Mac OS X Running on Non-Apple Hardware

MacBeliever writes "Inevitably, Mac OS X for x86 has been hacked to run on a non-Apple PC. Is this the beginning of the fulfillment of the Dvorak prophecy?" RetrogradeMotion also writes "The OSx86 Project has posted a how-to guide telling how to run OS X on any Windows or Linux-based PC using VMWare." Not 100% corroborated, so ingest with salt.

Random thoughts on Apple

[bigwavejas (678602)]

Ok I'm naïve on the politics of this, so my post is more of a question than a answer. I know this is an argument that has gone back and forth, but here goes again...

Wouldn't it benefit Apple in the long run to get more of its software into the public's hands? Sure, it might detract from them selling hardware (short term), but I can honestly say for me (average Joe) I've never purchased a Mac because they simply don't have the software titles I'm interested in and Windows does. I mean sure, they've got great stuff, but they lack in GAMES, yes games... I've said it, gotten it out. I'm a gamer and so are all of my friends. I'd venture to say a good chunk of those purchasing PC's are in the same group as me (surf the web and play games). So if the Apple OS became more popular, wouldn't more developers consider making a version of their game in the Apple OS flavor?

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist (906833)]

1. Apple would have to support a massively larger amount of hardware. 2. there would be a loss of branding and a lowering of the quality associated with OS X. 3. there are plenty of games on the Mac, but if you want the very latest cutting-edge PC games you'd never be satisfied anyway since you'd need ATI/nVidia making their latest cards in Mac versions too. 4. if you DO want games, why do you want a Mac? if Windows works, use it. 5. what is happening to the PC game industry? is it growing/shrinking? will PC games be so important when the latest generation consoles are out? 6. given PC games makers moves to absurd copy-protection methods (drivers), will either the makers or Apple allow the other to do what they want to "secure" the computers?

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Deep Fried Geekboy (807607)]

Yeah, the hardware support is the killer, and why they won't do it. Where would all the drivers for all the obsolete hardware out there come from? Just getting it to boot on most 3-year old systems would mean having to write tens of thousands of drivers. Not gonna happen.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[pauljlucas (529435)]

I've never purchased a Mac because they ... lack in GAMES

I've never understood this argument. You're willing to put up with the sucky OS that is Windows the rest of the time you're using your computer (i.e., when you're not playing games) just so you can play games? If you're that into games, why don't you just get a dedicated game machine, e.g., PS2, Xbox, etc., for games and a Mac to do the rest of your stuff?

Aside from that, I really don't think Apple cares about the gaming market segment, i.e., teenaged-or-twenty-something males.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Kaa (21510)]

If you're that into games, why don't you just get a dedicated game machine, e.g., PS2, Xbox, etc., for games and a Mac to do the rest of your stuff?

I am not the original poster, but games you play on a PC are very different from the ones you play on consoles. If you like MMORPGs (e.g. World of Warcraft), FPSs (e.g. Unreal), RTSs (e.g. Rome: Total War) then having a console does not help you at all.

As for the "rest of your stuff" it very much depends on what kind of stuff this is. For my purposes I am quite happy to have a Windows machine as a gaming/Photoshop/MSOffice box and a Linux machine for heavy lifting. No need for a Mac.

Aside from that, I really don't think Apple cares about the gaming market segment, i.e., teenaged-or-twenty-something males.

The gaming segment by now includes 30-something males and I bet the 20-40 year old demographic has Apple marketers drooling.

Playing it both ways

[Fzz (153115)]

Wouldn't it benefit Apple in the long run to get more of its software into the public's hands?

Apple is clearly a hardware company, and so they make most of their money from selling hardware. Thus it's very unlikely that Apple would want to support generic x86 boxes.

But Apple has an interesting opportunity here. If they simply ignored people running unlicensed x86 copies, but prevented else anyone selling pre-installed Macs, then they probably wouldn't lose much business. The people who are willing to install MacOS themselves are unlikely to be the people who'd buy Mac hardware in the first place.

