Mac OS X running on Apple TV

by editor @ AppleTVHacks.net on April 1, 2007

semthex from Hackint0sh.org, in collaboration with AppleTVHacks.net has done it again! A complete replacement to the Mac OS X kernel has been built which allows the full version of Mac OS X to be run on an Apple TV.

Semthex wrote a processor emulation for the kernel, to sidestep the hardware restrictions that previously disallowed Mac OS X from running on the Apple TV. AppleTVHacks.net was only too happy to help out, and when it turned out we needed more testers we launched a competition to get some. Within hours we had hundreds of eager Apple TV hackers submit entries.

Several hours of testing and refining later and our tester, gimli, managed to follow the steps (included below) to get Mac OS X booting on his Apple TV (click to enlarge):

The Apple TV running Mac OS X can use the mouse and keyboard normally, and you can run regular OS X apps easily. You can use either Front Row or Back Row (or Joost, or VLC, or…) to watch content, and can use it for most things you would use a Mac for.

Tester, mk500, made a video to demonstrate it all working:

How to install

This is the process that was used to turn the Apple TV into a full blown Mac OS X machine:

1) remove the drive from the Apple TV

2) back up your drive! Make an image of it (see the harddrive upgrade tutorial for this)

3) Connect the drive to a regular Mac (use a Firewire or USB drive dock)

4) Install OS X (Intel version) to the drive (we suggest a slim install - no printer drivers etc.)

5) Boot from this drive, and set it up as you would like it. Make sure you do updates so it is at least 10.4.8.

6) Reboot to your normal OS X install.

Ok, you now have your fresh OS X install which will form the base of the customised OS X you will need for the Apple TV.

7) Remove mach_kernel from root of the drive containg the ATV install.

8 ) Replace it with the customised mach_kernel that you’ll find on Hackint0sh.org.

9) Replace /System/Libary/Coreservices/boot.efiwith the same file from your backup of the Apple TV OS drive (OSBoot partition).

10) Run bless:

bless --folder=/Volumes/OSBoot/System/Library/CoreServices --file=/Volumes/OSBoot/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi --setBoot

11) Delete all the Nvidia kexts (all beginning with NVD, there should be 5) from the target drive (in /System/Library/Extensions).

12) Transfer the drive back to the Apple TV

13) Turn the Apple TV on and cross your fingers.

You should boot up into Mac OS X. Woo!

Now what?

This hack seriously opens up the doors with what the Apple TV could be used for; and we imagine we are going to see lots of cool hacks, additions and addons. We will do our best to keep track of them.

A big thanks again to semthex over at Hackint0sh.org; who did the majority of the work, and built the custom kernel.

The brave testers who helped make this happen: gimli, mk500, Turbo, Jonathan Bare, l0rdr0ck.

mbd

Wow, congratulations on this. I'm sure with a 1ghz cpu and only 256mb ram that 10.4.x won't run particularly quickly but it certainly opens the ï£¿tv for dedicated appliance-like apps. Does it recognise the airport and work as expected? And will it recognise USB attached printers and Disks? I'm expecting so for both counts, if it is running os x?

Joe

This kicks ass... now I just need to know if the MPEG2/4 hardware decoder (I assume this has one) is still functional.

I would love to run a mythfrontend on one of these, but only if it can handle playback of high def content.

Also, since it is a full OSX os, I assume it supports external DVD drives too?

The Man of Silver

Boy ... sure didn't take long for that video to get yanked.

How long before Apple sends cease and desist letters to the owners of this site?

(Not trying to jinx you guys or anything)

lux

an aTV on every TV.

Guru Evi

Since the AppleTV is low on resources, it might be a good idea to turn off Dashboard and Spotlight as well as disable other services that might be running standard in OS X. I don't think there is a (non-solder) way to upgrade the RAM in those things is there?

nattyD

nHOLY CRAP!! I knew this would happen but not so soon!!

Wow... this really opens the doors of what the appleTV can do...

I bet we will see Linux and *shudder* windows running on this box very soon...

Also, is the RAM solded onto the board? If is then there isnt much we can do to increase the memory but if it isnt then we can increase it alot depending on how many pins it is... say to 4GB with one chip.... however i will need a lot more spefics on the specs of the RAM to do it properly...

Could some one
please snap a screen of the RAM specs (System Profiler) so i can see what i can do.

MacHerb

You're not really talking about a $300 Mac here, are you? Sounds like that by adding a mouse and keyboard, I could have a Mac with a 60" screen (my big sceenTV) as well as an entertainment center. I can't wait to see what you guys do to the iPhone.

astrochess

Wow. I can just see someone putting this into their car for use as an auto-syncing jukebox (gotta love that 802.11n). The Mac TV has the perfect form factor. Main problems I see are getting the video converted into the proper form and getting a power source set up...

Santon

Hehehe ... nice joke! Next time, try not to forget to change the menue bar in photoshop BEFORE you're going to open the pic in "Preview" as fullscreen ... :-) ... and align the "2" in level2chache a lil' bit better.

andrew

pretty sure he use the Grab function in preview to do the screenshot...could be fake but can't say it is for sure just on that point.

Anonomous

Yeah, Linux I could very well see Especially Ubuntu or a stripped down version. I mean, just pop the ATV drive in a external case, attach, make an ISO, load up the Ubuntu live disk, install, tweak for ATV, pull out, put back, and have fun.

James Katt

This is a fairly useless hack.
It turns AppleTV into a crippled Mac Mini. Big Deal.
It has only one USB port, no firewire, a slow CPU, limited RAM.

Evilduck

@Santon
You're a dumbass. Preview allows you to take screenshots, and in "fullscreen" mode, the menubar of preview isn't visible. The alignment of the 2 looks fine also. I see nothing in the photos to suggest this was photoshopped.

Paul Stamatiou

That's it. I'm getting an Apple TV.

Santon

@evilcock
Yeah, no shit sherlock, but if you take the snapshot in preview, the file appears on the desktop after the snapshot is finished, not while it's been made ... I'm referring to the "Picture...png" under the hd icon.

Anyways, after watching the video, I'm not so sure it's a fake anymore - but things like that on April 1st, you got to be suspicious here ... the date in the screenshot also suggests that it's made on purpose for our beloved fools day.

Matt

@Santon

Dumbass,

Just because there is a picture1 on the desktop doesn't mean that it's the same screenshot as has been taken, it could be one not used on this site.

Not to mention they give you the guide on how to do it - if it was fake they wouldn't show you how to make your appletv boot OSX!

andy

bless --folder=/VolumesOSBoot/System/Library/CoreServices

should be

bless --folder=/Volumes/OSBoot/System/Library/CoreServices

I think you should specify that the name of the aTV hdd is OSBoot as well., and maybe even give a brief explanation of how to back up the aTV's hdd with Disk Utility.

Ace Fury

Why?

Bilal

All you need to do is hook up the eyetv to it and then you have your dvr...but it will cost you to much with the extra harddrive and some effort.

GO MAVS!

Don't forget about us, the PPC users. Waiting eagerly for the cure.

mirkrim

You still need an existing mac in order to do this hack... so it's only a $300 mac if you already have one and just want a 2nd cheapo box.

Ryan

Happy april fools day!

http://www.appletvhacks.net/images/mac_os_x_on_...

semthex

This is not photoshoped, 1st April or anything. It is for real. If you not belive into the video or pics, get the kernel from hackint0sh.org forum and test it yourself :)

Chris

Wow, congratulations! I'm now more excited to purchase an Apple TV. I hope Apple does not step in to block these hacks as it is the reason why I would purchase this thing. Congrats again!

C

I can't wait for April 1 to be over.

themacthinker

This is interesting just to satisfy your curiosity.
In all practicality what is the point of all this? How does it help people getting the most out of your mac?

jeffburg

The perfect low power NAS box and/or download station.

a nony mouse

if this works then has anyone tried to install bootcamp and see what happens?

Alex

This could be a big help to us in the robotics section, its smaller, lighter, cheaper and requires less power then a Mac Mini.

WAY TO GO!

Matt

Wow. I think that the iTv has a better chance with some people if they learn of an easy way to put X on it. I think people here are right though...linux would be a better choice on here...ubuntu or xubuntu. Oh, and I'm sure if adapters and such get made this will make it to the cars :).

salbeik

I love you mannnnn, this is amazing - GRAZ

Brightstar

The freaky thing about this is the fact that there are 0 processors.

Joe

This AppleTV box runs a Sigma Designs 8623 decoder which allows the decoding of H.264 and VC1 formats. The original AppleTV OS only supports 720p HD videos with maximum bitrate of 5mbps.

