OSX86 10.4.6 running on VMware Server
Posted by Deliverator on April 19th, 2006
At last week’s hacknight, I got to see OSX running on commodity Intel hardware. In particular, it was running on a Dell XPS M170 gaming notebook (one of the new XPS series ones that glow). Unofficial support for non-apple hardware has come along quite a bit, with support for more video cards, non-SSE3 machines (still requires SSE2 minimum), and in the very latest release, support for SATA hard drives. I decided to try it out for myself, so I downloaded an pre-patched image created by someone named Myzar. I ran into one problem after another, trying to install using this iso image in VMware. I managed to resolve one problem after another, but finally bumped into an haulting ACPI error that prevented the system from fully booting after install. I found that Myzar created a new image and had released a PPF differential patch update to patch the previous iso image to OSX version 10.4.6 and also added the option of using a recompiled SSE3 kernel. The default kernel didn’t work, but the recompiled one did the trick. OSX is now running happily in VMware. All the hardware is working (network, sound, usb, etc), except for the video card, which is running with the unaccelerated VGA driver. I ended up having to tweak a lot of VMware settings to get it OSX working properly. Here are some settings I would recommend if you choose to try this at home…
- Added the line paevm=true to the virtual machine’s .vmx config file. By default, VMware disables support for PAE (physical address extension), a technique for accessing ram > 4 GB on 32 bit CPUs. OSX requires support for PAE to run.
- Mount the OSX cd image (iso file) using Daemon Tools, and then tell VMware to use the virtual cd-rom created by Daemon Tools. Many PC optical drives have problems with the OSX cds and VMware’s own .iso image mounting doesn’t work well with the HFS+ format cd.
- Allocate all the hard disk space for your virtual hard disk drive immediately (instead of choosing the option allowing it to grow as space is used).
- Specify the guest OS type as FreeBSD.
- Add a USB controller to the list of virtual hardware, but disable the autoconnect option
- In “host settings” choose the option to fit all guest os memory into reserved memory, rather than allowing for swapping. Produces quite a speedup.
Here are some more pictures of OSX86 running in VMware, as well as some of the error messages I received.
Hi,
After I changed my notebook, a working 10.4.5 installation stopped working in vmware (while still executing correctly when outside vmware). I guess there is something wrong in my new intel core duo that prevented pae to work under vmware.
Have your notebook with Core Duo? Which model? Can you report me your stepping model that came from cpuid?
Thanks
I am running VMware Server on a dual core Athlon 64. Changing processors in vmware is not recommended, as there will often times be differences in supported instruction sets. Your Core Duo should support PAE. Intel processors have since the Pentium Pro, I believe, so that isn’t likely to be the problem.
Can you send to my email address your .vmx file, in order to see if I have correctly set the paevm parameter?
Which VMware Server build are you using?
Thanx
All you do is add the line:
paevm=true
to the config file. It really isn’t that complex…
I am using VMware Server build 22874 (latest release as of this date).
It doesnt work for me either. paevm=true in the .vmx file makes no difference, I have a core duo notebook as well. vmware install worked fine on my Athlon64 3800+.
This is the error message I get from vmware. Do you have any idea, what could this be? :) I am using JaS 1.4.6 install DVD, it works fine on the same laptop if installed natively. :)
*** VMware Server internal monitor error ***
vcpu-0:ASSERT vmcore/vmm/cpu/segment.h:444 bugNr=19580
There is a problem in this version of VMware Server.
We rely on your feedback to improve the quality of our product. Please submit a support request that describes the problem at our Web page “http://www.vmware.com/info?id=8”. Do not forget to attach the log file (C:\Personal\My Virtual Machines\OSX\vmware.log) and the core file (c:\personal\my virtual machines\osx\vmware-core.gz).
To collect files to submit to VMware support, run vm-support.vbs.
We appreciate your feedback,
— the VMware Server team.
Hello,
I have a question,
How have you passed the eror in the first screen shot? the ACPI missing driver or whatever. I have the same on my PC ( Not a laptop. ) And I really don’t know what to do.
Please email me.
Link9c@gmail.com
Hi, I’m using GSX Server still 3.2. I’m using Daemon Tools as recommended(not happy I had to restart that server though), and the VM is not able to boot off the DVD. Thoughts?
M@
I have everything working great in VMWARE on a dell laptop. However, I can’t get it to recognise any USB devices. Have you had that trouble?
Hi ,
I’m having the same error as in osx5.jpg ( still waiting for root device … ) .
I’m using VMWare 5.5.1-19175 , OSX 10.4.6 , patched AppleSMBIOS and permissions .
How did you pass that error ?
Any help would be appreciated !
Thanks .
Could you please tell me which network driver you used as I cannot seem to find one that will work in VMWare for this card. I have tried the ver1.0 of the maxxuss but doesnt seem to work any help would be much appreciated.
I have tried the 10.4.6 HOTiSO, it is working like a snap in vmware 5.5 using AMD Base + SSE2 patches at the install time but could not install any vmware (AMD PCNET) network card driver. Tried maxxuss 1.0 version of it but it says that the maxxuss driver AMDPCNET is not compatible with its superclass (IOEthernetController).
I’ll try to fetch myzar’s package, maybe I can copy from the 10.4.5 the relevant kext to enable ethernet…
Could you please tell us which OSX version have you used with what kind of an ethernet driver?
thanx!
In reply to message 6.
I had exactly the same error message involving some sort of vcpu bug.
Theres a simple fix to run OS X on VMWare using core duo systems.
Set the guest operating system option to Windows NT and the error message goes away.
Kevin you are right!
Now i already installed MacOSX using VMWARE, Thanks for your help!
This is the error message I get from vmware. Do you have any idea, what could this be? :) paevm=true in the .vmx file makes no difference, tried changing the guest operating system option to Windows NT but no luck. Please help me out with this problem.
*** VMware GSX Server internal monitor error ***
NOT_IMPLEMENTED at 4c3 (14497)
Code: 000004c3-000038a1-9591b4eb-9ad48fcd-958bd8fe-cdfee591-f1
Please report this problem by selecting menu item Help > VMware on the Web > Request Support, or by going to the Web page “http://www.vmware.com/info?id=8&logFile=c%3a%5cVirtual%20Machines%5cMac%20OS%20X%5cvmware%2elog&coreLocation=c%3a%5cvirtual%20machines%5cmac%20os%20x%5cvmware%2dcore%2egz”. Please provide us with the log file (c:\Virtual Machines\Mac OS X\vmware.log) and the core file (c:\virtual machines\mac os x\vmware-core.gz).
If the problem is repeatable, please select ‘Run with debugging information’ in the Options panel of the configuration editor. Then reproduce the incident and file it according to the instructions.
We will respond on the basis of your support entitlement.
We appreciate your feedback,
— the VMware GSX Server team.