OSX install disk utility (alpha testers needed)
 

Make backup copies of your OSX install disk.
Basically an app that lets you update a OSX retail disk with the latest combo update, plus shrinks the D/L DVD onto a S/L DVD. So far only tested on my PPC PowerBook and a couple of hackintoshes. The Intel Mac parts of the app are untested, but should in theory work.

Hexley 0.1 pre-alpha released 28/10/08
Hexley 0.2 pre-alpha released 18/11/08
Hexley 0.3 pre-alpha released 24/11/08
Hexley 0.4 pre-alphareleased 30/11/08
Hexley 0.5 pre-alpha released 07/12/08
wiki pre-alpha definition

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/3...ey04sx7.th.png

Overview of how the app works:

• The app creates disk image (dmg), this is like a virtual hard disk held on file within the real hard drive.
• The app then installs a stock OSX system on the dmg from the retail disk.
• Any modification required is then performed on the stock system held in the dmg.
• That stock system is then wrapped up in a package (pkg) and saved on you real hard drive.
• The stock system held in the dmg is now converted to small installer system to be used as the DVD.
• The pkg is then added to the small installer system.
• The dmg now holds the content of a OSX install DVD, the app converts the dmg into a DVD image (iso/cdr) and makes it bootable for the target hardware (PPC/Intel Mac or Hack)

Disclamer:
You have to remember this is alpha and if something can go wrong then it probably will. The app is quite verbose if there is an error copy and paste the whole output and send it to me. If you would like more info on what the app is doing try launching Console.app in your utilities folder and watch the All Messages section, this should give you an idea of what is going on/wrong.

Thanks goes to anyone willing to help with testing this app. If you want to try the app, I would suggest you try making a backup DVD first. If that works then try making an updated backup DVD. If that works then try making a PC compatible DVD.

Remember this is alpha software. It shouldn't set fire to your house and kill your family, but then again it might.

The app is just a simple GUI wrapper for a shellscript. If you look inside the app you can view the script in any text editor (I recommend Xcode). If you like you can run the script in terminal to aid debugging.

Feel free to modify the script as you wish.

The PC compatibility comes from the pkgs held in four folders labeled:
chipsetCompatibilityPkgs
compatibilityPkgs
gfxCompatibilityPkgs
networkCompatibilityPkgs
These folders can be found in "/Library/Application\ Support/HexleySupport"

Add any pkg to these folders and it will be presented as a choice in the appropriate section of the app.

nice work of great use

agreed, now if only there was a way to make a windows app that would do this for people we wouldn't need to make distros anymore... everyone could just create their own from both platforms then. Of course, we don't want to make it too easy. ;) I'm at work right now but when I get home I plan to test this using both my Intel Macbook and my AMD Hacintosh. (specs below)

EDIT: what bootloader is used during the final write?

Boot loader is Chameleon-1.0.11 for a hack, Open Firmware on the ppc Mac, and EFI on a Intel Mac.

Instead of a windows app, how about a Darwin live CD? I haven't a clue how you would port this to linux never mind windows, but a Darwin port should be feasible.

could this app be run from an OS X Live DVD as long as it is dragged over to a HD and run? in other words, does it have to be on the root drive? can the temp directory and image be placed and directly worked on a drive other than root? This would allow people without OS X on their system (ie the windows and linux users to not need to install anything extra) to create the install DVD cuztomized to their system right from the start and see exactly what is needed from the Live DVD.

I don't see any reason why the images would need to be on the root HD. The script requires somewhere in the region of 15GB of free space to create the required disk images. I imagine some cleverer than myself might be able to squeeze that down somewhat, but I don't think you could do it in RAM anyway. Maybe you could have the live DVD partition and format a HD for use by the script. It's not something that I have given a lot of thought. It all a bit crazy anyway, if you are going to download a live DVD to make an install DVD, then why not download a pre made install DVD? Apparently I'm knitting with one needle as it is, so perhaps I should stay clear of these crazy ideas. ;)

oh I know... just crazy thoughts. I was creating the Live DVD to try and allow people to try out OS X without actually installing anything to their hard drive and thought "hmm, interesting"

I have to stop having those moments. :)

Hmm. ok... nm. I guess I didn't put two and two together.

Forcedeth caused a Kernel Panic after mounting the DMG it created of my install disk on my Hacintosh. I'm removing it and retrying.


EDIT: I figured out what it was... the kernel panic was caused by forcedeth during the loading of iTunes and trying to connect to the iTunes Store. Why does this load iTunes to play music during this step? If I want to listen to music while it's working I'll open iTunes myself.

EDIT 2: Success running a B/U with retail and B/U with update on the Intel Macbook in my specs... now on to the PC compatible version.

The script takes like an hour to run on my hardware, I was using iTunes as an alarm to get my attention so I would go back to the PC. To stop it from doing that, just comment out the two calls to play music:
playMp3 "${mp3one}" # Play some music
playMp3 "${mp3two}" # Play some music
When Hexley is installed you can find the script here:
/Applications/Hexley.app/Contents/Resources/script
I should have done that myself before posting it on MediaFire. :(

Does the backup + update DVD for the Macbook boot okay? I've never had access to a real Intel Mac to test my method of making a real Mac efi bootable disk. You don't have to install from the DVD, just see if it boots. If the DVD boots it is safe to assume the install would work okay.

sweet, thanks... now I'll be able to do the same on my hacintosh!


worked like a charm... I simply updated using the combo 10.5.5 update to my 10.5.0 retail DVD and used that to install to a USB drive attached to my Macbook. Works like a charm. The only items of complaint are the music (easily fixed) and the install screen for the newly created DVD (I assume easily manipulated via hdiutil functions with packagemaker... only to get a more "Retail" feel to it).

a few questions for ya though... 1) When someone uses this, does it only include the language they are currently using during the install in order to cut down the size? 2) Are you planning to update this app to allow the creation of Dual-layer DVDs with this?

