5/6/2005

Installing Tiger on Lombard

Filed under: — admin @ 7:49 am

Ok guys, I know what I said earlier about not getting Tiger to install, but I got to thinking about it and I had an idea. After digging around on the Tiger Install DVD, I found my answer. Here’s what I did to get the installer to install on my Lombard:

First, I created a CD/DVD master image from the Tiger Install DVD using Disk Utility. Then, I mounted the image. Then I found the OSInstall.dist file in /System/Installation/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg/Contents on the image. Near the top of the file is a line that specifies a list of “badMachines”, or some such. In that list is “PowerBook1,1″, the model code for the PowerBook G3 Lombard. I simply modified that entry to read “PowerBook3,1″. I then unmounted the image and burned it to DVD-R. My Lombard booted right up the installation DVD as it had before, but this time I received no error messages regarding unsupported hardware.

So, there you have it! It turned out to be much simpler than I had expected. Now, I must admit that I have not performed the installation of Tiger yet, so I cannot yet verify that the installation will complete successfully, but I plan to install a new HD in the machine and test it out at least before going back to Gentoo. I really don’t think Tiger will perform very well on this old machine, but it’s fun to try it out. :)

Now, a note for Lombard users without a DVD drive: I would expect that you could perform the same operation on the CD version available as a special order from Apple.

62 Comments »

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  1. This is a brilliantly simple hack–other people who have installed Tiger onto Lombards using other methods, have reported no trouble, so this should work fine. However, changing the “badmachine” listing to “PowerBook3,1″prevents the DVD from installing onto a Powerbook G3 Firewire (Pismo). Why not just delete the reference to Powerbook1,1 altogether? By the way, “Powerbook2,1″ is the first clamshell iBook, which I suspect will run Tiger just fine too, so might as well delete that too.

    Comment by John Sawyer — 5/11/2005 @ 3:05 am

  2. John,

    I meant to mention that I thought it probably would have worked by simply removing the reference altogether. In fact, it may work if the entire array was cleared out. The reason I simply changed the one byte of text was because I was unsure about what tamper protections might be in place — I was concerned about throwing some checksum off. But yes, I do think it would work if removed altogether. I just didn’t want to waste too many DVDs if I was wrong on that. :)

    Comment by admin — 5/11/2005 @ 6:24 am

  3. I’ve been trying to install Tiger on my fire-wireless Graphite iBook (probably what you mentioned as being a “Powerbook2,1″) with no luck. I used Disk Utility to create and mount the DVD Master Image of Tiger, hen I used Pacifist to open the “OSinstall.mpkg” and find the “Contents” file. However, I was unable to locate any “OSintall.dist” or “badmachines” list or any “Powerbook2,1″ (Spotlight was unable to locate any of these files as well). Would you kindly verify the path and/or software needed to get at the “badMachines” list? After fixing the disk image I plan to upload it via LAN to a new partition on my iBook HD, try to install it on another partition (no DVD-ROM — do you think that would work?), and see how well Tiger can roar…

    Comment by Gary Moler — 5/12/2005 @ 3:26 am

  4. Gary,

    Well, I’ve never used Pacifist. In this case, I simply used the command line to navigate the contents of OSInstall.mpkg. The path above is correct. The filename is OSInstall.dist. The line you are looking for is:

    var badMachines = [’iMac’,'PowerBook1,1′,’PowerBook2,1′, ‘AAPL,Gossamer’, ‘AAPL,PowerMac G3′, ‘AAPL,PowerBook1998′, ‘AAPL,PowerBook1999′];

    In my case, I just used Vim to edit the file. But if you are more comfortable with BBEdit or another editor, just type “open OSInstall.dist” from the command line to attempt to open it in your default editor.

    Anyway, let me know if that helps. I’d be interested to know if it does.

    Comment by admin — 5/12/2005 @ 6:46 am

  5. Sorry to ask such basics… I’ve been an OS9Forever person until now. I tried using Terminal and Vim (for the first time) to find the “OSInstall.dist” file and can’t do it. Vim’s “Open…” command can’t open the OSInstall.mpkg. Pacifist, on the other hand, can unpack it but can’t see the “OSInstall.dist” file. Could you tell me the commands and where (or how) to use them to get to my destination? Thanks… sorry OS X newbees are such dummies.

    Comment by Gary Moler — 5/12/2005 @ 1:04 pm

  6. It’s even more easy to edit the bad machines list.

    Just open the contents of the installation package OSInstall.mpkg by ctrl-clicking the package file in the Finder and choosing the option Show Package Contents in the popup menu list. A Finder window will show the package contents. Open the Contents folder and find in a glimpse the file OSInstall.dist.

