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Ubuntu Linux aims at being a good OS solution for the desktop. The fact that it aims doesn’t necessarily means it is already…I heard 2008 will have more to say about this.
Form me, I think it is good enough, and I enjoy using it everyday, yet sometimes I encounter “strange” & “correlated” errors that I haven’t saw into a “more” commercial OS couterpart combo (XP+Office+Live Search in that case).
And that’s the great effort were I think Canonical is fully committed to: integration between “bazaar” software.

My actual OS is an upgraded Feisty 7.04 -> Gutsy 7.10.
I’m not saying everything went perfect the first time, but with some sanity, I tried to keep things working correctly as they were. And at 99% I made it behave just fine (without buying anything).

A (bad) reminiscence of Feisty was a little sniffy guardian Beagle (dog).

Beagle is an indexing tool that scans your HD for metadata and indexes it for faster searches (like Google Desktop Search).
In Gutsy, Beagle was (reasonably) replaced by Tracker, another, perhaps more stable, indexing solution.

The error I expected was related to a remnant of beagle that I forgot to remove; so, I had this process in memory, automatically booted everyday, that insanely tracked and Indexed every file inside my PC (maybe more than once).
I ended up locked and with no space left (I have a WD 250Gb HD).
My routine is made of daily emails, browsing (I never delete its cache), and I/O ( I always keep my recycle bin full), etc… well…ordinary stuff as everyone else, but not so much to fill a 250Gb HD with stuff (ex. my Home folder actually is almost 5 Gb).

The (mad) beagle-related process, day after day, filled my home folder (and consequently my HDD), with tons of indexed CRAP. What it was, exactly, I simply ignore it.
So recently I ended up having with a full (99.9%) /.

I figured it after the other (open) programs started complaining,and popped strange errors, especially my email client, Evolution.

The error message received from Evolution was stating: “Error while storing folder ‘inbox’ Summary and folder mismatch even after a sync”. WTF???
So I started to digg and figure what the problem was.

First thing:

• rm -r /home/andy/.beagle

…to free up some space.

Next, Synaptic and (complete) removal of beagle and beagle-evolution.

Then a fast close/open Send/Receive with Evolution: error message still there :(

Some more research, some more infos: I had to close all Evolution processes, this way:

• evolution –force-shutdown

…from a terminal.

Next thing: I cd to “.evolution” inside my home folder and searched for the main Inbox folder.

• cd .evolution/mail/local

There I found a file called Inbox.ibex.index;
I renamed this file with something else, then restarted Evolution.

Everything clean and fixed.

Note: if you like me, never delete something, unless 100% sure, you can now safely rm the previously renamed file.

Back to work, now :-P

Here I’ll expose some descriptive personal considerations from the –almost successful– experiment, with mine MAC OS X + MSI EX700 laptop.

INTRO

My motivations for doing such an experiment, falls back in times when the most powerful PCs was the i386. At that time, I got my (father’s…) very expensive) IBM 286. I found and installed platform games and learned IBM-DOS. I used to play “Lotus III” split-screen from DOS, at a friend’s house. Then, my mum bought an IBM B&W laptop, a 386SX, but this laptop had a difference from my friend’s PC: the IBM OS/2.

Looking (and using) another OS, my curiousity grew up: there existed other OSes! Since I was a stubborn child, I wished to know how many OSes existed in the World; this way I discovered Amigas (another friend of mine had one), and Apple Macintoshes (never saw a real one, just magazines).

Then came “BBS times”. I suspected that out there, probably existed something different from the usual DOS+Windows, so I started digging for it; after some time, Slackware came to me. I used it for some time, dual booting with Windows (for games). Then I tried all the other, major distros, but found them unappealing and difficult (other that my hardware never worked as expected).

Since Macs was soo expensive (and still they are…), I just left this wish untouched, enjoying my Windows + Linux life.

Recently (and finally I must say), a dream come true! After all of this time, it seems that I have no more Operating Systems wishes…[not true: there is still the upcoming Open Solaris (as soon as I'll try it, I'll post something...)].

PHILOSOPHY…

On my experience, I can tell that every Operating System does have a “feel” and do make you “feel” something (it’s not very and clearly explainable, it’s something between the rational and the irrational). I was thaught that a man in life can make different choices: with head and with heart (well-tought and instinctive choices): wich of the two is the right one, only time and experience is going to tell.

Today’s Information Technology does seem very influenced by this “dualism philosophy” (1 or 0 any?).

From reason-side I see Apple MAC OS X as a big, octopus-like Window Manager, that sits on top of a Darwin (FreeBSD) core, offering a smart and easy way of getting things done.

On the heart-side it can be seen as “beautiful, emotional, detailed, user-centric” and all the feminine things that comes to my mind.

