Archive for September, 2018

Just a quick update for anyone who has a Late 2012 Mac Mini server i7 processor with dual internal HD.

I think I’ve tried every permutation to get the system to boot with the two drives in a raid configuration including converting the volumes to APFS. Absolutely no love. Mojave install disk will let you install the OS to the OS to the APFS raid drive, but the drive goes into a never ending reboot cycle.

End of the day. I have still not found a way to use the two drives in the Mac Mini server as a Raid array since Sierra.

What a pain in the tail. You tried to install Ubuntu on an old Mac Mini, then found that it really does not work well with all the devices (wireless) etc in the box. So you try to reinstall OS X on the machine. Well after you figure out how to make the install disks via the ‘createinstallmedia’ command

Inside the installXXX.app you will find in the Contents/Resources/ folder an application called createinstallmedia. This will make a USB drive into an install disk:

command to create the install USB is as follows:

<install file path>/<install file.app>/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume <path and volume name of USB drive -> /Volumes/Blank> –applicationpath <install file path>/<install file.app>

So if the your put your “Install _OSX.app” in the root and your USB is named “Blank” the command string would be:

/Install_OSX.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/Blank –applicationpath /Install_OSX.app

Now comes the annoying part: Every time you create a disk, when you try to use it to reinstall the OS from the USB, that you just booted from because you know how to install the OS from the Recovery prompt….. you get the following “This copy of the Install OS X El Capitan application can’t be verified. It may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading.”

What I ended up having to do it roll back the system date on the computer. To do this just open up the terminal from the command prompt and change the date with the date command (use a date that was not too far from the original date the OS was released).

To do this type:

$ date MMDDHHmmYY

MM – 2 digit month 01 – 12
DD – 2 digit date 01 – 31
HH – 2 digit hour 01 – 24
mm – 2 digit minute 01 – 59
YY – 2 digit year > 15

I set the date back to 0101111115 (Jan 1st at 11:11 am 2015) and suddenly the install USB is no longer corrupt… :)

Update_________

Apple changed the command line from Mojave (10.14) forward. The only difference is that you no longer need the –application path argument. So from the above example:

/Install_OSX.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/Blank

You may also need to sudo it to run now

Ok, I’ve got a bunch of old (but still Intel) mac hardware that I have been using to run my Wahoo KICKR generation 1 trainer, Wahoo Tickr heart rate monitor, and a Wahoo cadence sensor. For a long time I’ve been having to pay an average of $10 a month for a service to run my trainer. I have either used or tried;  Trainer Road, Zwift, Sufferfest, and Bkool. While they all work well I do not find that any of the services are worth $10 a month. Then I happened on GoldenCheetah. GoldenCheetah did everything I wanted it to do. What I’m really looking for is something that will run my trainer setup, have configurable workouts, have analysis intelligence, link to upload/download from Strava, and be free as in beer. The only issue was that it crashed constantly on all the hardware I tried it on. I tried 3 different Macs; Mac Mini 2,1 core 2 duo, a Mac Mini 6,2 and a Macbook Pro 9,2. I tried a Mac Mini 2,1 that I had converted from MacOS to Ubuntu 16.04. I tried setting up an Ubuntu 16.04 VM on the i7 Mac Mini 6,2. All attempts either crashed or did not see the ANT adapter on the USB port.

I am happy to say that I believe I have figured it out. The one pain in the rear is that you have to spend some time installing libraries, compiler, etc… and compiling the code on your trainer machine.

I’m working on a modified walk-through for installing all the necessary components. I plan to post it here soon, but my main goal is to get the app appropriately updated on their website. So you won’t have to compile it yourself… :)

Remember to never email me at support@eviltyrant.com as that is not a real email address…. :)

2020 update. I’ve stopped using the Mac for GoldenCheetah, since the Raspberry Pi is cheaper, but the latest 3.5 build of GoldenCheetah for MacOS fixes the issue with the usb driver library. So you don’t have to compile your own code anymore. :)