os x/darwin on unsupported machine

Q

QuadrupleJ

Registered
I have an old 9500/120 that I wish to use as an internet (NAT) and file server. I've tried installing OS X on it via XPostFacto with mixed (all bad) results. Either it will kernel panic early at startup, get SCSI Bus reset errors, or load the installer fine but freeze half way through installing it.

The SCSI errors are:
IOSCSIHDDrive[IOBasicSCSI]: SCSI bus reset occurred; begin recovery.
PatchedIOSCSICDDrive[IOBasicSCSI]: SCSI bus reset recovery complete.

I have looked through the past forum topics and some have similar problems but the fixes suggest things like taking out some RAM, which isn't easy in the 9500 and I'd rather avoid it if I could.

Since the 9500 has such a slow CD drive (4X) it takes a very long time to fail, so getting frustrated I thought maybe just putting darwin on it would be a better idea. Do you guys have any thoughts, experiences or suggestions? Like which would be better, 1.3 or 1.4? Or is there some other trick to putting 10.0.4 on that I don't know about?

Oh, and since it would be a file server, is file sharing possible with darwin (to share to macs with 10.1 as well as some with OS 8 and 9)?

Any suggestions, or pointers to somewhere where I could find out more about it, would be great.

oh, btw, the machines's specs are:
PowerMac 9500/120Mhz, 48MB RAM, 2 * 9GB SCSI HDD, 1 * 1GB SCSI HDD. Trying to install OS 10.0.4 on an empty (recently formatted) HFS+ 9GB disk, and running OS 9.1 off the 1GB disk.


Thanx in advance,

J
 
Well, in my opinion, if you know what you're doing with the command-line, I'd suggest loading Darwin on there... the newest one... for a few reasons.

First of all, OS X on 120MHz 604e (right? or 604?) is going to be painfully slow, no matter what kind of upgrades you've got in there.

Second of all, DON'T remove any RAM. I think that may be your actual culprit of all your problems, but not because you've got too much -- quite possibly, because you've got too LITTLE. OS X recommends a minimum of 128MB even for a G3-based computer, and since you're running on an unsupported, slower machine, I'd say that the BARE MINIMUM TOLERABLE for your machine would be 128MB. 48MB is not NEARLY enough to make OS X usable on that machine. I think Darwin tolerates less, but since that is an older, slower machine, grab some RAM and max it out quick before RAM prices really skyrocket again.

I've heard of people loading OS X on machines with 64MB of RAM, but those were G3-based computers, and they said it ran painfully slow without more RAM. I really think you need more RAM (a LOT more) before you think of trying to load OS X on that machine again.
 
Okay, guys, I'll check it out. The only problem with RAM is that it's so expensive for the 9500 :( I might have a look at netBSD, or maybe even yellow dog linux (I heard that wasn't too bad).

Thanx for your help :)

-J
 
You can grab cheap RAM from OWC (http://eshop.macsales.com) at roughly 30-40$ for a 128MB DIMM. This is about as cheap as you will get for older machines. I personally use about 352MB in my 8600/300.

Also, are you sure everything is being done properly with XPostFacto? You can grab an older v2.0 copy that should work a lot better if you are really having problems. You must make sure you start off the CD using XPostFacto or you will get KPs all over the place. RAM *WILL NOT* cause KPs, although bad RAM might not pass a check. Considering your problem is a SCSI/bus error, I would look into seeing what kexts are getting loaded. OS X needs very specific kexts to get loaded at boot for it to work on your machine. If those don't get loaded (through XPostFacto when running an install), you KP in the manner you described. Heck, I have done it myself a few times.

Could you be a little more specific about the process you go through to get the KP? The clearer you are, the clearer the picture I get of what is going wrong. I have installed OS X on my 8600/300 with little problem, and it runs fairly off 96MB RAM, a bit better off with 352MB RAM (OS X under a fair load eats up 300MB).
 
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