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"tricking" processor

Discussion in 'Mac - General discussion' started by skllcandy, Feb 13, 2008.

  1. skllcandy

    skllcandy Regular member

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    theres a program called leopardassist that tricks the mac into thinking its processor meets the min. requirement to install leopard. my problem is that i made a copy of my leopard dvd, put that dmg onto my ext. hd. to be safe i also restored it to a dif. partition on the ext hd. then i put in my tiger cd 1, partitioned my internal hd. then i restored the dmg to the first partition. when it finished i went to startup disk, chose the internal with the restored image. rebooted, and now it stays at the apple logo screen with the little thing at the bottom.

    how can i "trick" the processor in open firmware?

    sorry for the long post
     
  2. Gneiss1

    Gneiss1 Regular member

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    Though I've no interest in Leopard, here's a place to discuss your problem:

    http://mac.profusehost.net/leopardassist/supported.html

    They have a list of Macs whose open firmware won't present a problem. They might be pleased to hear from you; though your installation description confused me.
     
  3. skllcandy

    skllcandy Regular member

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    lol...well what i did was take the dmg and put it on my external HD. i put in disc one of tiger, bootd into it. made two partitions on my internal hd. then restored the dmg on my external onto partition 1 of the internal. when i boot into that partition it doesn't get past the white screen witht the apple logo and the spinny thing at the bottom
     
  4. Gneiss1

    Gneiss1 Regular member

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    Your welcome.

    Alright, I'll assume you know how to build an operating system. Let's assume you can copy a disk image of Leopard (or its installation program) onto a new disk, and 'disk utility' will both consult the new partition table, &c while it decompressed a foreign disk image of something and places it exactly where the Tiger-created structures on your hard disk expect it to be. Or something like that. We'll skip that paragraph.

    Indeed, normally an invalid boot disk should create a little picture of a disk with a question mark. Something else in the firmware is wrong.

    Leopard does format the Open Firmware eeprom differently than Tiger does. Let's assume leopardassist was supposed to format it properly for you, but didn't; and we shall assume that's your problem.

    You know exactly what variables you want to change and the exact values you want them to have, which I had assumed either leopardassist or the link in my previous post will give you. Here's how to permanently edit Open Firmware, in this case Leopard's:

    http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/arch_boot.html

    It involves two steps. (It's easier if you learned Forth twenty years ago.) Print the web page. Know exactly what you want to do & write it down.

    Open Firmware on MacOSX is accessed in two ways (each allowing you to edit a different set of variables).

    You might do the second first: if you can boot from disk 1 of Leopard, open the Terminal in Utilities and type 'nvram -p'. If you see a firmware variable you want to change, type 'man nvram' and follow the instructions.

    Now reboot the computer while holding down the keys Cmd (Poison Apple)-Option-O-F. A little Forth language interpreter should appear and allow you to compare the variables in the first part of the firmware and change those that don't match those in leopardassist's file.

    Now, well, there you are.

    Look, I'm not really a Mac person; but I should have thought what you really wanted to do was just fool the Leopard installation disk(s). If I didn't care a hoot about my computer, I should use the Tiger disk to simply edit the Open Firmware to make my computer look like a good Tiger candidate for Leopard installation. It would be easiest if the firmware were edited from a Tiger installation disc booted from an external Firewire DVD reader.

    Then I'd replace the Tiger DVD with a Leopard Install DVD (in some gentle way), partition the drive with the Leopard disc and install Leopard in the first partition.

    But I've not read anything about this, so: CAVEAT: If your computer crashes & burns, this writer will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Mr Phelps.
     
  5. skllcandy

    skllcandy Regular member

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    jeeze....that sounds like alot to do. its worth a shot though. i know that its highly highly unlikely but im trying to install leo on a g3. now before everyone goes all crazy heres whats happened. i read that if you edit the distribution file that it might be possible to install it on a g3

    -Edit-

    heres the link to where i read this
    http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19330781-Leopard-on-older-Macs-ROCKS~start=20
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2008
  6. Gneiss1

    Gneiss1 Regular member

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    Oh, that's a Leopard with different spots! (Is that leopardassist ?) That's a professional's website: go for it.

    I'm all for hacking of that nature, to add the ethics back into Apple's packaged software. Could he please put my granddaughter's encyclopedia that came with 10.2 back? (When I upgraded to 10.3, so I could continue her English education by video chat, her encyclopedia was removed without any trace of warning.)

    If forcing one to buy new hardware was really in our interest, why wouldn't Apple simply pop-up a warning screen; and why won't it allow us to easily downgrade? Though I can't imagine a G3 processor running Leopard, that first 'screen shot's 3D was great! Wish 10.2's designers had thought of that (the resources were there & cheap).

    An old saw, however, says 'professionals take the defaults': off the highway can be a bumpy ride - just because it wasn't on the designers' minds when they built it. Operating systems and hardware used to go together, like IBM & blue suits, death & taxes.

    So, I don't want to pour any cold water on this most laudable effort, but ... assuming Leopard's designers seriously took a G3 into account, remember that another of Apple's sins is their not separating bug fixes from security patches from upgrades. Secunia has reported the 110 security advisories for the entire MacOSX line are all patched with it's 'upgrade' to 10.4 yesterday. Each upgrade increases the size of MacOSX (10.11 was 100 MB larger than 10.10). So, some things to consider:

    1. Unless you can find a site where Apples' upgrades have been ethically separated into bug fixes, security patches, & new features, 10.5 will continually sloooww your machine. (It will still work, nevertheless, because of Apple's choice of kernel.)

    2. Are the bread crumbs you left sufficient to easily downgrade to Tiger? Apple has added creative features to prevent your downgrading. Because you need to flash your firmware(s), your Tiger install disk may first be needed; and this may arbitrarily prevent you from downgrading.

    3. The configuration of MacOSX has been rapidly leaving that of BSD Unix, and 10.4 systematically erased many Unix commands and configuration files; new configuration methods are proprietary. So, if you're a student, you'll want to stick with 10.3 or an early 10.4, if you want its X11 on Darwin to match what you are learning at the University.

    4. You'll lose the whole World Book Encyclopedia if you upgrade from 10.2. :-(

    Looks as if that link has just what you want. But first, why not write those who used it and ask how happy they are with Leopard now? Let people know how it went!

    Leopard does have some nice, little, new security features, especially for parents trying to control where their children browse. But I'm not sure people have used the old (check CERT's reading room); and the new ones are not as good as some free Unix programs.

    My little iBook G3 always runs 'clamXav' sentry on files that sneaked passed the 'snort' network intrusion detection system. Snort I adjusted so it speaks intrusions of significant severity over my speakers (as does the free 'Temperature Monitor', if my battery is about to flame). If it's not something 'clam' might find, I shutdown my machine & check it with 'tripwire' for sneakware, then restore yesterday's copy, if needed. All these programs are professional, free, Unix programs whose databases are updated over the internet free.

    The dancing business reports are cute, though.
     

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