Hackintosh - the latest update with added patience

Last time I wrote about my experiences upgrading my Dell Mini 9 "Hackintosh" to Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.0. I decided to stop relating the story after I'd successfully achieved that because I wanted you all to share the warm feeling (smug,even?) that I had at the time. In reality that was a bit of a fib because the following 24 hours were a bit of a nightmare as I tried to go one better and update the OS to 10.6.3.

Suffice it to say, I've now become rather adept of installing the original retail version of Snow Leopard and I'm really pleased that I decided to keep my Snow Leopard installation USB drive as it has certainly had a lot of use. But the thing I've learnt most from the exercise is that when you're messing about with any Hackintosh project, the most important thing to remember is to be patient. Very, very patient! I now believe that if I had that in mind when I first started the upgrade I would have saved myself hours and hours of extra work and would have not have lost quite so much sleep.

As I mentioned last time, the instructions I had only went as far as upgrading to 10.6.2, which suited me fine, despite knowing that 10.6.3 was already out there, and clever people had successfully installed it onto their Dell Mini 9 netbooks. To be honest, I was happy enough with 10.6.0, but like many people reading this, I'm a bit of a serial upgrader and I can't help myself from tinkering.

After completing the basic Snow Leopard installation I tried installing the stand-alone combo update for 10.6.2, rather than using Software Update to go straight to 10.6.3. This didn't work as the combo update reported a problem with the disk I was trying to install to. There wasn't anything wrong with it (it was the Runcore SSD) but I couldn't argue with the installer.

So I decided to brave the storm and run Software Update and go the whole hog. Everything seemed to download and install without any problems. But this is when patience was required. Instead of waiting a reasonable amount of time after restarting the machine and getting the spinning spoke wheel I had a kind of panic attack and after only a few seconds decided that the machine was knackered. I now know that I should probably have waited at least 10 minutes before allowing pessimism to take hold.

The result of the impatience was a completely useless netbook. Subsequent re-booting simply resulted in kernel panics. So began the first of many reinstallations of the vanilla 10.6.0. After a few long days I finally had the machine working properly again and decided to call it a day and be satisfied with what I'd got (another good lesson!).

Yesterday however, I had a small network crisis and I managed to lose Ethernet functionality on the netbook. I reran the NetbookInstaller programme (0.8.4 RC1) but this had no effect. In a moment of madness I ran the DellEFI programme left over from the initial conversion to Leopard which had a devastating effect. [Reminder to all Dell Mini 9 users - delete the DellEFI app before attempting to use the NetbookInstaller/NetbookBootMaker combination now recommended]


It was time to reinstall for the umpteenth time. This time I decided to have another go at the full 10.6.3 installation but with added patience. The whole process took about four hours, and I left well alone as much as possible. There were one or two moments when I thought everything had stopped, but I managed to refrain from interfering and let things happen at their own pace.

I'm happy to say that the Hackintosh is once again fully functional in its latest incarnation with 10.6.3 and Safari 5.0 no less fully installed. Everything seems to work fine - wireless, ethernet, Bluetooth, sound, video, and even sleep.

So it is possible, it isn't that difficult, but it does require nerves of steel and a whole load of... altogether now... PATIENCE!

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Hackintosh - Three Months On

We had our first proper frost at the Apple Harvest last night. That, along with the rapidly diminishing hours of daylight, reminded me that it has now been three months since my last post dedicated to my Hackintosh. I've mentioned it in passing, but it is about time for a proper update, since my Google web tools tell me that it's still the most popular subject that I've written about.

The truth is that there really hasn't been much to report. For new readers, my Hackintosh is a Dell Mini 9 with a 32Gb RunCore SSD, currently running OS X 10.5.8. I wanted a netbook to sit alongside my iMac, MacBook Pro and iPhone and complement my existing Apple environment. Specifically, I wanted something small and light to take on short journeys without having to drag the MBP around so that I could get on-line, jot down notes and blog posts and check mail. Admittedly, I haven't made that many short journeys, so perhaps the Hackintosh hasn't been subjected to quite what it was intended for, but it did get a fair bit of use when the MBP was 'hors de combat' earlier in the autumn.

