Dell Inspiron 1525 HackBook Pro Tutorial!

July 21, 2008 at 3:29 PM · Filed under Apple / Mac

(At the time of writing, 10.5.4 is the latest version of Mac OS X)

I’ve done it, and I absolutely love it for more reasons than one. Now I’m going to show you how it’s done so you too can have your own Inspiron 1525 HackBook Pro. First, let’s look at the specs and see what we’re dealing with. I bought this laptop at Best Buy about a week ago now for $499.99. It was either on a fast sale or priced incorrectly because now the identical model with the same SKU and Best Buy # is showing up for $649.99 — same color and everything. You snooze, you lose.

On the outside is a rather unattractive and hard to keep clean jet black lid with silver trim. I’d say the only good thing about the exterior is the Dell logo. Opening it up reveals a very sexy, modern silver design, perfect key placement, a really attractive touchpad that looks like it’s built right into the case — very nice indeed. Touch senor media buttons with a nice blue light finish off a well-designed interior with a very modern feel. This thing was well thought out on the inside. One of the best I’ve seen from Dell.

Under the hood boasts a little bit older processor technology with a 533MHz FSB — Intel Pentium Dual Core. This is very similar to the new Celeron Dual Cores but don’t let it confuse you with the Pentium D — this CPU is actually rather nice. Although using the Pentium name, the Pentium Dual Core is based on the Core technology you’re already familar with on your Core Duo and Core2 Duo Macs. While the battery doesn’t last quite as long as a similar Core2 Duo (Centrino), this 1.87GHz packs a punch and unlike all you other dual core users, I don’t have to boot with cpus=1 — that’s right! This HackBook Pro is using both cores and it’s putting out some power with Mac OS X.

Let’s go over the fine details:

  • Dell Inspiron 1525
  • (Best Buy Model: I1525-121B / SKU: 8878002)
  • Intel Pentium Dual Core 1.87 GHz
  • 15.4″ Glossy XGA HD Widescreen LCD (1280 x 800)
  • Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (Like MacBook, MacBook Air!)
  • 2 GB DDR2 Memory (Up To 4 GB!)
  • 160 GB SATA Hard Drive (5200 RPM)
  • Double-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW w/ Label Support
  • 16×4x16 DVD+RW; 8×4x16 DVD-RW; 40×24x40 CD-RW
  • Built-in 10/100 Ethernet, 56K Dial-up Modem, Dell 1395 Wi-Fi
  • USB 2.0, Firewire, ExpressCard/54, Lithium-ion Battery, Card Reader, etc.

There are a couple things I’m going to end up doing to this laptop over time, including upgrading to a larger, faster SATA hard drive and maxing out the 4 GB supported memory. A few really attractive points of this system is not in the hardware, but in the drivers and support for Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.4). The wireless card is recognized and used as AirPort and the battery management works. Those are two huge pluses for those of you who have “half-supported” laptops running jury-rigged applications to connect to your wireless network or preserve your battery life. Oh, and did I mention that you don’t need ANY graphics drivers? That’s right, this model is fully supported with Quartz Extreme and Core Image!

Of course, getting your new Inspiron to run just like mine is going to take a bit of work, including downloading the ususal files from the usual places like a certain bay of thieves or the little green monster, but once you’ve burned everything to a single layer DVD, you’ll be up and running in under an hour! I highly suggest to any “noobs” that you don’t attempt to dual boot just yet. Let’s start with a full hard drive, no partitions, no “bull.”

1] Start by doing some downloading on a working computer that is connected to the Internet. You’re going to need a DVD burner, a fast Internet connection, and some Googling skills to find everything you need. Lucky for you, I’m going to provide all the difficult stuff to find — the drivers and hacks that are going to give your laptop the extras you need. First, download “Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.2 Kalyway” (AMD/Intel) installation DVD. It should be around 3 to 4 GB. Next, download the “Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.3 Kalyway Combo Update” which should be around 500 to 600 MB. Go ahead and burn them to separate discs using Disk Utility if you’re already on a Mac, or PowerISO if you’re on Windows. If you use Windows a lot, PowerISO is one of those few programs I’d actually purchase. It’s that good. I suggest burning everything at 8X or slower to ensure it’s 100%.

2] Insert your newly burned 10.5.2 Kalyway Installation DVD into your laptop and boot from it. I assume you still have Windows Vista pre-loaded, which is fine. We’re going to delete all that crap. It’s going to take a while for the installation screen to load and you’re going to be flooded with a ton of text lines, even some errors, as the DVD probes and pokes around your hardware. Once the screen loads, you’ll notice your keyboard and touchpad instantly work out of the box. The first thing you want to do is click on Tools in the menu bar and select Disk Utility. Once this loads (give it a minute), select your hard drive (160.0 GB ….) by clicking on it, and then click on the Erase tab. Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for Volume Format and for Name type “Macintosh HD” then click “Erase …” Give it a few minutes to rid all instances of Bill Gates and you’ll see your new “Macintosh HD” appear. Once that has completed, exit out of Disk Utility and continue the installation by going through the on-screen instructions. You may want to click “Customize” before you go through actually installing Mac OS X as Kalyway has included a lot of extras that might appeal to you. Be careful not to select the wrong items, like things that don’t pretain to your hardware or you’re going to end up screwing yourself later. I got you covered, don’t I? After your installation is complete, it’s going to reboot your computer.