    Open this file with TextEdit. Look for the line with the text ‘var badMachines …’, below the text ‘function checkSUpportedMachine…’, at the beginning of this file, which, by the way, is a scripting code file used by the installation application.

    Throw away any ‘bad’ machine out of the list within the square brackets. Take care to keep the remaining names, within two single quotes, in the list separated by a comma (no comma at the beginning and at the end of the list, please). And certainly do not throw away this variable declaration line. Keep it at least in a minimal form: var badMachines= []; (an empty list of bad machines), and no problem will ever arrive, except perhaps for the installation of that Tiger on a truly incompatible machine. Bad machines do exist.

    You can also try this, for the daredevil between you people: adapt the function that checks for a bad machine in such a way that it will always like any machine it finds. It’s easy to do so: just throw away the whole shebang in the function body of that function except fo the last line with the code ‘return true;’ (keep the semicolon at the end!).

    How to, would you say. Well, find in the OSInstall.dist file the line of text ‘function checkSupportedMachine(machineType){’, just above the line with the list of bad machines (’var badMachines = …’). And then throw away the lines of text starting with the text ‘var badMachines’ right through the line before the first line of text that has the code ‘return true;’ j(ust below the line ‘// if we can’t find it, …’). Keep the text ‘return true;’, a line of code necesary to have the installation software to like any machine.

    You can even keep the line of text ‘// if we can’t find it, …’. It’s just a line of comment in the code. But then, again, do not throw away the two slashes at the beginning of that line of text, or it’s no comment anymore.

    And, if you’re a kind of tabula rasa-type, you can do the same with the function that checks for a supported boot-ROM. But I suppose this will certainly give some après-ski problems…

    :-)

    P.S. More funny: replace any bad machine in the list by some other names, like e.g. the name of your mother-in-law, your boss, the attorney of your wife, …

    Comment by Barthold Van Acker — 5/12/2005 @ 7:30 pm

  7. Barthold,

    Thank you so much for your comment. My instructions needed some clarification. I take some things for granted sometimes. I also really like your ideas for modifying the function in other ways… very creative. Thanks again for sharing!

    Gary,

    I hope this extra info helps you out, too. If it doesn’t, feel free to email me.

    Thanks,
    Jon

    Comment by admin — 5/13/2005 @ 11:47 am

  8. Jon,
    I have been using my Lombard since 1999 and have upgraded my hard drive, RAM and my processor to a Daystar G4 and have updated my Mac OS to the latest version as soon as Apple released it. I have installed Tiger on my 3 other machines at home since they were all supported.

    My dilemma with your “fix” is that I probably need a “step by step” instruction on how to do this. I kind of got “lost” in your explanations on your website. Now my other 3 Machines all have DVD-Rom’s so I am not sure what hardware i need to buy to make this DVD thing work. I know I could probably send away for the Apple CD Installer and this might be easier. Any detailed help you can give me would certainly be aprreciated. I am sure there a lot of Lombard people like me that would like to install Tiger.

    Any help regarding this issue would be appreciated.

    Thank you.

    Comment by Bob Fechner — 5/14/2005 @ 6:11 pm

  9. John, and others, I have 3 things extra to say now.

    First of all, an installation of Tiger succeeded on my Powerbook Lombard (bad machine name ‘Powerbook1,1″). And everything seems to work very well. The first time, after installation, it takes some time to get started. I suppose there are some after-installations arrangements to clear out. Also, do not be annoyed by some initial delays when interacting with the machine, for Spothlight is doing some first run through indexing the contents of your files.

    Then, secondly: before you can make changes in the OSInstall.dist file, it is essential to convert the disk image of the installation dvd into a read-write version with Disk Utility. You can then choose afterwards to make it a read-only version again or to leave it read-writable to be able to change some things afterwards.

    And, thirdly, I got the strange message, even after tweaking the OSInstall.dist file, that the modified installation dvd didn’t want to upgrade the system because it was not compatible. I was confused. But then, again, after restarting the machine and holding down the C key (you can also choose the dvd as startup disk before restarting), the installation started whithout any problem and everything was installed as normal.

    I do not understand this well. I suppose there must be perhaps another check somewhere, although, as till now I did not find one. Or perhaps the system on my Powerbook remembered a first trial with the original installation dvd? I’m trying to work that out. If I find something, I’ll let you know.