Does it possible to still use the Sigma 8623 hardware decoder under the Mac OS X 10 in order to play high resolution and high bitrate video files or only the CPU is doing the decoding when using the OS X 10 ?

notsofatjames

i think its a fake. anyone could have made that video and just have a mac conected to the screen, and the picture has preview running as the foregrounda app. its a faked image of system profiler to make it like its running on an aTV

Mac vs PC

Very nice, does seem like a lot of work to get a machine that's half the price and oh ya half the performance of the Mac mini. You get what you pay for I guess? The Mac mini has way more upgrading possibilities too.

I think the Apple TV should stay an Apple TV, maybe ad the AVI-DIVX codecs and somehow get it to play DVD's from your other network Macs, that's all it really needs...

http://www.switchingtomac.com

StephenCIreland

Wow this is great, but heres what im thinking : get a cluster of them and put them as Xgrid nodes for processing, or load OS X server to them, connect a massive external hard disk or use it as a NAS, webserver or something else, or even look at what the asterix guys are doing

bothersome

A lot of people are missing one of the key points... Mac Mini has only 1 video output. This has two... this would be great for applications like information displays where Mac hasn't been able to make a Mac Mini cheap enough to compete with cheap dual/quad display windows machines... if this is true, then Macs may be used in more of these environments very soon..

magsy

When I try to bless:
bless --folder=/Volumes/MacOSX/System/Library/CoreServices --file=/Volumes/MacOSX/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi --setBoot

...I only get "Authorization required"
What am I doing wrong???

Jakob Helmer

Has anyone tried to hook up an EyeTV device to this thing?

ecking

I think this site just sold me an appletv...if this is real.

Enano

Sorry for my english ...

Can do all this with a PPC Mac? I only have a ibook G4 PPC

If this is real iÂ´ll buy one, hope not a joke.

Thanks

CK

April fool!

EDIT-XTREEM

Mod it into a car!

Paulyras

Wow. That's really cool.

Several questions...

1. So, who's going to be the first to hook up an eyeTV to this thing? I'm really anxious to hear how that works.

2. There's no Bluetooth in this thing IIRC. Has anyone tried a bluetooth USB adapter? Longer term, I'd really rather not have a USB keyboard hanging off this thing.

3. Has anyone tried, or would it even be possible using LILO or some other method to dual boot the aTV OS and OS X? I love my aTV for what it is, but would love have this running also.

4. Could someone post a link to an RTF (or other format) export from system profiler? I'd like to see if there are any other surprises in there. Would also likely calm down all of the other people screaming April Fools.

I know, it's a lot of questions, but that's only because of how excited I am about trying this. Excellent job everyone.

michael

april fools days joke maybe?

semthex

Maybe you want to join the hackint0sh.org forum and get kernel to test yourself :)

Also before asking questiosn here in comment, forum is a good place to discuss.

And no, this is for real and no joke.

sanjeve

Hi guys,
Since the video output goes through the HDMI port, is it possible to use the AppleTV running OSX as in-car media center? Or do you think it is possible to use the USB port with a USB hub etc?

Thanks

WJ!

Amazing. 8 days! Congratulations on what seems to be one of the cleanest hacks I've seen.

banana

HDMI to the dell monitor... looks like a 2405... which doesn't have hdmi inputs... hmmm

April

Yeah. April Foool

jimmy

banana, haven't you ever heard of a DVI - HDMI cable?

Frank

Yeah, right ... I'm going to call bullshit on this this one. Even if it's true, what you're gonna do under Tiger with 256MB of Ram ... useless shit.

Happy Fools Day, suckers!

Jim

Congrats - you successfully made a very WEAK and CRIPPLED Mac Mini out of an AppleTV. Not sure why this is a big deal...

John

Anyone going to make a torrent of the patched OSX image to make installing the image on the aTV drive easy and possible for us PPC guys?

David

Do you think we might be able to upgrade the cpu or ram to utilize this? You guys should have a prize for who ever could do this first.

Bloaty

nattyD How Dare You Say the W word on this blog!!! lol
Awsome Project This Would Make a KICK ASS Car Unit with 802.11n and HD!!!
It Could fit in a stock headunit!!!
I just want XBMC, ATVMC!?

Bloaty

THE ATV MOD TO END ALL MODS!!!!
ATV + Internal USB Hub + Bluetooth + Wreless N + WiiMote + MythTV = AWESOMENESS
Cant wait till someone puts a little screen on this and makes it a tablet!!! It would be eaiser to make because it is smaller!!

Bloaty

^EDIT^

THE ATV MOD TO END ALL MODS!!!!
ATV + Internal USB Hub + Bluetooth + EyeTV + Wreless N + WiiMote + MythTV = Micr0$oft Crying about thier useless HTPCS!!!!!!!!!
Cant wait till someone puts a little screen on this and makes it a tablet!!! It would be eaiser to make because it is smaller!!

Erik

Mac os 10.4 runs fine on 256 mb ram. I have a 5 years old g4 that it works on so this should be faster.

Frank

Exactly, 10.4 runs fine on 256 mb ram - but there's really no fun in doing anything under Tiger with this little memory, except surfing porn sites, anything else would be pretty masochistic - which maybe goes hand in hand with surfing porn sites ... so hell yeah, I'm so in! .... Gonna buy this little sucker right now!

eyeTV 250

The EyeTV 250 uses hardware based encoding, delivering compressed video directly into your AppleTV:

EyeTV 250â€™s built-in hardware encoder compresses audio and video signals to MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 formats, freeing up your computerâ€™s processor for other activities. This also means that you can record high quality video even with a less powerful Mac. MPEG-2 is a premium-quality video compression standard, which is the basis for DVD and digital television.

The EyeTV 250 means I can now buy an AppleTV,
mod it with real OS X, and use it to record TV.

xfsasx

Damn! Someone beat me to the EyeTV idea but think about the possiblities here people......

I think we might have something here, i think that now we can do almost everything we ever wanted to do with it!

Heres my list of things i think are now possible.

1. Now we can stream our mac games to the big screen with Remote Desktop which should be fine with wireless N

2. Are we forgetting about Bootcamp? Why is it not possible to have a nice big internal drive and have a full media device. Imagine you can have full appleTV and Windows Media Center capabilities.

3. Someone already said it but EyeTV so now its a DVR!

4. Im thinking its also possible to have bluetooth and have a convienent way to look stuff up on the internet right from the TV!

5. There are so many things that are possible that i cant even list them all. They might be small and stupid things like using your appletv as an alarm clock but it can be done. My favorite thing would be to see if it supports the isight and for example i could be upstairs and video chat with my girl downstairs to tell her to get me a beer or something, or use the isight to record to the HD while I'm away on vacation. Whatever it is it can now be possible!!!

Miracle Herbs

Hey thats great stuff.
Digged for great post.

john

Has anyone tried making Media Central there default player? It supports replacing Frontrow on full blown mac and support Mpeg2 and AC3 plus divx and avi and net aslis

Apple Lifestyle

This is quite cool but I'm afraid the limited capacity of the ï£¿TV won't let you do much stuff on it. Still a cool hack if real. Congrats!

For me, the real nice hack for the ï£¿TV would be to enable the airport card in it so we can use it as an airport base station while in the ï£¿TV OS. That way, we can save the money on the additional airport base station. I'm sure this little device has everything it needs to act as a wireless router, it is just that Apple wants us to buy the base station too... ;)

May be someone using Mac OS X on it can check if it can be used to create a wireless network, this will confirm my speculations...

In any case, love the site, thanks!

ThinkTanker

I liked the idea of connecting my Macbook Pro to my 57 inch RPTV but all I could get out of it was a DVI S-Video connection which sucked due to its 640x480 resolution...I could hardly read text while surfing the net. With the aTV I could get Apple HD quality into my Projo. When I`m working in Photoshop, I could use this to stream movies on my big screen without touching my main computer. I could even pick up a nice 22 inch monitor and feed the HDMI to it to have a bedside computer. All the possibilities are exciting me and I would be wearing less on my MBP to boot.

josh

Now if only the memory could be upgraded!
Like most people I have plenty of spare parts laying around (bigger HDD, wireless keyboard and mouse.) If you could upgrade the memory, install OSX and hook up a wireless keyboard and mouse to it you could have a decent Email, websurf, itunes machine to keep around the house for around half the cost of a mac mini.

Okami

April 1st, anyone?

I'd love if this was true, but come on...

gordon

isn't this going to be very very slow? i do however like the idea of a stripped down mac attached to my tv.

g.

http://www.cheapgreencar.com

Cheapest Mac ever, or April Fo

[...] Now the AppleTVhacks.net crowd have truly surpassed themselves by getting OS X 10.4.8 to run on the box. [...]

xfsasx

i have the aTV os on an external HD and it works awesome but i cant seem to get the video out to my tv. I use the mini dvi to svideo but it just shows the appletv logo and my macbook screen shows the main display. When i boot from it i have two users to login from. 1 is Admin and the other says apple tv. When i log in as admin its just normal os x with dock and everything but under display properties its extending my desktop so i change it but its only for user Admin. I have no control of the user options for aTV. If someone knows how i can change the display options for another user without being logged in as that usr please let me know!

