carnage

Installing Tiger if you don't have a DVD drive.

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger now comes on a single DVD by default. While this is more convenient than the disc-swapping required by the 3 Panther CDs, it's tricky if you're trying to install Tiger onto an older machine that does not have a DVD drive.

I found an article by Jaharmi describing FireWire Target Mode (which I've also gone over) and a new technique involving using an external FireWire drive to create a dedicated partition that is a Tiger DVD disk image. Basically, you use Disk Utility to Restore the DVD to a spare partition you don't mind erasing. Handy if you have an extra FireWire drive lying around. I tried it this morning, and discovered a few things:

• The process requires you to erase a partition on your FireWire drive. This may require some thinking ahead.
• If you create a new partition, make sure you're generous in allocating space. Disk Utility will select the next lowest convenient number (based on the 1k = 1012 bytes formula, I expect) even if you try to get clever with your partitioning. The Tiger DVD takes up around 2.5 GB, so I tried to allocate just above that. The Restore process failed partway through, saying that there was some kind of file error. Giving the partition a full 4GB did the trick.
• If the Restore process does fail, both the source and destination volumes will remain unmounted. The visual indicator for this is pretty subtle (the volume names are greyed out in the list on the left, generally where you aren't looking) and you might be puzzled because further attempts to Restore will give you a "file not found" sort of error. The solution is to re-mount the target drive partition, and then use the File menu to eject the source DVD. Re-insert the DVD and it will mount.

The point of all this was to see if I could install Tiger onto my Wallstreet PowerBook via XPostFacto, which only has a CD drive. My quick experimentation with the new Tiger/FireWire partition described above resulted in a kernel panic. I'll have to look into this further, but for now I think the answer might be to send away for the Tiger CDs (see the "Media Exchange Program" box in the right column).

Tiger on iMac G3 (requires more RAM?).

I got Tiger working on my iMac G3 DV SE (a 400MHz slot-loading "Kihei" model). My initial attempts with the Tiger DVD led to the process hanging about midway through; I upgraded to 640MB of RAM last night and the install went off with out a hitch.

RAM's relatively cheap these days; the 512MB SDRAM module cost only $64 shipped from Omni Technologies, which has a goofy website (nearly all graphics and no text) but apparently makes their own chips and offers 24/7 customer support.

Installing Mac OS X via FireWire Target Mode.

Since the Power Macintosh G3 AGP, all Macs have supported FireWire Target Mode, the successor to the somewhat clunkier SCSI Target Mode. (Here's some history on the two.) Hold down the T key when your more modern Mac starts up, and it will magically turn into a FireWire device, visible to any FireWire-enabled Mac that you hook it up to. Any drives (optical included) will be at the disposal of the host machine.

MacOSXHints has a page that's chock full o' hints on how to use FireWire Target Mode on various machines.

This should be handy for installing Tiger onto the B&W G3 and the iMac G3; I was going to wait for the RAM upgrade for the latter, and haven't really figured out why the former keeps failing with the Tiger DVD.

A Tiger on Wallstreet.

After wiping some drives in eager anticipation, I ran into a small wall when attempting to install Tiger on the Wallstreet. I was puzzled until I figured out that that machine didn't come with a DVD drive, and Tiger is the first version of Mac OS X to come on DVD by default. (The Wallstreet won't tell you this, by the way; it will just tell you it wants to have a shot at formatting the installation DVD. In Pro-DOS format, no less.)

I have to figure out whether I can boot from a FireWire or other attached drive. I'm pretty sure the installations are machine-specific (e.g. I can't use the Titanium to install it one a drive and then transplant it). Either that, or take advantage of the Tiger Media Exchange (sidebar) by July 9th. Turn in your DVD and proof of purchase, plus $9.99, and Apple will mail you a set of Tiger CDs.

PDF: Apple Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger Media Exchange

UPDATE I may have spoken too soon. It looks like someone has done the transplant successfully.

Granite Digital FireWire products.

I was reading Macintouch this morning and saw an unusually positive endorsement for Granite Digital, which makes FireWire and other storage-oriented products:

[Louie Berry] My suggestion to him would be take a hard look at Granite Digital's large product list of FireWire enclosures, bridge boards, cables, and complete single units and RAID arrays. Throughout the last several years of reported FW problems, I've never had one instance of trouble from Granite stuff. They write their own firmware for the chipsets and I don't believe an update has been required since the release of 10.2. I use Granite enclosures on all manner of Macs from legacy machines to the latest G5s and move them from machine to machine; OS 9 to Tiger.