3] This is where the fun begins! Take out your installation disc and reboot. When you get to the Darwin boot loader screen, hit F8 to enter some boot flags. Type -v -f and hit enter. After a ton of scrolling text, your screen will black out as if it’s asleep. Don’t panic! You want your computer to sleep. When you see the screen go black and activity slow down on your CPU light, unplug your inspiron from the power cable and close the lid. Come back to it in about 15 minutes when it has fallen asleep and wake it up by moving your finger around on the touchpad. Welcome to the post-installation. Go ahead and opt out of transfering files from another Mac, and also select that you don’t have an Internet connection. Keep clicking and you’ll be asked to enter your personal information. Keep clicking! You’ll soon be presented with the desktop — sexy, huh? Now there’s something you need to do ASAP or else you’ll be waiting for this computer to fall asleep every time you reboot.

4] Before you start drooling and examining your Mac-powered laptop, click on the Apple and go to System Prefernces. Click on “Expose & Spaces” and then click the “Expose” button. On one of the Active Screen Corners select “Sleep Display.” I chose the lower left-hand corner. Go ahead and exit out of that and reboot. When the screen goes blank, move your finger down towards the corner you selected. It may take a few imaginary strokes since you can’t see the mouse pointer. After a few tries you’ll master it and your screen will appear — ta da. Now, one thing I did notice that few people report (Maybe it’s just me?), with the “sleep trick” being used, sometimes the desktop icons become unclickable or hidden. Although this is a pain in the ass, it only takes a moment. After you boot up and do the sleep trick with the touchpad, go ahead and log out of your user account and log back in. This ensures everything’s 100% with your session. The only downside to the sleep trick is it requires you to leave Auto Login going. There’s a work around for this to put the display to sleep at the Login screen but I’m not going to go there yet.

UPDATE! Want this sleep trick to happen automatically and be able to see the Login screen? Click here!

5] Now it’s time to pop in your other DVD — the Combo Update. Go ahead and drag it all to the desktop and install it. Before we get busy with it, let’s make a copy of our current kernel for safe keeping in case you fuck something up. Open up Terminal (use Spotlight if you’re not sure where to find it) and type sudo su - to get a root session. Root is like the Administrator account on Microsoft Windows. If you screw up as root, you’re done. After su’ing to root, type cp /mach_kernel /mach_kernel_bkup1052 to make a copy of your existing kernel that you can use to boot up with later if you need to. It’s always good to have a backup plan, right? Install the Combo Update but don’t reboot. It’s going to ask you to but keep that window open! With that window still visable, go ahead and install the kernel package. Once that has installed successfully, hit reboot on your other window and hang on for the ride.

6] Boom. Now you’re running Mac OS X 10.5.3 Leopard. But that’s not the latest version. Lucky for you, the next round of upgrades to get to 10.5.4 are going to come from Software Update. That’s right, directly from Apple like a real Mac! But not just yet. First, we have to get this laptop online. This is where I come in. Click on one of the links below to download my Inspiron 1525 Mac Drivers Pack. A lot of this stuff may/will work on other Inspiron models but I only guarantee it’ll work on my exact model (see above). Go ahead and grab my pack, although I only take credit for making all this stuff easily accessible, I didn’t create any of these tools, just modified them to work with this laptop (if applicable).

Download Inspiron 1525 Mac Drivers Pack (Mirror 1)
Download Inspiron 1525 Mac Drivers Pack (Mirror 2)
Download Inspiron 1525 Mac Drivers Pack (Mirror 3)

(If none of these links above work, report it here and I’ll add more!)

7] After you download and unzip the pack, take a look inside. Now open up a Terminal window and find the directory on your desktop, or where ever you downloaded the ZIP to. Go inside Broadcom-Script and type sudo su - ; chmod +x bcm43xx_enabler.sh ; ./bcm43xx_enabler.sh to run the installer. Don’t worry, I’ve added the correct values for our internal Dell 1395 Wi-Fi. Once that runs, close Terminal and open up Disk Utility. Repair disk permissions just in case and then reboot your computer. AirPort should appear on your menu bar and you’ll be able to find your wireless network and get online.

8] Go ahead and use Software Update to download everything. When you reboot, since you’re upgrading to 10.5.4, you’ll have to run the Broadcom-Script again like we did above. Once you’ve upgraded to 10.5.4 successfully and re-applied the Wi-Fi drivers, fixed permissions, etc., connect back to your wireless network. Now it’s time to get audio working. Use my supplied 1525 Codec file and fire up crazy green frog (AppleHDAPatcher_v1.16). Drag the 1525_Codec.txt file into the window and let it work its magic. Repair permissions again just to be safe and reboot. Now you’ll notice sound works and you don’t have to keep re-applying the Broadcom-Script patch.

9] At this point I assume you’ve learned enough or done enough reading elsewhere to know how to install kexts. Unzip PowerManagement_137_1.bundle.tar.gz and install the PowerManagement.bundle. Repair permissions, delete kext cache and all that fun stuff. Now reboot again. You should see your battery meter come to life on your menu bar. Keep the settings set to ‘Custom’ if you want it to continue to function. I set mine to Percentage.

