iPC OSx86 Leopard 10.5.6 Intel AMD SSE2 SSE3, Public Beta Release

ISO Size on Disk: 4.15GB
Image capacity: 4.3GB (allowing 150MB of space for future expansion)
Compression: 3.3GB RAR compressed using WinRAR 3.7 at highest compression rate
DVD Base System: Mac OS X 10.5.4 9E25 Retail
Installed OS: Mac OS X 10.5.6 with AppleDecrypt.kext and Disabler.kext (every install)
Languages Included: Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Korean, Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Portuguese, Polish
Items removed from DVD for Single Layer Slimming: Boot Camp (doesn’t work on PCs), AdditionalSpeechVoices, Printer Drivers
Updates Included: Mac OS X 10.5.6 Combo Update, Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 2, Remote Desktop Client 3.2.2
DVD Bootloader: Chameleon 1.0.11
Default installed bootloader: Chameleon 1.0.12 PC_EFI v9
DVD Boot Kernel: Voodoo Kernel 9.5.0 Final Release
MD5 Hash of iPC_OSx86_Public_Beta.iso: 5eb1aaff70d1f5810cd62e9d075d812e

Install LAN On PHY 81116

I'm one of the unlucky/poor ones who own a A8N-SLI... and not even the deluxe edition that gives you the Marvell-Yukon chip which would work for OS X. I didn't want to buy another LAN board, because I'm perversely repulsed by that sort of redundancy and inelegance.

After a few attempts at trying to manipulate the vendor and device ids to make the Apple drivers work, I decided to write my own from scratch. tongue.gif

Well, more precisely, I decided to blatantly rip off of the GPL'ed forcedeth driver for Linux, which someone had mentioned earlier (but I had a really difficult time getting a copy of the source code on Google, I only managed to get several old versions so far). But I figured 2000 odd lines of code isn't too unreasonable and I could figure it out mostly, and also figure out enough of OS X's innards so I can port it.

Luckily, I was right, and it's partially thanks to the Apple team for providing a surprisingly friendly platform to code... device drivers on. I've never coded one in my life, and I've never coded for Macs, either, but I was able to get the hang of it pretty quickly. (However, I must say the documentation wasn't the best... I mean at least do a better job of hyperlinking it! And also I had quite a fun time trying to get the provided interrupt request handler to work right... it actually crashed my computer a lot more than the "unsafe" method I used earlier did)

The driver is pretty crappy, I have severe doubts about its stability, and indeed, I've had to restart my computer a lot during the development process, but having your code running at the kernel level doesn't give you a lot of room for error. tongue.gif But, hey it works (sort of... I think it might still want to murder USB if I try to unload the kext... "unsafe" method didn't have this problem). Also, I wasn't able to implement the latest and greatest features. Like scatter-gather, TOS and so forth. For those things, I'd probably have to actually talk to a real person to figure out what's going on instead of just looking at the code (which is pretty much not commented at all).

Anyway, I'm not how much interest is there (all the other nForce4 people seem to have other LAN cards or have the Deluxe or Platinum version and using the Marvell Yukon driver), and the driver so far is still pretty humiliatingly unstable (though I haven't tested it out extensively). If you want the source, it'll be all GPL'ed and such.

But I mostly wanted to brag about how I wrote a OS X driver. tongue.gif It doesn't seem like that happens a lot... Pretty good for a Apple newb, eh?

EDIT:

The driver attached should now be fairly stable, but as with all OS X drivers, there is no guarantee of support. Complete system freezes have been known to occur with older versions and may reoccur, so avoid doing critical work on OS X. Source code is included for the sake of future generations. Here are my recommended instructions for getting it working on your computer:

1. Download the attached driver
2. Extract the contents onto the desktop
3. Open the Terminal application in the Applications/Utilities folder
4. Type "tail -f /var/log/system.log" to obtain debugging output for the first run.
5. Use the menu bar to open up a new Terminal window.
6. In this new window, type "cd ~/Desktop/forcedeth/build/Release"
7. sudo chown -R root:wheel forcedeth.kext
8. sudo chmod -R 755 forcedeth.kext
9. sudo kextload -v forcedeth.kext
10. Observe in the log window what happens. If there are no errors, and you eventually see the link going up with a proper speed, then the driver will work with your hardware. Otherwise, paste the log in this thread for help.
11. Test out the driver by browsing some websites, etc.
12. If there were any problems in steps 10 or 11, type "sudo kextunload forcedeth.kext", then repeat steps 7-11 for forcedeth-nockd.kext
13. To install the driver, type "sudo cp -R forcedeth.kext /System/Library/Extensions"
14. Lastly, update the extensions cache with "sudo kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions"

How To Install Joomla

1. Download the Joomla Package, Unpack it.

2. Download the xampp and install it, start it. When the control panel of xampp
showing apache and mysql is running you can go to next step.......

3. Show your browser to "http://localhost" or "http://127.0.0.1", now you will see
the start page of xampp. Select your language, click the PhpMyAdmin from the left menu.

