a little help, please (JAS 10.4.6) Atheros WiFi on x60s

[bonmot]

Props to MalevolentEvil for his great how to guide. Thanks to his instructions, I've got 10.4.6 running on my x60s. I had some b0 drama after my installation, but things worked better after I made the right partition bootable with the live Linux GPARTED (or whatever it's called).

I even followed Malevolent's instructions for sound, which is an accomplishment for me, not being a command line sorta guy.

However, I was not able to follow his instructions for making wireless work, which are quoted as follows.

Wireless:

The 2623DDU has the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Mini-PCI Express Adapter (NA/LA/AP) which is not compatible with OS X (yet). You must purchase and install the "ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini-PCI Express Adapter" (available currently for 50$ @ lenovo.com part #: 40Y7026)

1) After this, you must download the Apple 10.4.5 intel upgrade available here:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/a ... intel.html

2) You must also download a program called Pacifist (available here: http://macupdate.com/info.php/id/6812 ).

3) Install Pacifist and double click on the apple upgrade to mount it.

4) Next, open up pacifist and browse to the file inside the mounted image called "MacOSXUpd10.4.5Intel.pkg".

5) After it opens, click "find" and search for "IO80211Family.kext". Drag that file into the folder: "/System/Library/Extensions/" replacing any pre-existing files.

6) Delete the files "/System/Library/Extensions.kextcache" and "/System/Library/Extensions.mkext"

Reboot!

I had two problems.
1) The link provided to the download for the update does not work. I searched the internet, and found this one which appears to be the same thing (though perhaps not, if you read on).
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/ ... intel.html

2) I downloaded pacifist and ran it. I opened the recently downloaded update, and browsed to the package in question. I used the find button to search for the IO80211Family.kext and it returned no results. I tried to browse the package by clicking on various triangles, but I couldn't find it manually either. Did apple change the update, or am I using the tool incorrectly somehow?

I'd really like to make this work, so any help you can give would be appreciated. I used MacOS 7,8,9 extensively, and some of OSX (up to 10.3), but I never did much under the hood, so this is kind of foreign to me.

Thanks!
bonmot

[viper11885]

That method didn't work for me as well. This is what I did (T60).

In terminal:

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

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

Reset Permissions:
sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions
kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions

Reboot

[tonydi]

Viper11885...

I tried your method on my X60s and while everything appeared to go smoothly, the wireless radio does not go on and the Fn+F5 combo doesn't help. In fact, the wireless card (I have the IBM-Atheros card, btw) doesn't even show up in the About this mac listing. Any ideas?

ETA...I used Jas 10.4.6 for this install and the wireless power switch in ON.

[tonydi]

Ok, I got it working! I think I did two things wrong. First, I installed the wireless networking option in the Jas listing when I installed 10.4.6. Since the Atheros masquerades as an Apple Airport, which is obviously native, I don't think I needed to add that option. Maybe it didn't make a difference, but I reinstalled and left that option out.

The second thing I did was to put the <string>pci168c,1014</string> addition in the wrong place. This time I scrolled down and found the <array> section and added it in there.

After a reboot the system "found" a new Airport card and allowed me to configure it. Had a bit of hesitation when it asked for a "password", when in fact what it wanted was the WEP key. Once I did that, I was connected to the network and online!

Oh, even though the wireless radio is on, the little light on the X60s does not light up. Must be a Windows driver thing.

[bonmot]

Thanks for the assistance. I finally got my atheros card working using a combination of techniques in this thread and others.

1) Found the Atheros Wifi kext in a post on a thread about audio problems (http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=39711) by forum member pdudas (Thanks!): Download atheros kext here http://www.filesend.net/download.php?f= ... 69c45c7762

2) Followed the instructions in the 3rd post on the following thread, starting with step four (after you extract the kext from the update):
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=33089

It seems that getting the disk permissions exactly right made the difference in my case, once I found the kext I needed.

Tonydi, I also selected the wireless option when installing it, but I didn't bother to reinstall the OS. I just did #1 and #2 as above, and it worked for me.

[tonydi]

I saw the instruction set you referenced but it didn't seem "right" to have to download 10.4.5 files when I had 10.4.6 and others seemed to indicate the default files could be made to work. But then again I'm a total newb when it comes to OSX86 stuff so trying to logic it out probably isn't always the right way.

I also wasn't sure I could recover from the changes I'd made to the kext files on my first go-round so just reinstalling from scratch seemed to be the safest option. If it took as long to install OS X as it does to do XP, then maybe I'd reconsider. But the 15 or 20 mins to get back to a fresh baseline and not have to worry about any problems I may have caused was worth it.

[bonmot]

If it took as long to install OS X as it does to do XP, then maybe I'd reconsider. But the 15 or 20 mins to get back to a fresh baseline and not have to worry about any problems I may have caused was worth it.

Yeah, I know what you mean. It was pretty quick to install.

I had done quite a bit of customizing and installing of OS X apps, though, so I was trying desperately to salvage what I had done. Now I'm wondering whether I should try to upgrade to 10.4.8 by installing it "over" what I've done to date. I really don't want to mess things up, though.

This weekend I added Ubuntu 7.0.4 (beta) to the mix, dual booting with XP. That was a bit of a challenge, but it works fairly well now. I've got 2 drives to play with: my original XP drive, and my OSX/Ubuntu drive. It's nice to be able to go between the two.