10] If you’re like me, you want to be able to “tap” the touchpad to click, and scroll with a finger, etc. For this we use the install.sh script inside of ApplePS2Trackpad. Once that’s up and running, go into System Preferences and you’ll find a Trackpad tab within the Keyboard & Mouse window. Play around with the settings. Sometimes you may have to set it to what appears to be really low (slow) in order to get the speed just right. It’s a little funky, but you’ll find a setting that you can enjoy. Scrolling is a bit more than hit and miss as it doesn’t work REALLY well but it’s still useful to some. I’ve disabled it.

There are some loose ends, but I’m going to leave that up to you. The wired (Ethernet) will work using a quick patch that you can find by searching the InsanelyMac forums. Sleep will wake up properly with a different kernel. You’re welcome to replace your Dock with a darker, more attractive theme like I have included in the Midnight Dock directory. I suggest saving my Drivers Pack and stashing it somewhere, for when the next upgrade to Mac OS X comes out, you may end up re-applying some things again.

All in all, it’s a lot cheaper than spending $1,000 on a MacBook, or even $2,000 on a MacBook Pro. And it’s a lot more fun! I would put my current Mac-powered Inspiron at around the level of a MacBook Air at a fraction of the cost (And a bit less “Airy” since it’s pretty heavy). Unlike you crazy mobile gurus, I don’t carry around a full-sized laptop like it’s Palm Pilot. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll respond within 24 hours in most cases. Good luck!

UPDATE!

Once you upgrade to 10.5.4, if you’re having issues getting the battery meter to display in your menu bar, you may be missing some files. Download my AppleACPIPlatform.kext, move yours somewhere safe as a backup (/System/Library/Extensions/AppleACPIPlatform.kext), pop mine in, repair permissions, kext cache, and all that fun stuff (Or use Kext Helper), reboot and check out your Energy settings in System Preferences now. Boom!

UPDATE!

Need S3 (Hibernation) Sleep on 10.5.4? Tired of putting your HackBook Pro to bed, only to find out it won’t wake up? Open Terminal and type sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 hibernatefile /dev/null then click Apple, Sleep. Wait for it to snooze and the fan to turn off. Now lightly hit your power button and it should crank back up, find your wireless network again, etc. If it doesn’t hold after a reboot, throw it in /etc/rc.common (Or /etc/rc.local if you’ve found that to work). Report your success here!

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Dell Inspiron 1525 HackBook Pro — AMAZING! - Espresso Report said,

July 21, 2008 @ 3:38 PM

[...] Click here to read the [...]

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Zulu said,

July 21, 2008 @ 4:03 PM

Great Work! One quick question, can you clarify the following:

Install the Combo Update but don’t reboot. It’s going to ask you to but keep that window open! With that window still visable, go ahead and install the kernel package.

What is the Kernel package, and how do I install it? Thanks.

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Hydra said,

July 21, 2008 @ 6:26 PM

You rock! Nice one.

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Alex said,

July 21, 2008 @ 11:19 PM

Dude, thank you SO much! I’m going to try this on my laptop next week.

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Richard said,

July 22, 2008 @ 6:58 AM

Zulu
Great Work! One quick question, can you clarify the following:

Install the Combo Update but don�t reboot. It�s going to ask you to but keep that window open! With that window still visable, go ahead and install the kernel package.

What is the Kernel package, and how do I install it? Thanks.

The kernel package comes with Kalyway’s 10.5.3 Combo Update. Just double click and select the kernel(s) you want. Once that has completed, go back to your other window from the Combo Update and reboot.

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Richard said,

July 22, 2008 @ 7:00 AM

Tip:

Don’t want to keep booting with -v -f? You can add it to your boot loader so you don’t have to keep typing it. Open /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist with your favorite text editor and look for string under kernel flags. Mine looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>-v -f</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>4</string>
</dict>

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Zulu said,

July 22, 2008 @ 10:03 AM

Richard

ZuluGreat Work! One quick question, can you clarify the following:

Install the Combo Update but don�t reboot. It�s going to ask you to but keep that window open! With that window still visable, go ahead and install the kernel package.

What is the Kernel package, and how do I install it? Thanks.

The kernel package comes with Kalyway’s 10.5.3 Combo Update. Just double click and select the kernel(s) you want. Once that has completed, go back to your other window from the Combo Update and reboot.

Thank you!

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Alex said,

July 22, 2008 @ 1:37 PM

Before I try this, there are a few things that I was wondering about:

1. On initial boot, (when you are installing Leopard) do you have to type any boot flags? Or do you just let it do it’s thing?

2. How do you get it to sleep at the login screen? I googled for an hour or so, but I didn’t see an answer.

3. Does your wireless card work with a protected network, say WPA2?

Thanks.

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Richard said,

July 22, 2008 @ 3:41 PM

Alex
Before I try this, there are a few things that I was wondering about:

1. On initial boot, (when you are installing Leopard) do you have to type any boot flags? Or do you just let it do it’s thing?

2. How do you get it to sleep at the login screen? I googled for an hour or so, but I didn’t see an answer.

3. Does your wireless card work with a protected network, say WPA2?

Thanks.

You don’t have to type anything special to boot to installation from the DVD. To get the login screen to sleep, go to Expose and set a hot corner for Sleep Display. Make sure you’ve got auto login turned on so you get to your account and are able to sleep it. Move the touchpad over to your hot corner and then move it out. It takes a couple strokes to get it going. My wireless card is currently on a secured network with a key and a MAC address whitelist. Working great as I type this.