However, Apple would gain a lot of mindshare with the kids and with the technically savvy who are happy installing their own OS. In the long run, this will bring many more people to Apple hardware, and to influence their parents/family/employers to buy the supported Apple products.

Seems like Apple can't lose here.

-Fzz

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[hackstraw (262471)]

Wouldn't it benefit Apple in the long run to get more of its software into the public's hands?

No. To paraphrase Douglas Adams "Apple may only have 10% of the computer market, but its definitely the top 10%".

Would it benefit Ferrari in the long run to have every ghetto curb filled with Ferrari's?

In looking at the demo movies, it was impressive to some degree to see OS X running on a cheap Windows PC. But looking more closely, I noticed that the image appeared stretched. I saw that yucky BIOS black screen with white text. However, it looked close to a regular Mac experience.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[DaggertipX (547165)]

Not impossible, but it would be a tricky transition for them.

Apple charges a very very large markup on their hardware, I don't think the margin on their software would be nearly as high.

Beyond that, one of the advantages of them controlling hardware and software is the fact that they can do more rigorous quality control, because they KNOW the configuration your machine will be running. This leads to the disadvantage of having a limited and more costly hardware base, but that is why Apple products "just work".

Personally, I think moving Mac OS to mainstream machines with unpredictable hardware would dramatically lower the quality of the software, and I would hate to see that. I would much rather have an Apple piece of hardware that I know was tested well with the operating system on it.

I suppose that viewpoint will put me in the minority here.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[Fussen (753791)]

I totally agree. Fake wood inlays on the dashboard are critical to the overall functioning of the vehicle.

Re:Random thoughts on Apple

[gcondon (45047)]

Perhaps Apple doesn't want to change into a software company.

Perhaps they like building computers and maybe, just maybe, their legions of aficionados would like them to continue doing so.

In my opinion, the most significant characteristic of Apple, as a company and a culture, is that they clearly love computers and it shows in everything they build - hardware and software.

Very few other technology companies exhibit this same exuberance that has been an Apple hallmark for many years (esp. under the leadership of the norotiously persnickety Steve Jobs).

I rarely walk away from using a Microsoft product thinking that this was created by someone who loves computers as much as I do.

Not every company needs to (or should) try to maximize sales and market penetration like Microsoft - just like every person doesn't need to try to be as rich as Bill Gates, as musical as Mozart, as tall as Shaq, etc.

Is it inconceivable that Apple might have success criteria that are different from Microsoft? Is it impossible that we, as users, can understand and embrace that kind of diversity of thought in the marketplace?

Hey you, Ferrari - why aren't you selling as many cars as Toyota? Slackers!

Hey look, the Apple legal team!

[richdun (672214)]

Wonder what they're up to today?

Hardware Hack Required!

[FlameTroll (901932)]

Ya have to duct tape the mouse buttons together...

Re:Hardware Hack Required!

[Epistax (544591)]

That's much easier! Here I was, chopping off people's middle fingers...

Dvorak prophecy?

[Z0mb1eman (629653)]

Oh c'mon.

There are only two possible paths for Apple: continue to keep their OS working only on their hardware, or making it also work on x86.

I'm sure everyone who knows what a Mac is has speculated at one point or another what would happen if Apple made their OS work on x86 hardware, and whether they would, and why they would take that decision. Calling it the Dvorak prophecy seems way too pretentious.

That's all good and well...

[TheOtherAgentM (700696)]

That works fine until one of Apple's security patches screws things up for those users. The one reason I like Apple is because they can control their hardware market. Lots of times when I did Windows Updates, the patches would be incompatible just because of driver and hardware issues. I know people that still can't installed Service Pack 2 on XP, because of their video cards. I prefer to stick with the hardware Apple is going to sell.

everybody, lower your heart rate. except me.

[captnitro (160231)]

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, SWEET FUCKING CHRIST!!