    Comment by Barthold Van Acker — 5/16/2005 @ 2:41 pm

  10. I have tried all of these methods to no avail. So far, every DVD that i create becomes a worthless coaster!! Heres how I modified the OSInstall.dist—I copied the entire .mpkg onto the desktop from the disk image, then modified the file and moved the .mpkg back into the disk image, then burned it using disk utility. What am I doing wrong?? Just for reference, I am attempting to install on two unsupported machines; the Powerbook Lombard (Powerbook 1,1) and the PowerMac G3 Beige (AAPL Gossamer). Any help would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks

    Comment by Aaron Turner — 5/17/2005 @ 9:00 am

  11. Barthold, thank you so much for your continued research on this. I know that many others here will benefit from your efforts.

    Comment by admin — 5/17/2005 @ 9:56 am

  12. Bob, I apologize if my instructions are not clear. I will have to post a new blog entry with step-by-step instructions like one might find on macosxhints.com. I’ll try to do this when I get back home and have the original DVD with me so that I can step through it myself again. In the meantime, perhaps some of Barthold’s insight would be useful to you. I’ll try to post something new shortly.

    Comment by admin — 5/17/2005 @ 9:59 am

  13. Aaron,

    I am sorry to hear about the coasters. I don’t know if copying the file out and moving it back into the disk image is causing your trouble, but when I did it, I modified the file within the image itself. I believe that when I created the image, I specified “CD/DVD Master” in Disk Image. Like I told Bob, I’m going to try to post a more clear entry this evening with step-by-step instructions. Perhaps this will help clear up some of these issues. In the meantime, perhaps this helps a bit. Let me know. Thanks!

    Comment by admin — 5/17/2005 @ 10:03 am

  14. WARNING WARNING WARNING!

    I followed the instructions and got a working install DVD. Booted the lombard
    from the DVD and began installation. About 30 minutes later, while installing
    Mail, the installation process crapped out. The installer log provided a helpful
    “child died with signal 10″.

    Attempting to re-install failed. When booting from the DVD, the process stopped
    at the initial grey screen with the little pinwheel circling forever. When booting from
    the half-upgraded hard disk, a kernel panic gets barfed to the screen with “cannot
    find driver for powerbook1,1″.

    Make very very sure you have your 10.3 installation disks before attempting this
    tiger upgrade. Don’t know what happened during upgrade, but I’ll be trying it
    again as soon as my book comes back to life.

    Comment by d'Artagnan — 5/26/2005 @ 4:07 pm

  15. Aaron,
    In my case, RAM was the crucial point.
    my lombard/333 MHz with 512 MB ram did not boot the tewaked DVD, but set back to 320 MB, the DVD boots.
    After installaing Tiger, 512 MB ram works fine.

    Comment by Hiro — 5/27/2005 @ 5:15 am

  16. I can’t find the file to edit. When I open the DVD>System>Installation>Packages>OSinstall.mpkg I see the content folder. I open that, and I only have three files.

    File one: Info.plist
    File two: Version.plist
    And file three is a folder called “resources.”

    When I top the Resources folder, it just gives me a bunch of other language folders. I don’t see the list of ‘bad machines’.

    Comment by Grady — 6/18/2005 @ 4:43 pm

  17. I can’t find the file to edit. When I open the Mac OS X Tiger DVD>System>Installation>Packages>OSinstall.mpkg I see a folder called “contents.” When I open that folder, I only see three files. One called, Info.plist another called version.plist and a folder entitled, “Resources.” Could it be somewhere else?

    Comment by Grady — 6/18/2005 @ 4:49 pm

  18. I can confirm that this procedure also works with the installation CDs. I sucessfully installed Tiger on my Lombard 333 Mhz, which does not have a DVD drive. Overall performance on this machine (with 320MB RAM) is quite good.

    Comment by Devin Frank — 6/19/2005 @ 1:06 am

  19. I must concur with Grady - I also have no OSInstall.dist file in my installation CD’s. Hence, I can not install on my g3 350 (no USB/firewire). Any other solutions?

    Comment by Ran — 6/27/2005 @ 3:55 pm

  20. Has anybody successfully installed Tiger on a Lombard with a G4 processor upgrade? Mine has a PowerLogix G4 in it, and my Tiger installation also crashed. I’m reinstalling Panther now, and preparing for a second try.

    Comment by Anonymous — 7/4/2005 @ 11:43 am

  21. Has anybody successfully installed Tiger on a Lombard with a G4 processor upgrade? Mine has a Powerlogix G4 card in it, and my installation crashed in a way similar to what d’Artagnan describes above. I’m reinstalling Panther now, and readying for a second try.

