IT Admin

OS X is out there. You’ve seen it in coffee shops, on TV, in the laps of hipsters at the local taqueria. There‘s no shame in wondering what all the fuss is about. Hell, it’s healthy to mix it up a little bit. If only the idea of sending Steve Jobs and the rest of Apple, Inc. thousands of your hard-earned dollars didn’t send you into a cold sweat that only a game of Left4Dead can cure. Still, OS X is the subject of many glowing reviews. Even hardcore PC users are singing its praises. If you have the itch to try out OS X, but you’re not down with shelling out the cash for a new Mac, we have one word for you: Hackintosh.

When Apple announced the move to Intel processors for its computer lineup, the search was on for a practical way to install OS X on non-Apple hardware. Over the years, the best way to achieve this feat was to patch a retail version of the OS X install from Apple. Users would scour the Internet for the patches—always hoping that what they downloaded was indeed the correct patch, and not some virus or trojan horse ready to wreck havoc on their PCs.

But these days the quest for OS X needn’t be so perilous. Read on to see how an inventive little USB device can let you easily dual boot OS X on non-Apple hardware, using a legitimate copy of OS X.

The Heart of the Hackintosh

The EFI-X USB dongle ultimately makes our Hackintosh possible, but your other PC components matter as well

EFI-X USB Dongle

The EFI-X dongle ($235, http://efixna.com) is the Hackintosh builder’s dream. The device, which plugs into a motherboard’s USB port, works by creating a full EFI environment inside a tiny USB microcomputer. EFI, or Extensible Firmware Interface, was created by Intel to replace the aging BIOS on PCs. Apple’s Unix-based Macs use EFI instead of BIOS. The EFI-X gives users the ability to run EFI-based and BIOS-based operating systems on one machine.

The module contains the hardware drivers of all the equipment on its hardware list. The EFI-X bootloader screen gives you the option to pick which operating system you would like to load at startup. Once you have OS X installed on your machine, the EFI-X must be connected to your machine at all times. If you want to build two Hackintosh systems, you need to purchase two EFI-X dongles.

The EFI-X isn’t without its drawbacks. You can’t just throw any hardware in a tower and start playing with iChat and Final Cut Pro. You need to be sure you use only hardware that has pre-installed drivers on the EFI-X. EFI-X has a complete list of compatible hardware on its site; below we tell you the parts we chose.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo

Like the current Macs on the market, the EFI-X works with Intel Core 2 processors. AMD fanboys can complain about Intel’s market share, its lack of innovation, and aggressive plots to remove all its competitors until the cows come home—it’s not going to change the fact that you can’t build a Hackintosh with an AMD CPU. In our machine we used a 2.67GHz Intel Core 2 Duo.

Motherboard: DFI P45

Because the EFI-X comes with pre-installed drivers for hardware, the list of compatible motherboards is necessarily limited. EFI-X supports Gigabyte P35, P45, and X48 chipset boards, with support for Gigabyte X58 boards reportedly coming soon. Or you can choose from one of two DFI P45 chipset motherboards. We went with DFI’s LanParty DK P45-T2RS Plus ($160 street, www.dfi.com.tw).

Videocard: GeForce 9800 GTX

To help you see all your beautiful OS X goodness on screen, ATI and Nvidia cards are supported by the EFI-X. While EFI-X supports the ATI Radeon HD 3870 and Radeon HD 2600 XT cards, ATI knows that Apple is best buds with Nvidia and cautions that ongoing support of these cards is uncertain. Compatible Nvidia cards include the 7000, 8800, and 9800 series graphic cards. We went with a two-year-old PNY XLR8 GeForce 9800 GTX ($140 street, www.nvidia.com) because it’s cheap and readily available.

Storage: Seagate 1.5TB

We initially started our project with a SATA hard drive and an IDE optical drive. The EFI-X kept hanging on the OS X install disc, so we switched over to a SATA optical drive and that solved the problem. In order to build a multi-OS machine you’ll need a SATA HDD for each OS. We installed OS X Leopard on a 1.5TB drive and Windows Vista on a 1.5TB drive. If we plan on adding another OS, we’ll have to throw another SATA drive in our rig. Partitions and Apple’s Boot Camp don’t work with the EFI-X device.

It Takes Two to Tango

Your Hackintosh will be a dual-boot machine, meaning it will run both Windows and OS X. We recommend installing whatever flavor of Windows you prefer before beginning your journey into the world of Mac. We attempted several OS install scenarios and found the path of “regular Windows install, followed by Hackintosh” yielded the best results.  We installed Windows Vista in our machine, against the warning of Justin Long.

