Comments on: Apple TV OS hits the internet

By: Derived

Derived — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 23:06:31 +0000

I’m more interested to see regular or close to regular OS X installed on an Apple TV – I’m too cheap to buy a mac mini :).

By: david

david — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 22:46:47 +0000

Ok, so there are plenty of people who are working on hacking the ï£¿TV to run apps and OSX, but does anyone know of a project in the works to hack the ï£¿TV OS to run on a Mac? Is anyone working on this yet?

I’d be interested in helping with such a project. Honestly, my knowledge is limited, but I’m willing to experiment if anyone else has ideas.

By: Tom @ AppleTVHacks.net

Tom @ AppleTVHacks.net — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:13:51 +0000

Andy, Actually, the .prelink file is a lot more than it seems! Have a look at: https://www.appletvhacks.net/2007/03/26/hidden-files-in-the-apple-tv-kernel-file/ The plot thickens!

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 19:56:55 +0000

The released image won’t boot as is because there is no mach_kernel included, only a .prelink to the kernel. The only way this will boot is to find a way to place the kernel in the image that will work properly.

By: bryan

bryan — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:55:28 +0000

I have DL it and put it on an external drive. It boots but gets no farther then the big apple logo. it gets stuck no hard drive activity then reboots after some time. I have a MBP.

By: someone else

someone else — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:36:45 +0000

Jonathan,
the ï£¿TV is running on an intel chip, therefore running EFI, not open firmware. unfortunately EFI is not a bootable environment. single user mode and verbose logging will work though. if you can get it working with an input device.

By: Jonathan Wise

Jonathan Wise — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 11:26:45 +0000

Has anyone tried booting into the Open Firmware on an AppleTV? I’m dying to try this…
– Unplug the AppleTV
– Plug in a USB keyboard
– Hold down Command + Option + O + F on the keyboard
– Plug the AppleTV back in (you might need a second set of hands)

From there you should be able to issue firmware instructions — perhaps telling it to boot from an external CD-ROM, or enter Target Disk Mode to be mounted (via USB?) on the desktop of another Mac…?

By: Mac vs PC

Mac vs PC — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 07:50:32 +0000

Not sure why you would want it on regular Mac, they cost more and you can already do allot of what the Apple TV can do anyways with one?

Just waiting for the Apple TV DivX hack to get simplified into some sort of a “play this movie/file” and you now have DivX support. That would be great!

https://www.switchingtomac.com/

By: Ross

Ross — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 04:30:36 +0000

Doesn’t seem likely that the image would run on a standard ICBM. The chipset is different enough to warrant a recompile.

By: joe

joe — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 22:38:04 +0000

This is one of those grey areas in my mind where, yes, it is illegal, but I’m still glad it happened. I love Apple, and I wish them no ill will, but the Apple TV has soooooo much more potential than how Apple shipped it.

Now someone just needs to find a trace that carries plain ol’ composite video on the circuit board and I’ll jump to go buy an Apple TV.

(Oh, and good work on this blog. It’s great to have a place collecting all this information in one place!)