To-Do

OSX 10.5.4 running on my Dell Dimension 8400 is good to go.
Still, I'd like to know more about how to:

• Maximize windows (green button) from keyboard
• Get Home and End keys to work
  

The no-brainer alternative: Psystar

$1154 buys an OpenPro running Mac OSX 10.5.x with:

Quad-processor
2.4GHz Core2Quad Q6600
Memory
4GB DDR2 800
Hard Drive
750GB 7,200RPM SATA2 w/32MB CACHE
Optical Drive
20x DVD±RW DL
Graphics Card
GeForce 9500GT 512MB
Firewire
3 Port Firewire 400
Warranty
Standard One Year Parts and Support

OS X sees this as:

Model: EP45-UD3P, BootROM IM71.007A.B01, 4 processors, 2.13 GHz, 4 GB
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce, NVIDIA GeForce, spdisplays_pcie_device, 256 MB
Memory Module: Bank0/1/A0, 2 GB, RAM, 800 MHz
Memory Module: Bank4/5/A2, 2 GB, RAM, 800 MHz
Network Service: Ethernet, Ethernet, en0
Network Service: Ethernet, Ethernet, en1
Network Service: Parallels Shared Networking Adapter, Ethernet, en2
Network Service: Parallels Host-Only Networking Adapter, Ethernet, en3
Serial ATA Device: SAMSUNG HD753LJ, 698.64 GB
Serial ATA Device: HL-DT-STDVD-RAM GH22NS30, 623 MB
Serial ATA Device: SAMSUNG HD103UJ, 931.51 GB
USB Device: Fast Track Ultra, (null) mA
USB Device: OneTouch III, (null) mA
USB Device: UC-10KM V1.3.121, (null) mA
USB Device: Microsoft® USB Hub, (null) mA
USB Device: Microsoft® Wireless Laser Mouse 8000, (null) mA

Upsides:

• Delivered quickly
• Upgrades to 10.5.6 using the standard Apple Software Update

Downsides:

• I had to ask for the set of screws to mount hard drive in the (two included) chasses
• Wireless NIC is expensive ($120 with cheapest shipping)
  

Recently completed

Fixed audio so it stopped screeching painfully in my headphones

• M-Audio Fast Track Ultra
• Driver for 10.5.5 appears to work in 10.5.6

Switched from "Office for Mac" to OpenOffice
Installed a USB-based printer

Dual booting Windows XP and MacOS X

(distilled from this helpful guide)...

As a precaution, disable all other disks in BIOS.

Install XP on NTFS
Shrink its partition to 40Gb (using gparted or PartitionMagic)
Add (FAT32) partition for future OSX

Boot OSX DVD
Disk Utility

• erase (Journaled) OSX partition
• verify it's mounted

Terminal

• diskutil list
• fdisk -e /dev/rdiskN (0 if other disks are disabled)

• print
  
• flag X (to make new OSX partition active (bootable))
• write
• exit
  

Install OSX
Reboot and remember F8!

Reading list

• History of Mac OS
  
  
• Sharing files from Mac to Windows users
• Sharing files from Windows to Mac users
  
  
• Triple Booting Leopard, Ubuntu and XP on a Mac
• Triple Boot Installation Guide - MSI WInd User wiki
  
  
• AFP548 - Disk Imaging for Mac OS X Made Easy

Using dd(1) to copy disks at super-user prompt in Darwin

To binary-level copy one disk to another (including partition, boot record and boot loader data):

1. Boot OSX for interactive Darwin bootloader and use '-s' for single-user mode to get a root prompt (#).

2. Assuming source=disk0 and destination=disk1, issue:
# dd if=/dev/disk0 of=/dev/disk1 bs=4096

Important:
Eliminate confusion by disabling (in BIOS or by unplugging) all irrelevant disks in BIOS before proceeding.

1. If source & dest are mistakenly reversed when dd is run, the source disk will be quietly overwritten. Avoid this.

2. A type of disk signature(s) get copied as well, so that Disk Utility subsequently interprets the two (now identical) disks as having the same partitions names, even if they are manually changed later.

3. dd is not verbose (so issue 'iostat disk0 disk1 &' first, for status).
I saw ~100Gb/hour on my slow SATA-1 drives.

