Category: Geeks r Us
Dear readers,
For eons of time, it has been my goal to see all perspectives and all sides in life. This not only applies to philosophical concepts of our government or the new-age movements -- but also extends to technology and computers in general. For me, it is important and crucial to see all sides, or in perception of computers, all Operating systems.
A while back, I have made a review for the Mac -- tiger 10.4 . That 2 part review detailed apple in great depth -- from it's user interface to how various applications work.
This 3 part series will do the same, but in greater depth. At the time of writing the previous review, I only sued a Mac for a few hours duration, so my experience was very much lacking in the field.
So, let us begin by first examining the history of Leopard. As with any review, background is important.
Leopard: The history that was
Apple began developing leopard a while back, perhaps in early 2006. Their goal was to improve upon Tiger, but also compete with Microsoft's upcoming Vista release, at the time close to finish. To Apple, Leopard was, the next step forward in how people use their Macs. Since Apple's switch to using Intel-based processors (with Tiger, it was completed fully) instead of PowerPC architectures, a new core and kernel was a necessity.
So with Leopard, Apple dropped PowerPC support, and the Macs a customer can buy in a store are now intel-based. Leopard introduced the Unix kernel more in depth. That is, the platform which runs under the Mac is unix, and therefore all the unix based terminal applications and utilities can be accessed.
For the x86 community, Apple's switch to Intel was a time for celebration. Clones of the Mac were done in the late 1990s, but these were abandoned after Apple completely abandoned the cloning program. (for a while in 1995-97, you could actually buy Apple branded PCS which ran the Macintosh OS. Later, Apple dropped the program completely and stated that "it was a mistake from the company." )
Intel meant that everyone could use Macintosh, technically. Of course Apple knew of this, and introduced several protection schemes. One was the use of an EFI instead of a BIOS. Today's PCS use the BIOS (basic input/output system) for system start and hardware configuration. All Macs to date use an EFI (extensible Firmware Interface), which allows the computer to load actual drivers even before the Operating System starts booting. This is an advantage since load-times are faster and there is native support for certain devices (audio, display, ETC).
There were people trying to bypass these limitations, however. Iatkos, Kalyway, and the OSX86 community at large were working on porting Leopard to the PC. These programmers have been porting the Mac ever since the switch -- mainly from Tiger onwards.
This is, then, where my review comes in. For this review, I installed Kalyway 10.5.2 . Other distributions exist, but Kalyway was by far said to be the easiest to install (without having to customize and install many patches).
A note to readers:
Although I do not encourage piracy and generally installing the Mac on PCS, I am in no doubt that some will try to experiment. Here are a few things to know:
-Kalyway 10.5.2 Intel_AMD is the latest distribution. You will not find this online, at least not on a standard website. Instead, use a torrent to download the 3.6 gig DVD image. If you don't know what torrents are, visit bitorrent.com , or wikipedia/google torrents.
-It is generally good if your processor supports SSE2/SSE3 instructions. Pentium processors mainly support SSE2, while core duo systems have greater SSE3 support. Although you can install Kalyway on SSE2 systems, you will have to apply patches to work around the SSE3 capability limitation and might experience lags or performance instabilities.
-Partition your hard-drive. You need at least 16 gigs to install Mac, and have free space left over. Windows Vista/7 support shrinking partitions in Disk Management, so please shrink your partitions. You must create a primary partition! Do not format it.
-Please go to device manager before starting and write down (or memorize) your hardware configuration. Display, audio, modem, wireless card, etc. If possible, click on "properties" and open the device's property page. Here, on the device tab, you will need to locate the "hardware ID". The Mac does not treat hardware using standard names, but rather through the use of IDs and KEXT files which are drivers you need in order for those devices to function.
-If you aren't advanced in computing, you could still try installing this release, however generally you might need assistance. I am always available, and so are others (either on the OSX86 forums, or this ZoneBBS system) who have had many experiences re-installing the Mac.
I will go through the installation procedures. Although Accessibility is fundamental for me when I review, visual aspects will also be described.
Kalyway: The install.
Generally, there were several pre-install tasks to complete. As I mentioned, creating a partition is important. Don't format it, since you will have disk utility during install to do your format. Use diskpart (command line utility) to create the partition, or diskmgmt.msc (type it into the run dialog) . diskmgmt is graphical, and if you use a screen reader, you might need to use it's mouse cursor to access the context menus and right click on partitions.
Booting from the dvd took a few minutes. I have heard of people experiencing issues during boot up, and several "methods" of solving errors have been created to facilitate these problems. Generally, you should not experience a boot issue, at least if you have a decent processor.