4. Create a database, lets name it "joomla".

5. Create a directory for joomla site in side the "htdocs" directory of joomla, lets name the directory "myjoomla" .

6. Copy all the unpacke joomla files inside the directory you have just created (myjoomla).

7. Show your browser to "http://localhost/myjoomla", now you will see the installtion page of joomla.

8. Click Next and enter the database details
Host name : localhost
Database name : joomla
User Name : root
Password : just lieve it empty

9. Click Next, enter you email and password for the backend administrator

10. Click next, Now it is almost complete, it says delete the installation directory, ok delete it which is in the myjoomla directory inside the "htdocs" directory.

11. Congratulation! ;Dit is done, show your browser to "http://localhost/myjoomla now you will see your joomla site.

Recomended Specification For hackintosh

f you're planning to buy shiny new hardware components to build an Intel HackMac, this article might be of interest for you.

If you have an AMD machine like most InfiniteMac members, you have probably already been thinking about your next computer upgrade. AMD works, but unfortunately there are several problems that are critical, such as the dual core / mouse movement bug, which forces several X2 AMD users to disable their second core. But no matter if you have already gained experience or if you're completely new to OSx86, just read this small guide. At the end you'll know which components work fine.

An Intel HackMac Kit is a great choice for everybody who's open-minded for new knowledge and enthusiastic about Mac OS X Leopard on PC. The only requirements are basic and easy-to-learn skills regarding OSx86. For instance, if there's a mac update available, then you should know exactly what to do, or at least where you can search for help to make it work.

Chipset & Motherboard

The best choice for your future Hackintosh is Socket 775, Intel's latest desktop CPU socket.

Nowadays, one knows which motherboards work nice for OSx86 use. We are in love with a series of motherboards built by Gigabyte. The Gigabyte GA-P35 motherboard variants with the Intel® P35 express chipset are our favourite ones. They are an excellent choice for fast and very reliable HackMacs. There are several different variants on the market, the cheaper ones don't include as much features as the more expensive variants. For example, most low cost models don't include Firewire. If you want your new system to have support for the widest range of features, then we gladly recommend the flagship of the GA-P35 series, the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4. It supports Intel® Core™ 2 multi-core and 45nm processors and even DDR2 1066* memory for outstanding system performance. This indicates that it's a great choice for a future system. It also supports great graphics performance with a dual PCI-E x16 interface. Further, it has integrated SATA 3Gb/s with RAID function and features high speed Gigabit Ethernet and IEEE1394.

The Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 works almost out out of the box with all the latest OSx86 releases out there. The only part that needs patching is the Audio, which is very easy to do.

The following variants of the GA-P35 and GA-EP35 series work very well. Make sure that you choose according to your requirements! If you aren't sure, GA-P35-DS4 is the greatest choice.

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3

Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3

Gigabyte GA-EP35C-DS3R

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3P

Processor

A great choice are Intel's latest desktop processors, Intel Core 2 Duo and Intel Core 2 Quad. They are very powerful, fast and reliable, just what we require for our new machine. Ask yourself how much performance you need. If you don't need maximum performance, you'll be fine with an Intel Core 2 Duo. Actually you can do almost everything, as long as you're not a power user. If you need extreme performance or if you just want your new system to be safe for the future, pick an Intel Core 2 Quad Processor.

They are screamers.

Intel Core 2 Duo

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66 GHz

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0 GHz

Intel Core 2 Quad

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40 GHz

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 2.50 GHz

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66 GHz

Graphics Card

No matter if you require top notch graphic performance or just a simple solution to provide Quartz Extreme & Core Image, many NVidia and ATI graphic cards work fine. The best solutions for OSx86 are currently provided by NVidia.

Some 512 MB variants don't seem to work without flashing the cards BIOS, please read the OSx86Project HCL before buying!

The following graphic cards are highly recommended.

GeForce 8800 GTX

GeForce 8800 GTS

GeForce 8600 GT

GeForce 7600 GT

GeForce 7300 GT

You can find the best deals to buy your graphic card at NewEgg and Buy.com, if you are located in the United States. If you are from Germany, you'll find the best deals at Amazon.de.

RAM

There is no specific RAM vendor that you have to choose, but make sure that it's DDR2 RAM.

I personally recommend Crucial. Maybe you'd like to consider a Crucial Ballistix 4GB DDR2 Kit, or a Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2 Kit. It's top notch RAM that'll work fine with the Gigabyte motherboard.

Case & Power Supply

Choose your favourite vendor for your case and power supply, but don't buy cheap ones. Case and Power are the most important things to keep your hardware cool and reliable, so make sure that you invest accordingly.

Addendum

Have fun with assembling and using your new machine. Please don't hesitate to add a comment with your new hardware specifications. We love to see new HackMacs and their happy users!

Finally, don't forget to buy your copy of Mac OS X Leopard, if you haven't done so yet! It's a nice and adorable box, I highly recommend it. And don't forget that it's a great piece of computer history. You will be glad to be able to look at it, when you have it in your cupboard after several years.

