted perhaps?), And a bootloader installer (like Grub) could live on the CD, to be run before copying over the dmgparted "native" installation.

 

By running the installer on the first disc, it would quit the other apps (such as the partition tool and other installers) and eject the CD, and ask for the disc containing the first dmgpart. The first dmgpart disc would be inserted, and if the dmgpart is accompanied by a folder structure or other files, the Installer would ask for the user to open the first dmgpart. And so on until all the native dmgparts are installed.

 

When the last dmgpart would be copied over, the installer would ask for the patch disc, the last disc needed before the OSX6 installation would be bootable. This last disc (could even be the original CD if it were easy enough for end-users to make custom-tailored first discs, and the patched files were small enough) would contain some kind of installation package, zipped set of patched files in pre-prepared folder hierarchy, etc. (whatever is easiest and consistent, so that it wouldn't matter which files had to be replaced, the installer would always know where to put the patched files).

 

Upon completion of the patch, the last disc would be ejected, and the system rebooted into a fully working installation of Leopard on whatever PC hardware the user had installed it on.

 

I'm not saying this is a good idea, just for us Mac evangelists, it would provide a series of much smaller torrents to download and of a much more legal nature (for torrenting the dmgpart copying Linux thingy wouldn't be piracy (only the use of it would be) and the patched files would be less of direct piracy (AFAIK) than the hacked DVD installers out there).

 

Also, I would hope it would make the job of hacking easier for the hackers themselves. For instead of having to rebuild kernels that will work with almost anything thrown at them, loads of different drivers per disc, etc., and then having annoying little end-users coming crying back when a little thing didn't work and now they can't boot Vista, the hackers would merely need to provide the individual files (or little installers for those files) that would render a Vanilla installation bootable and usable for each specific system thrown their way (or make generic installers that work with a specified list of hardware types, again I say whatever is simplest and easiest).

 

I hope I haven't given you eyestrain.

[Hagar]

you could try running the "brazimac" patches under darwin, I suppose..

 

some of what you suggest is utopia, some is reinvention of existing wheels, and all of it appears overcomplicated at first glance, but if I understand you correctry, the point of all this is to be able to patch your own DVD without having os x in the first place? Ideally from a livecd environment? I haven't actually done it myself, but I believe that's doable with an os x live cd, a usb stick & the retail dvd..

 

 

Or maybe I just haven't understood you correctly...

[iPirate]

Yeah, I'm a bit of a utopiaist, but this is only really a suggestion anyway. At this rate I might try rigging this thing up myself once I've learnt enough at uni (that's not to say I'd do a good job of it).

 

The idea is being able to patch your own install without requiring a patched installer disc. In effect, not ever making a bootable patched installation disc, just a bootable patched installation. So nothing Apple appearing until post-installation.

 

I tried the brazilmac patch-retail-disc method but all that did was return a bunch of errors and give me a useless disc image. I don't have access to Tiger anymore (Everyone I know has either upgraded to Leopard or is stuck on Panther) and that seems to be a problem using (his?) patch scripts. I tried manually but that failed too.

 

As for downloading patched dvds, I downloaded the 10.4.6 "MacForJas" (or whatever it was called) disc back in its day and it has never been bootable, that is, it's never got past the blue screen. That was 3 weeks of downloading on and off (I don't get to torrent much) to get something that didn't work. And something I couldn't easily modify to make workable. So that's put me of downloading patched DVDs.

 

The "OSX Live CD" idea, as far as I can tell, seems to be using Kalyway or something (I don't keep tabs on what mightn't work) and that sounds like a ~4 gig download just to use what I already have (and the USB stick files). Or am I mistaken and this live CD is actually in the hundreds of Megs because noone with a retail disc is going to use its installation files?

 

My idea would be like having the USB stick files on the last disc (or USB stick were the live cd distro thingy to have USB support) with simplified install methods (so that even simple people who just like the look of OS X can install it, none of this terminal stuff) and pretty much the same end result (Happy OS X User) minus what (to me) seems like a rather bumpy road to success.

[Superhai]

If I follow you correctly, what you could do is make some software for linux that parses the install packages from the original OSX install dvd. Copy it to the HFS+ drive, set correct permissions and then install the booter. Then you install the hacked and patched files. Same thing as the install-dvd does except you are in linux.

 

The thing is that if you can't use the dvd's you most likely will have lots of trouble after the install. Why is OSX86 so difficult for a lot of persons? Because lack of drivers, flawed, buggy or lacking implementations from the PC manufacturers, and because many of the hacks and tricks are made by semipros and amateurs. Remember that one of the beauties of OSX is that one installation should be working perfectly by just moving the boot medium to another computer, but they crash because after hacking someone has removed vital components to make a dirty hack or changed some of IOKits matching rules so it matches too many or wrong kind of devices.

[iPirate]

Oh, the installation would be "pre-installed" onto a disc image. So nothing in the linux distribution reads a Mac OS X installation package. It'd be like copying a clean install from HDD to HDD, without the first HDD being a real HDD. All the uses of install packages would be run using either a real Mac or a working OSX86 Hac, installing to a disc image which could be segmented for Optical Drive reading. The dmgparts would be of a disc image onto which a clean ("Vanilla" is it?) installation was performed onto.

 

Thus, the Linux installer should just copy the files and their attributes byte by byte onto the drive from the disc image (a clone of that image), hopefully (unless Linux has a way of messing up copying OS X permissions) keeping all the permissions as they should be. The last stage would use the copied-onto-internal-drive filestructure and install the PC-specific components at the end. Such a stage would (IMHO) be reasonably easy to redo if a system update borked the system and made it unbootable. And if the system is borked by using bad drivers, the first and last steps (booting the Linux distro and running the patcher installer thingys) would (hopefully) restore the system to full functionality.

 

Actually... I think you might be making me see things more your way now... I'll sleep on it (rather long day over here).