As expected it isn't a permanent replacement for the MBP. The single biggest issue is that screen real estate is so restricted that some internet applications can be a little difficult to use. I don't have the same problems with the keyboard that some people have reported, and my bluetooth mouse works like a treat. The machine can be a bit temperamental when I start it up, sometimes requiring a restart after a minute or so, but generally that doesn't cause too much inconvenience. I've had the same problem with Windows laptops costing three or four times what the Hackintosh cost.

The only thing that keeps nagging at me is the fact that I'm still running Leopard on the Hackintosh, whilst the rest of the Apple Harvest is now on Snow Leopard 10.6.2. Now I know that 10.6.2 will not work on the Dell's Atom processor, but I wouldn't mind being a bit more consistent in terms of running some of the native OS X apps like Mail.

Last night I finally found some instructions on how to upgrade the Dell Mini 9 using the RunCore. I've printed out all 20 pages (18 pages are comments) and have begun to peruse the contents. It doesn't seem too complicated, especially having made the original modifications, but I have to confess to being a bit nervous. I have a complete Time Machine backup and a Carbon Copy clone, so it'll be easy enough to restore the current system. But do I really want to screw up a perfectly good setup, just to satisfy a technical urge and a bit of curiosity ?

I think I need to sleep on this over several nights before taking the plunge. Watch this space...

Duplex Printing on HP Deskjet 970Cxi - Hopes Raised and Dashed

Ever since installing Snow Leopard I've been moaning about the downgraded printing service I now receive, specifically the lack of full duplex support for my trusty old HP DeskJet 970Cxi. Being the external optimist that I am, I regularly do a search for news of any potential fixes.

Earlier today I performed my weekly Google for my personal Holy Grail (what lofty ambitions I have!), and got quite excited when I found Gutenprint 5.2.4. The Gutenprint drivers installed with Snow Leopard are from the 5.2.3 version. I was a little surprised that the release date for the latest version was July 29th 2009 because it predated Snow Leopard's release but decided to go ahead anyway.

There were no specific details in the release notes pertaining to either Snow Leopard or my DeskJet, but I downloaded and installed the package. As I was in Firefox I decided to run a test print of the Gutenprint download page to see if I could detect any difference. I ran a check on the printer installation a sure enough, the driver for the HP DeskJet 970Cxi was now "HP DeskJet 970C - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.4", a definite improvement.

I went into the Print option in Firefox and my pulse started racing as the dialog box came up and had a tick against the "Two-Sided" print CheckBox, and the "Two-Sided" printing Listbox gave me a default option of "Long-Edge binding". The Gutenprint 5.2.3 driver had all references to double sided printed greyed out, and rendered useless.

The excitement was short lived as the printer started churning out separate sheets for each page in the same way as its predecessor. I guess there is still some hope. The possibility of double sided printing has been restored and single sided printing does still work with the new driver.

So near and yet so far...

Snow Leopard - One Week On

Snow Leopard has been running on two of the three machines at the Apple Harvest for a week now, and all is well. Almost.

Certainly there is a general feeling of robustness which is reassuring for critical software such as an operating system. Most of the issues that have surfaced to date are with third party software rather than direct problems brought about through the upgrade.

I documented the issue with Mail and Keychains in my last blog. I'm aware that a number of other people have had similar problems, in particular with MobileMe accounts. My solution of deleting the default keychain and creating a new one appears to have done the trick, but the problem appears to be more insidious on some installations.

I'm more worried about the incompatibility between versions of Mail and its internal databases across Leopard and Snow Leopard, particularly as a mobile user. It used to be a simple matter of copying the \username\Library\Mail folders between machines before and after journeys, but this option will no longer work across machines with different OS. I keep my primary mail store on my iMac at home and copy the mail folders onto my MBP or Hackintosh before going on a trip. This will no longer work with the Hackintosh (until I'm brave enough to try and upgrade it). This will affect anyone who cannot update their mobile machine with Snow Leopard. There are process work arounds to reduce the impact but it is enough to make me consider going back to using Entourage whilst away from home.

