Toughbook OSX

Someone ask me about this in a private conversation.
I thought it would be better to have it in a new thread.
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I tried to put OS X on a CF 52G mk2 and had major issues with the wifi. I could not find a working driver for Intel wifi.
I never tried on other models.

If you can swap in an Atheros or Broadcom wifi card, OSX should be "fairly" easy to install. I could not swap the wifi card on a CF52(BIOS whitelist)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...has-anyone-done-it.657789/page-2#post-8459528

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-or-what-have-you.791999/page-2#post-10264512

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...a-toughbook-cf-52.777163/page-2#post-10057394

 

I have read a post on here that a guy got OSX working on a CF 19.
He did need to swap the wifi card.

 

cf19 is probably a lot easier than a cf29

 

Except for the front buttons on the CF19.

 

What about a newer intel wifi card?

 

I am having trouble to get the OS installed. maybe I am looking for the wrong installer, but I don't even get as far as the network card not working

 

Generally osx does not do Intel WiFi easily. Broadcom is first then atheros

 

Nano Wifi dongle might work on the 52.

 

Great idea.
At the time I was stuck on getting the internal wifi working.

 

FYI

I tested an Azurewave CE123H. It is supposed to be a pretty good card. Better security than an Intel card.
A Broadcom 802.11 ac wifi card runs in a CF31 mk2 with Win7.
It does not show up in the BIOS.
I will test an Atheros card once it comes in.

It appears that a CF31 does not have a wifi card whitelist.
I will test a CF53 for a whitelist in the near future.

 

Let me know what you find out with the Atheros card

 

Still messing around with this. No complete success though.

Apple really ties the software to the hardware nicely.
It is frustrating to mod but if you leave it as it was sold, they just work.

I wonder how Apple would build a fully rugged laptop.
I bet it would be a success. Imagine a fully rugged built with the attention to detail that Apple has. Imagine OSX (now MacOS) locked to the specific hardware to prevent any issues from that end.
Figure the improved security of a proven and polished UNIX based OS. An OS with real commercial support.

I would buy one and never look back at a Toughbook.

 

To my surprise an Atheros card works in a CF52 mk2.
OSX sees the card and connects with some flipping of the wireless switch. Maybe cutting pin 20 would solve the problem?
No audio and OSX does not see the PATA optical drive.
Touchscreen worked but needed calibrated.

Now for my opinion of OSX during my trial run.
It is very picky with kexts(drivers)

Older versions 10.6 and 10.7 (these are what I was experimenting with) have a weird combination of 32bit and 64bit in the same running OS.
I bought an old Macbook Core2Duo for $25 to learn from. It did not run well on 10.6 with the combo 32/64bit deal.
Luckily it came with the original 10.5 install disk. 10.5 is full 32bit only.Night and day difference running the full 32bit version. Much better.

My old Macbook will only run 4gb so it is no wonder that a 64bit OS pukes.

I like the Toughbook -OSX combination. With OSX, in 2 clicks I will have a FULL hardware and software list of the laptop.
Transferring an iso to usb uses factory software and takes 6 or so clicks.
OSX does have a terminal just like Linux(some of the commands are the same) I am sure this allows a more software oriented person to do a LOT.

It was a great learning experience. In this journey, I found a theme package to make win7 look like OSX. So for fun I put an extra drive in the Macbook. Installed win7 (breeze to install BTW) then I installed the OSX theme on the Macbook. Ha Ha Ha.

Now I am off to install the Linux Android x86 distro on the CF52 mk2.