Alnitak

This is the real deal...works like a champ. Ethernet doesn't work, audio isn't working, but a D-Link Bluetooth adapter works, and I am using it just fine.

BTW, my machine says it's a 1.5GHz Intel processor, which is what I read on the web. Also, I am running the JaS OSX install, since I had a ThinkPad running that already...all I had to was make the few changes at the top. May be why I am getting the correct CPUID.

john

Anyone tried install Quicktime Mpeg2 codex from Apple which they sell for $19.99. Wonder if you install it if the Apple TV will outpost 5.1 audio or not.

Andrew

So, whats next?

shall we begin checking to see if we can replace the CPU?

:D

Matt Carrell

Surprise! The real news is that the AppleTV on a clean 10.4.9 install on a blank drive rates on XBench at ~56% of the speed of a 2GHz dual processor PowerMacG5!!!!!!

And that's no April Fools! Check my results!

http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc2=220620

IT WILL NOT RUN POWERPC APPS! (Well, it will, but so slowly you'll wish you hadn't tried.).. The Rosetta engine to run PPC requires SSE3, but the Intel chip in the AppleTV does not have SSE3 instructions and the SSE3 has to be software emulated as part of this hack..

Intel apps run beautifully! I am typing this on Safari right now on my Apple TV!

Audio isn't working (at least over the HDMI port, standard audio not tested yet). OpenGL apps don't show graphics. Everything else seems to work fine. I'm sure those two minor issues will be resolved soon. $300 mac.. who knew? WOOHOO!

TESTER

NHEED APPLE TV 256MB RAM upgrade to 512MB or more...

TESTER

and install vista...
;D

Marek

NajtaÅ„szy Macintosh: Apple TV

http://www.macnews.pl/index.php?option=com_cont...

CarbonCopy

This is a totally useless hack...

GrooveCafe

Thank you for semthex..

http://groovecafe.jp/

Pete

VERY nicely done, I thought this was an April Fool's at first, but no! Makes me wonder about buying an Apple TV now.

Now it's running, can anyone do a test for me? Does Rosetta work? Parallels? VMWare? Linux or Windows running virtual?

And (OK, noob talking here, but I don't have time to look too hard to find the answer) is the RAM upgradeable? I'm guessing not, but it'd be cool if there was a mod to.

Pete

Peter iNova

Can you now run movies onto the screen with all the flags available through iTunes? The stock AppleTV can't run them as a continuous loop, but iTunes can.

Perhaps this is just an example of V1.0-itis, but without the ability to simply loop a movie, all sorts of kiosk applications can't be approached. But a hacked AppleTV with a custom program could easily become a HD kiosk-display gizmo. Interactive, even. And you can't beat the price.

Next up: Getting multiple hacked AppleTVs to play HD in sync with each other. Multiscreen HD displays, anyone?

nix

So is this bogus / April Fools day crap?

digitix

Is possible add EyeTv Hybrid at AppleTV?

D1

I wonder if you can upgrade or tweak the CPU, RAM or video or any other components (hd has been upgraded). Maybe it could also be interfaced with multiple tweaked ATV systems to run as one.

BertC

"Very nice, does seem like a lot of work to get a machine thatâ€™s half the price and oh ya half the performance of the Mac mini. You get what you pay for I guess? The Mac mini has way more upgrading possibilities too."

Sometimes it's the other way around, Apple TV is faster than the G4 mini...
http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=220620&am...

If youre getting an Apple TV for what it's intended for, this is the icing on the cake.

Epon

Honestly, ElGato needs to seize this opportunity and work with apple or some other software developers to make the EyeTV Hybrid be able to plug into the usb port, and use a plugin to BackRow to allow you to browse the channels or select shows for recording, then have the recordings available in a folder. Frappliance could handle this easily if it just puts drops the DVR content in the movies folder.
With this working, EyeTV, frappliance, perian, and the A52Codec would make this almost everything desired for a media center in the living room, all running on apple hardware. I think the only other feature needed would be itunes streaming content from the internet radio stations.

I actually thought it would do all this out of the Box, shame on you Apple.
This of course minus the EyeTV, but if it played content from our movies folder, we wouldnt have that problem anyhow would we?

Maybe AppleTV was way to far behind schedule originally, and they "Used us all" to finish up their research. We should all have jobs with Apple now. 8P

Enjoy yours as I have mine! My AppleTV still has not made it out of the computer project room, heh. At this rate I'll be buying a widescreen TV before it makes it's way into the living room.

Dbug

It certainly is cool to see this hack so soon. Of course almost everyone would want a faster Mac with more RAM for general use, but this shows the flexibility possible on the software side of things.

While this could function as a PVR with the addition of Eye-TV, those wanting to remove commercials may get some sluggish behavior when editing video with only 256 MB RAM. But the biggest factor for me would be the CPU being far too slow for recompressing recordings into a size suitable for archiving. Although the Apple-TV appears to have adequate CPU for 720p playback, it may very well have some trouble doing so on-the-fly from 1080i recordings (which some NBC HDTV use). For the best display quality, some cpu-intensive de-interlacing is sometimes needed also.

It's far better to go with a variation of Apple's plan, with the remote machine(s) handling any video purchase, PVR, recompression, and archiving functions. Modifications to handle additional video formats certainly would be useful. Supporting additional storage on the USB port could be very useful for some also. Being able to occasionally use VLC or go surf could be very handy too.

I have to laugh when people talk of using clusters of these for processing. A Core 2 Duo mini is vastly more powerful (more costlyyes, but more MIPS/$).

Apple was wise to have not used anything less than the Core Duo when they switched to Intel. While one can still do some fun things with less, don't be fooled into thinking a 1 GHz CPU with minimal RAM is going to adequately support all of the things OS X is usually used for. Viewed as a sort of mega-screen enhanced OS X video iPod with unexpected bonus features Apple-TV is a killer product, but as a Mac substitute it'd leave most disappointed.

Don't let Xbench scores comparing with a G5 fool anyone either. If you really want to see where those scores fall short, compare G3 and G4 machines. The G4 shows hardly any advantage!
Critical video applications used AltiVec in the G4/G5 for a huge huge boost. The later Intel SSE2 and SSE3 instructions aren't reflected in the benchmarks either... Xbench is useful for comparing similar setups (like when overclocking), but should be taken with a grain of salt otherwise. Actually performance will depend very much on what an application does and how it was coded.

Marc

Can the appletv play full 1080i or 1080p video now that it is running OS X, as this would make it a definite purchase for me.

dltv

No this cant play 1080P content it has a max resolution of 1280 by 720 pixels at 24 fps, 960 by 540 pixels at 30 fps. I read somewhere that it will accept 1080i signal but will only output a max resolution of 720p.

Straff2002

So has anyone got vlc running on it yet? And is there any sound that can be possibly enabled in order to play movies thru VLC

Straff2002

kinda answered my own question rereading lol so it will run vlc. The main thing is whether sound is enabled?

P|xeL

Nice hack! ;-)
P|xeL

Nick

Can't you just delete iTunes off your computer so it wont eject the Apple TV and use your network to search for the drives and do the whole thing remotely?

rcfa

The instructions aren't clear: can the OS be installed with an "erase and install", or does it have to fit into the OSBoot partition?
Can the partition be resized, or will that prevent the system from booting?

Skizzle

After installing OSX, does it recognize the built in WiFi?

lawrence

Dear poster:

I'm writing to inform you that this article has been translated into Chinese by yours truly and was posted on Yeeyan.com:

http://www.yeeyan.com/articles/view/lawrence/684

You may have known about this via trackback, this is an official notice out of courtesy.

Yeeyan is an 'open source/collaborative translation' project dedicated to the free flow of information between different languages and cultures. It's completely non-profit and we don't have advertisement of any kind on the website. All translators work voluntarily.

The Chinese-to-English version of Yeeyan is here: en.yeeyan.com

You are given full credit as the author of the original article and a link to it is placed right below the title.

Thanks for your writing, I look forward to reading more of them.

best,
Lawrence

Luke

Well, there are a few people calling this a hoax, and I don't think I've seen anyone else say "I tried it, and it worked", so I will:

I tried it, and it worked.

Well, I actually followed the instructions on AwkwardTV (http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Enable_SSH_Witho...) to get it to boot from USB, and that's even better.

I'm going to try installing some stuff, then I'll hopefully do a write-up, and drop a link in here.

Luke

Hmm, seems I spoke too soon.