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Hydra said,

July 22, 2008 @ 4:20 PM

Hi again,

I’m running though this on my Inspiron 1525 now and wondered if you could expand point #2 above, specificall you say: “Be careful not to select the wrong items, like things that don’t pretain to your hardware or you’re going to end up screwing yourself later.” It would be good if you could detail what you DID select and what you SHOULD’T select, as required.

Also, in point #10 you say “Sleep will wake up properly with a different kernel.” could you elaborate on this a little or provide links to we can read up on this.

Thanks again for taking the time to write this up, *really* appreciated.

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Richard said,

July 22, 2008 @ 7:10 PM

Hydra
Hi again,

I’m running though this on my Inspiron 1525 now and wondered if you could expand point #2 above, specificall you say: “Be careful not to select the wrong items, like things that don�t pretain to your hardware or you�re going to end up screwing yourself later.” It would be good if you could detail what you DID select and what you SHOULD’T select, as required.

Also, in point #10 you say “Sleep will wake up properly with a different kernel.” could you elaborate on this a little or provide links to we can read up on this.

Thanks again for taking the time to write this up, *really* appreciated.

Most of what I selected during my original install was to test them out. You can install it without selecting anything but the hacked kernel (sleepkernel works well on 10.5.2). Sleep is something I’m working on as we speak. Not so much to put the computer to sleep, but to be able to wake it up is the current issue. It appears in 10.5.4 we’ve swapped sleep with battery display and that’s no good. I’ll keep you guys posted on my progress with getting the 1525 to wake from sleep on Mac OS X 10.5.4.

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Hydra said,

July 22, 2008 @ 8:05 PM

thanks for the reply. I’ve got my hackintosh running, but alas no wifi or cable lan as i have an intel 3945 in my box. ordered a set of 5 old .b (not g/n/a) minipci cards in the hope that one will work, only £4 so no loss if they don’t work :D

Do you know if the PCMCIA slot and either wired or wireless cards will work as another possible workaround? Or maybe even any USB wireless or wired adaptors that might work?

Thanks again!

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Richard said,

July 22, 2008 @ 10:16 PM

Intel 3945 won’t work for a while. Drivers are being written but nothing, to the best of my knowledge, is working 100%. Go to osx86project.org and check the HCL for any 10.5 versions and see what luck people have had with USB, PCMCIA, or ExpressCard wireless or wired adapters. Alternatively, you can buy a Dell Mini PCI wirelss card and be back in the game with AirPort in no time.

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Henry said,

July 22, 2008 @ 11:26 PM

Thanks for the tutorial! You rock! Everything so far works on my 1525. I haven’t tried using ethernet and I probably will never try it except maybe at a hotel. Wireless works like a charm - so does networking. Sound works great. I can’t believe the volume control button works as well! USB works. I’ve got my external 500GB HD hooked up right now and I used a flashdrive to bring over the Inspiron Mac Drivers Pack. One thing though, I still have to use the sleep corner to get things going when I restart the or first boot up the laptop.

For you noobs out there like me, if you’re having trouble using the Terminal to get the broadcom script to run, save a copy of the file to your main directory and you can use this command:

sudo /bcm43xx_enabler.sh

It will then ask you for your password and it will then run and install.

For some reason or another, maybe I just don’t know what I am doing, the other command posted above wasn’t working for me.

Also, when you install OSX, make sure to install ALL of the KOOLSOFT programs. You can use kexthelper to install kext files for you. This is what I like to use to install kext files.

The kernel I used: Vanilla Kernel
Graphics Driver: x3100
Sound and Wireless Drivers: I just had it check marked to whatever was check marked since I knew we would end up running these patches anyway.
For the other patches in the Kalyway installer, I made sure to click the timemachine fix and the other patch right below it. I’m sure it was some type of patch for laptops.

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Richard said,

July 23, 2008 @ 6:14 AM

I instructed people to sudo su - so they already have a root session when they’re typing this stuff, but I went ahead and included it since I didn’t make it obvious enough after a reboot that you’ll lose your su. Time Machine isn’t something I use on my laptop. Kalyway’s stuff is really all to your liking.

Thanks.

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agfrg said,

July 23, 2008 @ 8:07 AM

Hey!

Thanks for this guide, now I can have OS X on my Dell! :D

But i’m having a problem. I can’t get sound to work, it seems like AppleHDAPatcher isn’t doing anything. My laptop is exactly the same as yours and I even got my own codec dump from Ubuntu, but it’s not happening anything.

Can somebody help me?

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agfrg said,

July 23, 2008 @ 8:10 AM

Hey folks, need some help here!

First, thanks for this excelent guide, up and runing thanks to you.

But i’m having a problem with AppleHDAPatcher. It seems that it isn’t doing anything. Tried with your codec dump, one I got from ubuntu and both the ones that are available already for this sigmatel and I still don’t get any sound. And the HDA Patcher is always saying “Please drag and drop your linux codec dump into the AppleHDA Patcher icon”.

Can someone help me?

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Zulu said,

July 23, 2008 @ 1:39 PM

Yes, this happened to me. What you have to do is not open AppleHDAPatcher, but rather drag the codec file into the AppleHDAPatcher icon and let it run after entering your pass, and it will work. It took me while to figure it out.

