About four years ago, I was tired of all the issues on Windows, moved my working environment to Linux. I installed OpenSuse Linux on my desktop, and was really happy about it.
Two years ago, I started iPhone programming, which can’t be done on Linux. So I bought a Macbook Pro. Once I got use to it, I found this is a really neat device — it’s sort like a perfect marriage between Windows and Linux: very intuitive and polished UI (much better than windows), plus powerful low level tools when you need it. It’s perfect for a developer.
And then I noticed I used my Linux desktop less and less, which is a pity, because my desktop has a really nice setup — quad cores at 3.0GHz, 8G RAM. But, I don’t have a choice, Steve Jobs doesn’t want me to do Mac programming on Linux. Hence I had the idea to convert my desktop to a “Hackintosh” machine.
(Disclaimer: The following process potentially violates Apple’s End User License Agreement for Mac OS X. Please check the Aggreement before following these steps.)
Following is the setup of my desktop:
- GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L (Link to Amazon.com)
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, 2,4GHz, overclocked to 3GHz (Link to Amazon.com)
- EVGA nVidia GeForce 8400GS 512 MB PCI-Express Fanless Video Card (Link to Amazon.com)
- OCZ Vertex SSD 120GB (Link to Amazon.com)
- Two Seagate 1TB 7200.12 Harddrive, in RAID 1 (Link to Amazon.com)
- Corsair 8GB (4x2GB) DDR2 PC6400 RAM (Link to Amazon.com)
- Plextor 22x PATA DVD+/- RW drive (Link to Amazon.com)
- Antec P180 Silver Case (Link to Newegg.com)
- Rosewill RC-219 Silicon Image PCI Express eSata Card (Link to Newegg.com)
I tried my best to reuse existing components to cut cost. The only replaced piece was the video card. My original Nvidia 7600 card doesn’t play nice with OSX 10.6.2+. So I just picked up a really cheap one to upgrade since I don’t do any graphic intensive work on this machine. The motherboard only has four SATA port. So I also added an eSATA card for additional storage and future expansion.
I spent quite some time to research on this project. I found following two websites really helpful:
http://www.insanelymac.com/ and http://tonymacx86.com/
- Prepare an “Extra” directory on a USB drive: this directory contains some crucial files, such as your DSDT file (a file to make your BIOS information understandable to OSX, you can follow this thread to create your own: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=235523), drivers that need to be patched. Following is how my Extra directory looks like:
![screen-shot-2011-01-07-at-84231-pm]( "screen-shot-2011-01-07-at-84231-pm")
Contents of My /Extra Folder
- Burn a HackBoot bootable CD (Link): I believe any latest version of Chameleon based boot CD should be OK.
- BIOS setup:
“SATA AHCI Mode” -> “AHCI”
“ACPI Suspend Mode” -> “S3″
“HPET Support” -> “Enabled”
“HPET Mode” -> “64-bit mode” - Boot with the HackBoot CD just burned
- When the boot option screen shows up, change the disk to an original “Snow Leopard” CD (I have 10.6.0).
- Press F5 to refresh, and choose the “Snow Leopard Installation CD”, press return to start installation.
- Follow the instruction to continue, before the final installation, open “Disk Utility” (from menu “Utilities”/”Disk Utility”).
- In Disk Utility, choose your destination harddrive, format it by using “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)”. Make sure the partition type is “GUID Partition Table”.
- Continue the installation. Mine took about half hour.
- Once the machine reboots, put in the “HackBoot” CD again, and boot from the DVD drive.
- When the boot option screen shows up, choose the partition that was just installed, and boot from there.
- The machine boots successfully into Snow Leopard 10.6.0. (If it doesn’t, reboot again, use -x, -v options to check what is going on).
- Download 10.6.5 combo update from Apple’s website: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1324
- Install 10.6.5 combo update. Once it finishes, don’t reboot!
- Download Chameleon boot loader RC5: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=231075 . The version I used is v2.0 RC5 rev-653.
- Install Chameleon.
- Copy “Extra” directory to your root directory, and use Disk Utility to fix permissions.
- Remove the “HackBoot” CD, and reboot.
- The machine boots into Snow Leopard without any problem!
After the installation is done, a few things still need further care:
- Only 32MB RAM is recognized for my video card, even though it has 512MB. Also, the QE/CL is not enabled. Setting option “GraphicsEnabler” to “YES” in Chameleon’s boot options fixed this problem.
- The machine couldn’t fall in sleep properly. To fix that, check the option “Start up automatically after a power failure” in “System Preferences”/”Energy Saver”.
- My onboard sound chipset is too old for 10.6.5 — it works in 10.6.0, but Apple dropped the support for this chipset (alc8888) in 10.6.3. I have to manually patch it by copying the AppleHDA.text and HDAEnabler.text from the “/Extra” folder to “/System/Library/Extensions”, and then use Disk Utility to fix file permissions. The details can be found here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=140941, packages can be downloaded from: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?s=2adfeae146682e452819554e78b442c2&act=attach&type=post&id=80828
- For the eSATA card, I have to install the driver from the chip maker’s website (Silicon Image) to make it work: http://www.siliconimage.com/support/searchresults.aspx?pid=32&cat=3&os=3
After all these tweaks, my hackintosh desktop is nearly perfect. Yesterday, the OSX 10.6.6 was out. I just did an online update, and reboot, and the latest version of OSX is up and running! Now it’s time to enjoy my powerful hackintosh desktop computer!
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Let me know if you have any question / comment!