My First Failure for 2007

My first failure for 2007 is about Mac Envy.

I tried to install osx86 – Mac OS X for generic Intel hardware. I wanted away to satisfy my desire to learn Mac OS, without spending. I did it under VMWare hosted by Ubuntu, since I didn’t want to risk breaking my hard drive. (I have a spare partition with my now-idle Solaris installation, but GRUB is based there.)

Attempt 1. VMware virtual DVD (ISO image) doesn’t work. Forgot the particular error but the cause is the DVD image is not a real ISO, but HFS+.

Attempt 2. Burned the ISO to a real DVD. VMWare’s default is to turn on legacy emulation. Which doesn’t work, an error pops up.

Attempt 3. Installation completes. After 3-4 hours. This is on a Celeron D 320 (2.4 Ghz/256 KB L2 cache, no SSE3), 512 MBx2 DDR400. Slow speed is probably due to the single hard drive.

Attempt 4. b0 error. I had to boot an Ubuntu LiveCD (Ubuntu inside Ubuntu!) to set the Mac OS X partition as Active.

Attempt 5. Lack of SSE3 bit me. I got the “Please power off or reset” message in 4 languages. At this point I found out I needed the SSE3 patch. I’m not sure if the ISO image I have has it. In any case I need to reinstall.

I ran out of time for the day.