After the DVD stopped spinning, voiceover could be opened. This is the builtin screen reader of the Mac. The installer should detect most audio cards, but the new voiceover release also allows you to connect a braille display to your system and run without speech. More on voiceover's functionality will be covered later.
The volume of Voiceover seemed to be very low compared to my general maximum volume level. Using command-option-control left/right arrow, you can cycle to the volume option and with up/down arrows change the value.
Command-option-control? : Keyboard changes
Generally, a Mac keyboard layout is a bit different from that of Windows. The position of the alt key is called command, the windows logo is option, and the control remains as control, respectively. On a standard PC Keyboard where these keys do not exist, you can simply use alt-windows-control as apple keys. It seems that the Mac will automatically detect the presence of a Windows Keyboard and change accordingly.
Installation: Creating the partition
After you choose English from the language chooser, the installer will load. Using Voiceover, you can now press command-control (the VO keys) + the letter M to bring up the apple menu. Here, pressing right arrow will land you on a menu called utilities. Expand it using the down arrow (up arrow won't work), and choose the disk utility.
The disk utility consists of several controls. You have a table of your partitions and disks, and a tab list of "First Aid", "erase", "raid", and "restore". Unlike in Windows, you cannot use Control tab to move between these areas ; Instead, tab to the control saying "first aid, selected tab one of four" and hit right arrow once for the erase tab. Here, you will need to press space in order to activate options relating to erasing your partitions.
Of course, if you are using a mouse and have vision, all this will not matter. Simply choose the erase tab.
Simply choose the erase tab.
From the disk table, select your newly created partition. It will be called disk0s(x) where X represents a partition number. In my scenario, this is disk0s2. Highlight this partition with your arrow keys to navigate the table or the mouse to select it.
There is a pop-up button which will have "ms-dos" selected by default. This allows you to choose your partition format. Pressing space on the popup button will bring up a menu of partitions types to choose from. Select "Mac OSX Extended, Case-sensitive, Journaled".
Click on the erase button and ok to wipe the partition clean and into the mac format.
Warning! Double check that you have in deed selected the partition in the table. Several people make the common mistake of selecting the DISK and not the partition! Unless you want a fit from losing all your data, I recommend that you make sure that disk0s(x) is selected.
To quit disk utility, press Command q, or click on the close icon with your mouse. You will return to the installation.
Choose continue, and read the Kalyway readme (AKA license). Click on accept to move forth.
This is where you choose your install destination. For voice over users, you will need to use the VO keys + right/left arrow to cycle using the Voiceover cursor. There should be 2 buttons -- the first being your windows partition, and the second the Mac one you created. (if you have given it a label in disk utility using the edit field, then it will appear using that label.)
Press the corresponding button, and hit continue.
Next you need to customize your installation. This is vital if you want to use drivers and certain patches / third party applications!
Click customize. A tree view will open, containing all of the customization items. These include fonts, languages, and various drivers. The point where you need to use your list from device manager is here, as you need to choose various drivers from the expandable tree view.
I find that some are already checked by default. This is because the installer does detect drivers by default and automatically customizes various ones for you. This seemed accurate for my system, however please double check what it has selected.
If you use a Pentium machine, you will need the jas_4.8 patch. For AMD-64 users, there are various patches as well which you can install. You probably won't get the right configuration for the first time, at least I did not, so don't worry if you can't boot into Leopard after finishing.
Several nice third-party applications exist as well. These include Simply burns(disk burning suite), Transmission(torrent downloader), vlc (a media player), Candy Bar(photo editing/viewing), Onix (instant messenger), Kext Helper(allows you to install drivers in an easier manner), and others.
Once you have customized the install, click done. After clicking continue, the installer will "verify" your DVD image (to make sure your DVD is valid). You can click the skip button, as this generally takes a long time to process!
If you are using Voice-over, you can use the VO+arrow keys and explore the installation Window. The estimated time is shown, as well as a progress bar indicating the status of your installation. Installing should take no more than 30 minutes tops.
Watch out for:
Part 2- the Mac interface
part 3- Apple applications
part 4- Accessibility and compatibility
part 5- conclusions
Beautiful, just beautiful, now only if I had a computer that could run it.
you might... Most can run Kalyway though you will have to expiremnt on it. I suggest you search your computer's brand/model on google and type kalyway next to it to see if anyone has tried installing it on it yet. :)
Nah, I know I won't be able to, i hVe got a 900 MHZ processor, 512 megs of ram, and 2 10 gig hard drives, so even if I could get it on their, their wouldn't be enough room for leopard.