    Comment by Rob — 7/4/2005 @ 11:45 am

  22. I just bought a G4powerbook and now I want to upgrade my dual mirrordoor Powermac with the powerbook’s install/restore DVD. But, it does not allow installation. I suspect the the disc is trying to find a powerbook. Is there a similiar work around for this problem? Is there a scipt that I could erase/modify so the disc could be universal and not powerbook specific?

    Comment by diego — 7/11/2005 @ 3:45 pm

  23. I used the idea here on my PowerBook G4 15″ Tiger DVD and with some fiddling finally got it to work. Following the instructons above would not work for me, it still reported my machine was not supported. I had to do more than just delete the badcomputer names, I removed the whole check for bad machines and other checks, then it installed fine. I did have to format my old HD as it had some errors on it and reported errors, but after a full format it installed fine!

    Comment by Tim — 7/26/2005 @ 12:41 am

  24. I followed the instructions and it did not work. With some fiddling I was able to get it to work. I removed ALL the code that checks for bad machines and the other checks! (Boot rom) It then proceeded to install then ran into an error verifying my 20GB HD, I reformatted it and it then finished fine! Tiger runs great on my Lombard G3 333 with 384MB! I am still trying to find a 256MB module that actually works to get 512MB….

    Comment by Tim — 7/26/2005 @ 12:47 am

  25. Thinking abou trying to install Tiger on my Lomard, but I’m wondering does Tiger run faster or slower than Panther on the Lombard machines?

    Comment by Fred — 9/5/2005 @ 3:12 pm

  26. Fred,

    I’ve got to say that Tiger probably runs slower than Panther on my Lombard. I’m actually writing this post from my Lombard now and I’m using 10.3.9. I think I’ll stick with this for now.

    Thanks,
    Jon

    Comment by admin — 9/24/2005 @ 3:29 pm

  27. Hi gang, I have two legit Tiger DVD’s one is from my G5 dual the other is from my imac 2.0 I tried the hack but I have three issues…
    1. the G5 Dual DVD is 3.9gb I notice it says some things about powermac:
    function checkSupportedMachine(machineType){
    var badMachines = [’iMac’,'PowerBook1,1′,’PowerBook2,1′, ‘AAPL,Gossamer’, ‘AAPL,PowerMac G3′, ‘AAPL,PowerBook1998′, ‘AAPL,PowerBook1999′];

    and a little further down:
    if(machineType){
    var length = badMachines.length;

    // Fail if any of the compatible values match the list of badMachines
    for( var j = 0; j < length; j++ ){
    if(machineType == badMachines[j]){
    return false;
    }

    Finally it says:
    function checkSupportedBootRom(machineType){
    var machinesNeedingROMUpdate = new Array();
    machinesNeedingROMUpdate[’Powermac1,’] = ‘f2′;
    machinesNeedingROMUpdate[’Powermac1,’] = ‘$0003.30f3′;
    THE POWERMAC PART SAID SOMETHING LIKE THAT I CAN’T REMEMBER

    2. when I burn a dvd how do I set up Toast 6.0 or disk utility to burn correctly?
    Your help is appreciated….
    3. The imac DVD is 5.6 gb so does that need a D/L DVD? Thanks again..

    Comment by David F — 9/28/2005 @ 9:31 pm

  28. Hi I have two tiger dvd’s one for the powermac dual and the other for the 17″ imac 2.0 and some of the wording is different on the powemac install vs. your description and the imac tiger is a 5.6 gb vs 3.9 for the powermac version. Can anyone help out on what to eliminate on the powermac dvd? basically it lists bad machines but below that there something about the bootrom version wonder how that works… Finally as stupid as it sounds I don’t quite understand the correct method of burning the final dvd I have toast 6.0 and disk utility can anyone explain please?

    Comment by David F — 9/29/2005 @ 1:52 am

  29. hello, I’m a new Mac user. I found the OSInstall.dist file with no problem and edited the line. but the problem is that since i’m editing a package, i am unable to save the edited file. my guess is that there should be a way to make either the file or the package editable. would really appreciate your comment. thanks.

    Comment by Yaw Nti-Addae — 11/29/2005 @ 11:52 am

  30. Exact same problem as Yaw Nti-Addae here. Disk Utility doesn’t let me convert disk to read-write, and tried batChmod, too, but still couldn’t overwrite OSInstall.dist, or delete it at all. Trying to save edited file from finder just returns “can’t overwrite file” messages.