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Richard said,

July 23, 2008 @ 2:27 PM

Getting the Inspiron 1525 to wake up after sleep is proving to be a real pain in the ass…

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Keith said,

July 23, 2008 @ 3:10 PM

Is there anyone who make the wired ethernet work on Inspiron 1525? I cannot find any successful example on InsanelyMac forums. This is the only existing problem for me except the sleep/wake pain.

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Alex said,

July 23, 2008 @ 4:13 PM

RichardGetting the Inspiron 1525 to wake up after sleep is proving to be a real pain in the ass…

I do not need mine to sleep, so is there any way to keep it from sleeping when you shut the lid?

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Richard said,

July 23, 2008 @ 4:25 PM

Keith
Is there anyone who make the wired ethernet work on Inspiron 1525? I cannot find any successful example on InsanelyMac forums. This is the only existing problem for me except the sleep/wake pain.

I’m currently working on a fix for the existing Yukon drivers but I had it working in 10.5.2 prior to upgrading (During the original DVD install), so I make no promises but I’m looking into it. Wireless is the way to go anyway. If you’re plugging something in to a laptop then you might as well have a desktop, IMHO.

Alex

RichardGetting the Inspiron 1525 to wake up after sleep is proving to be a real pain in the ass…

I do not need mine to sleep, so is there any way to keep it from sleeping when you shut the lid?

Click on the battery meter on your menu bar, go to Energy Saver Preferences, (Keep it Custom!), Choose “Settings For” and adjust the various settings within. Slide Put The Computer To Sleep When Inactive For all the way to Never and adjust your display sleep to fit your needs.

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BT said,

July 23, 2008 @ 7:13 PM

Saw this post and downloaded Kalyay 10.5.2 iso (3.6GB) but now I keep getting errors when I try to install.. keeps saying Install Failed and something about missing the Essentials package. Any idea what this is and if there is a fix without having to do a full new download?… I also tried IATKOS v4 but I can only get it to boot using -x but your wifi drivers works well - just can’t get it to get anything better than1024 x 768 resolution.

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Zulu said,

July 24, 2008 @ 8:34 AM

Richard, Does the card reader work? Thanks.

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Richard said,

July 24, 2008 @ 8:40 AM

Zulu
Richard, Does the card reader work? Thanks.

Not at this time and it doesn’t look all that hopeful. I’d keep that USB card reader handy in your laptop bag.

UPDATE! Want to use the Login window (no auto login, hot corner bullshit) to log in? Overcome the normal “Sleep Trick” with my auto alternative!

http://www.espressoreport.com/85/alternative-to-sleep-trick-on-intel-gmax3100/

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Anonymous said,

July 24, 2008 @ 11:59 PM

Alright, I am almost there. Two things:
1. The sleep trick works at bootup time, but not when I put the laptop to sleep myself. I tried several times and no matter what I do the screen does not come back.

2. I replaced PowerManagement.bundle with the one in the zip file, repaired permissions, rebooted, but battery meter will not show up. Is there anything else to that?

Thanks a lot.

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Richard said,

July 25, 2008 @ 7:34 AM

Anonymous
Alright, I am almost there. Two things:
1. The sleep trick works at bootup time, but not when I put the laptop to sleep myself. I tried several times and no matter what I do the screen does not come back.

2. I replaced PowerManagement.bundle with the one in the zip file, repaired permissions, rebooted, but battery meter will not show up. Is there anything else to that?

Thanks a lot.

The “sleep trick” is a display sleep, like your desktop LCD going into “Standby’ mode. The sleep you’re talking about — where it sleeps but doesn’t wake up is S3 Sleep, more commonly known as Hibernation. That’s something a lot of us are still working on and has to do with a combination of things from your power settings, USB drivers and Darwin kernels.

For the battery meter, double check your permissions (Disk Utility), then go to System Preferences, Energy Saver, Options Tab, and check the box next to “Show Battery Meter.” One thing I noticed is that during my upgrades from original 10.5.2 to 10.5.4, my BIOS display settings have changed. If you unplug from the power adapter and don’t get screen dimming, go into your BIOS and manually set to the following:

On AC Power: 100
On Battery Power: 20

Save your BIOS settings, boot up, and pull the plug! I’m getting 2X battery life reported VS doing the same tasks with 100% brightness.

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Zulu, said,

July 25, 2008 @ 4:31 PM

Thanks Richard. I guess S3 is work in progress. I had the impression that it would work since after installing 10.5.2 it went to sleep, and by mouse click woke up.

The BIOS change you suggested works fine, but does not make the battery meter work. I also do not have “Show Battery Meter” in the Energy Saver. I did the disk permissions repair once more with no change.

Thanks for your help, I am more interested in S3 working than the battery meter, it just a hassle to keep booting up every time I leave the laptop.

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Alex said,

July 26, 2008 @ 1:48 AM

In the install, did you select the X3100 driver? I forgot to, so I hope I can get it after I boot up…

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Alex said,

July 26, 2008 @ 4:15 AM

Also, every time I install the combo update my computer won’t start again. I’m using the vanilla kernel…

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Richard said,

July 26, 2008 @ 8:16 AM

Alex
In the install, did you select the X3100 driver? I forgot to, so I hope I can get it after I boot up…

I selected no graphics drivers during the DVD installation. It “just works” (with sleep trick).

Alex
Also, every time I install the combo update my computer won’t start again. I’m using the vanilla kernel…

Try booting with update -v a couple times. It may take a while to boot and look like it’s freezing, but hang in there. Should be fine.

