Mac OS X LIVE DVD is here
[float=right]Thanks to the Dev Team over at InsanelyMac, the dream of a true Live DVD for OS X and OSx86 is here. Original posts by spartango over at InsanelyMac.com: " Not long after REVENGE's call to arms, the OS X live dvd team has…
- Primary Author
- @nfoav8or Published 2009-01-03
- Collection
- Kernel & Community Releases
- Archival Footprint
- 212,477 historical reads · 5 curated field notes (from 12 dispatches) · 2009-01-03 – 2009-05-30
- Credited Voices (8)
- @nfoav8or (3)@milanca (2)@cmdshft (2)@Voyn1x@bob5731@biker69@ultimo@Quentin
[float=right]Thanks to the Dev Team over at InsanelyMac, the dream of a true Live DVD for OS X and OSx86 is here.
Original posts by spartango over at InsanelyMac.com:
"Not long after REVENGE's call to arms, the OS X live dvd team has struck gold!
We now have a working Live dvd construction method that is easy to follow and works quite well. In fact, it will work on either hackintosh and legit macs, depending on the kext's and boot loader used!
This method works because OSX has a disk image boot system in place to support its network boot system. IOHDIXController and kernel can take a path to disk image supplied to them, and mount it as /, via "imageboot", which recognizes a disk image as an attachable filesystem.
Further, Apple has setup a system to take a read-only disk image and attach a shadowfile to it, so that it is writeable. Intended to support a network boot system by making the user's session local and non-persistent, it is implemented in /etc/rc.netboot. Basically, vndevice (/usr/libexec/vndevice) attaches a shadow file to the dmg, and enables a copy-on-write strategy on that device--writes to the dmg are diverted to the temporary shadow file. This is much like what happens on a linux live dvd, albeit with Unionfs.
Normally the shadowfile is created on a local disk or network share, on either nfs or hfs. Under my method, the shadowfile is created on ramdisk formatted with hfs, and the system behaves exactly as if it were booted with netboot. The difference is that I specify that the dmg to boot from is local(file:///), and then manually start a customized rc script. The script behaves like rc.netboot, except i create a ramdisk and setup the shadowfile there instead of on a local disk. After that / is R/W and OS X boots normally into finder...and beyond.
More details in the link below to the InsanelyMac X Labs!
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=144128 ↗
Original pictures care of spartango over at original post ↗.
I personally think this is a great tribute to those with larger brains than me :-B since I've been trying to get a modified version of modbin's method ↗ to work for a while now.
I also think that people SHOULD NOT be flooding the net with versions they've created using this method. For Windows users: there are already some versions out there and any can be made to work by simply editing the image file by using Transmac. For the rest of us already using OS X... create your own. It's easy enough now with the [How-To] in place. Questions should be directed to the Dev Team but can also be discussed here at the forum (just label the thread accordingly).
Lets hope the creation of the LIVE DVD allows us to fix systems otherwise thought unfixable.
My hat goes off to the creators. Awesome job Dev Team!
(OS X LIVE image shown above created in photoshop for use on the old AMD-LIVE DVD version I was creating and later edited for this article.)
Author Updates & Technical Revisions
Follow-up dispatches by @nfoav8or
@bob5731I wood like a ISO of it.
apparently the new Leo4All install DVD will have this feature. This is why I'm not going to upload mine. I've gotten my LiveDVD to work for my system and a few others but I don't want to post this and have everyone complaining how it won't work on theirs (because I didn't design it with this in mind).
It really is just easier to create it.
Use an "old" version of a Leopard OSx86 install DVD and update. Then follow the guide. Pretty simple steps if you ask me.
I think if the ramdisk size was changed in the initial build you could make it work with less RAM.
Synthesized Community Field Notes
5 technical responses curated from 12 original dispatches
Fantastic news, i've been looking forward to this for a while :
Yes, this is definitely great stuff.. I created one the other day when i saw the thread at insanelymac. Working like a charm, great stuff. It can definitely help the community a lot.
Yes, i agree, its pretty simple to create a LiveDVD. I created mine and it's working fine for both of my systems. Could have uploaded it, but it needs to cover good amount of chipsets. Who knows, maybe i can include it and create sort of uni livedvd, not sure though. The fact remains that it is a great thing. It can save us having a working spare installation from other disk used for recovery instead of booting off install dvd, could be used for restoring backup disk images and other various usage. Great thing.
Seems that there may be a RAM limitation to this.
I have 1GB of RAM, and a test DVD that was sent to me refuses to boot all the way. Seems there has to be at least 1.1GB of RAM or more to boot the system.
PCWiz and I are going to test some things, he's having something sent to him and we'll probably try out a script which auto-detects your RAM size to ensure best use of the ramdisk.
Sources & Contributor Provenance (8 credited usernames · Thread #1868)
| Username | Dossier Contribution | Dispatches | Active Window |
|---|---|---|---|
| @nfoav8or | Primary Author | 3 | 2009-01-03 → 2009-01-24 |
| @milanca | Contributor | 2 | 2009-01-03 → 2009-01-15 |
| @cmdshft | Contributor | 2 | 2009-01-23 → 2009-01-24 |
| @Voyn1x | Contributor | 1 | 2009-01-03 |
| @bob5731 | Contributor | 1 | 2009-01-14 |
| @biker69 | Contributor | 1 | 2009-02-05 |
| @ultimo | Contributor | 1 | 2009-02-20 |
| @Quentin | Contributor | 1 | 2009-05-30 |