Though it does start booting OSX, it eventually just hangs with a grey no-entry sign in the middle of the screen.

Any idea what I can try?

Milkman

Does anyone think it's possible to turn a mac mini into an AppleTV? What if you cloned the AppleTV hard drive to an external hard drive and attached it to the Mini? Could you then have the ability to boot into either OS on your mini? Of course you wouln't have the HDMI out, and I guess you would have to find a remote control solution. Just curious.

RAM-Upgrade

HOW DO YOU UPGRADE APPLE-TV RAM?

256 MB is slim for OS X.

Is the AppleTV RAM socketed or hard wired into the circuit board?

A 2GB upgrade will make that 1.0 GHz CPU FLY!!!

Rui

CanÂ´t I hack the Apple TV to run Linux instead ?? IT should be a better option ... Right ??

Rui

CanÂ´t I hack the Apple TV to run Linux instead ?? IT should be a better option for the hardware envolved... Right ??
On the other end ?? De we loose the TV ??
Or can we run both ... Linux and TV ??

Tuf

Rather smooth for a 1Ghz

bit

Is this another case of microsoft's xbox suddenly being able to run things like the xbox media center, and pretty much running like anything from a media center to a computer for browsing the internet et cetera? (in that case ofcourse information was accidentally released from microsoft it self....) That pretty much helped sell a lot of microsoft's consoles which would have stayed on shelves for a long time (unlike sony's consoles). I think apple isnt going to shut these guys down, it wont aprove of them but it will simply benefit from the fact that many people will run out to buy their tv boxes and trying to run os x on it et cetera. It wont do wonders as it comes with 256 MB of ram and a 1 ghz processor from what the guys said.

Everyone here is a winner, apple sells more boxes, gets its products into more and more homes, home users get to play around with a gadget that is not a replacment for a mac, but probably runs mac os on it anyway giving a taste of the operating system for users on a more day-to-day basis. And i guess if it is based on intel's processors and on the i86 platform it might even run windows or any other operating system if one wanted to do that.

It seems like everyone is a winner here, and apple the biggest. Well done guys!

Daegor

Everybody seems to be saying this is a useless hack, it is NOT

OS 10.4.x is a very streamlined OS, i currently use it every day on my 350 mhz G3 Clamshell iBook with 256 MB RAM, on a 20 GB HD, it works perfectly fine, i can run anything that doesn't involve the video card much (obviously), and it's all pretty snappy, everything loads up and runs quickly, and i can run quite a few apps at a time, the OS start up time is not fantastic, but not bad either, usually about 30 to 45 seconds

by the way, the process to get OS X on a clamshell is pretty much the same as the aTV, minus the messing with the system crap, just put the HD in a PPC machine with firewire and a DVD drive, install, and put it back in the clamshell, works great

Scoot

This is great IF you have an Intel Mac. I don't. How long till they show up on eBay?

Buzzy

@Santon

Dumbass.

messman

Clean off your desk !!!

Niels

European OS X installed: mouse working, audio device missing

I installed the latest European version of OS X 10.4.9 on Apple TV without problems. Surprisingly the keyboard and mouse is working without further modifications. However, the audio device is not present (!). Audio output is not possible. Any help is really appreciated.

-- Niels

Niels

Apple TV won't play HD videos.

I tried to play back HD-Video encoded as Quicktime without success. Neither ATV running Apple TV OS with probably hardware acceleration nor OS X with Quicktime could play back a 1080 video. The Apple TV under OS X with Quicktime is way to slow to playback 1080 HDV. The required performance will be probably twice as high. Eventually HDV can be played back on ATV with hardware decoding support.
The ATV I tested runs at 1080 screen resolution.

-- N.

"This AppleTV box runs a Sigma Designs 8623 decoder which allows the decoding of H.264 and VC1 formats. The original AppleTV OS only supports 720p HD videos with maximum bitrate of 5mbps.

Does it possible to still use the Sigma 8623 hardware decoder under the Mac OS X 10 in order to play high resolution and high bitrate video files or only the CPU is doing the decoding when using the OS X 10 ?"

Niels

Infrared remote control?
Has anybody used the infrared remote with OS X?

-- N

Jaques

Great!

Mark

It's not a fake. The Preview screen shot was done using the Grab.app, this was to show us, the viewers, the image is original and live off of the AppleTV machine.

Kevin

Has anyone tried bootcamp yet?

I am interested on whether the graphics is supported with hardware acceleration under windows xp (although 256mb is obviously pushing it a little).

Trevor

Any suggestions on how to install OS 10.4 on a 900MB partition (step #4)?

It seems that the smallest install which I have found on Macbook or iMac CDs is ~2GB.
I have been trying this for the past few days - used gpt and iPartition to attempt to
resize the OSBoot volume with no success. thanks.

Timus

Windows is a dog on a full blown computer. Why would you want to put it on this?

thiago ferreira

Ã© q meu computador nao tem o programa de usb , eu abri ele e vi q tinha o nome aslis ...
como baixo este programa ?

BOlle

@Trevor:

Try PortableOSX to install a 'light' version of OS X: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/maco...

MadMacs

For all the PPC users, please somebody do an image of a hacked appleTV HDD and post the torrent.
So every PPC user can copy the image to the AppleTV harddisc.
Thx

Motorcycle Guy

This is pretty awesome. If I were going to hack the Apple TV i would go all the way and do this. I wonder how well this performs though.

JIzzle

WOw im definitely not getting this product. HACKERS!

RadioC1ash

Great work, everybody. I'm enjoing my OS X Enabled AppleTV and posting this comment. I haven't been able to find anything on the Apple Tv image that will fix up the audio and video, so I look forward to seen what better minds come up with.

Greg

This is an awesome hack, as soon as I get my hands on the 2000 TDI Jetta or Passat I have been eyeing for long while, guess what the apple tv is going to be used as a mac car computer. I thought of using a mac mini, but this is even better and because the apps I'm going use and possibly writing myself won't need anything more than 256mb of memory or 40gb harddrive space, this will be perfect. Good work everyone, keep these hacks coming. :-D

Mixpower

Hey,

I have to install Mac OS X on the hdd but on what partition i have to install it ?
on the media partition or could i just format the whole thing and only let the EFI partition intact ?

Thanks.

Mixpower

ryan

Does anyone know if it is possible to obtain the ATV's boot.efi file without removing the ATV's hard dive?

nm

Has anyone tried using connect360 on the appletv seeming its cheaper than a new mini?

e-tv

Has anyone had any luck with getting the audio and IR to function with this hack?

Chris

does anyone know whether you can add ram to the second slot
even if the first slot is soldered in?

James Brown

Everything goes fine until I get to step 10. When I run the "sudo bless --folder=/Volumes/AppleTVDrive/System/Library/CoreServices --file=/Volumes/AppleTVDrive/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi --setBoot" command I get this error:

Could not get path in device plane for service
Can't get Open Firmware information
Can't set Open Firmware

Any suggestions?

Thanks, James.

jimmy

wow. just get a mac mini for a few hundi more and get a computer you can actually use. 256MB doesn't let you do much. My MacBook came with 512 and it was just good enough for web surfing and word /excel. I can't imagine having 1/2 the ram at 256mb...

but pretty cool otherwise. just not a real computer solution.

will kim

I was wondering if something like this was possible on a media extender hard drive enclosure. such as...

http://www.mediagateusa.com/html/mg35ndas.html
http://www.i4u.com/section-viewarticle-111.html

any ideas?

Martyn Wilkinson

I've tried the EyeTV Diversity under Mac OS X on the AppleTV and it works, kind of. I'm watching it using Chicken on the VNC and the 'playback' screen is just a black rectangle (I'm guessing either a missing codec or a CotVNC issue), but scheduled programmes get recorded perfectly. Point a separate copy of the EyeTV software, running on another Mac, at the EyeTV Archive folder on the AppleTV over a fileshare and it works pretty well. You need to relaunch the EyeTV software for the listings to update though.

The biggest bugbear is that the AppleTV doesn't keep good time. The clock seems to run about half real-time, so although the software will record your programme at the appointed hour, chances are you've already missed it. There's got to be a workaround, but I don't know what it might be.

BTW, just in case anyone's wondering, yes, I have two Mac OS licences and two EyeTV licences. Dunno about the legality of running Mac OS X on the AppleTV, but at least Apple and Elgato aren't out of pocket.

astro

i can't get very far at all - i've managed to create the partition on my ipod and install mac os x 10.4.8 on there.

however, i can't get the mac to boot from the usb drive to customise the install!

how do you get the mac to boot from a usb drive?

i've tried all the options that are supposed to work, i've checked the ipod and its working fine, all the system files are on there properly, etc.

i just can't get the mac to boot from the usb drive (ipod)

do i have to repartition and reinstall? anyone else have this problem?

