X60s with OSX?

Message

mfratt · #1 Post by **mfratt** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 7:54 pm

My X60s is on the way. Anyone have any experiences with OSX compadibility?

Ciber · #2 Post by **Ciber** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 11:25 am

I had to replace the intel card with the atheros one from ibm, otherwise all the important stuff works.

Here are the things that don't work:

Infrared
SD slot
Screen brightness controls(They work during the osx loading screen)

christopher_wolf · #3 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 2:51 pm

Ciber wrote:I had to replace the intel card with the atheros one from ibm, otherwise all the important stuff works.

Here are the things that don't work:

Sleep
Infrared
SD slot
Screen brightness controls

Welcome to the Thinkpad Forums

The Fn+PgUp and Fn+PgDn keycombos don't work with OS X on the X60 or just the screen brightness controls in the OS itself?

domi · #4 Post by **domi** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 4:59 am

Ciber wrote:I had to replace the intel card with the atheros one from ibm, otherwise all the important stuff works.

Which exact version of OS X did you install? If I can choose between 10.4.6 HOTiSO and 10.4.7 JaS, which one should I try? Any specific measures to take (for the X60s) compared to the general method described in the HOWTO guide (which was made for the T60p).

Ciber · #5 Post by **Ciber** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 11:03 pm

Just download the Jas 10.4.7 and install it with the GMA 900 patch or your video won't work.

and do this for the atheros wifi(posted by viper in another thread):

Editing plist:
cd /System/Library/Extensions

sudo nano System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortAtheros5424.kext/Contents/Info.plist

Add:
<string>pci168c,1014</string>

Setting Permissions:
sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions

kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions

Also, install the powermanagement kext from below to get your battery indicator etc working: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php? ... management

That's about it to get a perfectly working X60 under OSX.

domi · #6 Post by **domi** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 1:14 am

Ciber wrote:Just download the Jas 10.4.7 and install it with the GMA 900 patch or your video won't work.

Thanks, Ciber! In fact, I had grabbed HOTiSO 10.4.6 (hadn't received your post yet!) and I had no problem with the video. Is the GMA 900 patch specific to 10.4.7 and/or the JaS distribution? Is the GMA 900 patch documented somewhere?

One problem that I had after the install was that OSX would boot only in the install DVD was inserted, otherwise I would get 'b0 error', whatever that means. I tried a solution offered on the InsanelyMac forum, but it didn't work for me. What did work was the one found here.

Thanks for your other instructions, they will come handy when I fine-tune my install. I'll first have to order that Atheros wifi card (my X60s came with the Intel card).

Cheers, Dominique

Ciber · #7 Post by **Ciber** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 11:21 am

The gma900 patch is specific to 10.4.7, the 950 just doesn't work without it for some reason.

NeoMatrix · #8 Post by **NeoMatrix** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:00 am

Can somebody give more information on how to do the GMA 900 patch?

I found the following thread on the internet, but it is 28 pages long!

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php? ... c=889&st=0

Thanks in advance,
NeoMatrix

Ciber · #9 Post by **Ciber** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 10:51 am

Click customize during the install and pick the GMA900 patch.

I'd like to report that sleep IS working under 10.4.8, nice of Apple to fix it.

Mack · #10 Post by **Mack** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 2:11 pm

Hi, does powermanagement features like cpu scaling speedstep work? What is batterytime in Mac OS X?

And in general, what does a fully working Mac OS X mean here? Is it working just as it would on a MacBook? No program crashes or glitches whatsoever?

Ciber · #11 Post by **Ciber** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 8:12 pm

Mack wrote:Hi, does powermanagement features like cpu scaling speedstep work? What is batterytime in Mac OS X?

And in general, what does a fully working Mac OS X mean here? Is it working just as it would on a MacBook? No program crashes or glitches whatsoever?

Power Management works if you install a patch, and yes, speedstep does work. Battery life is usually 5+ hours on mine with the extended battery.

I don't have crashes or glitches.

Mack · #12 Post by **Mack** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 11:47 pm

Ciber wrote: Power Management works if you install a patch, and yes, speedstep does work. Battery life is usually 5+ hours on mine with the extended battery.

I don't have crashes or glitches.

Good to know. So the trackpoint works as well? But not brightness controls? Being able to adjust screen brightness is pretty important if one wants to save batterylife.

