OS X on a ThinkPad Z61t with Kalyway OSx86 Atheros Wireless

I’ve successfully installed Mac OS X Leopard on my ThinkPad laptop using the Kalyway ISO. I also got wireless working. The first problem I ran into was that OS X’s Disk Utility wouldn’t create a partition in empty space. It would, however, erase an existing one. So I used Vista’s Disk Management utility to create an NTFS partition in that space, and then formatted it as HFS+ with Journaling in Disk Utility.

Then I had a blue screen on boot-up. I tried paperclips and staples, as some websites suggested. They didn’t work. I also tried Fn+F7, either right as the white/gray screen changes blue, or while it was still showing the Apple and the loading circle. Didn’t work. But Kalyway’s readme had a fix, and it worked well for me. I said “Yes” to all 4 prompts. Theoretically, I only needed to say “Yes” to the IntelGMA prompt, because my laptop has integrated GMA950 video. Here’s how to do that:

-s
mount -uw /
/movevideodrivers
{Yes to all prompts}
exit

(You may need to move or remove the old /Backup_Video_Drivers directory if you’ve done this before.)

Next I wanted to get Wireless working. Here’s how:

Since the Wireless adapter in the t42 is “ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini-PCI Express Adapter” you only have to do the following steps via terminal:

1. open terminal
2. browse to the folder /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/
3. make a ls -ls and look for the kext “AirPortAtheros.kext”
4. browse into the folder AirPortAtheros/Contents/
5. open the file Info.plist as super user with vi –> sudo vi Info.plist
6. and add the text “<string>pci168c,1014</string> ” within “IONameMatch” in the key-section “Atheros Wireless LAN PCI”
7. save and close the file –> “: x”
8. be sure to set the right permissions: “sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions”
9. afterwards clean the cache: “kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions”
and reboot.

reboot in verbose mode to see the atheros driver load and the wirless card pop up..you should see the mac adress of your wireless card.

Now you can configure it via System->Network as usual.

Solution found here. Note you cannot do this with TextEdit, and if you edit the file’s permissions in Get Info, you’ll get “System extension cannot be used” for AirPortAtheros.kext.

Phew — it was harder than I expected, but I got 1280x800x24 (?) native resolution working. There are 3 things I did, and I’m not sure which one did it:

1. Edited com.apple.Boot.plist and added 1280x800x24 (and a couple other settings that others had in theirs).
2. Installed AppleIntelIntegratedFramebuffer.kext.
3. Installed Natit.kext.

There’s a nice utility called “Kext Helper b7” which I used to install the extensions.

Here’s how to get Sleep working.

And here’s how to get the battery meter working (ACPIBattery.kext). You can use this with Kext Helper also.

There was a problem with USB not working. Socrates on IRC helped with that. Here’s our chat transcript.

intelliot: USB isn’t working on my OSx86, Lenovo ThinkPad Z61t
[11:19pm] Iron_Mala left the chat room. (Ping timeout)
[11:19pm] intelliot: when i plug in a USB Mighty Mouse, the red light on the bottom of the mouse is on, but moving it / clicking doesn’t do anything
[11:20pm] Socrates: check kernel and system.kext versions
[11:20pm] intelliot: how do i do that?
[11:21pm] intelliot: i used Kalyway 10.5.2 -> 10.5.3
[11:21pm] Socrates: for kernel version, open term and type uname -a
[11:22pm] intelliot: Darwin {my name}s-mac-pro.local 9.2.0 Darwin Kernel Version 9.2.0: Sun Mar  2 00:11:08 SCT 2008; made by ToH:xnu-1228/BUILD/obj/RELEASE_I386 i386
[11:22pm] MacWynn: This guy did it but didn’t say he had USB probs
[11:22pm] MacWynn: http://www.intelliot.com/blog/archives/2008/09/05/os-x-on-a-thinkpad-z61t-with-kalyway-osx86-atheros-wireless/
[11:22pm] sbm: for system.kext : /System/Library/Extensions/system-kext
[11:22pm] MacWynn: Oh that’s you!
[11:22pm] MacWynn: hahahaha
[11:22pm] Socrates: intelliot
[11:23pm] MacWynn: You were the top Google hit
[11:23pm] Socrates: right click on System.kext and click show package contents or whatever it says.
[11:23pm] Socrates: then open Versions.plist
[11:23pm] intelliot: yeah, that’s me, and those other things work (just not USB)
[11:23pm] MacWynn: Well you didn’t say you had USB issues
[11:23pm] intelliot: i hadn’t tried any USB devices that that point
[11:24pm] intelliot: CFBundleVersion 9.2.2
[11:24pm] Socrates: There ya go.
[11:24pm] intelliot: SourceVersion 12280431
[11:24pm] Socrates: Ur system.kext is 9.2.2
[11:24pm] Socrates: It needs to be 9.2.0
[11:24pm] Socrates: or your kernel needs to be 9.2.2
[11:26pm] intelliot: interesting
[11:26pm] Socrates: http://www.mediafire.com/?jxlzvfxyx2d
[11:26pm] intelliot: how did you know that?
[11:26pm] Socrates: theres a link to the 9.2.0 System.kext
[11:27pm] Socrates: Its the most common USB issue with OSx86
[11:27pm] MacWynn: Good call So Crates
[11:27pm] Socrates: xP
[11:27pm] Socrates: Thnx
[11:28pm] intelliot: I can install this with Kext Helper, right?

Answer: Yes.