mac OSX can be run under virtualization software. It is somewhat involved and, unfortunately, limited in that, to date, no virtualbox guest addition has been developed to provide full OSX functionality (display and device management in particular) and provisions beyond a maximum of 2GB RAM and 1 CPU. It is unfortunate because I prefer (not surprisingly) OSX’s BSD underpinnings to Windows. Alas, this suffices to allow checking this site under Safari without needing to fire up my mac.
| Parameter | Setting |
|---|---|
| Name | Snow Leopard |
| Space | 20GB |
| RAM | 2048MB |
| Video RAM | 128MB |
| Video | 3D Acceleration |
| Audio | HDA |
| Boot Order | DVD, Hard Disk |
Manually execute the following commands..
vboxmanage modifyvm "Snow Leopard" --firmware efi64
vboxmanage setextradata "Snow Leopard" VBoxInternal2/EfiGopMode 4
Add the SmcDeviceKey line below the EfiGopMode line created above to the ~/VirtualBox VMS/Snow Leopard.vbox file..
<ExtraDataItem name=="VBoxInternal2/EfiGopMode" value=="4"/>
<ExtraDataItem name=="VBoxInternal2/SmcDeviceKey"
value=="ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc"/>
from install disk in DVD drive, select Disk Utilities and partition OSX disk.
Install OSX, then install from internet, colemak keyboard layout (and give your hands a break from QUERTY!) and OSX updates (saving your vbox image beforehand is not a bad idea either, in case Apple updates kill your fresh install).
to upgrade to 2 CPUs, delete the following kext (move into a deprecated folder) after updating software and rebooting.
Note: you must restore this kext before any subsequent software updates because, if you forget, you will likely have to do a complete reinstall, making this a somewhat dubious enhancement..
mkdir /System/Library/Extensions/deprecated
mv /System/Library/Extensions/AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext /System/Library/Extensions/deprecated
| Parameter | Setting |
|---|---|
| CPUs | 2 |
To upgrade the screen resolution to 1920x1200 (as close as I can get to my 2560x1600 capable monitor) execute..
vboxmanage setextradata "Snow Leopard" VBoxInternal2/EfiGopMode 5