EFI Programming on Mac OS X is a note on jumpstarting EFI development on Mac OS X. Prebuilt compiler toolchains for the PowerPC and x86 versions of Mac OS X are also available.

We have developed software (“BAMBIOS”) that allows such legacy booting on the Intel-based Macintoshes. For example, a regular (that is, non-EFI) version of Linux can be readily booted using this software. A mini presentation on the design of BAMBIOS is available.

This is a rather trivial update, but here are some points of interest: Knoppix seems very stable overall. We fixed the pixels-per-row vs bytes-per-row discrepancy in the kernel, so the X Window server has precise information now. We have tried VMware Workstation and VMware Player. Both work really well. This is a screenshot of VMware [...]

Yes, it works. In fact, it works really, really well (performance-wise). Please go here for the initial announcement and a customary screenshot of Windows XP running under the Linux version of VMware. The hardware in question is a 17-inch iMac.

I reported a few days ago that we (my friends Mark A. Smith and Benjamin Reed, and myself) had Linux booting on the Intel-based Macintosh. We also released a test-drive mini-distribution that can be trivially booted by anybody interested. The subject says it all regarding this update. Pictures and some details are available here. Please [...]

I do have strange friends. Take Mark Smith, for example. Mark is essentially a Windows Internals guy — I would call him OS-agnostic at best. In particular, he is certainly not a “Macintosh person”. However, he recently purchased an Intel-based Macintosh because he felt like running Linux (an operating system that he does not normally [...]

Given the level of interest generated by the PowerBook motion sensor experiments ([1], [2]), this should be of interest to many: Mark Smith has published a document titled The ThinkPad APS Accelerometer Interface, which discusses the workings of the “Airbag” motion sensor in ThinkPad notebooks. This should be of particular use to those who are [...]

The result page for the Mac OS X Expert Challenge is live. Result and Report: The Mac OS X Expert Challenge 2005.1

The challenge encompasses two partially overlapping areas of expertise: Operating System Internals Security My goals for this endeavor are the following: Probe popular interest in system-level Mac OS X topics. Knowledge of such interest is currently valuable to me as I am creating a book on such topics. Gauge the inquisitiveness and initiative of the [...]

Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I can point people to something cool we did in our group at IBM Research. What I am referring to was demonstrated at IBM PartnerWorld 2005 a couple of days ago in Las Vegas, calling it a “personal jumper cable” to counter the “Blue Screen of Death” [...]