My other real gripe is with my printing ability since the upgrade. I use an HP DeskJet 970CXI printer as a workhorse. I have occasion to have to print quite large documents and the 970 has a full duplex facility for double sided printing. HP do not provide drivers for Leopard or Snow Leopard, and users have to rely on the Gutenprint drivers which have proved excellent. Sadly under Snow Leopard, the double sided printing facility is no longer operational, and is likely to remain that way unless the Gutenprint drivers are modified.

This seems to be a very irresponsible attitude from HP, as their response to concerns from users is "buy a new printer". This applies to any printer over 5 years old. So in my case I either have to purchase a new unnecessary printer or double my paper output. Neither option is environmentally friendly, and neither option is likely to appeal to my bank manager.

Of course I could print out everything through the Hackintosh, but if I upgrade that to Snow Leopard I'll fix my mail issue, but lose my printer fix. Nothing is ever simple is it! I wonder if Windows 7 users will have these problems. Well probably not, they'll have a whole different bunch...

The vast majority of my applications seem to function pretty much as normal under 10.6. Notable exceptions are Bento V1 which won't work at all and the majority of system utilities such as Cocktail, Onyx, TechTools Pro. A lot of suppliers beat the gun and released 10.6 compatible versions of their apps prior to the formal Apple release. Most others have messages on their web sites explaining that upgrades are in preparation and will shortly be available.

For a comprehensive and dynamic list of compatible applications check out the Snow Leopard compatibility wiki.

Snow Leopard - Installation and First Impressions

Well, UPS finally turned up yesterday morning with my Snow Leopard family pack. It turned out it had only come from Hinkley which is just down the road but still managed to take 5 days to get to my house! Snail mail would have been faster than the courier...

For those of you who like the whole out of the box experience, don't get too excited. The package is very unassuming, consisting of a little leaflet, a support card, a single DVD, and the ubiquitous Apple stickers. It actually felt a bit flimsy by Apple's standards, but it's not the packaging that's on trial with this upgrade.

Installation was a breeze. I started on the MacBook Pro laptop on which I intended to do an in-place installation. The installation app ran straight from the DVD with no need to reboot to the optical drive. I customised the installation and removed all the unwanted language, printer and X windows software, as the laptop only had about 33Gb space available (but more on that later). Installation took about 35 minutes before user input was required. After about 12 minutes the system rebooted itself, which caused momentary heart failure, but I guess I should have expected it. After all, a Windows installation often causes three or four reboots before it's done.

That was pretty much it for the installation - no wizardry, no fireworks, just a workmanlike approach to getting the job done as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Some statistics for those interested. Bootup time was reduced by about a minute (just under 2 minutes to have a fully functional system with all login items up and running). Shut-down time was halved to about 5 seconds.

There was an additional 9.3Gb of disk space available (using proper old fashioned Gb measures, not the new 'decimal' standard that Apple have now adopted). In the main user folder, there were about 2500 fewer items, saving about 0.2Gb of space. On my MBP this was a significant increase in available space, which I'm very grateful for. My system had already been stripped of extra language and unwanted code by running Monolingual, so other users may see even greater savings. On my Hackintosh, the extra space may prove to be even more significant. Obviously, there are knock on effects, especially with TimeMachine, as backups should get smaller and faster.

I then did the installation on the iMac with the dodgy internal disk. The disk is clearly beyond repair - although the installation programme could see it, it refused to try and do anything with it as SMART errors prevented this. Nothing really to add regarding the installation on to the external Firewire 400 drive. It took a little bit longer - about 45m, but that was only to be expected.

With the initial installation over, I had a brief opportunity to look around. First place to look was the installation created folder called Incompatible Software. To my relief this was almost empty, with only two .kext files on show, neither of which I recognised. This folder is used to remove and store software that is known to cause problems with Snow Leopard. It does not make any attempt to remove software that doesn't work under OS X 10.6 - you need to do this by trial and error and checking out web sites for your most critical applications. On the MBP, the only issues (so far) were with Surplus Meter which I use to monitor my mobile Broadband access which required Rosetta installation (I had deselected Rosetta during the installation) and PlugSuit, an application enhancer, which forced the system to request an admin password every time an application was launched. Disabling PlugSuit in it's PreferencesPane solved the problem without doing any damage.

iStat menus no longer work under Snow Leopard (already documented), which meant that the time and date no longer appeared in the menu bar. It took some searching to find where the preferences information to fix this was located, but that now works OK (look for the Clock tab under Date and Time in System Preferences). To my relief Hyperspaces, Dock Spaces and Docker all worked fine (although the Dock colour had been reset).