I can say I felt very good with my Mac OS X experience, but, since Apple does not allow Clone Hardware installs, I see it as “Illegal”. And the feeling of “Illegal” is not good (for who cares). If someday all of my Hardware will work, I’ll buy a regular license (yes, my wife doesn’t want Vista back…).

CONCLUSION

“Don’t be fucking moron by using this Apple MAC OS X Hacked version everyday/everytime/everywhere if everything for you works”, instead,

“Buy a licence if all of your hardware has been recognized (I know it is still illegal, but it’s gonna show Apple Inc. that there is money out there)”

else,

“Contribute your efforts by making stuff compatible and share your knowledge with other people on the INSANELYMAC FORUM, we all need a new monopolist’s competitor, to help innovation on the X86 market (since more competition should bring more innovation)”.

Who knows? Maybe someday Apple will choose to become more “Software Oriented” and open compatibility up to grey-pcs.

My hope is that, someday, Apple will recognize that all the work made from Linus Torvalds & company is better than their actual (core) and adopt it!

All of this is my personal point of view, you are not incited to do as me, that’s my attitude!

…power to the users and have fun!

Andrea Matesi

Hello, new ones, I suggest you read my previous intro post, here: My MSI EX700 MAC OSX86 Hackintosh Part 1/3 – the laptop.

For who was following me, here I continue my quest, showing you what hardware from the laptop MSI EX700 worked OOB and what not:

• The LCD is working correctly Out of the box. Nothing to add here. The first startup was at the original res, 1400×900.

• The Celeron-M 530 CPU has been recognized by the “Apple”->”About this Apple”-menu as “Unrecognized” (!); everything works just fine, CPU-Z 1.43 said it does support SSE2, SSE3 and EM64T. The Apple Mac OSX is a power and ram savvy OS, so Apple does support (and highly suggest), the adoption of a CPU able to perform SSE2 and SSE3. My Celeron-M seems able to fit, almost perfectly.

• Original installed laptop memory was 1Gb, too less for a New Gen OS like Mac OS X; I suddenly added (post-install) a Value Corsair 2Gb memory module 667Mhz DDR2 . The OS recognized the amount as expected, totaling 3Gb of RAM.

• The nVIDIA Geforce 8400M G, 128MB VRAM on board (mxm Type II – difficult to replace), was a thouger game, since 10.5.1 has no support for this kind of GPU (that’s why first bootup & intro are slow and crappy). Upcoming 10.5.2 is including support for nVIDIA Geforce 8X00 series, (yup, Apple Mac OS X world doesn’t have direct drivers from the 3rd party Vendors, they are included inside OS and updates). Since there’s 10.5.2beta around, this guy pre-packaged for us the beta drivers: http://scottdangel.com/blog/?p=15 (and say thanks,,,). Just download, double-click and install. Upon reboot I had Quartz Extreme/Core Image working! (once you’re at scottangel’s website, grab your copy of intel compiled Firefox and also thank him again!).

• On my HDD, everything went smooth; I just reformatted it, creating a 100Gb partition with HFS+ for the OS; then a second, tmp partition for…I don’t know for what! I chosen MBR as boot method (not GUID), and selected the appropriate settings from Kalyway (“Custom”). Although I would have liked to partition everything, I choose to stay standard, for the sake of functionality. BTW, I’ve read various hints on how to install MAC OS X on a partitioned HD (look here for MAC OS X Users partition and here for MAC OS X separate swap partition); it seems a tricky and non standard task, and Apple strongly suggest not to have partitions (why?). My experience tells that a good partitioned HD does offer performance improvements, if done correctly (maybe I’ll share som tricks into another post ’bout that).
• DVDRW Is working out of the box (I tested DVD read and write with known MAC burning software – toast).
• Sound worked perfectly after applying a patch; I took ALC883Audio.pkg from the linked place and followed the info on how to install a kext (from terminal, clean the cache by deleting /System/Library/Extensions.mkext & /System/Library/Extensions.kextcache with rm, make a backup copy of your original kext; cp yourkext.kext /System/Library/Extensions, fix permissions with “sudo chmod -R 755 yourkext.kext && sudo chown -R root:wheel yourkext.kext” then reboot – for more info ask or search google or the insanelymac forum). Beware: no integrated mic working. To use the mic, you should plug an external one to the dedicated (red) port.
• WLAN Atheros AR5007EG still not working, there is still work to be done here.
• My Gigabit LAN Port Realtek based was working out of the box.
• Bluetooth working out of the box. I clicked the Soft Button to power it up and it was suddenly recognized. I tested a file transfer with my cell and all went smooth.
• My Webcam was recognized as BisonCam from Vista; after some research, I think I figured it is a kind of Ali M560x series, but I am not sure. There is an open source project that is working on the implemetation of free webcam drivers called macam, there is hope that someday that cam could be recognized. For now, get a compatible webcam.
• My Battery wasn’t recognized, so I had to implement another kext kernel patch, the Powermanagement_bundle (just follow the info there!), wich activated a kind of ACPI support. After rebooting, my battery was recognized and the power indicator showed up near the clock, but I could not change CPU speed manually.
• My italian keyboard was working out of the box, but some obvious keys were mismatched (since I come from PC-world only, I discovered that MAC Keyboards are kind of different). For further help, you can install this cute software (here: Double Command), and do some remapping.