    This is with the Tiger DVD that came with a new iMac iSight, and a disk image on an external firewire drive.

    Comment by Steve W — 12/8/2005 @ 2:41 am

  31. Thanks Jon. Your instructions were great. I’m running Tiger on my 400 Mhz Lombard. This is what I did.

    I used Disk Utility to make a DVD/CD master disk image. Then I mounted the image. I opened Terminal and typed >cd /Volumes. Then typed >ls to view the contents of the directory. Found the “Mac OSX Install DVD”. Then typed >cd ‘Mac OSX Install DVD’/System/Installation/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg/Contents. Typed >ls to view the contents and saw the “OSInstall.dist” file. Then I typed >vi OSInstall.dist . This allowed me to edit the file in VI. It’s easy to navigate using the arrows and delete. press “i” to enter Insert mode to type characters. Then type :wq to write and quit. After I made my edits as stated in the first post, I quit Terminal, put the mounted disk image in the trash, then used Disk Utility to create a new disk image from the modified OSX Install image. Put the newly created DVD in my Lombard and booted from the CD ROM. Ran the install and I was done. The whole process took about two hours to create the image, modify, burn and install.

    I’m going to try your battery trick next.

    Thanks
    http://www.aslaninteractive.com

    Comment by Paul Eident — 12/8/2005 @ 10:09 am

  32. I have been up all night and I cannot find ” … the OSInstall.dist file in /System/Installation/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg/Contents on the image. Near the top of the file is a line that specifies a list of “badMachines”, or some such. ” I have tried Text Edit and BBEdit …..

    Just tired ………. Trying to install Tiger on my original Tangerine iBook …..
    Jim

    Comment by Jim — 1/15/2006 @ 3:38 pm

  33. I found it! …. I found it! I changed the ’PowerBook2,1′ … to ‘PowerBook3,1′ since I am trying to install Tiger onto my original Tangerine iBook …. and burned the DVD and it still said that “Mac OS X 10.4 cannot be installed on this machine” when I tried running it by double clicking the Install Mac OS X icon. It said “Mail cannot be installed on this computer. This software cannot be installed on this computer” when I tried double clicking the Optional Istalls Installer. It said “BaseSystem cannot be installed on this computer. This software cannot be installed on this computer.” when I tried double clicking on the OSInstall.mpkg icon. I am running the modified DVD Intall disc a Sony Dual RW Double Layer (Firewire/USB) external drive connected to my iBook via its one and only USB connection …. and I cannot get it to Start Up via this modified disc …. Should I just give up ??????????? Jim

    Comment by Jim — 1/16/2006 @ 3:10 am

  34. Great info! I have an iMac G5 Tiger install disc that was sold with the promise of compatability with all macs using Pacifist. Problem is, on my G4 powermac the Combo drive does not read the DVD. Any one have a way to work around that?

    Thanks,
    D

    Comment by Dexter — 2/28/2006 @ 7:26 am

  35. I followed the instructions above and am delighted to now have a Lombard running Tiger very smoothly. The only problem is - and it’s a big one - I cannot connect to the net (am writing this now on my Powerbook G4). Obviously I have no AirPort option, but I can’t connect wireless using my RoamAbout PC Card and Tiger-supporting IOXperts driver) or even using Ethernet cable directly to my ADSL modem router. I can see the modem router recognises the Ethernet LAN connection, and the Network Preferences say Etnernet connection made but can not connect to the internet. And I have absolutely no idea why. Any suggestions would be really welcome.

    Comment by Pat B — 3/2/2006 @ 2:49 pm

  36. Along with the hack listed at the top, you need to remove this reference in order to skip the machine check.

    Change it to:

    This neuters the script which checks to see if your machine is the right one for the disk ( if for example you are using an iMac disk for a PowerBook or something ).

    happy installing!

    Comment by Ben McCourt — 3/15/2006 @ 2:58 am

  37. Above should say:

    ‘’

    Change it to:

    ‘’

    (without the ‘ and the space between

    Comment by Ben McCourt — 3/15/2006 @ 3:00 am

  38. installation-check script=”hwbeInstallCheck()”/

    installation-check script=”"/

    Comment by Ben McCourt — 3/15/2006 @ 3:01 am

  39. Does anyone know how to follow the same process, but instead to use it for OS X 10.4, for OS X 10.3? I have a lombard where I need to install OSX 10.3. I have follow the process described in this page (it did work for OS X 10.4) but I need something similar for OS X 10.3.

