Laptop Hackintosh! PDF Print E-mail
Written by Andrew Chapman   
Saturday, 12 July 2008 18:27

This is my guide and review of running MAC OS X (10.5.2) Leopard on my Laptop, using the Kalyway OSx86 DVD. This process is a 'proof of concept', merely a trial of the Apple operating system on PC designated software. After this Evaluation I have removed this OS from my machine, as using an Apple OS on non-Apple hardware violates the Apple Licencing scheme. You have been warned. Some have suggested that purchasing a copy/license feeof Leopard may enable you to do this legally, however I AM NOT A LAWYER, so do your own due diligence PLEASE! If anyone has accurate advice on this development, please email me via the Contact Link. Anyway enough disclaimer, on to the good stuff: Benq Joybook S41-V36 OS 10.5.2 Leopard installation and review.

The install process is simple, I have used an external USB IDE Drive to boot from, as I wished to keep my Windows Vista partition intact (You can dual boot, but as this is a proof of concept, I have no intention of keeping the Mac OS as my main system). So, I set my bios to boot from the DVD drive, and put my Kalyway 10.5.2 DVD in the drive, in no time at all I was greeted by the traditional MAC OS installer screen. This is where we start from, as opposed to Windows, MAC OS can boot from any hard drive; IDE, SATA,USB or Firewire!! In this case I intended to boot from my spare USB drive, so before I started the install I loaded 'Disk Utility' from the Utlities Menu. Format the External USB drive to MAC Journalled format and then close Disk Utility and hit 'continue' in the install.

Here on in the install is quite simple, choose the Kernel you wish to use; in this case we have a standard Dual Core CPU so we can use the Vanilla (Standard-Official Apple) Kernel. If you have an AMD or other older CPU, choose the appropriate Kernel. The next most important selection is the graphics card driver. In my case the card is an 8600M GS 256Mb Card, so I choose NVInject256. Most modern chipsets, including integrated graphics such as the X3100 are supported, so there should be no issues for most modern laptops. The second part is tochoose the Network driver (Wired), in my case the Marvell Drivers (We have todo some hacking later). After this I left the other options alone, and set the install on it's way. 35 minutes later, i'm in Mac OS, living the good life....well, maybe not.....but it was MAC OSX on my PC...

Now let's check this thing out! Here are some snaps of the installed OS and information Screens:

Here is the 'About This Mac' dialog box, this only tells usthe Processor and RAM however it is enough toidentify the CPU as a Core2Duo 2.2Ghz (T7500)

Here is the 'More Info' section, this gives us a much greater hint of the internals of the system, it clearly identifies the notebook as the Joybooks S41, and is seeing both cores of the Core2Duo CPU, as well as identifying all 4Gb of Ram, and 4Mb of CPU Cache... so far so good!

Before I move onto the Benchmarking, allow me to outline some limitations I experienced. Firstly the internal Intel 4965 A/G/N Wireless Card is NOT supported by MAC OS, some work is being done on this, however a simpler solution if you need wirless would be to get a USB (Dlink etc) Wireless card, or to change out your Intel Chipset 4965 with an Atheros (Which is identified as a native Airport Card!). Also, the Marvel Yukon 88E8055 LAN does not work natively, you need to edit some lines in the KEXT file, and install the PCCard.10.5.2.Beta2.pkg (http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=81036&st=500) after a restart, the card shows up in the network settings, plug in your LAN Cable and Voila!

Now onto the benchmarking, Geekbench is the bench of choice here, so here we go!

Hereis the Geekbench (32-bit) intro screen, notice how is defines the model as Hackintosh!

Otherwise, it'spretty straightforward, system specs and MAC OSX Build number....

Now onto the benchmarking....

There it is, Geekbench Score of 2912, and that is even with an external USB Drive!!! Talk about a cheap alternative to Apple Hardware! The Benq S41-V36 is under $1500 (AUD) the closest MacBook Pro with similar graphics and less ram (2GB) that can achieve this kind of score is well over $2500!

 

A final overview of the specs, Geekbench is correctly identifying steppings, caches and cores. Sweet!

If you need more info, check out the Wiki on Portable models and limitations with the OSX Platform : Link Here

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