Kurt Theurer

Well, I have finally the 10.4.8 working on the Apple TV. A few things I have realized:
- THe 10.4.8 version is more hardware sensitive, it detects problems with the hard disk that the 10.4.5 doesnÂ´t detect.
- The partition type should de GUID in order to boot in a Mac Intel machine, there are 3 types: one for Powe PC Mac, another for dual booting with Windows XP (Master Boot) and the GUID for Mac Intel. This was my first problem until I realized where to change the partition type: Disk Utility, Partition, OPTIONS.
- Once you have the GUID partition type the Mac Mini let me install the OSX in my USB drive. Second problem, I installed the 10.4.5 then update to 10.4.8 and the system never boot again. I tried a dozen times with the same results.
- I change the hard drive I was using and BINGO the update to 10.4.8 worked perfectly, I boot in the Mini Mac from my USB hard drive and installed all the updates to 10.4.8 from 10.4.5
- Then I installed the cracks, erased the Nvidia files and PRESTO I have the 10.4.8 running in the Apple TV

My problem now, I dont have SOUND!!!

Somebody could help me to get sound in the Apple TV with 10.4.8???

Kurt Theurer

I mean the analog sound (red and white connectors).

josh

When I do bless:
bless â€“folder=/Volumes/OSBoot/System/Library/CoreServices â€“file=/Volumes/OSBoot/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi â€“setBoot

it says â€œAuthorization requiredâ€
Can anyone help me please?? i tried everything i know :(

Kurt Theurer

Yes put sudo before the order, that is all!

sudo bless â€“folder=/Volumes/OSBoot/System/Library/CoreServices file=/Volumes/OSBoot/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi â€“setBoot

This has worked for me.

josh

hey Kurt..
thanks a lot,, it's worked...
now i found there is no audio driver and it's completely impossible to mount and .dmg image... is it a known bug? something wrong from my side??!!!

Kurt Theurer

Well I have the same problem with the sound, and I have tried several "drivers" there are in other forums but neither has worked.

Well, with the .dmg files, I have already installed Media Central from a .dmg file.

Kurt Theurer

Well, donÂ´t forget it is a 256 MB RAM machine, you have to check the RAM requirements of the software you are planning to install!!!

There are some programs that need 384 MB of RAM or more in order to run.

Kurt Theurer

Have anyone made something usefull with the sound?????

Kurt Theurer

There are 3 kinds of partition in Macs. The GUID for Intel based Macs, the one for for PowerPC based Macs, and the one for Windows partition, Master Boot. When you are in the partition window, click on OPTIONS and choose the right one for you.

Mac Intel has to be GUID.

Kurt Theurer

What about sound (audio) and video acceleration???

There have been 4 months since we installed the OS X 10.4.8 in the Apple TV and we still don't have neither of them!!!

cuvtixo

Can I use Network Sharing to make my Mac OS X Apple TV (nano mac?) a wireless router? a NAT router? I've found Mac Mini to be much easier to use for a multimedia server, but I'd like to harness AppleTV's wireless-n (pre-n?) Any succcessful or unsuccessful attempts?

meagain

I have yet to see a nice video on youtube, etc. of any type of minimal running of os x (tiger) running the basics on AppleTV. I want to see how it is to surf in Safari, pull up Mail, run live feeds of something, etc. I'd like to see how fast/slow/cumbersome it is to function in it before I buy.

I'm hopeing someone will put something up?

Kurt Theurer

What about sound and accelerated video for the OS X on the Apple TV, any news?????

Zeke

Kurt,

I've found drivers that are supposed to work for sound, but the RCA (RED and WHITE) don't appear to work, and I have not tested the digital out (the fiber/light).

Regarding CE (Accelerated Video), I think this is working. Anyhow, just google for aTVOSX, and grab the newest torrent that finds, I did the hack manually, but look at the script for reference. It has drivers for the video, and for sound. The video seems much better on my aTVOSX (1024/768).

Sound, still have not got it working yet.

I've been working on the .dmg not mounting issue and found a temporary fix. From the shell you run:

sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/IOHDIXController.kext

Not sure if you experienced this. I have to run this every once and a while if/when a .dmg fails to mount.

I've also been trying to find out how to get my remote working with the aTVOSX, and to stop the blinking light... still working on it.

Lastly, I'm going to use another aTV that I've borrowed from a buddy to try and install 10.4.10. Or maybe the 10.5 if I can get a hold of a hackintosh copy on .torrent.

If you have any input regarding the remote, or the blinking light. Let me know.

Peace,

Z3K3

Michael Lim

HI,

I would need your help. I loaded my pictures on apple tv. My ibook hard drive crashed and the only backup for my pictures in in the apple tv iphoto sync. Can anyone tell me how I can copy it back to my I book g4

thanks

MIke Lim

_intrepido_m_

Hi all

I do not know what is the actual status of the project, but I cannot hear on any output.. Surely some of the guys will soon release a fix... But mean whil I got one question, if the original aTV had a sort of MacOS and there are extensions already workingm Why is not possible use them?

Thanks to all
Juan.

Rootuser

Hi

"
3) Connect the drive to a regular Mac (use a Firewire or USB drive dock)

4) Install OS X (Intel version) to the drive (we suggest a slim install - no printer drivers etc.)
"

How is the actual install done ? Is the drive erased or is osx insalled on the largest patition ?

Regards

Steve

i did this hack and running OSX but its buggy and can't get sound working...im really sad now

Cody

For all you people that need sound just buy a cheap usb sound card. Like so... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item... I like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item... they will both work.

mic

i did it but Ethernet is not work and can not mount a dmg file.

mic

they worked with IOHDIXController.kext and PCGenRTL8139Ethernet.kext!

Berra

Is there anyone who has tried running skype video on a hacked Apple TV? I want to do video calls without using a Mac/PC. Would be neat to use my TV, a web cam and a Apple TV.

Benson

Hi guys.
Yesterday I installed Mac OS X on my new Apple TV. It all works great. BUT, there some points, which aren't great:
-First of all, My HD Tv cut the top of the screen and a little bit of the bottom. So I can't see the top taskbar, but ich can blind click some buttons... like spotlight, date&time and Apple Icon in the left corner.... HOW CAN I Solve this problem? In Displays, there is only one resolution and I cannot turn into PAL or NSTC...because I think the Apple TV sends NSTC signal, but my TV needs PAL.

-Second one: Youtube Video stucks, the first few seconds are playing and then it stops... The same with MyVideo

- Third: No 3D Graphics. I've testet Chess... but I cannot move figures... then I started xBechn, and GL Test Windows was black....

-Very stupid one, There is no turn off.... How do i get Apple TV on and off, without unpluggin the power cord everytime. Even when I didn't install Mac OS X on it.... HOW DO I turn this off?? Apple should build in a power button

-The last one: There is a permanent blinkng light in the front. That sucks. Is this normal?

My ResumÃ© is, that Apple Tv really cannot be used as a normal Mac. But that was THE REASON to buy one.

Please give me some tips! Imortant ist Youtube and Resolution and a way to turn off. Thanks a lot for help.

TimothyP

Hi,

Any chance of getting the EyeTV 310 to work on te AppleTV like this?
Currently I'm using the patchstick version, unwilling to open up the ATV, but for this I'd open it up.

SamuelP

The reason why ATV does not run OSX at 100% is on the Pentium M processor, it only supports SSE2 instruction set, and you may need to install the SSE2 hack from the X86 community.

OSX needs both SSE2 and SSE3 instruction sets.

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL...

T3ch13

Could I use my shiny new leopard disk to install then apply the fixes or do I need to install Tiger?

Thanks

SamuelP

Hi guys,

I want to plug a VGA monitor to an ATV, by pluging a HDMI-DVI adapter followed by a DVI-VGA one.

Is it possible to work?

Thanks.

Leo

@Benson #303

Use Aplication/Utilities/Terminal, and type
shutdown -h now
or
shutdown -p now
(-p is for powerdown)

Viel Spass!

Chase

Doesn't anybody simply have a torrent or disk dmg download of the exact image ready to copy onto the USB thumbdrive?

Better yet, a disk image of the entire OSX image to Software Restore onto the new AppleTV hard drive to boot in Tiger/Leopard???

Please somebody! You could probly even sell access to the dmg!

Then it's practically 1 step!!

Anybody willing to provide & share?

iTuner.

I suppose this would also work with Mac OS X 10.4 Server? It should be the same system, right?

maiki

Hi,
is any Audio on Apple TV with Mac OS X working ? i have installed 10.4.11 and i have no sound.

