Archive
Lnx2Mac’s Realtek RTL81xx Driver
One of the problems I encountered with my original Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R motherboard based hackintosh was the network interface. The Realtek 8111B chip on the motherboard didn’t work very well with OSX’s drivers, and a workaround was required. With Snow Leopard I used a modified version of ifconfig and a script to get the network interface working correctly with bonjour, so the useful auto discovery features would work (iTunes, Finder etc.)
This worked well but wasn’t very elegant, so I was happy to discover Lnx2Mac’s port of the Realtek Linux RTL81xx driver. I disabled the ifconfig script and dropped Lnx2Mac’s driver into /Extra/Extensions, and after running a few terminal commands to set permissions/owners and rebuilt caches (see step 6 here) it’s working great.
Thanks to Lnx2Mac for the work that went into porting this driver, and if it helps you out you can make a donation from the project page.
The Hackinfireplace
I’ve been working on my latest hackintosh for a while now, with the last finishing touches taking much longer than anticipated. They’re all in place now so it’s time to reveal the hackinfireplace. That’s it in the video above, showing a couple of the HD videos that are launched using the function keys of a small wireless keyboard/trackpad. There’s a kitchen plinth heater hidden behind a removable piece of skirting under the display for those rare occasions when a bit of extra heating is needed.
The birth of this project was a visit to a DIY superstore as part of gutting and decorating the Lounge/Living Room. The choice of wall colours was easy, Oak floor agreed on and a new Leather Sofa and chairs a given. The choice of fireplace was more problematic. The existing fireplace was old, but not in a good antique way. Modern hang on the wall electric fires can look tacky with their fake flame effects, and the more expensive electric and gas wall mounted fires can get very costly. Most of those I saw with relatively easy fitting hung on the wall, protruding anywhere from four to six inches. They look fine from the front, but not so good from the side. What I really wanted was a fire flush with the wall, but that’s the point the cost starts rocketing. While in the DIY store myself and Mrs Basshead saw an LCD wall hung fire. A 19 inch screen played video’s of various fire’s, and there were also a few other scenes available. A remote control selected the video’s and also operated the 2kw heaters . A nice idea, but still wall hung not flush. The available video’s were also not great quality and the screen was not very high resolution. Read more…
Snow Leopard 10.6.3 Update Released
Apple has today released the latest update to the Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system. The screenshot above covers the components that have seen upgrades, mostly bug fixes and performance improvements. I’m making backups on my main hackintosh at the moment so the next post will cover how successful the update to 10.6.3 was.