Gu Gu's Daily BS

reorganizing my iPod. reorganizing my photos. reorganizing my life!

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Apple and me

Got a Sony BX660P laptop and not sure what to do with that junk? Load Mac OS X Leopard. :) Here's how to do that.

You will need iDeneb v1.3 (Mac OS X 10.5.5) DVD to get started. ImgBurn was used to burn the ISO image. It's a great free program. Using Roxio Easy Media Creator 10 caused me a few days of troubleshooting with "/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.boot.plist not found" error and I could not even boot into the installation screen. The problem was Roxio only burned the boot loader part of the image and not the rest.

Here's the specs of my Sony laptop.

Model: VGN-BX660P
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 (2GHz)
Chipset: Intel 945 GM
Video: Intel GMA Graphics (internal graphics)
Sound: Realtek High Definition Audio
Ethernet: Marvell Yukon 88E8055 Gigabit Ethernet
Wireless: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG

Everything is working great except the following minor items.

1. Wireless - There's no kext (driver support) for this wireless adapter though this might work for you.
2. The usable screen resolution is 1280 x 768 though the actual display has 1280 x 800. There will be a small white band under the dock.
3. Sleep mode - the screen will go blank and never come back up. So you will need to disable the system standby.

Step-by-step installation guide

1. Boot from the DVD, and press F8 to use boot options. At the boot prompt, type -v and hit enter. This option is useful in case if you have any trouble booting.



2. If everything is OK at boot, you will get to the following screen. Click next arrow.



3. Now go to Utilities> Disk Utility. Two partitions configuration is ideal for me because one being used for OS and the other one being used for Time Machine backup. You can also use Disk Utility later to create a gold image of your OS drive in case if you need to restore the entire OS drive back.



4. Select the entire hard drive on left and go to Erase. Select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for format and click erase.



5. Click Partition and select 2 Partitions. According to some of the install guides, name with spaces will not work, so keep it short and simple. I used OSX for my OS drive. Use Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for format and set the size you prefer to use. Do the same for second partition. DON'T click apply yet.



6. Click Options on the bottom of the Partition window. Select GUID Partition Table. Click OK.



7. Click apply and click partition on the confirmation message. When Disk Utility is done with partitioning, close Disk Utility.



8. Now you are back in the Mac OS X Installer screen. Click next to proceed with the installation. Click Agree.



9. In this next window, you will see two partitions created earlier. Click OSX and continue.



10. DON'T click Install on Install Summary page yet. Click Customize option to select drivers that will work with Sony BX660P.



11. Check the following options. I installed all applications because there are tools that might come in handy when you need to fix kexts.

  1. X11
  2. Applications
  3. Patches> Audio> AppleAzaliaAudio
  4. Patches> Chipset> ICHx Fixed
  5. Patches> Video> Intel> Intel GMA950
  6. Patches> Fix> Power Management







12. Click done and install. Skip the media check. Once it's done, you will see the green check mark. Restart the computer.



13. After reboot, first thing you will see is the gray apple screen. Then a splash screen but the display might look messed up and divided into six tiles. That's fine. Ignore it. This will be fixed once you finish with initial setup.

14. After entering all information, you should now be on Desktop. Open System Preferences and open Displays. Choose 1280x768, 75Hz for Resolution, and that should fix the display issue.



15. At this point, everything is working and usable except the network port. Go to System Preferences> Energy Saver and pull the slider to Never for computer's sleep mode. Also, if you turn the wireless switch on, the Bluetooth seems to be working though I have not fully tested the functionality.

16. Now it's time to fix the Marvell Yukon 88E8055 Gigabit Ethernet. Lono's Fixme article, Sophitia's post on InsanelyMac Forum and PCIDatabase.com helped fix this issue, so the credit goes to them.
  1. Type: sudo nano /System/Library/Extensions/IONetworkingFamily.kext
    /Contents/PlugIns/AppleYukon.kext/Contents/Info.plist
  2. Enter your password, and nano will open Info.plist file where you can edit the device information.
  3. You might want to copy everything from this Info.plist file and save it as a text file in case if you want to change back to default.
  4. Find <key>Yukon-88E8056</key> and change it to <key>Yukon-88E8055</key>.
  5. Find <string>Yukon Gigabit Adapter 88E8056</string> and change it to <string>Yukon Gigabit Adapter 88E8055</string>.
  6. Find <key>IOPCIPrimaryMatch</key>.
  7. Right under IOPCIPrimaryMatch, you will see <string>0x436411AB</string>. Change it to <string>0x436311AB</string>.
  8. Ctrl + O to save and hit enter in nano.
  9. Ctrl + X to exit from nano.
  10. At the Terminal, type: sudo rm -r /System/Library/Extensions.mkext
  11. Type: diskutil repairPermissions /
  12. Reboot.
After reboot, everything should be working except WiFi and Sleep Mode.

Enjoy your Hackintosh! :P

Important note: This step-by-step guide is intended only for testing and educational purpose. If you like to use Mac OS X Leopard, buy the real Mac. Nothing is better than original hardware and software.

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