Categories
Tech

OS X 10.10 Yosemite GA-X58A-UD3R Clover install

Clover project logo

Clover > Chameleon

After many years of running the Chameleon boot loader, the time has come to climb Hackintosh ‘Everest’ and make the transition from Chameleon to using the Clover project boot loader. Like Chameleon Clover is a boot loader that allows Mac OS X to run on non-Apple hardware, however it is meant to bring numerous benefits and fixes over the former solution.

From reading forums online and after several previously failed attempts I don’t expect this to be an easy task, but this time I am determined to get it working.

Motivations

Clover is labeled as real EFI and Vanilla than Chameleon. Apple for one reason or enough has recently spruced up their security and services that used to run fine; like iMessage, no longer work. More commonly sleep has historical always been a sore spot for Hackintosh’s. Clover claims to alleviate most of these issues, only time and effort will tell.

Prerequisites

  • Disable USB 3.0 controller in BIOS
    • The installation kept freezing upon launch in Clover, after some reading I realised it was linked to the USB 3.0 controller. After disabling the USB 3.0 controller installation proceeded without issue. I will re-enable support at a later date and see if the controller still causes problems.

Installation

After a lot of reading online and testing different configurations I managed to get a working system booted, but my experience wasn’t as straight forward compared to other peoples from what I can tell.

I followed steps 1 to 3 from TonyMac’s guide clover guide. I then created a UniBeast USB in order to boot the freshly installed system, as for the life of me I could not get the system to boot using a USB installed with Clover. Once booted into the system I downloaded the latest version of Clover and began the installation process, which is similar to step 4 from TonyMac’s guide.

Clover USB installer checked configuration settings:

  • Install clover in the ESP
  • Bootloader > Install boot0af in MBR
  • CloverEFI > CloverEFI 64-bits SATA

Once installed I rebooted the system, removed the USB and was gladly presented with the OS X boot screen, Happy day!

Post Install

  • My Nvidia 680 GTX is natively supported, therefore I did not enable the Nvidia inject option.
  • Audio I got working using the usual method of Multibeast, I haven’t had any luck with getting it working using any of the alternative Clover methods yet.
  • Network also I got working using Multibeast
  • My 26GB RAM setup stopped working, but I have a feeling this might be linked to some of the SMBIOS settings as the Mac is now reporting as an iMac11,2 instead of my previous setup as a MacPro3,1

Either way I’m glad it is finally working.

About this Mac

Categories
Tech

Install system-config-firewall-tui on CentOS 6.6

To use the Firewall CLI package ‘system-config-firewall-tui’ a few extra dependencies need to be installed that by default are not resolved.

Install dependencies and start required service, then the firewall utility should start without error.

yum install system-config-firewall-tui dbus dbus-python
service messagebus start
system-config-firewall-tui
Categories
Automotive

MK1 Escort XFlow 1.3 Turbo – Driving around London

Categories
Automotive

Crossflow Turbo Part 1 // Car History

Ford Escort Mk1
My 1974 Ford Escort Mk1 1.3 XL – Christmas day 2007.

Brief history

It gives me great pleasure when someone asks what car I drive, as my pride and joy happens to be a 1974 Ford Escort Mk1 in Daytona yellow.
I have owned the “Yellow Peril” since 2006. It was won at auction off eBay back when I was 16 from a nice chap in Birmingham. My dad was excited when he found out I wanted an old Ford as my first car, as he himself has been into them all his life. At least that was the case until he saw how expensive RWD Escorts had become over the years. That was the case at least until he saw how expensive RWD Escorts had become over the years. My mom, well she simply just wasn’t too keen on having another ‘banger’ on the drive.

As with most classic cars, when filling up at petrol stations you usually turn a few heads. More often than not you get chatting with the folk who come over to admire the car. These conversations 99% of the time go one of two ways. Either that; back in the day they themselves learn to drive in a Mk1 Escort (followed by a lot of reminiscing), or that there was once a time when you could go to any scrapyard and buy Mk1/Mk2 Escorts up for a penny a piece. If only RWD Escort owners of the late 80’s and 90’s knew how much of a cash cow their ‘old runarounds’ would become today, that they sure would of taken better care of them and held onto them for much longer than they did. That said, perhaps for future investments we should all be going out today and buying old Sierras and Mk1 Focus’s.

