Mean Cheese

I’ve been running my hackintosh (osx86) computer for a few weeks now and I am very happy with the switch. I really do prefer OSX over XP and even over Ubuntu to an extent. There are however a few problems with my install that need to be rectified before I can consider it a 100% success.

The first major issue that I ran into was with USB devices. The problem I was having was that USB drives (iPod, external disk, etc) would not mount unless they were plugged in before the OS booted. This was solved by downloading and installing usb_fix_1.3.mpkg.zip. The problem is due to a difference between the kernel version (9.2.0) and the system.kext version (9.2.2). After the reboot everything worked.

Remaining issues:

DVD burning brings down the whole system. For whatever reason when I try to burn a DVD the whole system crashes and needs to be physically rebooted. Using the built in disc burner the system crashes at about 1%, however using Toast Titanium 9 I am able to get to 99% before the whole thing dies. I don’t know if it has to do with the type of burner I have or some misconfiguration but the problem still needs to be resolved.

The other non show stopper that remains is the fact that the 2nd and 3rd outputs on my video card don’t work. My card has 2 DVI outputs as well as an output for component video. I would like to be able to watch MKV’s on my TV (as my PS3 does not yet handle that format). I found this thread at insanely mac which talks about how to resolve the problem, however I am yet to attempt the fix.

Lastly (for now anyway) I’d like to know what to do about updating the system. I am running 10.5.2 and I am constantly reminded that there is an update available. I have read a few stories about people attempting the upgrades only to find themselves with dead machines. I am not willing to risk my entire install at this point so I am yet to try to update, but it is something I would like to do in the near future.