4. After the copy, if both source and dest disks are active in BIOS, Windows XP will get confused (since both disks are named "C:"). Avoid by deactivating one in BIOS before booting XP.

Extras

Software:

• Tips and Tricks
• Dual Boot
• from UCSC
• OpenOffice
• HP LaserJet (search: Apple driver pack printer model HP support)
• QuickTime require XviD to see AVI files
• #cp "XviD_Codec 1.0 alpha.component" ~matthewreiser/Library/QuickTime

Questions regarding OS X

Productivity:

• How to navigate/zoom/resize/dismiss popups easily
• resizing/maximizing app windows (when Zoom doesn't)
  
• use TAB key to hit each mail in YMail

Focusing:

• How to lift active window in:

Finder

AddrBook

Thunderbird

Applications:

• sync (Centro) cell phone to Palm Desktop between OS's
  
• Share contacts, calendar across OS's
  
• clean up data and sync to new iPhone?
• Sharing bookmark/file (use del.ic.ous?)

Hardware/Drivers:

• printing to HP LaserJet 1100
  
• audio (get new card or M-Audio Pro USB thingy)

System:

• 6+ apps quit unexpectedly (10.5.2, .4, .5, even from Apple)
• finding a filespec?
• Anti-virus: Using iAntiVirus

Palm Desktop (XP) to AddressBook (Mac) and iCal (Mac)

Switching to the iPhone (moving contacts calendar email)

Exporting Contacts:

(Windows XP) Palm Desktop
Contacts / All / File / Export vCard (*.vcf)

• extn won't hurt
• DOS (CRLF) won't hurt

(MacOS) Address Book
File/Import *.vcf
(This process loses group info)

Yahoo Addresses
erase
import *.vcf (may lose ~3% of contacts)
------------------------------------

Exporting Calendar:

(Windows XP) Palm Desktop
Calendar / File / Export as *.dba (not *.cal)

Yahoo Calendar (.dba > .csv)
erase calendar
import *.dba
export (Desktop)Yahoo.csv

Google Calendar (.cvs > .ics)
Settings, Settings, Erase calendar
Other calendars, Add, Import calendar (Desktop)Yahoo.csv
My calendars, Settings, Export
(/Downloads)*.ics

(MacOS) iCal
Delete current calendar (on left)
File/Import *.ics

---Details--------------
1. Export as Datebook (.dba) from Palm Desktop on your PC.
no spaces in pathname
use Date (not Cal) format

2. Yahoo Calendar, Import .dba loses data:

reminders
custom reminders are not imported
repeats are unreliable:
test source repeated weekly from July 19 to Aug 19,
but dest contained only Aug 1, 15 (even though each said "repeats weekly")
dest is exported (two separate events)

3. Export Yahoo Calendar to .csv
"Export to Outlook" (CSV is Outlook)
Open w/Excel to check entries/rows

4. Google Calendar, Add, Import .csv

5. Export as iCal file (.ics) from Google Calendar.
Manage calendars, Private Address, ICAL

6. Import the .ics file in iCal (Mac only?)

Troubles during Upgrade

Upgrading from 10.5.2 (iATKOS) with either MBR or GPT, to:

• 10.5.3 kills my wireless mouse
• 10.5.5 causes looping through POST/bootp/reboot

Details:

Trying 10.5.5 with this technique

Results:
pre: ok
10.5.5: ok
post: ok but, during choice of customizations, display/monitor casually dimmed to black, system froze, then a hard reset gave:

• POST (normal)
• looping through POST/bootp/reboot
  

I guessed (incorrectly?) that MBR had been overwritten, so I tried 'fdisk -u /dev/rdisk0', which rewrote MBR. This didn't help. I suspect since 10.5.5 installation (esp. bootloader) didn't finish, startup was left untidy.

Booted DVD and, while too scared to try OSX-clean > OSX-primary, I continued DVD install to "Move user settings from partition", and chose OSX-primary. All but video driver restored.

(currently working here)
(re)trying http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=109102&start=1500:
PartitionMagic to copy SATA2 to SATA3
set rez back to 1024 x 768
test fallback by booting from SATA3

Results:
pre: ok
10.5.5: ok
post: chose:

• 9.4.0 StageXNU Kernel
• restore audio
• restore network

result: (same as above)

Giving up and using 10.5.2 for now.