Ford Escort Mk1
Upgrades all complete, ready for the new year.

First car

It was my mom who first found the Escort listed on eBay. Back in late 2006, early one saturday morning I was suddenly awoken to the sound of my mobile ringing. I’d only managed to get in a few hours before and having crashed on my mates bedroom floor, I was still hungover as hell from a big night out. After scrambling round trying to find the phone, I answered, it was my mom. She had found a newly listed Mk1 on eBay that was local and that it looked in good condition. Me being me I just couldn’t wait to get home to arrange a viewing, that was until I found out the car was yellow.. After getting back home and reading the listing for myself, I reluctantly agreed to go view the car anyway as it was the only ‘complete’ Mk1 we had seen listed in a while that was within my price range.

So far, the Mk1 has steered me through college, undergrad uni, postgrad, and now even has accompanied me down to London for full time employment, Huzzah!.. cough’.. studentLoan.. crippling debt.. splutter.. In addition it has seen me through; numerous girlfriends, countless camping trips, too many late-night KFC runs, several relocations, and recently even had the honour of being a wedding car for a best mate.

It’s my first car and to this day still the daily driver (I’m now 25).

Ford Escort Mk1
How the bodywork looked in 2008, the same as when we first bought the car.

Initial upgrades

Upon purchase, the car was a stock 74′ 1.3 XL Automatic. It was in reasonable condition for its age and it drove well considering it was an old automatic, however it wasn’t long before my dad and I had future plans for the car circulating between us. My dad Barry is an ‘old school’ mechanic, he’s been in the trade over 40+ years and runs a garage back home in the west midlands. Back in 2006 the insurance for a young male driver who had recently passed their test was starting to get expensive. Luckily, this helped to narrow our focus on the upgrades that would only improve the overall reliability and practicality of the car without increasing it’s performance too much, which in turn helped control the spending and stopped us from facing a hefty insurance premium.

Ford Escort Mk1
Original Dunlop D1’s were a period addition.

The top item on our to-do list was to drop the automatic transmission and convert it to a manual. A suitable Type 2 four speed was sourced as the replacement box, along all the necessary bits to bolt on; manual pedal box, flywheel, clutch, clutch cable and ring gear (to fit pre-engaged starter type).

Ford Escort Mk1
Untouched stock interior.

Second on our list was to improve the brakes as the drum brakes were still used for both front and rear braking. The original front suspension struts were replaced with a set of Mk2 Escort struts; along with Gaz inserts, M16 callipers with solid discs. In addition, we also focused on adding features that you would typically find on any normal modern car. Christmas holiday 2007 mainly consisted of installing a remote central locking and alarm kit purchased from eBay. This was followed with adding a Sony head unit, front door speakers, rear parcel shelf 6×9’s and a 6 unit CD changer in the boot. January 2008, the car was taxed, MOT’d, insured and on the road!

Ford Escort Mk1
Took some rubbing to get that shine.
Ford Escort Mk1
Completely stock 1.3 Crossflow HC (high compression).
Ford Escort Mk1
Aesthetically, the car was left unchanged since purchase.
Categories
Tech

Hack Pro (Late 2013) // Build update – October

20141028-Hackintosh-094

The other day it clicked that I hadn’t posted any updates regarding my Hack Pro (Late 2013) Hackintosh build since my last post way back in January.

2014 has been a crazy busy year for me so I’ve struggled to find the time to work on ‘The Bin’ as I like to call it. It hasn’t helped that roughly for the past 6 months the bin has left in the workshop back at my family home, with me stuck in London with no workshop. So work towards the project has been very hit and miss, with me only able to work on it when I found myself back home for an unexpected weekend visit.

That said, I would like to share with you my progress so far on the build. With project being away from me for most of the time, I have had a lot of time to think the design over. Initially my time was

This post is one big post that should of been many smaller posts, so be prepared for one long post with lots of build photos. I’ll do my best to post the build details in chronological order, solely relying on the photos date metadata to guide me.

The build so far

It’s been a challenge to find components that will deliver good overall computing performance, that are reasonably priced within the chosen budget, and most importantly will conform to the space restrictions of fitting comfortably in the small bin.