NTFS and MacOS

Readonly NTFS partitons are visible from the start in Leopard and Snow Leopard. If you want to have rw possibilities - that's another story.

Leopard: NTFS-3G is good, working solution.

Snow Leopard: rw mode is built in but not used by default. To make it work:
First - check mounted partitions and choose disk-partition number, simply enter in terminal:

mount

Second - if you know which partition is your desired ntfs partition, then check its id (let's pretend ntfs partition is first partition on second disk - disk2s1):

echo `sudo /System/Library/Filesystems/ntfs.fs/ntfs.util -k disk2s1`

Third - ok, we have its id. Now edit /etc/fstab file (or create new if you don't have it) and put there (remember to put there your real disk UUID!):

UUID=your_ntfs_partition_id none ntfs rw

Done. Just restart. Complicated? Well, its not that simple as installing some software but with three really simple steps your system is untouched and everything works. And there is another problem with NTFS-3G - it's not working on SL x64 ;) so for me its useless anyway.

TextMate problems on SnowLeopard (Command+Arrows)

I was very upset when i found out that one of most used editor shortcuts (Command+Left Arrow = windows' home, Command+Right Arrow = windows' end) doesnt work on SnowLeopard. However it's not a big problem - TextMate have special page for SL problems and there is bundle to handle this problem.

SnowLeopard & ATI 4670

Well... ATI 4670 with SnowLeopard on PC it's tricky for me... there are many described ways to make it work but none worked for me. Magic was: i had it running for about a week and then suddenly it stopped working! I looked everywhere, order another cable (it haven't came till now ;)), i was pissed off so much that i even tried to back to windows (which caused me another pain)...

Ok, so here is the deal: it works with PCI_EFI 10.5, vanilla kexts, "GraphicsEnabler=y -pci0" (-pci0 or -pci1 depends on motherboard type) arguments at boot time (it's all kind of normal with SL on PC) but (!) my vga monitor have to be plugged into vga output WITH dvi2vga dongle inserted into dvi slot! If i put my monitor into dvi through dvi2vga or vga only - there is no way my 4670 would work.

I really have to buy Mac.

SnowLeopard installation

Installation of Snow Leopard is pretty simple if you already have some OsX (or you have access to it). First things first: kexts in OsX is just like drivers under windows. Mac's are sold with specific hardware thus it's much simpler for Apple to maintain only that exact drivers. That's why if you have some OsX compatible hardware - you're lucky ;)

There are number of ways to install SL on non Apple hardware (yes, its against license). I tried (successfully) pretty simple way of creating usb installer using some prepared scripts. If you want to try all you have to do is check what kexts (drivers) you would need (and dsdt modifications - but its pretty easy too). There are many, many pages at Insanelymac and other sites (google is very helpful) where people write about that stuff. After completing those files there you have to through pdf included in MacLoader. It's pretty simple and intuitive. When you're done all you have to do is reboot and install SL from usb.

Harware requirements:
* 8 Gb flash drive
* hdd especially for OsX (it has its own partition table type)


If you need any more details or information about files needed for asus p5k-e just write here, i will try to help you. Good luck!