    Anyone has any ideas? Thanks!!

    Comment by Eli — 3/19/2006 @ 11:17 pm

  40. You there is another check for supported machines towards the bottom of the OSInstall.dist file.

    var hwbeSupportedMachines = [’

    Comment by Spud — 3/29/2006 @ 8:14 am

  41. Eli,

    The Lombard is fully supported by Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther). You shouldn’t have to do anything special. This hack is just for 10.4 (Tiger), which has dropped (official) support for the PowerBook G3 Lombard.

    –
    Jon

    Comment by admin — 4/2/2006 @ 10:53 pm

  42. Pat,

    I’m not sure about your networking trouble. I never had any trouble with mine. For the record, I’m using a Cisco Aironet 350 PCMCIA 802.11b WiFi card and both it and my built-in Ethernet adapter work fine under Tiger. In fact, I’m using the Cisco card on it right now to post this message. I’m using the latest Cisco drivers. (Officially only supported up to 10.2 (Jaguar), but seem to work just fine under Panther and Tiger)

    The only thing I might recommend is zapping your PRAM, etc. and seeing if that clears it up. Also, have you been working inside your PowerBook recently? Perhaps you disconnected the wired ethernet connector from the logic board? I did that once and it took me a while to figure it out. I thought for sure I’d killed the thing.

    Anyway, I hope it works out for you.

    –
    Jon

    Comment by admin — 4/2/2006 @ 11:06 pm

  43. Would it be possible to just change the list of hwbesupportedmachines as mentioned by spud to include your machine?

    that is if it is not on the list of bad machines..

    i.e. I have install discs that are specific to a machine (ibook 1.33GHz aka powerbook6,7) . If I was to change the list of hwbesupportedmachines from powerbook6,7 to powerbook6,5 would I then have an install disc that would work and be specific to an ibook 1.04 GHz?

    Comment by Pete — 5/2/2006 @ 3:56 pm

  44. High all,
    I found this blog very exciting because despite all odds I still refuse to abandon my trusty lombard! Just couple of years I had to do a brain transplant when the original CPU died due to a bad solder. Then I installed a G4 powerlogic update after solving some of the heat related problems that hwoever did this knows well about, I installed Tiger shortly after release and I been following updates up to 10.4.3. For some reason I did not try to update further as it was not my primary powerbook anymore. The other night I was feeling lucky and foolishly without first backing up I gave the 10.4.5 a try. I wont go further to horrible detail. This post is mainly to inform that this configuration Lombard G4 384 RAM was fine with 10.4.3. The thing I wantted to ask is what is the succesfull install beyond that 10.4.4? If I find it myself I will be happy to share!
    PS. I will try to revive my machine. How I hate when this s… happens!

    Comment by paris — 5/3/2006 @ 11:37 pm

  45. paris,

    I have 10.4.5 running on my Lombard right now (as well as several other very unsupported machines). It was just updated incrementally from 10.4.1, I think. I don’t know what could’ve gone wrong w/ yours, but it could be anything, I suppose. Let us know what you find out.

    –
    Jon

    Comment by admin — 5/8/2006 @ 9:10 am

  46. Jon,

    You mentioned in a previous post that you would try to get a “how to” posted? Have you been able to do so? Also I can change the file and have deleted files which I don’t plan on installing (primarily to cut down disk image size) so that I can burn it to a regular 4.7 DVD. But I can’t seem to copy the image and change the file size. Any way to do so?

    Comment by bngwolfe — 5/8/2006 @ 9:24 am

  47. OK - I am brand new to MACs completely and inherited a Lombard & Tiger dvd. I dont have Disk Utility (I think), but want to upgrade to Tiger from OS9. I am able to see the OSInstall.dist - but when I try to mount the contents.mpkg, I get a ‘does not have a recognized file type’. HELP! I wanna use this machine!

    Comment by Xaja — 5/10/2006 @ 10:39 pm

  48. Do you have a step by step of this process available?
    Id like to try this install ASAP.
    Please email me the step by step if you can.
    Much Appreciated.

    Thanks!

    Comment by Mike — 6/12/2006 @ 3:51 pm

  49. A late comment but another way is to look at the check functions and simply add return true; at the beginning of them:

    function check_something(){
    return true;

    }

    Then it simply ensures that true (i.e. OK ) is returned for each check.