Zulu,
Thanks Richard. I guess S3 is work in progress. I had the impression that it would work since after installing 10.5.2 it went to sleep, and by mouse click woke up.

The BIOS change you suggested works fine, but does not make the battery meter work. I also do not have “Show Battery Meter” in the Energy Saver. I did the disk permissions repair once more with no change.

Thanks for your help, I am more interested in S3 working than the battery meter, it just a hassle to keep booting up every time I leave the laptop.

It did work when you first installed 10.5.2, but even after reverting to the old kernels, some things are lost after updating to 10.5.3 and 10.5.4. If you adjust the sleep (set to Never) and just use the display sleep to turn off your screen when you’re away, you won’t have to keep rebooting due to S3 sleep freezes. Make sure you moved your old PowerManagement.bundle out of there and that you’re using the new one included in my drivers .zip.

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Alex said,

July 26, 2008 @ 8:56 AM

Thanks. I’ll try again. If the Vanilla Kernel doesn’t work, which one did you use?

Oh, on every boot I’ve been using -v -f. That’s what I should be doing right?

You’re help is appreciated SO much.

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Alex said,

July 26, 2008 @ 11:21 AM

I finally figured it out. Here’s how I did it:

I followed your instructions, but in the Kalyway installer, I selected the Vanilla Kernel. After that booted up, I ran the update pack and the kernel pack, again choosing the vanilla kernel. Then, when your computer restarts, you need to type “update -v”. It will do something, then restart. On this restart, type “-v -f” like normal, and all should work!

Thanks so much for your guide, I am really enjoying my HackBook.

P.S. Is “-v -f” necessary?

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Zulu, said,

July 26, 2008 @ 12:00 PM

Richard, how did you get the touch pad scrolling to work? I see no option in the trackpad references, and it never worked for me? touchpad clicking is fine by the way.

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Richard said,

July 26, 2008 @ 4:49 PM

Zulu,
Richard, how did you get the touch pad scrolling to work? I see no option in the trackpad references, and it never worked for me? touchpad clicking is fine by the way.

It’s a bit tricky due to a zillion settings, but if you do a Google search for “FFScrollDaemon” you’ll find the right download link and have a half-assed one or two finger scrolling going on. It’s really difficult to get working good enough to be useful. I played around with it until my fingers almost fell off and I didn’t like what I ended up with.

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Richard said,

July 26, 2008 @ 4:52 PM

Alex
I finally figured it out. Here’s how I did it:

I followed your instructions, but in the Kalyway installer, I selected the Vanilla Kernel. After that booted up, I ran the update pack and the kernel pack, again choosing the vanilla kernel. Then, when your computer restarts, you need to type “update -v”. It will do something, then restart. On this restart, type “-v -f” like normal, and all should work!

Thanks so much for your guide, I am really enjoying my HackBook.

P.S. Is “-v -f” necessary?

For me it is. It makes sure all my shit is loaded during boot and that I can see what the hell is going on in case something (rarely) screws up to where I can’t get to Aqua. I recommend booting with it every time. Surf over to the OSx86Project website to learn more: http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Tips_And_Tricks#Messing_with_the_boot_options

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Richard said,

July 26, 2008 @ 9:29 PM

For everyone having issues getting the battery meter to display on 10.5.4, check out my update at the bottom of this article (AppleACPIPlatform.kext).

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Richard said,

July 26, 2008 @ 9:42 PM

Fixed S3 Sleep (Hibernation)! Read above for instructions. Report your success so I know it’s working for everyone.

If this really does work, I think we’ve made this baby 100% except for Ethernet which I’m working on as we speak!

Remember, guys. I’m cheap. And I need a MobileMe account. I don’t usually ask for donations but I’ve been working my ass off on this for a while. Feel free to throw money at me (PayPal, Western Union, etc.).

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Richard said,

July 27, 2008 @ 12:08 AM

It’s starting to look really grim for getting the wired (Ethernet) working. It’s a Marvell Yukon 88E8040 and it’s a card unlike any 88E80xx series. I’ve tried everything from swapping dev’s to sitting down and trying to re-write the existing Yukon stuff from scratch. I’ll continue to poke around it, but for now consider the Ethernet and Card Reader the only things you’ll probably never get working on your Inspiron 1525. For now anyway… As always, I’ll keep you posted!

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Zulu, said,

July 27, 2008 @ 12:24 PM

RichardFor everyone having issues getting the battery meter to display on 10.5.4, check out my update at the bottom of this article (AppleACPIPlatform.kext).

This works great! Battery meter is up and running.

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Zulu, said,

July 27, 2008 @ 12:28 PM

RichardFixed S3 Sleep (Hibernation)! Read above for instructions. Report your success so I know it’s working for everyone.

If this really does work, I think we’ve made this baby 100% except for Ethernet which I’m working on as we speak!

Remember, guys. I’m cheap. And I need a MobileMe account. I don’t usually ask for donations but I’ve been working my ass off on this for a while. Feel free to throw money at me (PayPal, Western Union, etc.).