THX
Maik

PealJam

Well i did miss my laptop and i lost my AppleTV image , any body knows where i can find file image Apple TV , plzzzzzz , and how would i restore my apple TV as i did try to install mac os X but faild too

cheers

Matthew

maiki,

Are you using the stereo (red/white) or optical audio connection?

PealJam

yep , it is working just fine , and do not use leopard , i think it need more test with you guys , ,. just use sudo bless it would run ,,,,

MacBook Pro 15.4" intel , OS X 10.4.11 ,

cheers

Chase

I get no sound also, and I cannot see the menubar and half the dock is cut off. How can we enable sound and alter the dimensions of the screen size?

roberto

Hi all.....Yesterday I installed Mac Os X 10.4.8 on a disk and it started very well!
I found a couple of problem:

-SOUND-
Seems there is no sound output from the AppleTV; I'll try to investigate more at this moment, I have no sound from it

-QUICKTIME-
We tried to run a movie in full screen and we found a *terrible* scaling of the images..... QT is in PRO mode, with PERIAN and Flip4Mac. If we run the same movie with the "normal" AppleTV startup, the quality is great.

Any suggestion?

rob

law

Which partition (OSBoot or Media) should I install the OSX in the ATV? I try to install it into the Media and finished all required steps but it still boot the ATV OS not the OSX. Can anyone help? Many thanks

Daniel

Is there any way to do this from a Windows XP/Vista Box. I looking to make the Apple TV my first Mac.

Question-Maccer

Black-Screen,

If you are running through HDMI and get the black screen, just pull the cable (HDMI) from your Apple TV and wait for 10 seconds and connect it again, this works fro me anytime. Though the few times it does not work i reboot it with th eordinary AppleTV OSX, and then turn it off and reboot from the external drive.

Any news on getting sound to work?

/Maccer

teeteebahbah

Does anyone know if the semthex kernel will work with Leopard? If not, is there a Leopard version of the semthex kernel? Are the installation instructions the same? etc, etc.

Fred

Hi,

I've successfully installed 10.4.11 on my ATV.

But I would like to restore it back to the original OS.
(I don't want to buy a USB soundcard to make it work) And I find the system quite slow.

Amd, of course, I haven't made any HDD backup before formating the ATV hdd. I only made the OSBoot disk backup.

All the procedure I've found on the net explain how to do it with your backups.
How can I do it without hdd images ?
Or could someone send me a complete HDD backup via FTP ?

Warren

teeteebahbah Says:
December 30th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Does anyone know if the semthex kernel will work with Leopard? If not, is there a Leopard version of the semthex kernel? Are the installation instructions the same? etc, etc.

Do you think seriously that Leopard will works on a 1ghz processor and only 256Mb memory non-upgradable ? I'm pretty sure that not.

Nick D

I got it working, works pretty good. i'm running 10.4.9.

Same for me not working is sound, and video, couldn't get frontrow to go, also amp 1.4 didn't work as well.

The airport is working, i connect wirelessly, but it shows as not configured. ...

Also the system profiler doesn't work. I see it for a second or two, then it quits.

oh yeah, for usb, i'm using a usb hub, i haven't got anything to work but the keyboard and mouse.

This will be amazing if someone can figure out video, bluetooth.

Viewing web pages look amazing on the plazma, and pages like youtube...don't work so well, the video works but only for 10 or so seconds then stops, and if you jump to a different part in the movie you see another 10 seconds.

Sooo close to being amazing.

I'm probably going to mount in car, once a few more things are fixed or enabled.

Nick D

Update, so , the airport works on the first time after i load Tiger, and i can transfer file between macs. , i'm actually running 10.4.10,
If i shut down, and restart it, the airport does not work.

The usb only works with the keyboard and mouse. I plugged in my ipod nano, and the nano did it's please do not disconnect, but did not show up in itunes.

Ames

Has anyone got USB audio working on Apple TV by loading full OS X?

I'm somewhat of an audiophile and I'm looking for the simplest way to enable the USB for audio - I have a Benchmark DAC-1/USB and want to use USB audio rather than the supported TOSLINK (there's a real audible difference.)

Any comments appreciated.

leboots

Ive been reading all over the web of people doing this. Quite frankly is amazing, with the price drop, having a mac that small for $229 is unheard of....but heres one problem i have... theres always a bunch of people on the forums that say the sound and video acceleration doesnt work... i want someone who has done the mod and can honestly respond with a real answer on these findings. not even the wiki has this information, to my knowledge... seems like everyone is focusing on the mod and not the aftermath. it would be really great if some one could post exactly what does and does not work. ESPECIALLY wifi, audio, video ... and weather frontrow loads up and works. what about the new 229 dollar ones? will the work as well? mad props to all the people who worked on this project.

KnowITAll

LeBoots-

I feel your pain. I decided to buy a ATV in November to throw OSX on, and only now, after countless hours of research and tweaking, have it 95% working like a real Mac. Luckily, the list of what is not working is llimited to only three items right now:

1. 3D acceleration (QE/CI) when using the HDMI port. This will work, however, when using component. Keep in mind, that even Chess will not run without QE/CI...

2. Status light always is blinking. However, you can "fix" that by opening the case up an cover the LED with tape.

3. VERY (emphasis on very) poor performance when running apps in Rosetta, as the processor lacks SSE3, and this is emulated in the hacked kernel. So limit yourself to Universal Apps only.

Things that will need to be patched/fixed after the OSX.4.11 install:

Audio (fully working, google AppleHDA patcher for info)

Graphics (only if you want 3D acceleration, and are using component. Otherwise, delete all nvidia kexts as instructed)

Ethernet - search for PCGenRTL8139Ethernet.kext

Apple System profiler will crash - Patch located here:
http://forum.osx86scene.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&...

System time has a bad drift due to hacked kernel. If you need (somewhat) accurate system time, you will need to set up a cron script to call the ntp update daemon at desired intervals (I have mine set at 2 minutes)

Disk Images do not load correctly. Need to call this terminal command to fix:
sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/IOHDIXController.kext
I have just created a executable script to run and placed it in my dock to avoid this process. It's a good workaround.

As you can see, this is not for the time-limited or faint of heart. But with work, it makes a good machine. Words of warning:

Leopard does not work, and probably never will.

There is no power switch. Go buy yourself one of those remote light switches, and use that to power on and off the box.

The ATV runs hotter than you could ever imagine (almost too hot to touch). Give it lots of space and circulating air.

Well, I think that is all for now. Should you have any more questions, let me know.

Kurt Theurer

Thanks KnowITALL, but I have just fought 10 days finding the correct file fot the Apple HDA patcher for Leopard. So if you know which ones to use with the appletv, so please put the link to them, or at least the full name of the file and the version of the apple hda patcher.
If you know the answer, please write it completely.

Thanks again.

KnowITAll

If I remember correctly:

You will need to register an account at insanelymac.com before you can download.

Install AzaliaAudio.pkg, but don't reboot when prompted.
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?act=atta...

Unzip AppleHDAPatcher 1.20
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?act=atta...

Drag codec to patcher.
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?act=atta...

Then reboot.

You should now have complete support for ALC885. If not, let me know, as I have several other codec dumps to try.

Matt

I might be blind but I cannot find a copy of the boot.efi file anywhere. I mean wtf guys. Anybody show me where to get a boot.efi from atv would be appreciated. Im trying to not have to take apart my atv.

ecksman

i have a question ... i want to do this, but i was wondering if it would be better to just get a mac mini and then dual boot with appletv. or do u think its best to do it this way? i figure mac mini has a dvd drive and such. that makes me wonder ... will appletv pick up the dvd drive if boot the mac mini to the appletv os. any replies will be appreciated.

Matt

Please somebody tell me where to get boot.efi file. Somebody has got to have it as a download. Torrent? Something? Please, anybody. I really dont want to take apart my apple tv.

LookHere

Matt-

download the update dmg from here. You will bind boot.efi inside.

mesu.apple.com/version.xml

nakko

KnowITAll - What do I have to do to fix or patch the graphics to have video acceleration via component? Do I just simply... leave the Nvidia kexts alone? Or do I need new kexts, or to modify the originals?

nakko

Also, does the Apple Remote function?

KnowITAll

nakko-

Yes, you just leave the nvidia and geforce kexts alone, however they will need to be from 10.4.11 to work.

And the remote does indeed work...

Tonyscat

Thanks KnowITAll for your tips.

Concerning your audio tutorial, the sound is unfortunately not working 100%. I got sound, but it pops and crackles. It looks like the CPU is too slow but the CPU is 80% idle. I tried mpg123 and it surprisingly just works continuously. VLC and Quicktime work for some seconds, then start crackling. I'm using the standard RCA outputs, Mac OS 10.4.11 and I have all newest updates installed.