All-in-all an awesome app. I like the confirmations (although some could view that as not allowing it to be set-it-and-forget-it).

I'll post back when I'm completed this on my Hacintosh.

EDIT: why are there three songs listed but only two that you mentioned above?

During development/testing they are handy just to drop in places to attract my attention. e.g. If I what to see the output from thinToArch, I can drop playMp3 "${mp3three}" before the thinToArch call in the main method.

If you mean you would like to get rid of the Hexley logo on the DVD install screen, then you need to edit/remove the following before running Hexley:
/Library/Application\ Support/HexleySupport/OSInstall.mpkg/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/background.jpg

Regards language: Hexley in itself is English only, but feel free to translate it as you wish. The backup DVD and system it will install are stripped of most languages to save space. Previous versions of the script included a language selector so you could choose which language to keep. It's something I need to reintroduce.

Dual layer backup? Just use Toast or Disk Utility. [EDIT] Duh! That wouldn't include the latest update. So you want to update the DVD but strip nothing out and keep it D/L? It worth looking at.

Thanks for the work you have done testing this. It's nice to know the Intel Mac backup DVD works. :D

I figured it had something to do with testing... good thinking.

Yup, thats what I was referring to. I removed it and replaced the welcome.rtf with the original from the retail after renaming it. I like the logo though. I know I can edit the images after they are done but is there a way to change the DefaultDesktop.jpg for the installer?

I know the script is written in English but I wasn't sure if the scripts took out all languages other than English no matter what the user was operating on. I use English so it doesn't pertain to me, but if there is a way for the script to check the system's used language and retain that in the Installer (or allow for a selection of languages) that would benefit non-English users. I know my stripped PC compatible disk only use 3.56GB so there should be room for the languages... "should" being the key word. It might get tight.

Yeah, I was referring to the update and the PC with update. :)
Its not a big deal but I've got an old iBook that is PPC and thought it would be nice to install Leopard to it with all the updates (since I've already purchased my retail DVD).

One big HIGH-FIVE is the easiness of editing the scripts to make it work the way I want. I like this feature a lot. Thanks for passing this on to the site and I'll continue to help test this and other new releases as they come out. PM me if you need/want anything further.

One question:

Will it be possible to install Leopard on PowerPC hardware like Efika, PowerStation or on a dualcore MPC8640D, natively?

This is not the thread to post this question in.

Start it over in the Questions section and we'll work on it there.

EDIT: realized my mistake. Good catch.

Not to my knowledge.

The Efika is way underpowered for Leo anyway, not familiar with the other two. If the non Mac ppc hardware is powerful enough and you run linux, then you can always try Mac-on-Linux.

If I owned an Efika I would be messing around with Morph OS, but if I was going to buy an oddball ppc motherboard it would be the Sam440ep with Amiga OS4.1 :) Check out this link for some Amigaish Mac heaven.

Back on topic: Update to Hexley is in the works, release maybe as soon as tomorrow night. Thanks go to zephyroth for some excellent tips. ;)

If you make a PPC backup it strips out i386 and x86_64 code, Very useful for my aging PPC PowerBook. ;)

haha.. my bad. but still, whether or not PPC will work natively is a question for the other sections. Good catch and advice though.

Okay, not Leo, but Tiger should running fine. Tiger on my Pismo do :-)
PowerStation von TSS (now Fixstars) has two PPC970MP in it, like the last PowerMac Quad.
MPC8641D/MPC8640D is a dualcore G4, at 1.8GHz it beats a PPC970MP at 2.5GHz on several tasks and is superior on AltiVec tasks.

Naa, MOL isn't an option.

Yes, I know this board.

Version 0.5 is out, see first post.

Now includes language chooser, Voodoo 9.5.0 Kernel Release 1.0 rev A, Improved CPUID patcher (need to make that optional), plus a bunch other bug fixes.
Thanks to zephyroth for his help on finding CPUIDs.

Does the OSX install disk utility work with 10.4 and below retail disks, aswell?

This is awesome! Got an error on my hackintosh though. Said it couldn't get the UUID of my drive (error 35). When i try it out on my MBP it works like a charm. My hackintosh problem is probably due to my install or something. Hoping to use my newly updated 10.5.5 install CD to reinstall using boot 132. I love that it slims it down to a single layer DVD. Great work! Quick question, if i choose the PC option, it will still allow for a mostly vanilla install right? This is my goal with the boot 132 but i'm having tons of problems getting it to work so far. This may be a good alternate method for me.

As it is, no.

It wouldn't be a massive task to edit the actual script to work on Tiger, but you would also need to change the support files for Tiger compatible versions.

If you select PC compatible and then select none of the compatibility pkgs the install will be extremely close to vanilla (with the exception of the removed language packs, PPC binaries... etc.). The chameleon bootloader will still be used, but the resulting disk would be pointless. You could use it with a boot 132 CD containing the necessary kext, but you can do that with the retail disk or a Intel Mac compatible backup made by this utility. You wouldn't be able to boot to a working system directly from the resulting DVD.

And if I will use this utility with my PowerPC computers?

Currently testing it, it has been running for 30+ minutes and it said it'd take about 11 minutes. I'll let it run for one more hour since my dvd drive is very busy, and the program seems to be working. edit: it took about an hour to complete.
A progressbar would be nice, or somekind of activity indicator, and more osx friendly colors are welcome as well :)

update: image succesfully created (after 2 hours), I'll test it tomorrow.. seems like this app is working quite well!

Thanks ritalin