Installing 10.5.4

Boot using iATKOS 4.1i DVD
Before installing, run Disk Utility to

• Erase disk (remove old/inconsistent bootloader(s))
• Partition (GPT, not MBR)

Customize:

• iATKOS v4.1i Main System
  
• Darwin EFI Bootloader
• AppleSMBIOS netkas
  
• drivers:
  

AHCI SATA

Intel Pro/100 VE

Restore settings "from another Mac volume" (OSX-1-500G)
(Next time, skip "network and other settings", to avoid hang)

Result:

• boots 10.5.4 into unworkable fuzzy graphics

Install driver for my ATI Radeon HD 3650 (512M) using:

• boot safe mode (-x -v)
• searched InsanelyMac for "10.5.4 radeon 3650"
  
• installed new driver found here
  

This installs ATY_Megalodon.kext v 1.5.66 into:
/System/Library/Extensions/ATINDRV.kext/Contents/PlugIns/ATY_Megalodon.kext

Reboot, without safe mode, brings up all graphics modes.

Success! OSX 10.5.2

OSX (iATKOS v2.0i) is stable on:

Desktop hardware:

• Dell Dimension 8400
  
• dual CPU 3.4Ghz at bus speed 800MHz
  
• 4 GB at 533MHz
  
• All stock hardware from Jan 2005
• Added hardware:

• NIC: Intel 100 Pro (old Broadcom 5751 halted some DVDs)
• Graphics: ATI 3650 PCIe 512 Mb (old ATI X800 halted some DVDs)
• 160GB SATA - working out-of-the-box
• DVD RW - working out-of-the-box
  

BIOS:

• version A03, 14-Oct-2004
  
• Hyperthreading on

Now working:

• Model: MacPro3,1, BootROM , 1 processor, IntelÆ PentiumÆ 4 CPU, 3.39 GHz, 4 GB
• Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 3600, ATI Radeon HD 3600, spdisplays_pcie_device, 512 MB
• Memory Module: CHANNEL A DIMM 0, 1 GB, SDRAM, unknown
• Memory Module: CHANNEL B DIMM 0, 1 GB, SDRAM, unknown
• Memory Module: CHANNEL A DIMM 1, 1 GB, SDRAM, unknown
• Memory Module: CHANNEL B DIMM 1, 1 GB, SDRAM, unknown
• Network Service: Ethernet Adaptor (en0), Ethernet, en0
• Serial ATA Device: ST3160023AS, 149.01 GB
• Parallel ATA Device: SONY DVD RW DRU-V200A
• Parallel ATA Device: SAMSUNG CD-R/RW SW-252S
• USB Device: hub_device, high_speed, 500 mA
• USB Device: USB Mass Storage Device, high_speed, 500 mA
• USB Device: OneTouch, Maxtor, high_speed, 500 mA
• USB Device: MicrosoftÆ USB Hub, Microsoft, full_speed, 500 mA
• USB Device: MicrosoftÆ Wireless Laser Mouse 8000, Microsoft, full_speed, 500 mA (but gotta jiggle the USB dongle on front panel after 20% of boots)
• Sees WinXP laptop
  

Broken:

• About Mac (causes a logout)
• AVI files (add DivD?)
  

Distribution:

• iATKOS v2.0i DVD with these install-time customizations:

• 10.5.2 main
  
• bootloader (right under "Main", second in list, not the old MBR darwin)
• driver: Intel NIC
  
• driver: Intel SATA

Partitions:

• configured at install-time using Disk Utility
• MBR (not GPT) with these MacOS journaled (HFS+) partitions

OSX-primary (60G)

OSX-back (60G)

TimeMachine backups (30G)

Details of partitioning:

OSX-primary:
Capacity: 60.12 GB
Available: 53.27 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s1
Mount Point: /
OSX-10-5-2:
Capacity: 60.12 GB
Available: 53.52 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /Volumes/OSX-10-5-2
Time Machine:
Capacity: 28.76 GB
Available: 13.9 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s3
Mount Point: /Volumes/Time Machine

3rd-party software installed at run-time:

• video driver
• Firefox
• Thunderbird (sharing POP'd mail with WinXP using FAT32 disk)
• Palm Desktop (not set up yet)

Yes! System is now stable:

• TimeMachine working smoothly, using about 8Gb (of 30Gb)
  
• Both OSX partitions boot/work (see screenshot here)