[geeks] DVD install of MacOS 10.5.3 or 10.5.4

[Rick Hamell]

>> I still don't understand how it's easy for pirates to get images that 
>> no-one can get hold of to rip in the first place...
> 
> Apple ships 10.5.2 with a machine, Apple owner pirates it or gives it to 
> a pirate.
> 
> For that matter a good number of the pirate images come from Apple 
> employees and partners.
> 
> The torrent sites are full of them.
> 
> Don't make any suggestions... :)

Those discs are usually locked down to a single type of machine, 
sometimes even a certain Logic Board revision. The piracy rate on them 
is much lower then you think because they are almost useless to the 
normal user. What's worse is that without looking closely at the Model 
number on the disc and having each 6-digit number memorized for which 
system it goes too, it's nearly impossible to find the right disc you 
want. I use to maintain a spread sheet of disc model numbers for which 
system they went too but it became a huge chore to do so.

I'd go so far as to say that Apple makes it as hard as possible to 
physically pirate those discs, yet strike a good balance between 
usability for the normal user.

People do make copies of the retail versions, which are for the most 
part x.0 releases. Apple's own tools make this so easy anyways that I 
think they've got to maintain a "look the other way" attitude. Apple 
does maintain some internal .x installs but they usually only make their 
way out to business partners, retail stores, and certified technicians. 
This is where a good portion of the working torrents of these come from, 
people who've got a legitimate need for it but who are a bit too free 
with copies.

Either way it's incredibly easy to load the OS directly onto a Firewire 
drive, run all the software updates on it, take it too a new computer, 
boot off of it, and use any one of four different tools (one provided by 
Apple directly, two coded by Apple Engineers,) to copy that Firewire 
drive over to a new machine and make it bootable. I've been doing it on 
a daily basis for over five years.

-- 
Rick Hamell
Tech Blog - http://www.1nova.com/blog
Pacific Northwest Photo Blog - http://www.1nova.com/photoblog