Now, even if you hate Apple, Inc. with all your heart and soul, you need to purchase a retail copy of OS X ($130, www.apple.com) for every machine you install it on. If you plan on making Macs and/or Hackintoshes a family affair, you can purchase a family pack for $200 for use on five machines. Apple doesn’t require validation codes or a call in to their HQ for verification. Please don’t abuse Apple’s trusting nature.

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Building the Hackintosh

Follow these steps to get OS X up and running on your PC

Before we begin, we need to chat about the law and EULAs. Installing OS X on non-Apple hardware, while probably not technically illegal, does violate Apple’s End User License Agreement (EULA). Will Apple hunt you down and kidnap your pets until you remove OS X from your Hackintosh? It’s unlikely.

Apple isn’t too concerned with the little guy tinkering with his computer, and will have a pretty challenging time tracking you down if you go out and purchase a legal copy of OS X for your project. On the other hand, if you want to base a business around building Hackintoshes, expect a visit from Apple’s crack team of lawyers.

With that out of the way, let’s start building. We’ll give you specific instructions for the DFI board we used; if you’re using a different (but compatible) motherboard, you’ll need to adapt our instructions for your hardware.

1. Install the EFI-X Dongle

The EFI-X dongle is the secret sauce that makes OS X think your awesome PC is a craptacular, but Apple-approved Mac. Think of the EFI-X module as Clark Kent’s glasses—when they’re on, no one has a clue that he’s Superman. Installation is simple, you just need to plug the EFI-X into a vacant USB header on your motherboard. The dongle comes with an extension cable if you have trouble squeezing the device in between the other components on your rig. Make sure to avoid plugging the dongle into the FireWire header—that would torch your $250 device.

2. Configure the BIOS

Next up, we need to adjust BIOS settings to work with the EFI-X device and the OS X installer. Rather than list a series of options and the correct settings, we’re going to just show the appropriate BIOS screens, with everything set to the correct settings, and we’ll note anything you need to tweak on sub-screens. But, before you can do that, you’ll need to enter the BIOS by mashing the Del key as your PC boots.

Standard CMOS Features

Enter the Standard CMOS Features screen. Navigate to Halt On, press Enter, and select All, But Keyboard. Press Enter to accept your bold new setting and then Esc to return to the Main BIOS screen.

Integrated Peripherals

Navigate to the Integrated Peripherals option, and then to the OnChip IDE Device screen. For SATA Mode, choose IDE. The EFI-X doesn’t support RAID. AHCI should be turned off during the install process. You can turn it back on after you’ve finished the install. Press Enter to save your settings.

Next, navigate to LEGACY Mode Support, select Enabled and press Enter to save your setting. For the Onboard JMB363 option, select Native IDE and press Enter.

Press Esc to return to the Integrated Peripherals main screen.

USB Devices

While still in the Integrated Peripherals screen, navigate to the USB Device Setting page and hit Enter. Make sure the controllers and functions are all enabled. Navigate to USB Mass Storage Device Boot Settings.

You should see the EFiX Booting Device 1.0 option. Select it and press Enter. Select the HDD Mode option and press Enter to save your setting.

Advanced BIOS Settings

From the main BIOS screen navigate to the Advanced BIOS Settings option and press Enter. Select Hard Disk Boot Priority. Move the USB-HDD0 : EFiX Booting Device to the top of the list by selecting it and pressing the plus (+) button until it’s on the top of the heap. Smack Esc to return to the Advanced BIOS Settings main screen.

Navigate to the First Boot Device. Select CDROM from the list of boot devices. Press Enter to save your setting. Change the Second Boot Device to Hard Disk using the same method. Press Esc to return to the glory of the main BIOS screen.

Power Management

Navigate to the Power Management Setup screen. Go to ACPI Function, select Enabled and press Enter to save your choice.
Navigate to ACPI Suspend Type, Select S3(STR), and press Enter. Press Esc to return to the main BIOS screen.

Navigate to Save & Exit Setup and press Enter. The machine will now reboot with all your new BIOS settings. It’s almost go-time with your Hackintosh.

3. The EFI-X Bootloader

When your machine reboots, you should see “EFIX V1 Loading Please Wait” on the screen. If you don’t see this text on your screen, you’ve totally screwed up. Don’t go blaming us—just reboot, begin mashing the Del key to enter the BIOS, and double-check your settings.

If you do see the “EFIX V1 Loading…” text, way to go. The EFI-X Bootloader screen will appear. You will be presented with what looks like trash cans from the future. Don’t be alarmed if the trash cans have an X or Window icon on them. Even if you haven’t installed an OS on your drives yet, the EFI-X recognizes the format of the SATA drives attached to the rig. You may see two Windows choices; don’t worry. Once you reformat one of the drives to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), it’ll have X on it. For now, just ignore those glowing trash cans with company logos and choose the trash can with DVD on it to access your OS X install disc. Press Enter.