Congrats, now you have a 90% working cheap-mac.

On next article I’ll group some personal considerations.

Under christmas I gifted my gracious wife with a new laptop.
I wished her a brand new Apple Macbook Pro, but bince I ain’t rich, opted for a cheaper one; enter MSI EX700.

You can find various editions of the so-called laptop, mine has the following specs:

• Vista Home Basic 32

• LCD 17,1” / ACV / WXGA+ / 1440×900 Pixel (1 stuck blue pixel :( )

• Chipset: Intel® PM965 Express Chipset (Cpu-Z 1.43 says it’s GM965)

• CPU: Intel Celeron M530 (1,73 GHz) [SSE, SSE2 & SSE3]

• RAM: 1x1024MB DDR2667 + 1×2048 Corsair Value DDR2 667Mhz [added by me]

• GPU: NVIDIA Geforce 8400M G, 128MB VRAM on board (mxm Type II – difficult to replace)

• HD: Western Digital 120GB 5400rpm

• DVDRW: OptiArc Super Multi
• SOUND: Realtek 883

• WLAN: Atheros 5007eg 802.11b/g WLAN mini pci-e Card

• LAN: RTL Gigabit Ethernet LAN

• PWAN: Bluetooth
• Webcam: 1.3 MegaPixels BisonCam (Ali M560x series I think).
• 6Cel Li-Nh Battery

• Full Keyboard + Standard Keypad (yuppy!)

• Weight: 3 Kg

I took it for €. 700,00 – almost $. 980,00

…Well, kind of cheap, uh??

bundled CDs: no Full Vista disc (as expected), so I got that 10Gb partitioned space were Vista Recovery resided. In case of failures what to do? Call MS! And that’s just what I did: I ordered an upgrade to Vista Ultimate 32 (just in case…) for the amazing price of €. 5.76 (but that’s another story).
I cleaned the HD from every partition and every data. Then I took (from known torrent sources), iAtkos 1.0i & Kalyway Mac OSX 86 10.5.1 Hacked distros.
First I tried with iAtkos: no way. The installer get stuck @ boot time.
So I switched to Kalyway 10.5.1. Amazing: install process worked perfectly.
I choose not to install anything special, just bare (no NVinject et all) & MBR.

First boot was good (but damn slow gfx, as expected, since no drivers for mine 8400GS).
So I started to digg around (being it my first contact with MAC world…), in search of ins & outs.
After getting a bit acquainted (I learned the OS in no time, it feels very natural), I wanted to know if and how my hardware was recognized.
To my surprise, many things worked, other needed hacks.

Just for reference, I suspect that this notebook uses the same kind of MS-1719 Motherboard that can be found on the higher level MSI GX700 Gaming Series laptop, and I suspect it can be also custom built, as a bare bone laptop, from a 3rd party Reseller like RKCOMPUTERS (http://www.rkcomputers.net/rkcnotebooks/).

Part 2 will follow, with the hacks I had to implement to make stuff work better. I here anticipate that actually not everything is working correctly, but there is chances that in the near future, everything is going to work (then I’ll decide to buy my original license, for now this is just a test experience).

P.S.: All the things described here and after are fruit of my personal research & testing, no warranty given that it’ll work too for you. For more info please register at forum.insanelymac.com

Happy day, today: My personal weblog is now Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional. I’ve made essential corrections needed to clean the code.
As promised previously, on an older post (look here), I was struggling to make this template and related modifications, Valid XHTML 1.0.

Now I finally made it!

The magic between PHP, CSS, JAVASCRIPT and XHTML became something that every browser should be able to correctly interpret and render…OK, I know, there is that overlap between titles…and still no pictures…one thing at a time.

I wish to publicly thank the creators of WordPress and the creators of the template (& related), Six Shooter Media: Thank you for your work.

For now, you can click the menu keyword called “XHTML“, on your right, in the Sidebar, below “META”, and see for yourself.

…finally looks like not all the web is crap, or at least, mine isn’t ;-)

Andrea Matesi