Ciber · #13 Post by **Ciber** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:08 am

Mack wrote:
Ciber wrote: Power Management works if you install a patch, and yes, speedstep does work. Battery life is usually 5+ hours on mine with the extended battery.

I don't have crashes or glitches.
Good to know. So the trackpoint works as well? But not brightness controls? Being able to adjust screen brightness is pretty important if one wants to save batterylife.

You can adjust the brightness before OSX fully loads.

apbudha · #14 Post by **apbudha** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 12:40 am

you folks with x60/x60s running macosx, are you now using it for your primary OS? Considering you have something or someone to compare with, how does it look (video drivers) and so on compared to if you actually had a macbook (pro). any major sacrifices?

arh16 · #15 Post by **arh16** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 8:08 pm

Bump!

Please can anyone who has an x60s reply?
I would love to buy an x60s for osx as my primary os - but need to know if this is workable (or should I get a macbook).

The two key points are:
reliability (crashes), and does sleep work?

Thanks!

domi · #16 Post by **domi** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 1:37 am

arh16 wrote: The two key points are:
reliability (crashes), and does sleep work?

I have no idea about the first point (have only scratched the surface so far), but I haven't been able to get sleep to work properly, though I have the power patch and 10.4.8 installed.

igargamel · #17 Post by **igargamel** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 6:12 am

domi wrote:
arh16 wrote: The two key points are:
reliability (crashes), and does sleep work?
I have no idea about the first point (have only scratched the surface so far), but I haven't been able to get sleep to work properly, though I have the power patch and 10.4.8 installed.

I have the same problem, when i close the lid - laptop seemed to be sleeping, but when i open it it's just reboots the machine....

any solution for this anyone?
btw i'm running jas 10.4.7 and tried the patch for power management.

domi · #18 Post by **domi** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 6:16 am

igargamel wrote:btw i'm running jas 10.4.7 and tried the patch for power management.

My understanding is that 10.4.8 is a necessary (but apparently not sufficient) condition for sleep to work.

CyberSeb · #19 Post by **CyberSeb** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 2:37 pm

OS X seems to work pretty well on the X60(s). I am considering buying this machine as a replacement for my old iBook.

For those who are using the X60 with OS X, I have some very specific questions:

- Does the VGA-port work? Could you just connect an external screen?

- Brightness control does not work. Does that screen-saver thingy work where the backlight gets switched off after some time?

- Does USB and Firewire work?

- How well does the fan-control work? Does it bahave similar while in windows?

- Does automatic wake-up work? You can set a mac to power up at specific times. For example, eyeTV uses this to schedule TV-recordings.

- Is there any way to make use of the fingerprint-reader? Maybe at bootup? Just for fun ...

- How usable is the keyboard (-layout) and the trackpoint in OS X?

- How does this "Hackintosh" compare to a real Mac-notebook? Where are the differences? I would really appreciate answers from former mac-users who have switched to this thinkpad.

Thanks a lot,
Sebastian

kelvinq · #20 Post by **kelvinq** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 1:20 am

CyberSeb: Not trying to start a flame war here, but just curious:
What's your rationale for buying a TP to run OSX?

Think your explanation can help the rest of us who are still sitting on the fence.

arh16 · #21 Post by **arh16** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:16 am

CyberSeb wrote: - Does the VGA-port work? Could you just connect an external screen?
- Brightness control does not work. Does that screen-saver thingy work where the backlight gets switched off after some time?
- Does USB and Firewire work?
- How well does the fan-control work? Does it bahave similar while in windows?
- Does automatic wake-up work? You can set a mac to power up at specific times. For example, eyeTV uses this to schedule TV-recordings.
- Is there any way to make use of the fingerprint-reader? Maybe at bootup? Just for fun ...
- How usable is the keyboard (-layout) and the trackpoint in OS X?
- How does this "Hackintosh" compare to a real Mac-notebook? Where are the differences? I would really appreciate answers from former mac-users who have switched to this thinkpad.

Thanks a lot,
Sebastian

I can't vouch for the x60, but on my x31:
USB and firewire both worked fine. external VGA worked to mirror the display. Keyboard and trackpoint were excellent (after all they are IBM

). And it is much smaller than a real macbook.
When my windows partition died on the thinkpad, I used osx on an external USB drive until IBM gave me a new m'board and drive. Ran office, safari, all the usual stuff just fine. Now my ideal machine is osx on an x60s - if I knew that sleep would work!

