Mhackintosh blog

How to survive the Mac OS X 10.6.3 upgrade, especially if you are totally unsure on how it will install, which kext it may remove or update? Will USB works, and Ethernet? Might my GeForce GTX 260 not recognized after upgrade? Or my Quad-core recognized as simple-core CPU?

The complete path

You will have to look for forums, and blog reports for any of your kext, your DSDT, any xml configuration file, and any part of your hardware, days if not weeks of work. Long and complicated.

My simple solution

Just use a spare disk with your actual installation (any old hard-drive with same SATA or PATA/IDE interface of your main hard-drive will work). Then try to install it on your spare hard-drive, just to see how it goes.

On my desktop I have ability to switch drive (thanks Antec!), on a laptop it’s usually not too complicated (at worst 4 screw!) except if you own an Unibody MacBook Pro! lol!

You will know for sure, within 1 hour, if Mac OS X 10.6.3 update run as expected, and be able to launch basic applications (mail, safari, itunes) to check how it goes. Check sound, Ethernet, USB, graphic card, launch GeekBench, XBench…

Then BACKUP your data, and follow the same path on your main hard-drive if everything is okay

In short

For your installation of OS X have an used spare-drive to be able to test any new revision of Mac OS X that Apple may drop, or any “security” upgrade that might disable your Mac OS X installation.

I was on Montreal’s AppleStore today, buying the inexpensive Aperture 3 upgrade (from Aperture since 1.0), and just took a look at an 27″ iMac. Things get weird:

Yes, the CPU (seems to be a 2.8Ghz Core i7) wasn’t recognized by the Mac OS X version of this iMac. Vendore pretending that all upgrades haven’t be installed, so he installed them. After reboot, same problem. weird no?

This is one of the reason I love Apple and Steve Jobs, among the many brilliant things they have conceived, it’s humanity. ubuntu. They celebrated Rosa Parks, a symbol for the Civil Right Movement on their frontpage, and they were right.

On tuesday night, Jerry York, board member of Apple passed away. They don’t just make an announcement, they decided to change the front page for a tribute. And that’s not what a commercial company would do, it’s what caring people would. thanks!

It seems Apple won’t launch new Mac of any kind until the iPad was launched successfully, and if it’s a great communication strategy for the iPad, the MacBook Pro and Mac Pro lines begin to be really old!

Think of it, the baseline Mac Pro with 4-cores is similar to home PC hardware, MacBook Pro using dual-core albeit there’s 4-core (4 REAL cores) laptops since last summer. It’s usual for Mac to not have the fastest hardware, less for “Pro” products to be under home PC or laptops!

The coolest thing is that it extends the lifetime of my MacBook Pro 17″ and the opportunities for me to sell it at a good price

I have just found on CraigsList a PowerMac G5, 1.6Ghz PowerPC, 256MB RAM, GeForce FX 5200, that I will buy this evening.

Here’s nothing interesting to a configuration that is so slow, even if extended. Except the case, Apple branded. You could install Mac OS X legally on any Apple branded computer

So I will buy this G5 and upgrade it’s IBM motherboard for a Gigabyte motherboard, Hitachi or IBM hard-drive for Seagate or Western Digital Hard-drive, it’s nVidia video-card by a recent nVidia videocard (GTX 260), it’s IBM CPU by an Intel CPU (like any actual Mac). I will follow this upgrade path I have found.

It’s just an upgrade, but the computer with it’s only Apple-branded piece (the case) will be there, to comply with Apple license for Snow Leopard.