Tag Archives: apple

DIY

Hackintosh Mac OS High Sierra Upgrade Troubleshooting

Hackintosh Specifications:

  • Motherboard: GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5 (Intel HD 530 iGPU)
  • CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K Skylake Quad-Core
  • RAM: (4x8GB) 32 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4 3000
  • GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
  • HD: Samsung 840 120GB SSD
  • Audio: Creative Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 USB
  • WiFi + Bluetooth: Fenvi FV-T919 PCI Adapter (native support - highly recommended)

macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 is quite the modern day Apple software upgrade: APFS, Airplay 2, Metal 2 for the full Apple ecosystem... on PC hardware.

I've been putting off this direct OS upgrade for quite some time since I've read about all of the horror stories on tonymacx86. They weren't kidding around. I ran into issues on every step of the upgrade, so I'm hoping this guide will help you. Most online guides do not cover the minor versions of High Sierra nor Nvidia systems.

Prerequisites: Mac OS Sierra, Clover r4630 (great stable version), Multibeast v9.2.1 for Sierra (apply Intel graphics fixes), High Sierra Installer (mine was 10.13.2), apfs.efi, a backup (Carbon Copy Cloner ftw).

  1. After following the prerequisites on tonymacx86, I ran the High Sierra installer (5.22 GB) from the /Applications directory. After a few minutes I was off to the races. After booting into the "install Mac OS" partition, the loader started for a bit and then the spinner completely stalled half way through. The issue is due to booting with the Nvidia card. To solve this issue, I completely removed my graphics card from my case and used my Intel iGPU to continue the installation.
  2. Well once I got back into the installer, it turns out the temp installation directories went missing.

    The path /System/Installation/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg appears to be missing or damaged

    To solve this issue, I reran the installation file (step 1) from my regular Mac OS partition.
  3. Phew, we made it pretty far now, and the installation actually ran to completion following many reboots (boot back into the "install Mac OS" partition everytime). Once I tried to boot into the real deal though, my computer showed the Apple logo and immediately started to reboot. It was stuck in a reboot loop, which immediately lead me to believe this was a kernel panic. I booted back into the mac OS partition with a few boot flags (right click the drive in Clover for options) verbose and do not reboot on kernel panic to diagnose the problem. I discovered I had an old Lilu.kext file. To solve this issue, I booted with the boot flag -liluoff.
  4. Finally, I had logged in successfully to High Sierra. To make sure I didn't have to boot with the -liluoff flag every time I started my computer, I updated Lilu.kext to the latest version in both /Library/Extensions and /EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other/.
  5. Depending on the version of High Sierra you upgraded to, you may have to follow some additional setup steps to enable full functionality: 10.13.2, 10.13.3, 10.13.4, 10.13.5, 10.13.6. I ran through 10.13.2 and 10.13.6 guides to make sure my upgrades went as smooth as possible. At this time, I also installed the basic Multibeast v10.4 High Sierra configurations to enable full compatibility.
  6. Once I had every software thing in place, I reinstalled my Nvidia card and booted with the nv_disable=1 flag (some of the Nvidia drivers can crash on different versions of High Sierra). I updated my Nvidia drivers to the latest, compatible version, and then rebooted...

Voila. Finally, we did it. Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti and High Sierra on the Hackintosh. Drink a beer, you deserve it.

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Programming, Thoughts

Let's add a backdoor to one of the world's most secure devices

Apple's Letter

We are, yet again, at another pivotal piece of Internet legislature. Recently, a federal judge in Riverside, California ordered Apple to assist the government in unlocking and decrypting the iPhone 5C, used by Syed Rizwan Farook, responsible for the San Bernardino shootings in December.

These shootings were one of the worst acts of domestic terrorism in 2015. My thoughts go out to all of those affected. These attacks are despicable and those responsible for the attacks must be help accountable for their actions. Apple has already complied with all valid subpoenas and search warrants, even going as far to make Apple engineers available for advising the FBI.

The FBI fucked up. They compromised their entry to the sized iPhone 5C by changing the Apple ID and password associated with the phone by someone in the county health department, per the FBI's request.

Given that the iCloud auto-backup solution failed and all other feasible recovery solutions are now inviable, the FBI and the Department of Justice asked a judge to order Apple to re-write the firmware just for their unlocking purposes. This proposed new firmware would allow the FBI to remove the automatic wipe feature, allowing them to brute force the password.

I've been reading a lot of misinformed comments on the Internet and thought I'd give my computer science perspective of the situation:

1. Many Internet souls are arguing that Apple is operating based purely off its business model, and that they are using it's security features to maintain its company and brand marketability.

Let me make it very clear that Apple is NOT operating under its best marketing and business interests (surprisingly). This is about Apple's customers and their basic freedoms. Creating a backdoor is not only unlawful, but it puts the vast majority of law abiding citizens and their personal information at risk.

2. Many uninformed Internet warriors are wondering why Apple just doesn't comply with the FBI, given that it's only one user's iPhone and that that user is one of the San Bernardino shooters.

The issue isn't as black and white as it seems. The situation is not a hardware hack, rather it is a software hack. It is easy to think that the backdoor would only be applied to the single iPhone. However, this backdoor vulnerability could be applied to every iOS device in existence. That's over 1 billion devices.

I hope Apple takes this case all the way up to the Supreme Court. This backdoor, if created, could be abused by Apple's internal employees, hackers, even foreign governments if it ended up in the wrong hands. History has shown us that as soon as something is leaked, it becomes available on The Pirate Bay an hour later.

We cannot sacrifice our basic freedoms in the name of terrorism. As soon as we encourage this type of misbehavior, it gives our government unlimited access to all of our private devices. This is how oppressive regimes operate. Let democracy stand.

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