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4. Installing and Configuring OS X

If all goes to plan, you should see a startup screen. It’s different from the usual OS X startup screen. Don’t worry, that’s the EFI-X startup screen. As long as it doesn’t hang, you’re doing fine. While installing, if your SATA drive is formatted FAT, you’re going to have to reformat it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Don’t worry, the OS X installer is pretty much idiot-proof; it will warn you if the drive is formatted incorrectly. If it is formatted FAT, select Options, and a drop-down menu will appear with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) already selected. Click Erase. Be careful not to nuke your Windows.

You’ll get a green arrow on your hard drive signifying it’s ready for OS X. You will also be warned that your data will be erased on that drive. Make sure you don’t have anything on that drive you’ll need later, like your vast database of Caprica Six images or your banking information. Click Continue.

Now take a deep breath. You’re about to do something that’s a little crazy. Click Install on the next screen, and away we go. You have about 30 to 45 minutes while the installer does its magic, so go grab a bite to eat or wash your hands to get all that icky OS X install pixie dust off of them.

After you’ve installed OS X, you have to fill out the Apple setup/registration form. Whatever name you choose at this point will be the name of your user account on your Mac. Entering “Amanda Huginkis” will definitely come back to haunt you here. You’ll also be prompted for a password and information regarding your network. OS X takes all the information you enter to configure your computer’s settings. Even the registration page information will be used to identify you in the OS X Address Book app. Just do what Mac users have been doing forever: once the setup asks for you to actually register, choose the Register Later option. Steve already knows too much about us.

Your desktop will now shine brightly with the glimmer of the Leopard desktop image. Take it in. It’s OK, no one is going to hurt you. Leopard is your friend.

5. Updating OS X

Now, the moment of truth—updating OS X on your Hackintosh. Remember, Hackintoshes with patched kernels are unable to be updated. It’s their Kryptonite. But the EFI-X allows you to update your Hackintosh because it’s fooling OS X into believing it’s a legit Mac. We recommend applying all the updates available, as there are some significant fixes between 10.5 and 10.5.6. You can apply updates by choosing the Apple Menu in the upper-left corner of the menu bar. Choose Software Update. A window will pop up with the available updates Apple thinks you need. Click Install.

OS X Leopard downloads updates and then asks to be restarted so it can install updates without interruption from applications and processes. When you click Restart, the computer will display a light-blue screen and will begin the installation process. Don’t worry, this is normal. The machine will restart once it’s finished installing. You may have to do this a few times to get all the updates available.

Now that your Hackintosh is updated to the most recent Apple goodness, it’s time to check out the specs of your new machine. Go to the Apple in the top-left of the menu bar and select About This Mac in the drop-down. You’ll see the processor and the amount of RAM in your rig. For even more information, click More Info…. The System Profiler will give you all the information you need about your machine. If your machine is giving you any problems, this is a good place to see which startup items are causing issues or to make sure your USB Device Tree is recognizing a device. Most peripherals are plug-and-play with OS X, but not all. A quick Internet search will usually find the drivers you need. Just like with a PC, but with an added touch of smugness.

The Care and Feeding of Your Hackintosh

Now that you’ve entered the strange and exciting new world of OS X, here are a few tips to a happy OS X experience

Disk Utility

If your machine is acting wonky, check out the Disk Utility, found in Applications > Utilities. From there you can repair disk
permissions and repair disks that have are having issues. If you’re curious about how you defrag within OS X, not to worry—OS X defrags drives overnight.

Installing Apps

Many applications are just drag-and-drop. Yes, it sounds crazy, but all you have to do is drop the app into the Applications folder and, bam, it’s installed.

Right Click

There’s a rumor out there that OS X doesn’t have right-click capability. But actually, OS X has had the ability to use a two-button mouse since its inception. Just plug in your favorite two-button mouse and carry on.

Terminal

OS X is a Unix-based system. If you feel like messing around with the innards of OS X, go to Applications > Utilities, where you’ll find the Terminal app. Brush up on your Unix commands and start tinkering.

Keyboard Shortcuts

If you’re using a Windows keyboard with OS X, you’ll use the Windows key (the one with the Windows logo) instead of the Ctrl key as the basis for your keyboard shortcuts. For example, Windows+S to save. All the most common functions such as copy, cut, paste, new, print, etc., use the same letter as in Windows (C, X, V, N, P, respectively). If you have a Mac keyboard lying around, you’ll be using the Cmd key for keyboard shortcuts.

System Preferences

It’s the OS X version of the Control Panel in Windows. In System Preferences you’ll find Networking, Security, Accounts, and other preferences for OS X. When in doubt, you can use the search field in the upper-left corner to find what you’re looking for.

Time = 1 hour

What you need:

• 4GB USB key
  $10, www.newegg.com
• WinRAR
  Free Evaluation Copy, www.rarlab.com
• Windows 7 Beta ISO
  Free, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd353205.aspx

Note: This guide will only work within Windows Vista.

