OSx86 based LiveDVD designed to aid in the recovery of hackint0sh installs have started surfacing. The first is a premade LiveDVD made by InsanelyMac member Kismus. The DVD can be downloaded from various torrent sites and a dscussion can be found here. Current version is 1.0 beta 1.

The other solution is born from the X Labs project that has been until recently fairly dead. This thread details how to make your own LiveDVD from a working install using their premade installer script. This looks to be a more customizable solution that should become a necessary step taken after all installs. Current installer version is v1.2.

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Bikedude880, a developer from hackint0sh forums, has managed to make a partial boot of the Apple TV OS on generic x86 hardware. The finder almost runs before crashing but work progresses on this. To work on this yourself grab yourself an AppleTV hard drive image from Demonoid or your own box and visit AwkwardTV for information including Semthex's patch.

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The OS from AppleTVs have already been ported to work on a Macbook. The system boots from an external USB drive and loads up the AppleTV UI in its full form and works with the Apple Remote. This only works on Macbooks and Pros currently thanks to a patch by Semthex, however other systems should follow perhaps even extending to iHacks. This is due to a hardware check by the system. If it does make its way to x86 hardware then it should be fully accessible to SSE2 users as the frameworks are designed to work with the AppleTV's Dothan based CPU. Instructions here thanks to AppleTV Hacks.

USB booting has also been accomplished from the mysterious USB port found on the back of the AppleTV. This requires to hardware modification or removal of the HDD. The aim of this project is to produce a single user environment based on Darwin which can be booted from on the external drive in order to modify the AppleTV's OS contents. Details here. A tutorial of how to load Remote Desktop can be found here.

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The recent release of the AppleTV has lead to a full throttle hacking effort to discover as much as possible about how the device works, what it runs and how it can be modified. For details on the hacking effort see the wiki on AwkwardTV here. So far they have found it runs a modified 10.4.7 version of OS X and part of the hardware includes a 1.0GHz Intel Pentium M-based "Crofton" CPU which is based on an SSE2 Dothan model. This means that there is a version of Tiger on it running OS X without SSE3 emulation. As the hacking effort continues more will be uncovered about this interesting revelation and what it might entail for us SSE2 users out there. Heres hoping for a bright SSE2 future!

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AMD users now have a chance to try out the 10.4.9 update for themselves with a preliminary update being released on thepiratebay.org. Early reports suggest this update works and bypasses the CPUID checks. The update is named OSX 10.4.9 DELTA UPDATE TEST1 released under the alias 'tubgirl'. It is currently unclear whether this works with SSE2 systems or just SSE3. As usual use with extreme caution and be warned that this is by no means a complete update.

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