I've put a few computers together before, so the construction only took an hour or two. From there it was just a matter of using a special boot CD called a boot-132 disc to allow the Leopard install disc to boot. Once Leopard was installed I installed the boot loader (Chameleon) and added the kexts I needed for my hardware. I would rate the effort as moderate, but it requires a LOT of reading and research to make sure you have the right hardware and the correct drivers. If you are interested in using the same board that I got, these two threads will answer a lot of your questions:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=174385&st=0
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=141769
impressive! your flash module link doesnt bring up any results
care to run us through some basic steps for installation?
thanks
Sorry about the broken link... the USB drive was one of these:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/04/innodisk-busts-out-internal-readyboost-usb-drive/
The two threads above will help a lot, but here are some instructions I put together for a friend who wanted to do this:
First you need to enter the BIOS set up screen and change a few things around.
This is from a guide I followed online:
BIOS SETTINGS:
Standard CMOS Features:
1. Change the Date and Time to the correct values
2. Set "Drive A" to "None"
3. Set "Floppy 3 Mode Support" to "Disabled'
4. Set "Halt On" to "All, But Keyboard"
Advanced BIOS Features:
1. Set "First Boot Device" to "CDROM"
2. Set "Second Boot Device" to "Hard Disk"
3. Set "Third Boot Device" to "Disabled"
4. Set "HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability" to "Enabled"
5. Set "Limit CPUID Max. to 3" to "Disabled"
6 Set "No-Execute Memory Protect" to "Enabled"
7. Set "CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E)" to "Enabled"
8. Set "CPU Thermal Monitor 2 (TM2)" to "Enabled"
9. Set "CPU EIST Function" to "Enabled"
10. Set "Virtualization Technology" to "Enabled"
11. Set "Full Screen LOGO Show" to "Disabled"
12. Set "Init Display First" to "PEG"
Integrated Peripherals:
1. Set "SATA AHCI Mode" to "AHCI"
2. Set "SATA Port0-1 Native Mode" to "Enabled"
3. Set "USB Controller" to "Enabled"
4. Set "USB 2.0 Controller" to "Enabled"
5. Set "USB Keyboard Support" to "Enabled"
6. Set "USB Mouse Support" to "Enabled"
7. Set "Legacy USB storage detect" to "Enabled"
8. Set "Azalea Codec" to "Auto"
9. Set "Onboard H/W LAN" to "Disabled" (unless you plan on just living with the onboard Ethernet quirks)
10. Set "Onboard IDE Controller" to "Disabled" (unless you plan on using the IDE ports)
11. Set "Onboard Serial Port 1" to "Disabled. Set "Onboard Parallel Port" to Disabled"
Power Management Setup:
1. Set "ACPI Suspend Type" to "S3(STR)"
2. Set "Soft-Off by PWR-BTTN" to "Instant-Off"
3. Set "PME Event Wake Up" to "Disabled"
4. Set "Power On by Ring" to "Disabled"
5. Set "Resume by Alarm" to "Disabled"
6. Set "HPET Support" to "Enabled"
7. Set "HPET Mode" to "64-bit mode"
8. Set "Power On By Mouse" to "Disabled"
9. Set "Power On By Keyboard" to "Disabled"
10. Set "AC Back Function" to "Soft-Off"
Now you are ready to do some OS X installing...
-------------------------------------
I followed this guide online, and it is very helpful. HOWEVER, I did only the first 4 steps in this guide, which are the steps to install Leopard and update to 10.5.6. The last two steps are for installing a bootloader, and I used a different guide to do this.
So follow steps 1 - 4 of this guys guide:
http://auzigog.com/2008/12/23/hackintosh-20/
You will need to burn a CD of a program called grub-dfe (which is basically a linux bootloader). When you put this CD in your computer and start it up, it will allow you to boot the OS X install CD or even an installed OS X system, by emulating the real EFI start up used by a real mac.
Once the computer is started with this CD you can swap the CD out for the Leopard install CD and go from there.
Assuming all went well with the insall, you now should have a working OS X install on your computer, but you can't boot without the CD and you probably have very crappy looking graphics and no sound. This is because 1) you don't have a bootloader installed and 2) you need to set up the proper "drivers" to run graphics and sound.
The bootloader is the software that emulates the EFI process of a mac (it is similar to the BIOS process of a PC, basically it boots up your system and makes hardware available to the operating system). Most hackintosh users use Chameleon as their bootloader:
http://chameleon.osx86.hu/ . I installed it to the internal USB drive so that my Leopard install was completely "vanilla". Chameleon creates a folder called "Extra" were you can add your kext files (linked in the 2 threads way up top). There are actually 2 kexts that you will need to install on your main hard drive, one for sound and one for internet, but the rest can go in this "Extra" folder.
Finally, you need to create a boot.plist that contains the specific graphic strings for your graphics card, as well as a fix to make time machine work correctly. This is a bit hardware specific so you'll have to do your own research on that.
Once the bootloader is installed with your kexts and your boot.plist you are finished. You're hackintosh should operate 100% perfect, and you can update software from Apple without any problems. I even used Migration Assistant to copy my old account from my Macbook with all of my software, files, etc!
This computer should work fine with Snow Leopard when it comes out, but obviously I have no way to test that for sure.
So there you go... a Mac Pro for easily under a grand... probably closer to $500 - $700.
wireless KB?