All thanks fly out to Apple for their incredible Mac OS X operating system. It helps us to enjoy our work every day and we truly love it at heart.

An Introduction to Virtualization

Introduction

Over the course of the past couple of months, the AnandTech IT team has been putting a lot of time into mapping out and clarifying the inner workings of several interesting forms of virtualization. The purpose of these articles was not primarily to cover "news" (however current the topic might be), but to create a sort of knowledge base on this subject at AnandTech, as we find many people interested in learning more about virtualization are met with a large amount of misinformation. Secondly, we believe a better knowledge on the subject will empower the people in control of their company's IT infrastructure and help them make the correct decisions for the job.

There's no denying that virtualization is changing company's server rooms all over the world. It is promoting both innovation and the preservation of aged applications that would otherwise not survive a migration to modern hardware platforms. Virtualization is completely redefining the rules of what can and cannot be done in a server environment, adding a versatility to it that is increasing with every new release. We believe that when making big changes to any existing system, the more information that is available to the people given that task, the better.

But what about desktop users?

While the above should make it clear why businesses are extremely interested in this technology, and why we have been digging so deep into its inner workings, we are also noticing an increased interest from the rest of our reader base, and have been flooded with questions about the how and why of all these different kinds of virtualization. Since we don't want to leave any interested people out in the cold, and the in-depth articles may seem a bit daunting to anyone looking to get an introduction, here is another article in our "virtualization series". In it, we will attempt to guide our readers through the different technologies and their actual uses, along with some interesting tidbits for regular desktop users.

"New" Virtualization vs. "Old" Virtualization

The recent buzz around the word "virtualization" may give anyone the impression that it is something relatively new. Nothing is further from the truth however, since virtualization has been an integral part of server and personal computing, almost from the very beginning. To keep using the single term "virtualization" for each of its countless branches and sprouted technologies does end up being quite confusing, so we'll try to shed some light on those.

How to Define Virtualization

To define it in a general sense, we could state that virtualization encompasses any technology - either software or hardware - that adds an extra layer of isolation or extra flexibility to a standard system. Typically, while increasing the amount of steps a job takes to complete, the slowdown is made up for with increased simplicity or flexibility for the part of the system affected. To clarify, the overall system complexity increases, in turn allowing the manipulation of certain subsystems to become a lot easier. In many cases, virtualization has been implemented to make a software developer's job a lot less aggravating.

Most modern day software has become dependent on this, making use of virtual memory for vastly simplified memory management, virtual disks to allow for partitioning and RAID arrays, sometimes even using pre-installed "virtual machines" (think of Java and .net) to allow for better software portability. In a sense, the entire point of an Operating System is to allow software a foolproof use of the computer's hardware, taking control of almost every bit of communication with the actual machinery, in an attempt to reduce complexity and increase stability for the software itself.

So if this is the general gist behind virtualization (and we can tell you it has been around for almost 50 years), what is this recent surge in popularity all about?

Baby Steps Leading to World-Class Innovations

Many "little" problems have called for companies like VMware and Microsoft to develop software throughout the years. As technology progresses, several hardware types become defunct and are no longer manufactured or supported. This is true for all hardware classes, from server systems to those old yet glorious video game systems that are collecting dust in the attic. Even though a certain architecture is abandoned by its manufacturers, existing software may still be of great (or perhaps sentimental) value to its owners. For that reason alone, virtualization software is used to emulate the abandoned architecture on a completely different type of machine.

A fairly recent example for this (besides the obvious video game system emulators) is found integrated into Apple's OS X: Rosetta. Using a form of real-time binary translation, it is able to change the behavior of applications written for the PowerPC architecture to match that of an x86-app. This allows a large amount of software that would normally have to be recompiled to survive an otherwise impossible change in hardware platforms, at the cost of some of its performance.

Hardware platforms have not been the only ones to change, however, and the changes in both desktop and server operating systems might force a company to run older versions of the OS (or even a completely different one) to allow the use of software coping with compatibility issues. Likewise, developers have a need for securely isolated environments to be able to test their software, without having to compromise their own system.

The market met these demands with products like Microsoft's Virtual PC and VMware Workstation. Generally, these solutions offer no emulation of a defunct platform, but rather an isolated environment of the same architecture as the host system. However, exceptions do exist (Virtual PC for the Mac OS emulated the x86 architecture on a PowerPC CPU, allowing virtual machines to run Windows).

Putting together the results of these methods has lead to a solution for the problem quietly growing in many a company's server room. While the development of faster and more reliable hardware was kicked up a notch, a lot of the actual server software lagged behind, unable to make proper use of the enormous quantity of resources suddenly available to it. Companies were left with irreplaceable but badly aging hardware, or brand new servers that suffered from a very inefficient resource-usage.

A new question emerged: Would it be possible to consolidate multiple servers onto a single powerful hardware system? The industry's collective answer: "Yes it is, and ours is the best way to do it."

Source : Anandtech.com