Unfortunately this does not work for me. The command works because I check with pmset -g (see below). But when the computer wakes up, the display does not turn on, the display sleep trick does not work. Thanks for your help.

bash-3.2# pmset -g
Active Profiles:
Battery Power -1*
AC Power -1
Currently in use:
sleep 10
displaysleep 5
hibernatefile /dev/null
lidwake 1
ttyskeepawake 1
autorestart 0
hibernatemode 0
powerbutton 1
disksleep 10

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Zulu, said,

July 27, 2008 @ 12:29 PM

RichardFixed S3 Sleep (Hibernation)! Read above for instructions. Report your success so I know it’s working for everyone.

If this really does work, I think we’ve made this baby 100% except for Ethernet which I’m working on as we speak!

Remember, guys. I’m cheap. And I need a MobileMe account. I don’t usually ask for donations but I’ve been working my ass off on this for a while. Feel free to throw money at me (PayPal, Western Union, etc.).

where should the money (paypal) go?

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Richard said,

July 27, 2008 @ 2:16 PM

Zulu,

RichardFixed S3 Sleep (Hibernation)! Read above for instructions. Report your success so I know it’s working for everyone.

If this really does work, I think we’ve made this baby 100% except for Ethernet which I’m working on as we speak!

Remember, guys. I’m cheap. And I need a MobileMe account. I don’t usually ask for donations but I’ve been working my ass off on this for a while. Feel free to throw money at me (PayPal, Western Union, etc.).

where should the money (paypal) go?

richard8840[AT]gmail.com.

It works. I can take a look at your settings if you like. Leave an IM handle — I’m on all the major protocols.

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Zulu said,

July 28, 2008 @ 10:41 AM

Richard

Zulu,
RichardFixed S3 Sleep (Hibernation)! Read above for instructions. Report your success so I know it’s working for everyone.

If this really does work, I think we’ve made this baby 100% except for Ethernet which I’m working on as we speak!

Remember, guys. I’m cheap. And I need a MobileMe account. I don’t usually ask for donations but I’ve been working my ass off on this for a while. Feel free to throw money at me (PayPal, Western Union, etc.).

where should the money (paypal) go?

richard8840[AT]gmail.com.

It works. I can take a look at your settings if you like. Leave an IM handle — I’m on all the major protocols.

Thanks. I do not use IM. Let me try to find a time to do this. I just sent you something in the email.

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Richard said,

July 28, 2008 @ 11:44 AM

Zulu

Richard
Zulu,
RichardFixed S3 Sleep (Hibernation)! Read above for instructions. Report your success so I know it’s working for everyone.

If this really does work, I think we’ve made this baby 100% except for Ethernet which I’m working on as we speak!

Remember, guys. I’m cheap. And I need a MobileMe account. I don’t usually ask for donations but I’ve been working my ass off on this for a while. Feel free to throw money at me (PayPal, Western Union, etc.).

where should the money (paypal) go?

richard8840@gmail.com.

It works. I can take a look at your settings if you like. Leave an IM handle — I’m on all the major protocols.

Thanks. I do not use IM. Let me try to find a time to do this. I just sent you something in the email.

No problem. And thanks a lot!

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Zulu said,

July 28, 2008 @ 1:26 PM

One more thing I noticed, shutdown does not work when using battery only. The screen turns off but the power led stays on. It works fine if the laptop is plugged in. Do you have this issue?

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Hydra said,

July 28, 2008 @ 3:05 PM

Just a quick update from me.

There seems to be a few different 1525’s out there, the new ones even have Webcams in them! (Anyone got one of these?)

My one is a UK one that had an Intel 3945 Wireless Lan Card. I removed it and installed a Dell 1490 Broadcom BCM4311KFBG Mini PCI-Express card and the air-port just worked as soon as I rebooted! Didn’t have to run any broardcom-update scripts or anything.

My USB works fine, I’m using the 9.2.2 modbin kernel that I found in this thread:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=95789&st=0

It’s part of the USB update package and you can choose to install it during installation.

Suspend (when closing the lid or pressing the power button and choosing “sleep” works)

Audio works (only tested audio output via internal speakers, others report that the mic and one of the two headphone jacks don’t work however)

Ethernet doesn’t work (see above)

Not tested HDMI or VGA output yet.

Not tested firewire yet.

Has anyone looked into the card-reader support? Do we know what card-reader chip(s) are being used?

Overall the system seems great, certainly on par with the new black Macbook Pro i tried a couple of weeks ago.

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Richard said,

July 28, 2008 @ 4:11 PM

Hydra
Just a quick update from me.

There seems to be a few different 1525’s out there, the new ones even have Webcams in them! (Anyone got one of these?)

My one is a UK one that had an Intel 3945 Wireless Lan Card. I removed it and installed a Dell 1490 Broadcom BCM4311KFBG Mini PCI-Express card and the air-port just worked as soon as I rebooted! Didn’t have to run any broardcom-update scripts or anything.

My USB works fine, I’m using the 9.2.2 modbin kernel that I found in this thread:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=95789&st=0

It’s part of the USB update package and you can choose to install it during installation.

Suspend (when closing the lid or pressing the power button and choosing “sleep” works)

Audio works (only tested audio output via internal speakers, others report that the mic and one of the two headphone jacks don’t work however)

Ethernet doesn’t work (see above)

Not tested HDMI or VGA output yet.

Not tested firewire yet.

Has anyone looked into the card-reader support? Do we know what card-reader chip(s) are being used?