NeoMatrix · #22 Post by **NeoMatrix** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 8:43 am

kelvinq wrote:CyberSeb: Not trying to start a flame war here, but just curious:
What's your rationale for buying a TP to run OSX?

Think your explanation can help the rest of us who are still sitting on the fence.

I can't answer for CyberSeb, but my rationale is that a TP provides IMHO the best hardware, and OS X provides the best operating system (with a minimum amount of hassles). Indeed, every operating system has its faults, but I believe OS X provides the best balance of usability and security.

I am SO close to buying an X60s for running OS X...my only reservation is not having the Core 2 Duo chip in view of the upcoming release of Leopard (and Vista) which is 64 bit. I know I could just buy an X60 but I like the Low Voltage X60s for its long battery life.

Hope this helps...

CyberSeb · #23 Post by **CyberSeb** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 10:02 am

NeoMatrix, you are right.

My original post was:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 9&start=30

I sum it up again:

I need a new computer since my old iBook G4 800 is getting too slow for my increasing needs and the display is starting to fail. I'm a computer science student and "need" an unix compatible operating system. OS X is just perfect, it has everything on board and "just works". I can run commercial applications. I can ssh to the university's servers. It acts as my videorecorder (EyeTV). I'm in front of a computer the whole day - I don't want to spend much time maintaining them.

However, there are currently no good Apple notebooks for my needs. I don't like the MacBooks. The X60s would be perfect, but I have no use for Windows, and Linux would probably make some problems, too. I even think OS X on the ThinkPad is nothing "whole". It starts with the keyboard layout and the screen brightness-control. It's a Hackintosh

Maybe I'll wait unitl the Core2Duos are out here in Germany and get the old CoreDuo model (hopefully cheaper) and buy me a full blown Mac Mini for home. I don't know.

Maybe I'm just fooled by Apple's advertising and a X60s with Linux would be alright.

kelvinq · #24 Post by **kelvinq** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 10:11 am

Now...

Just when the hell would Apple make hardware that is just as good as Thinkpads?

Did I read somewhere that Apple took some of IBM's engineers when they sold off to Lenovo?

Now, Apple's heat distribution isn't even half as good as Thinkpad's even though they have a aluminium case... what when wrong? My plasticky R51 does even better with the fan off.

Sorry. Just had to rant. If not for Thinkvantage tools, I'll be running Linux fulltime.

somlaifischer · #25 Post by **somlaifischer** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 1:58 pm

CyberSeb wrote: and Linux would probably make some problems, too.

thought i agree that some things are more convenient on osx, linux works quite well on the x60. i am personally using it(ubuntu) on an x31 as my main system, and i am no hacker. gnome is much better than xp's shell, i get many tools i need. and for osx-like usability, there is Beryl, the opengl based window manager, that actually works very smooth. a friend of mine is using it on his x60, and it works even better (as intel gma is better supported than my ati)

and lenovo started supporting sled linux for t60p, some of the thinkvantage drivers are available.

i would consider this option if i were you.
http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:X60s

NeoMatrix · #26 Post by **NeoMatrix** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 11:03 am

Ciber wrote: Power Management works if you install a patch, and yes, speedstep does work. Battery life is usually 5+ hours on mine with the extended battery.

I don't have crashes or glitches.

Hello Ciber, can you or someone else confirm the following:

- To get sleep to work, do you just install the 10.4.8-JaS-Intel SSE3 update?
- Also, can anyone confirm whether the thinklight works? This unfortunately is a deal breaker for me becasue I would use the machine in a completely dark room (sounds crazy I know).

gongloo · #27 Post by **gongloo** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 12:39 pm

Ciber wrote:- Also, can anyone confirm whether the thinklight works?

AFAIK, the thinklight keybind is implemented in hardware, and can not be interfered with in software.

christopher_wolf · #28 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:14 pm

gongloo wrote:AFAIK, the thinklight keybind is implemented in hardware, and can not be interfered with in software.

Actually, it can be activated through software, but cannot be excluded from operation in any given OS due to, as you point, the fact that it is implemented through the BIOS and hardwired key hardware.

MaloventEvil · #29 Post by **MaloventEvil** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 5:33 pm

same with the bluetooth toggling (if that hasn't been mentioned above)

X60s with OSX?

X60s with OSX?

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