1.    Format Your USB Key

Plug in your USB key and back up any existing data stored on it. You’ll need to format the key before you can make it a bootable device.

Open up a Command Prompt as an Administrator. You can do this by finding the cmd.exe in yoru Windows/System32 folder, right-clicking the executable, and selecting “Run as Administrator”. Alternatively, type CMD in the Start Menu search field and activate the Command Prompt using Ctrl + Shift + Enter.

You should be under c:\Windows\system32 (assuming your Vista partition is the C drive). Type “diskpart” in the command line to enter the Disk Partition command line tool, which lets you format and create partitions on active disks.

Type “list disk” to reveal a list of all your active disks, each of which is associated with a number. Make a note of which one is your USB key, based on the capacity. In our screenshot below, our USB drive is Disk 6 (8GB).

Next, type the following commands, one at a time:

Select Disk # (Where # is the number of your USB disk. We typed “Select Disk 6”)

Clean (removes any existing partitions from the USB disk, including any hidden sectors)

Create Partition Primary (Creates a new primary partition with default parameters)

Select Partition 1 (Focus on the newly created partition)

Active (Sets the in-focus partition to active, informing the disk firmware that this is a valid system partition)

Format FS=NTFS (Formats the partition with the NTFS file system. This may take several minutes to complete, depending on the size of your USB key.)

Assign (Gives the USB drive a Windows volume and next available drive letter, which you should write down. In our case, drive “L” was assigned.)

Exit (Quits the DiskPart tool)

2.    Turn the USB Key into a Bootable Device

Download and Install winRAR, which lets extract files from the install DVD image without burning or mounting it first. Open the utility and navigate to the direction where you downloaded your Windows 7 Beta ISO. Double click the ISO file to examine its contents. Extract all of the files here to a folder on your Desktop. We put the ISO contents in a folder named “Windows 7 Beta”

Go back to your command prompt, running it as an Administrator. Using the “CD” command, find your way to the folder where you extracted the ISO files. Your command line path should look something like “C:\Users\USERNAMEHERE\Desktop\Windows 7 Beta\”.

Type the following commands:

CD Boot (This gets you into the “boot” directory)

Bootsect.exe /nt60 L: (where ‘L’ is the drive letter assigned to your USB key from the previous step)

Bootsect infuses boot manager compatible code into your USB key to make it a bootable device.

IMPORTANT: If you’re currently running Windows Vista 32-bit, Bootsect will only work if you downloaded the 32-bit ISO for Windows 7 Beta. The Bootsect executable from the 64-bit version of the beta will not run in 32-bit Vista.

3.    Load the USB Key Up with the Install Files

Copy all of the extracted ISO files into the USB drive. You don’t need to do this from the command prompt. Just drag and drop the files from the “Windows 7 Beta” folder into the drive using Windows Explorer.

Your USB key is now all ready to go! Plug it into your target system and make sure you enter the BIOS (typically with F2 or F12) to temporarily change the boot order to allow booting from the USB key before your primary hard drive or optical drive. On the next restart, your system should automatically begin speedily loading setup files off of the USB key and entering Windows 7 installation.

Awesome themes
To install a new theme, you must first pick one.  I recommend sticking with themes found on the WordPress site, but you can find WordPress themes all over the web.  Go to http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ to find the newest WordPress themes.  When choosing a theme, it isn’t just about design.  Some themes have different capabilities.  Not all themes work with sidebar widgets, for example.  This simply means that you may have to experiment with a few themes before you find the one that is just right for you.

Once you select a theme, you will need to download it to your computer.  Simply click on the large red button that says, “Download.” The file you download should be a .zip file, which is just a way to compress the files so they down- load easier.  Once the file is downloaded, you will need to double click on the file to extract or expand it.  You will be prompted to specify where you want the extracted files stored.  I would simply extract them to your desktop so you can easily find them. Now that the files are extracted, you need to connect to your server.  I covered using FileZilla in the October issue.  If you need to, pull up that old issue and refresh your memory on connecting to your server. Once connected, you need to upload the theme files you downloaded to a specific folder on your server. Using FileZilla, navigate to /yoursite/wp-content/themes.  You MUST upload the complete theme folder to this location or the theme will not work.  Once the theme is uploaded, you can close out of FileZilla and return to www.yoursite.com/wp-admin.  Click on the Design tab, then Themes, and you should see your new theme as an option to install.  Simply click on the theme and then look at the top right corner and you will see “Activate Theme.”  Click “Activate Theme” and you are finished.  Your new theme should be installed and working.  If the theme wasn’t available in the Design / Themes tab, then it wasn’t uploaded to your server correctly.  I would double check everything and try uploading again.