Overall the system seems great, certainly on par with the new black Macbook Pro i tried a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve looked (and failed rather well) on getting the card reader to work. I tote around two USB dongles in my laptop bag: Bluetooth and Card Reader. My $10 dongle saves me a ton of headaches, plus I always feel like I’m going to break something when I mess with the internal card reader too much and you guys know what a hassle it would be for me to send in my HackBook Pro to Dell for warranty. No thanks. A lot of people have reported luck with the built-in Dell cameras working (As iSight) but I haven’t really played around with them too much. My model doesn’t have one and the Gateway laptop I did have which had one needed a lot of tweaking, and I still only got it half working before I got my Inspiron. I’d get a dump of your exact camera (Linux Live CD or Windows) and search around Google.

Zulu
One more thing I noticed, shutdown does not work when using battery only. The screen turns off but the power led stays on. It works fine if the laptop is plugged in. Do you have this issue?

I just tried it and it shuts down on batteries just fine. I unplugged it for about 10 seconds, went to Apple, Shut Down… Works great. I even put my ear to it to make sure it was completely dead. Lights off, fan down, shut down. What I can do for anyone having a lot of these strange issues I don’t is provide my Extensions directory if you guys want to play around with all the crap I’ve got on here. I’m pretty sure I covered it all, though.

The real problem is the Inspiron 1525, like most Dells, come in a zillion different configurations. That’s why I provided the exact Best Buy model number of my system. If you’re having a lot of issues, list yours on eBay and upgrade (or downgrade) to a similar model as I’ve listed in the original article. Or ask for my Extensions. Either way, you’re still going to save a bundle verses buying that black MacBook.

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Hydra said,

July 28, 2008 @ 8:50 PM

Bah, i lied.

Sleep /was/ working for me when I was on 10.5.3 but then i did two things (installed broadcom wifi card and upgraded to 10.5.4) and i think on of them stopped sleep from working.

I’ll try your fix and let you know if it works out or not.

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Zulu said,

July 29, 2008 @ 11:53 AM

Richard,
I found this while researching the sleep issue

“I found that the SpeedStep Kernel causes black screen when you wake up the laptop, other users confirmed this, so if you want SLEEP you better use vanilla kernel”

Which Kernel are you using? I did not change the default Kernel in my install which is probably sleep Kernel. Is it possible to bootup with a different kernel?

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Richard said,

July 29, 2008 @ 3:43 PM

Zulu
Richard,
I found this while researching the sleep issue

“I found that the SpeedStep Kernel causes black screen when you wake up the laptop, other users confirmed this, so if you want SLEEP you better use vanilla kernel”

Which Kernel are you using? I did not change the default Kernel in my install which is probably sleep Kernel. Is it possible to bootup with a different kernel?

I’m using the vanilla 9.4.0. There are two different kinds of sleep. Display sleep and S3 sleep. Regardless of the kernel I’ve noticed that the “sleep trick” for display is a must, however with the above pmset line, using vanilla kernel, deep sleep is possible. You can boot up to any kernels by placing them in / and typing “kernelname” when you boot. For example I have about 15 different kernels on my laptop. If I wanted to boot with my mach_kernel.special I’d type “mach_kernel.special -v -f” at the boot screen.

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BT said,

July 30, 2008 @ 1:57 PM

Got my dell working… I have the model from BB with the 5750 intel core2 duo with webcam, 3gb ram, and web cam. I used the vanilla kernel and went through the updates as listed… now running v. 10.5.4. Sleep works great, sound seems to work fine from the internal speakers but headphones still seem intermittent… works fine with Itunes but not from streaming video off the web…. HDMI and card reader still don’t work but haven’t had to use those yet (got a usb card reader anyways).

Thanks for this great tutorial… I was banging my head against the wall with the IATKOS build that would only boot with a single core… starting with Kalyway 10.5.2 allowed me to boot in multicore mode without a hitch…. just remember to use the “update -v” after going loading the combo update to 10.5.3 else it won’t boot.

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Richard said,

July 30, 2008 @ 3:11 PM

BT
Got my dell working… I have the model from BB with the 5750 intel core2 duo with webcam, 3gb ram, and web cam. I used the vanilla kernel and went through the updates as listed… now running v. 10.5.4. Sleep works great, sound seems to work fine from the internal speakers but headphones still seem intermittent… works fine with Itunes but not from streaming video off the web…. HDMI and card reader still don’t work but haven’t had to use those yet (got a usb card reader anyways).

I’m using a Bluetooth USB dongle and audio is crisp and clear, although for some strange reason during random reboots, the Bluetooth Audio will be a little staticy I’ve found that when I boot up from batteries my Bluetooth isn’t as clear (Audio) as when I boot up from the power cord and I have on idea why. Usually a simple unplug and re-plug of the USB adapter (In the same USB port) does the trick. Headset (Mic) is still not functioning but both bluetooth and internal speakers sound very clear. I’m glad this tutorial has helped you! Kalyway FTW.

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Zulu, said,

July 30, 2008 @ 7:21 PM

Richard, do you lose touchpad clickability after wake from sleep?

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Richard said,

July 30, 2008 @ 8:14 PM

Zulu,
Richard, do you lose touchpad clickability after wake from sleep?

Nope! It all works.

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BT said,

July 30, 2008 @ 8:59 PM

Weird…. just tried putting my dell to sleep and it boots right back up (top panel light comes on then it wakes back up). If I have it unplugged from AC power, sleep seems to work everytime bu