trag Posted May 28, 2013 Share Posted May 28, 2013 First, thank you to all the folks who have put so much time and effort into getting OSX on the D430. I've been (mostly) a Mac guy since '92, and bought a D430 with docking station (parallel port) to run my chip programmer (Needham EMP-30). Then I kind of fell in love with the D430 with XP, and then I found this site and discovered that I might be able to have OSX and the D430 together. Anyway, I hope to have time in the next few weekends to try this. I have three questions for which I have not found clear answers. The answer is probably here somewhere...but searching has not turned it up. 1) Is there support for the SD card slot? I think the answer is no, but all the (non-OSX version) fields in the compatibility chart for the D430 dual core are blank. Should one use the compatibility chart entries for the D420, single core, when looking at specific compatibilities for the D430 dual core? 2) Will any of the docking stations work? I prefer dual monitors for my desktop setups. If I could use the D430 with a docking station for my desktop configuration, that would be ideal. Most of the docking stations have a DVI and a VGA port, providing dual monitor (while built-in LCD disabled) support. 3) Reading some of the threads, I see that Herve feels that Snow Leopard is the better choice on the D430, at least for performance reasons. Is that still true. Any compelling reason to go to Lion? I have a Snow Leopard DVD and a Lion USB stick, so I could go either way. My current home Macs have not gone beyond Leopard, so compatibility with my existing Macs is not a reason to go to Lion. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Hervé Posted May 28, 2013 Administrators Share Posted May 28, 2013 1) Is there support for the SD card slot? I think the answer is no [...] Correct. It appears the SD reader shares its IRQ with the LAN controller. If you disable LAN in BIOS, Mac OS X will detect an SD card once inserted but reading it remains impossible. 2) Will any of the docking stations work? Dell made a dedicated full size undertray for the D430 but a "regular" docking station for D6x0/D8x0 (and others) will work too. I don't know if you would get DVI and VGA working though (we never got DVI to work on D6x0 out of the Docking station), possibly just VGA. 3) Reading some of the threads, I see that Herve feels that Snow Leopard is the better choice on the D430, at least for performance reasons. Is that still true. Any compelling reason to go to Lion? Well, try for yourself and see how it feels. Nothing beats own evaluation. You might want to give ML a try too now that we have a way to get it to run on the D430. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trag Posted May 28, 2013 Author Share Posted May 28, 2013 Dell made a dedicated full size undertray for the D430 but a "regular" docking station for D6x0/D8x0 (and others) will work too. I don't know if you would get DVI and VGA working though (we never got DVI to work on D6x0 out of the Docking station), possibly just VGA. I have the Media Base (undertray) and a PR01. However, if the DVI did not work with the D6x0, it seems unlikely that it would work with the D430. Was much effort put into getting the DVI port working? What I really want to know is whether the simple, obvious things that a neophyte like me might try have already been tried. That tells me what level of effort would be the minimum for me to solve it. Well, try for yourself and see how it feels. Nothing beats own evaluation. You might want to give ML a try too now that we have a way to get it to run on the D430. I think I'll start with SL. I hope I'll have time to try the others, but I've been working up to this for almost a year now with only a few hours here and there available. I hope I'll have time in the next couple of weekends. I coach LL baseball in the Fall and Spring, and it's like adding a second job. Thank you for answering my questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trag Posted May 28, 2013 Author Share Posted May 28, 2013 Two more related questions I have not seen explicitly answered... I understand that one needs a Broadcom Wifi card in order to have OSX support. Is it still necessary to modify the card ID? Once the card ID is modified to appear to be an Airport card, will it still work in Windows in dual boot systems? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Hervé Posted May 28, 2013 Administrators Share Posted May 28, 2013 Rebranding is not usually not necessary. Cards such as DW1390 or DW1490 work OOB, others need a kext. Have a look at the dedicated (unfinished) inventory in R&D->Hardware->Network section. Some Atheros cards are compatible too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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