    Comment by Gazzer — 11/24/2006 @ 3:33 am

  50. I have no problem finding the OSInstall.Dist in the OSInstall.mpkg I just dont know how to make a CD/DVD Master Image. I know what Disk Utility is but Im not all that sure how to use it.Help for this would be greatly appreciated I cant use GarageBand without Tiger and Im going nuts.Thanks for all that you guys have posted so far but this little clarification about the CD/DVD Master Image is most pertinent.

    Comment by Matthew — 11/26/2006 @ 6:41 pm

  51. I had to use Disk Copy because Im runnin on v. 10.2.8. I did everything as posted to no avail all I keep getting is SOFTWARE CANNOT BE INSTALLED ON THIS COMPUTER.What a bummer! Still searching for any insight though.

    Comment by Matthew — 11/27/2006 @ 8:35 pm

  52. I can’t modify the file OSInstall.dist in any way. I tried the Terminal and BBEdit, can’t save the modified file

    How can I make it?

    Thanks a lot

    Comment by PL — 1/23/2007 @ 4:17 pm

  53. ‘m trying this experiment now and am wondering how people (successfully) edited the OSInstall.dist fille. I opened it with Vim but it says my image is readonly. What do I need to do to the image to allow writing back of the changed file? do I need to reset the permissions afterwards?

    http://jonsharp.net/archives/2005/05/06/installing-tiger-on-lombard/

    Updated:

    Whats really strange here is that I saved the image file as read/write enabled. But when I get to the “system” folder and get “info” it saays read only. So I change it and do the same for all the folders and items intil I get to the OSInstall.dist. I modify that as suggested and choose “Save” but it reports it can’t overwrite the existing file. So I save it to my desktop to try a replace drag and drop. Which it allows but when I open the OSInstall.dist file to confirm the replacement its the same old uneditted file I had before.

    Whats going on here..it feels like Big Brother is watching me do this and undoing it.

    What am I missing?

    AS stated I saved the image as read/write but several of the sub folders were still marked as “read” when I hit command I for get info.

    At one point I deleted the OSInstall.dist item from the image file all together. I closed the image file and reopened it to see if was actually gone. It was. But when I dragged the modified image file on my desktop back into the image…closed it , unmounted it, remounted it and looked at the OSINstall file it again had the offending bad machine code back in it. Like I said I can’t explain it.

    As an experiment I tried this on my ipod using it as a firewire drive. I used the instructions on the post listed above then dug into the OSINstall.dist file and tried to edit it. When I went to save it said it could not overwrite the file. So I dragged it to the trash…deleted it..emptied the trash. Unmounted the ipod…remounted the ipod and reopened the OSInstall.mpkg and sure enough the file was gone. I dragged a modified copy of the file into the OSINstall.mpkg, contents folder and opened it with text edit. Sure enough the previously deleted code is back in the script.

    The mystery continues…..(hears the X files theme song)

    Comment by brett — 1/29/2007 @ 11:43 am

  54. […] Next up is shoehorning Tiger onto this machine by hacking the installation CD. I’ll be using the Tiger CD-based install as I lack a DVD drive. I’ll also be replacing the logic board due to a strange buzzing issue (the CPU buzzes whenever the machine is plugged into the mains adapter, which scares me) and perhaps swapping the 256MB stick for a 512MB one. Hopefully that will quiet my inner demons. […]

    Pingback by hunke.ws — 1/31/2007 @ 9:58 pm

  55. Hello, I’m trying to edit the OSInstall.dist, but it won’t let me save.
    When I try and save, first it asks me if I want to overwrite it. When I say “overwrite” it says that it can’t overwrite because it is in the “Contents” folder.
    That Step by Step guid would sure be nice, but I think I have it for now. This is the only snag… Please help!

    Comment by TG — 2/4/2007 @ 1:20 pm

  56. I followed your directions but when I go to burn the dvd it comes back with a incomplete session error I was not sure if was my recorder or my media maybe dunno. Could you tell me what drive you used to burn it and what brand and type of media as well. Thanks for any help you can give

    Comment by Kevin Ramey — 5/4/2007 @ 9:06 pm

  57. OS 10.4 CD INSTALL (Prepare Image on a 10.0 machine)

    I copied the disk1.dmg image onto my OS 10.0 Machine (via ftp).
    If mounted using Disk Copy, it is read-only.
    Therefore, I created a new writable image…
    TERMINAL# cd /DIRECTORY/TO/IMAGE
    TERMINAL# hdiutil convert disk1.dmg -format UDRW -o newdisk1.dmg
    Mount new image using disk copy.
    vi Volumes/NAMEOFVOLUME/System/Installation/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg/Contents/OSInstall.dist

    Before:
    var badMachines = [’iMac’,’PowerBook1,1?,’PowerBook2,1?, ‘AAPL,Gossamer’, ‘AAPL,PowerMac G3?, ‘AAPL,PowerBook1998?, ‘AAPL,PowerBook1999?];

    After:
    var badMachines = [];

    Feel free to modify any other PreInstall checks.