Any help is of course appreciated.
Thanks,
Tony

KnowITAll

Tony-

Your problems are not unique. I have zipped up five codecs for which I have found floating on the net (including the one I posted previously). I have not tried them, so they may or may not solve these issues.

Please post back your findings once you try them.

Regards,
Nate

http://download.yousendit.com/9545EAE74DA7B151

Tonyscat

Hi Nate,

Unfortunately, same problems as before, that is no codec is working 100%.

Here my findings:

ATVCodec() same problems
ALC889ADump not working at all
codec not working at all
ALC885 same problems
ALC_885_Codec same problems

:(

Regards,
Tony

1 guy

Steve jobs can lick mah ballz!!!!!!!!

Peter

I downloaded Apple TV Updater 1.1 (179 mb) and I cannot find the boot.efi file inside. Can someone please tell me how to get it without having to open my ATV... Thanks!

ScootyPuffJr

Boot.efi is a hidden file. Go to macudate.com and download a utility to enable show hidden files...

gomi no sensei

Tony, did the remote work for you? I have a fresh install of 10.4.11 and have the same audio problems you do. In addition, the remote isn't working. I'm wondering whether I missed a step or something.

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http://www.great-sex-guide.info

Tonyscat

gomi no sensei,
Yes, the remote doesn't work too. Maybe OS X version 10.4.11 makes trouble. Bloody hell, so close to a cheap slim-sized MacMini!
Peter,
I uploaded for you the Boot.efi.
http://w15.easy-share.com/1699786929.html

And I uploaded the System/Library/Extensions folder of the original AppleTV image. Maybe somebody can use it. I experimented with the AudioIPCDriver.kext but no luck so far.
http://www.mediafire.com/?1sg2d3xenng

gomi no sensei

Ah well.

I'm going to go back to the stock config and do some of the basic hacks to get a little more control over it. Hopefully folks will figure out audio, and I can take another shot at this in a month or two.

Omar

Hello!

Just installed the OS X on my ATV succesful, but there is a problem, it canÂ´t play audio, it doesnÂ´t recognize the hardware.

Can somebody help me? Thanks :-)

Chris

I wouldn't consider myself a hacker by any means, but I was able to load 10.4.11 pretty easily thanks to all your help here. The only thing that threw me off was that I renamed my hard drive. Even with changing the bless command to the new hard drive name, it still didn't work. Changed it back to OSBoot, and it worked fine. I have the box running smoothly with a usb hub, bluetooth, and a usb to serial adapter.

I have an issue with mounting DMG files - it won't do it. Any suggestions? I've already tried dumping the two files and updating using the 10.4.11 combo update, but still doesn't work.

KnowITAll

I already posted the solution to the DMG problem...

Fabian

Hey!!!
I have a question: Can mac os Tiger and Take 2 run side by side via bootcamp??? if this is true , you will choose at the start if you use the apple tv as a mac or as an apple tv.

Greetings from Germany Fabian
:Sorry for my bad English:

gomi no sensei

Chris, does sound work for you in 10.4.11? If so, did you have to do anything special to make it work?

enorym

running 10.4.11 w/no sound any suggestions?

Chris

Any suggestions on how to do a minimal system load on startup? Lack of memory is killing me! I really just use the box to run dashboard widgets, but I have to restart frequently because of memory (probably some poorly written widgets with memory leaks). If I could turn off unused OS X features, it would help, but I'm not an OS X expert. Any suggestions would be helpful.

What we really need is to resurrect that old RAM DOUBLER utility. That would help overcome the RAM limitations of AppleTV!

Kareem

I got Mac OS X 10.4.8 Server up just now, I was using the "Void Warranty" hack.

Anyone know how to setup an ad hoc network at boot?

/usr/bin/networksetup can only connect to an ap, not create one

any ideas?

Kareem

for improving performance try Lingon 1.21 and Onyx

Lingon can enable/disable service that run on your Mac

http://lingon.sourceforge.net/

Onyx can change certain settings for finder, dashboard, dock and run various clean up scripts

http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/downlo...

guest

hi!

A have a MacBookAir, but can't get the OS 10.4 installer dvd to install the os on the ATV's harddisc connected to my air. Is sas it is not compatible with my Air... Any suggestions?
Ther are 2 partitions on the drive (OSBoot and OSMedia) what to do with them? Where to install the OS?
Thanks.

Sanjeev

Is it possible to (an absolute newbie...was contemplating on getting an Imac Mini ...thankfully i stumbled onto this site)

1. Upgrade the HDD of AppleTV to Say 500 Gigs Server grade
2. Then hack AppleTV and Install Boot Camp OSX ,
3. Dual boot into OSX & XP
4.Watch movies form the pre installed AppleTV interface
(which i presume is Front Row ......Frankensteining it into a Triple boot Beast)
5.Connect it directly to Time Capsule bypassing the need for any other Itunes Library and/or slap a Wireless Airport to it and connect a DSL Modem(eliminating the need of Time capsule for WIFI Internet access)

Or Just SimpliFLY my life & buy a Mac Mini And do all of the above to it

(am I asking for too much!!!!)

>>>>I will take my chances for God stopped keeping score>>>>>>>

Knowitall

Sanjeev-
Answers:
1. Yes, however the drive is a laptop size 2.5"
2. BootCamp is not gonna run....ever
3. WinXP is not gonna run....ever
4 + 5: Not quite sure what you are asking...

Bottom line: Buy a Mac Mini...

Sal

KnowITAll Can you send me the other audio codecs, so I can make an attempt to get this audio working on my Apple TV? I tried exactly what you said with the AzaliaAudio package and then using that one codec you posted with it with the AppleHDAPatcher, and it didn't work. I get no audio what-so-ever, but before I used the codec patch, I had no audio in/out in the System Preferences, now I actually have them listed. But still I'm getting no sound.

Currently I'm trying to get sound using a HDMI cable into the Apple TV.

Should I be use RCA audio ports ?

Sal

Update

I just tried the RCA cables in the audio port, no go. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Just can't seem to get this sound to work at all.

Gamood

I'm a average newbie.
I must admit that I consider the here presented work as simply fantastic. Second life for a nice hardware project from apple too much limited by software restrictions (marketing convention no doubt)
As a joke, I would ask this question:
Is it possible to install Mac os X or whatever os directly in the remote control so that there would be no need for power cable plugg in and so on?
Hey stop it here this was a joke.
Hope you appreciate and thanks again for the effort done that make me eager to benefit from by buying an apple TV with the remote of course.

Maurice

I just went through these steps and when i connect the new harddisk in the apple tv and boot, i can see the apple logo but after that the screen goes black. My apple tv is connected via HDMI to my 50" plasma tv. What could it be?

Thx.

Tony

I had the same problem, the solution for me was:

11) Delete all the Nvidia kexts (all beginning with NVD, there should be 5) from the target drive (in /System/Library/Extensions).

and also all kexts beginning with "Ge", remember to clear the kext caches (rm Extensions.* inside Library). If you have enabled remote access (SSH) then you can ssh to your ATV even with the black screen, and remove the files.

I am running OSX on an external USB drive, my only problem is that the plasma TV is not displaying the entire image (overscan), I think is more a lack of features on the TV than the OSX install, and no sound. Tried the Azalia but nothing. I need to know exactly which codec dump to be used with the HDA patcher, anybody?

check this:

http://www.hackint0sh.org/forum/showthread.php?...

ponakka

I've ordered my atv and i was thinking of osx. However lack of audio is a big no no. Have anyone tried to find out how original appletv install works with audio. I believe that best solution to find correct codec would lie in original files. And i belive that its pointless to test any analog ports for audio before os finds audio out device. Anyways there has been great progress. I'll keep lurking and hope for gfx and sound all the best.

Mike

Wonderfull
it works, i'm so happy with my hacked atv Thanks a lot

Mike

if you want to Mount Diskimages, you must copy the file /System/Library/CoreServices/DiskImagemounter.app from your backup in the apple tv Hard drive, then it works.

Angel

I have a problem does not work the network card ... the wireless works perfectly but the ethernet no ... help

Mike

i won't go back, but where can i find the original Apple TV kernel?
thanks for reply

Tony

OK, I got audio to work following KnowITALL's guide. The instructions are however not very precise:

- Audio only works out of the analog output, so if you are using the HDMI for video you will need external speakers. If you are using the component video than you can use the TV's speaker.

- In System Settings - Audio, select "Internal Speakers" (built-in speaker)

It took me a while, but it's working now, thank you KnowITALL for the codec and instructions.

weasel

Where is KnowITALLâ€™s guide? LINK PLEASE

mike

@ KnowItAll

i have one problem now:
i've downloaded the AppleHDA patcher (v1.16) but when i start it, i see this text:
"Please drag and drop your linux codec dump into the AppleHDA Patcher icon"

where can i get the linux codec??

thanks

mike

ok, Audio works now, thx to KnowItAll

does anybody knows how to enable the FrontRow?
is there a patch to activate the IR reciever?

