Asus G1-S Hackintosh
For me, the iPhone was the gateway to all things Apple. So much so that I became interested in programming for it and that meant procuring a Macintosh. Doing so would mean parting with 17 Benjamin Franklins though. So, while my mild mannered wallet hid, my mentat mind went to work on a solution.
I already owned a very capable Asus G1-S laptop so buying a new Macbook Pro was out of the question. I could however consider it expendable and try to hack it…
With a bit of luck I’d make a hackintosh although a fried machine, temporarily upset wife and new Macbook wouldn’t be so bad either.
The Journey
I was unsure of how to even proceed until the kindly @jeffreed guided me to light side of hackintoshing . This entailed using real retail discs which maintains software update functionality unlike some pirate flavoured distros. A big relief to me too since I’ve worked hard to leave my pirate skills where they belong, in the 1990s.
After intial course guidance came hours of research and painstaking trial and error. Incremental progress was very slow at first but persistance payed off eventually and I reinstalled (only crom knows how many times) my way to success.
I couldn’t have accomplished any of this without oodles of helpful guides and the fine forum folks of InsanelyMac.
Instructions
- Remove any existing partitions on your hard disk by using GParted.
- Flash your motherboard using the modded ASUS G1S BIOS for better Mac OS X support.
- Load BIOS manufacturer defaults and then customize to your liking.
- Boot up with the GRUB-DFE.iso disc.
- At the Darwin/x86 command prompt press enter.
- Switch your GRUB-DFE disc with a Mac OS X 10.5 Retail DVD.
- Wait for the drive indicator light on your DVD drive to stop flashing and then press enter to choose the default boot device.
- In my case, default was the hexadecimal code [ef] also known as the dvd drive.
- Plug in a USB mouse.
- Install Mac OS X.
- If your only see a blank screen or the system becomes unresponsive for several minutes, reboot with the GRUB-DFE disc and try again. In my experience it always seemed to work the second time.
- Reboot with the GRUB-DFE disc and choose hex code 80 to boot to first HD.
- Press enter at the next Darwin prompt to boot to the hard disk.
- Plug in a USB keyboard.
- Plug in an ethernet cable for internet access.
- Finish the Mac OS X install.
- Download Chameleon DFE for HD.
- Open the grub-dfe.iso disc and copy the Extensions folder under /boot/initrd.img/Library/Application Support/DarwinBoot/Extra/ to the “Extra Contents” folder within the mounted Chameleon DFE for HD.
- Run Chameleon DFE for HD.
- Reboot without any helper discs.
- Install the Mac OS X 10.5.8 Combo Update.
- Reboot.
- Download and uncompress the NVinjectGo 0.2.0 video driver.
- Run OSX86 Tools 1.0.150 and use the “Install Kexts” feature to install the NVinjectGo.kext video driver.
- Reboot.
- Download and run PS2FixKeyboard (mirror) to enable the built-in keyboard and trackpad.
- Reboot.
- Download and uncompress Apple HDA Patcher 1.20 (mirror).
- Download ALC660.txt (mirror) and drag it on top of the Apple HDA Patcher.
- Download the ALC660_660VD.mpkg.zip (mirror) audio drivers, uncompress and run.
- Choose the second driver option and install.
- Reboot.
- Go to Apple > System Preferences > Sound > Output and choose “Internal Speakers”.
- Bask in the warm glow of success.
Limitations
Everything seems to works except eSata, the memory card reader and wireless. Of these I only miss the wireless but I’m sure a compatible USB device could remedy that.
Epilogue
While many of my previous computer endeavors were based simply on the joy of discovery, I find that I’m now drawn to challenges that require tenacity. A migration from simple pleasures to the greater rewards of delayed gratification perhaps?
Either way… confidence gained is a wonderful currency for future ventures.
Cheers!