The main issue has been with Mail which has undergone an internal (but not external) re-write. None of my mail add-ins worked following installation (these include DockStar, Mail Iconizer, Mail Tags, LetterBox, Mail Appetiser and Mail Act-on). Some upgrades are already available, others are work in progress. Mail rebuilds it's databases the first time that it is run following installation of OS X 10.6. This in itself caused no problems, but it seems that somewhere along the line my KeyChain has been corrupted. After spending over three hours late last night I finally dumped the KeyChain and created a new default. This seems to have done the trick. Fingers crossed.

Overall I'm pleased that everything was relatively painless, that a few extra gigabytes of space have emerged, and that most of the day to day applications are functioning as normal (or slightly sprightlier). Now I've got a chance to get back to doing some real work, and I'll get a better feel for the changes and find out any other issues. I'll get you updated on my findings.

As the saying goes :

"Learn all you can from the mistakes of others. You won't have time to make them all yourself".

Why I'm Excited about Snow Leopard

I'd really like to think that Snow Leopard is going to change the world. Well, at least a small portion of it. Think about it...an operating system that is pretty much a feature free update (a nightmare for the marketing guys), but which is leaner and faster than ever before, while maintaining and enhancing its current feature set.

When I started programming back in the early 80s, we had 32Kb-64Kb of memory space, 20Mb hard disks were prohibitively expensive and compilations of even the simplest programmes on mainframes ran overnight. All these factors meant that programmers had to choose their functionality and their design carefully, code effectively, efficiently and with due diligence and think about doing things right one time only.

The advent of the PC, cheaper memory and disks, along with compilers like Turbo Pascal began to change the programming world. Programmers could be more complacent - their code didn't have to be so tight, they could write and compile code in increasingly shorter cycles and let the programming tools take on the brunt of the thinking.

As software became a commodity, marketing took over and rich (often useless) features became the key differentiators between products. Products that used to ship on a floppy disk, started to ship on stacks of floppies, then onto CDs and now onto DVDs. And many programmers (especially commercial programmers) became sloppier and produced buggier code which they were forced to ship by increasingly desperate product managers.

Many programmes would still love to produce good quality, elegant, efficient and effective code but are not allowed the time to do so. Refactoring and redesign are rare occurrences in the commercial world (usually only happening when disaster strikes).

So hats off to Apple engineers and product managers who appear to have got back to the golden age of software development with Snow Leopard. I can't wait to get my hands on it...

It s'now Show for Snow Leopard @ The Apple Harvest

Despite putting in a pre-order for the Snow Leopard family pack and spending all day yesterday preparing the Apple Harvest machines for installation, I've been let down by courier firms yet again.

I ordered through Amazon who duly shipped on the evening of the 23rd August and provided me with a UPS tracking number. UPS recorded the package as Out For Delivery from their Derby depot before 5.00am on 24th August. Despite the depot only being 10 miles or so from where I live, I never received the package , and just before 8:00pm it was reported by UPS as being returned to their Derby depot. I'd been in all day and there had been no sign of a UPS van.

In the meantime I had prepared boot-able Carbon Copy Cloner copies of both my iMac and MacBook Pro which will now be out of date by the time I (hopefully) get the package on Tuesday, since it's a holiday weekend in the UK. And on Tuesday I'll have to go through the process all over again.

I find it astonishing that UPS, FedEx and DHL manage to screw up so regularly. I have a lot of things delivered, and often a local courier is used who is regularly at my front door before 8.00 in the morning and rarely later than 10.00am. He also delivers on Saturdays. Despite having massive computing systems and networks at their disposal, the big couriers can only provide delivery windows of between 9.00am and 7.00pm, Monday to Friday, and although I live on the doorstep of the hubs I almost always seem to get my deliveries at the end of the day. Good job I work from home.

I guess the good news is that everyone else who spent last night and will be spending the weekend doing their installations will uncover any issues, and I'll benefit from their experiences. But for an early adopter, it's really frustrating and very disappointing...