For years Granite was the leader in top quality SCSI cables, terminators, RAID, etc. and switched their main thrust to FireWire about five years ago. I have no connection with them except as a satisfied customer for about 10 years.

I don't have any of their stuff, but I may give them a try for a new 3.5" FireWire/USB case and maybe a bridge board for this little 2.5" drive enclosure project I'm thinking of...

DIY: replacing batteries on the PowerBook G3.

I have 3 PowerBook G3 Series (Wallstreet) batteries floating around, and they all have less than 10 minutes' worth of charge in them. This is par for the course; if you leave your PowerBook (or any other laptop with LiOn batteries) plugged in most of the time and the batteries don't get a chance to run down all the way, they're not going to hold a charge after a while. It's good to "exercise" them once in a while.

I did some digging and found this article on how to replace the cells inside your PowerBook G3 battery, and some photos of the battery disassembly process. Turns out each large battery has 9 smaller AA-sized LiOn cells in it, and if you're handy with a soldering iron, you can replace them yourself. The risks are high, though: LiOn batteries will explode if they're not wired up just right. This project is beyond my skill level, especially since it looks like the finished product won't give you anything near the battery life of a factory replacement.

But the plastics on these things are so sturdy. I wonder if I could crack them open and make them into 2.5" FireWire/USB drive cases...

Hard-core ergonomic keyboard.

jwz, the Netscape-core-programmer-turned-nightclub-owner, has Kinesis Evolution keyboard, which is a split keyboard with dual trackpads. He's mounted the halves of the device vertically on the arms of his Aeron chair.

The Evolution can move around, all crazy-like. Check it out:

Who says we're all work and no play around here?

Oh, and jwz's broken down and gotten an iMac. Apparently, this is a big deal.

RAM for PowerBook G3.

While messing around with XPostFacto and Panther on the PowerBook G3 Series last night, I remembered that I have to check out the RAM situation on that machine. Currently it has 2 sticks in it, both of which appear to be 256MB. However, the System Profiler is only reporting 256MB instead of 512MB. One of the sticks isn't labeled, though.

According to LowEndMac, the maximum for the PowerBook G3 Series (Wallstreet) is 512MB, and low-profile DIMMs are required. I'll have to do more testing/research to figure out what I've got in there now. Maybe there's a faulty 128 in there instead of a 256. At any rate, at $22 for another 256MB, I think all I have to do is make sure I order the right thing.

512MB should be plenty for playing MP3s and the occasional MPEG file on my living room entertainment system, which is what this PowerBook is destined for.

A good site about RAID.

AC&NC has published a nice light reference site for all the various types of RAID configurations out there. RAID, which stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, involves hooking together a bunch of smaller (and usually cheaper) drives, rather than relying on one massive (expensive) drive. Depending on your configuration, you can get substantial speed gains, fault-tolerant storage, or both.

The tutorial walks you through the basic characteristics of each configuration scheme, with an illustration of how the drives and data are related. Beneath each picture is a brief explanation of the set-up, and a list of advantages of disadvantages.

Right now I'm evaluating between RAID 1 and RAID 5 for my future, "once and for all" data bank project. More on that later.

AN&NC's "RAID.edu" tutorial site

Experiments.

I did a couple of experiments last night: I upgraded the B&W PowerMac to Tiger, and upgraded the Wallstreet to Panther with the help of Ryan Rempel's excellent XPostFacto.

I'd actually done the XPostFacto trick before on this same PowerBook G3, but it didn't really take. The video had problems with colors, and overall it felt pretty creaky. But this time, I used his latest stable build, XPostFacto 3.1, read through the known problems, and decided to check the "Use PatchedRagePro" as suggested.

XPostFacto is very easy to use: just download the application to your OS 9 boot drive, insert your OS X Install disc, launch XPostFacto, check off a few options as necessary, and click the "Install from CD" button. Your Mac will restart and you then follow the normal procedure to install. Total time for me was under an hour. Not bad for a 7-year-old machine with just 256MB of RAM. Which reminds me; I should see about boosting that.

The Blue & White was just a bit less trouble-free: it reported that "there were problems while installing" and suggested that I try again. A casual Google revealed that sometimes this can be due to problems reading data off the disc, and since I had a relatively ancient third-party combo drive in there, I gave it another shot. The second time was a charm.

These were both test runs. When I get those laptop drives I ordered I'll stick one in the Wallstreet and try Tiger via XPostFacto 4.0b3.