Kennedy

Hello fellas I am new at this computer hacking business and I am having a little trouble with the whole thing so if anyone can give me a play by play on what the hell to do it would be dearly appreciated! thanks

Scott

I am considering doing this so that I can connect a "magicjack" phone system to the USB port. This allows a mac or a pc to manage a VOIP phone system in your house. Does anyone think this might be possible? This would be a lot cheaper than a mac mini.

Derek Young

Any chance a bluetooth card would work with this hack too? I would love to have a wireless keyboard and mouse with this.

Tony

@ Derek:

A bluetooth dongle does the trick. I use it myself with apple's bluetooth keyboard and mouse. It rocks!

Chris

Hello from Germany!

I've installed Mac OS X 10.4.8 on the 40GB HDD, copied the kernel to root and the boot.efi.
The ATV boots perfect, but the LED is always blinking yellow.

Is this normal?

Furthermore there is 1cm missing on the top and 1cm on the bottom. How can I see the whole picture?

Thx a lot

Will

I see that someone was able to fix the audio break issue? Does someone have a link to the instructions on how to fix it?

hXrM r0b-jNr

to sort out those rather small missing bars of display above and below (which some ladies still say size matters) try and use an auto detect setting on your screen (similar to the auto tune wizards on lcd monitors... work'd fine for me :P if one doesnt exist, try the alternative of just-fit settings (adjust through 4:3 - 16:9 - just fit and so on (like on dVd player display options for example to understand). hope it helps

Hello Boo

Is it safe to upgrade from 10.4.8 to 10.4.11?

would be a great help thanks

Brett

Tried doing this, but everything I do yields the same result where it pops up "Before you begin... There is no keyboard connected to your computer. Please connect your keyboard" and no matter what I plug into the usb port it wont find it. One keyboard the lights flashed very fast on then back off, and no response. Any ideas? Im thinking its a usb driver issue

MichaelStanford

I have a question, but first, for those who need some reassurance before they embark on this hack, here is how these instructions worked for me, with a couple of tweaks.

1. I tried first with OS X 10.5, and it didn't boot, though error messages appeared on the screen. Since the patch was done for 10.4 I didn't try any more with 10.5 and just went ahead and did a new install of 10.4. This booted OK.
2. I got a error when I tried to bless the patch. This was because I had a typo in the bless command line (duh).
3. I got an error when I tried to bless the patch. This was because I didn't have permission. When I typed the word "sudo" in front of the bless command ("sudo bless...") it asked me for my password and worked fine.
4. Like other people on this thread, it didn't show the top and bottom of the screen. This is a problem, because you have to guess where things are on the menu bar. I didn't try to fix it because I went ahead and set up Remote Terminal and used my MacBook to control the Apple TV.
5. It took me some trial and error to get Screen Sharing working. The magic combination for me was to enable all the sharing checkboxes for my user name in the System Preferences on the Apple TV, then wait until it showed up in the Finder on my MacBook, then click on it in the left panel of Finder. It shows "Connected as Guest," but you click on "Connect As" over on the right to connect as someone with permission. Then you click on "Share Screen..."
6. I was blown away that it connected flawlessly to my WLAN without any hassle beyond typing in the WPA key. Same with USB.
7. I plugged in an external USB drive to use as a network Time Machine Storage volume. It works, amazingly, but it's unusably slow. Don't even bother.
8. After putting it all back together it dies after 10 minutes of running. This is due to overheating - I put a bag of ice on top of it and it worked indefinitely. Clearly not a long term solution. Investigating further, the fan doesn't run.

So here's my question: do I have a faulty system (bad fan), or is this a problem with the operating system not knowing how to activate the fan? If your Apple TV fan is working under generic OS X, please let me know here.

Thanks.

KnowITAll

MichaelStanford-

I don't know if my hacked ATV with 10.4.11 runs the fan either, but I have never had a problem with overheating.

Why don't you try completely removing the rubber cover, remove the excess glue, and attach some rubber feet to raise it up off the floor. That should help...

monty

Yeah I've got the same problem. It hasn't overheated yet, but its running pretty hot and I wouldn't like to leave it unsupervised.

Had to install a kext to get the wired ethernet working, but it's all good now!

Nathan

After OSX installation, would this work with eyeTV?

JL

Yes! EyeTv works on my AppleTV (10.4.8)

hansdampf

Hi I was wondering how fast does the appleTV boot up after OSx install? Does it have a working "standby" mode? How does it cope with h.264 videos in HD?

iplaydog

What about OS X 10.4.10 AppleTV 2.2, please.

iplaydog

I need help i get the kernel panic again, and i did every step using 10.4.8 on apple tv 1.1.

I need some help or direction. Please

Spyros Papantoniou

Step 8 says: ) Replace it with the customised mach_kernel that youâ€™ll find on Hackint0sh.org.

How was this mach_kernel made? I need it for 10.5.5, as I dont have 10.4.
Is this a recompilation of some source? If yes, how make it?
many thanks
spyros

Ery

Hi, I need help on how to install Mac OS X on USB External Drive that I have, I am having trouble with it. Thanks guys!

Devin

Is there a newer release of the kernel thats not from 2007? I say this because I cannot get the Audio device to show up on my Apple TV. Everything else works perfectly. I should note, i just recently bought my Apple TV but it still has a realtek chipset.

online roulette

online roulette

Paul

Hi,

Is it possible to install the full blown Mac OS X and still run the original ATV software...perhaps either bootcamping it or launching the ATV original software from within OS X?

Regards,
Paul.

Tony

@ Paul

look here:

http://www.hackint0sh.org/forum/showthread.php?...

screensaver maker

i did this hack and running OSX but its buggy and canâ€™t get sound workingâ€¦im really sad now.

Heavenforbid14

Hey, i want to use my appletv as a DVR by using the eyetv product, and first i must run mac os X on my appletv, but i got the small-harddrive-sized one, and i want to upgrade it. If i got an empty harddrive, and installed mac os X on it, would it boot up, or do i have to do it with this kernel thing? I am sorry if i sound naive, i am new at hacking. Please email me if you can help: Heavenforbid14@gmail.com

p1erre

Hi.
I'm looking for a cheap (but pretty cool) mac, and i found ATV.
If i install osx on atv: can it show 1920x1080, does hdmi work and, does toslink work?
I want to use it for internet, listening music, watch movies (also mkv 720p&1080p) and sync my ipod?
does everything work?
please mail me: buzinezz@gmx.de
thanks

ps: sorry for my bad english ;(

guide

Hello, I just wanted to say you have a very informative site which really made me think, Thanks ! A site with a wealth of info.!...thanks very much! Have a nice Day!!

tips

A very interesting website. I plan to access it again when I get home and have more time. There is much I need to look into here.

Phil Harris

Has anyone got the kernel panic (says is can't find the ACPI Driver) at boot and figured out what's broken???

TIA

PAH

Cliff

So can this be modded into an media center that will support full screen flash? I'm guessing no because there's no hardware support for flash, only h.264, which means Hulu is out of the question.
Thoughts?

usakc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9gJaL288uk

usakc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm2jDMDyLrE

ProAnMac

Does it also Work with Mac OS X Leopard ?

FaithNOmore

NEED HELP!!! I have AppleTV with MacOSX installed. How turn it back to normal ATV?

Alastair

Where can I find an intel version of Tiger? My mac came with Leopard, and as I understand I cant just use a retail version of Mac OSX Tiger because that is PPC only?

Bruno

Hi,

i installed os x but after first successful boot i do only get a failure sign and no boot.
has anybody solved the problem? it is well known and i read about that some guys solved the problem...

@lexx

Aint working with OS X 10.5.x .. suppose that customized kernel and boot.efi (from atv) will only work with OS X 10.4 ? And what's that about the sound not working - no solution found yet ?

text-to-screen

Very cool guys! I just got an Apple TV today, does anyone know if OS X runs smoothly?

Sam

I have bought a 2.3 Apple TV a few days ago, and after puting Nito TV / ATV / Boxee and the rest of the plugin in, decided that it would be cooler to have OSX.

My question is, if i install OSC 10.4.8with the mach kernel, will i be able to use my wireless mac keyboard through infrared?

Many thanks.... love this forum.

Sam.

MiGaNuTs

joli poisson d'avril, en meme temps on vois pas trop l'interet de la bidouille vu la puissance limitÃ© de la machine.

E Newton

wow, this is really cool... I found this after trying to research how to get a MacMini to do full HDMI (ie, video & audio) and seeing that it would be totally whack. great job putting this together! i will now get an apple tv appliance for my tv and leave the mini on my desk :-)

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