    Write the file. Unmount the image. Burn Image.

    Comment by Jpauls — 5/5/2007 @ 10:03 pm

  58. i am trying to install Tiger onto my clamshell iBook SE (no DVD).

    after created and copied the disk image (thru firewire) of OSX Install DVD and mount to the hard disk, i run the ‘osinstall.mpkg’. but installation halts and prompts “BaseSystem cannot be installed on this computer. This software cannot be installed on this computer.” have also tried to activate the Install Mac OSX but it only leads to reboot and go no further.

    i’m pretty sure that the script has been edited to bypass the installation check and badmachines check.

    appreciate if anyone can offer further help.

    Comment by Steve — 7/16/2007 @ 2:19 am

  59. I just wanted to thank everyone for sharing this information. I run a small computer store (just getting started) and a young kid brought me a Mac Book he’d “bought at a gas station”. He’d paid $500.00 for the thing so I hope - wherever it came from originally - that it was insured. I lectured him about buying stuff in this way, but he was on the hook for $500.00 and had a password protected Mac Book 1,1. I had never touched a Mac. For 5 weeks I tried everything under the sun, including picking up an old iMac G3 for testing things. After downoading dozens of CD sets, “universal” Mac OSx DVDs that did not work, I downloaded some DVDs that purported to be the retail disks for a Mac Book, bought a dual layer DVD burner (which I didn’t have). They tried to work, but failed with the message that I had the wrong hardware…

    From a command line, with DVD 1 mounted on the old iMac, I did the ‘ol triple whamy.

    I edited the OSInstall.dist file thusly (as superuser):

    First Edit (Title = “I never met a Mac I didn’t wanna work for….”)

    var badMachines = ['’];

    Second Edit: (Title = “Some things in life are simply best ignored, completely……..”)

    changed installation-check script=”hwbeInstallCheck()”/
    to
    installation-check script=”"/

    Third Edit (Title = “Can’t we just all work together and get along…????)

    Changed that pesky line down at the bottom (you can’t miss it), to this:

    var hwbeSupportedMachines = [’iMac4,1′,’iMac5,1′,’iMac6,1′,’MacBook1,1′,’MacBook2,1′,’MacBookPro1,1′,
    ‘MacBookPro1,2′,’MacBookPro2,1′,’MacBookPro2,2′,’Macmini1,1′,’MacPro1,1′,’PowerBook6,5′,’MacBook2,1′];

    And, in the above line, you should absolutely do this in Vim to avoid getting a line break - the line break is on this page due to the contraints imposed by the page itself.

    ALSO: I had virtually ZERO luck trying to mount thse things on Windows and editing the above file with a text editor (though posters on torrent sites said this would work). Do this on another Mac (based upon my experience) and use a command line text editor.

    Thanks again,

    Guy Merritt

    Comment by Guy Merritt — 8/6/2007 @ 2:15 pm

  60. Jon

    THANK YOU for this info! I upgraded my macbook to a macbook revision 2 (core 2 duo), and sold the old one on ebay - but I lost the original install DVD. I thought i’d be ok to use the new macbook install DVD, but it complains about the machine. A quick copy of the install dvd to a blank usb hard disk, a vi of the OSInstall file, and I’m one up on MacOS!

    Thanks again

    Mark

    Comment by Mark — 9/6/2007 @ 12:56 pm

  61. this walkthrough is great. there is only one problem i found with these directions. you have make sure that your copy of the .dmg file used is not read only. i “obtained” a copy of tiger to do this with, but the .dmg was read only, which led to hours of frustration until i realized that i had to use disc utility to burn the image to cd, then re-rip the cd to a read/write .dmg. at first i tried to use the terminal to change the owners and the permissions on the .dmg with no success. i might be possible, but it’s beyond me. just use disk utility and everything will be fine

    Comment by @(X!_!X)@ — 10/18/2007 @ 1:17 pm

  62. The suggestions here work great, particularly Jon Sharp’s original suggestions, and and Guy Merrit’s expanded ones.

    Comment by John Sawyer — 12/12/2007 @ 8:35 am

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