Can we postpone these stories until the production runs of both the boxes and OS X comes out? Please? All these stories in the past few weeks have read like the following and have steadily decreased in poster IQ:

Apple: Wild speculation abounds on developer-only releases of software, hardware OMGWTF

Apple: Apple may/may not use DRM, based on developer-only releases of software and hardware OMGWTF!!!1

Apple: Teh interface is pretyOMGWTF!!!!!11eleventyone
Anonymous Coward writes: i am LOVE MY MACCY from BITTTORRRENT!!! I kissed it becos it tastES LIKE CANDY!!

Calm down, people. I'm not saying these things will or won't come to pass, but everybody assuming that a developer-only release will be anything like its comparable production release -- not to mention one that won't be available for a year -- is silly.

Disclaimer: Mac user at home.

Article already slashdotted

[Penguinoflight (517245)]

Here's the link to the article:
http://slashcache.com/stories/8e3fd00a12869f50e7ec c0512672bf76/index.html [slashcache.com]
and here's a torrent for the x86 dev kit:
http://torrentspy.com/search.asp?mode=torrentdetai ls&id=369442&query=OS+ [torrentspy.com]

So what!

[Goth Biker Babe (311502)]

People like Mercedes, BMW, Volvo etc sell cars at a premium because they are good quality and have nice design. In fact I bought an older Volvo precisely for that reason. It was a quality vehicle with the luxury and safety I would expect from the manufacturer. Apple is the same. Yes, may be you could run OS-X on a cheap clone PC, or one made of bits, but I bought Apple after years of such machines, because I wanted a quality machine with nice design and nice construction. Anyone who thinks this will hurt Apple's sales to a great extent is sadly mistaken.

Re:So what!

[It doesn't come easy (695416)]

I agree. People buy Apple because they want lots of good things, one of which is seamless operation, another top of the line hardware. People who steal the OS likely wouldn't fork over the cost of buying Apple hardware anyway, so the theft will NOT hurt Apple's bottom line while it MAY help Apple advertise their system. Given enough pirating, it is conceivable that Apple could eventually switch to selling the OS separately for cheap and have an immediate and significant boost to their market share. Hopefully, we'll get some real numbers in the next 24 months instead of all of this speculation...

Hard OCP HardForum Thread

[smileyscout (818108)]

This thread http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=937806&p age=1&pp=20 [hardforum.com] Has some interesting screenies about MacOSX 86 running natively on a laptop. Be sure to check it out.

Hold the salt please

[seven5 (596044)]

This works. This is not running inside of vmware. This is running directly on hardware. No salt needed. I have this running on a dell computer right now. All you need to do is take the vmware image floating around the internet, and use dd to image it to a drive. Boot from the drive and it works.. Requirements include an SSE2 enabled cpu, that would be most p4's and amd64 and higher. Rosetta requires SSE3, so without that you get no ppc apps. Newer p4's using the .90nm process will have SSE3. Make sure you have a great Video card as well soyou have Quartz Extreme running. It is also possible to patch the install dvd and install strait to the hardware. But the Vmware image is the easiest to do. You dont even need vmware, just download the vmware image, and use linux or knoppix to dd it over to a blank drive. The next few weeks should be fun :) Compliant hardware on Ebay is going for $225 or so. Not bad.

Article is wrong and misleading

[IntergalacticWalrus (720648)]

It cannot run on any x86. OS X extensively uses SSE2 everywhere, and in some places SSE3 too. You need at least a SSE2-capable CPU to run it (Pentium 4, Pentium M, or any 64-bit AMD), and then again it's apparently not very stable.

Re:This is 'news'?

[ZackSchil (560462)]

Actually, this story is pretty well-established: hard-to-fake handheld videos of systems cold-booting into OS X, screenshots, torrents, reports from all around that installation is tricky but it works...

It was speculation last week then there were a handful of sketchy screenshots taken in VMWare floating around. Now I'd say it's pretty much fact that it's working at some level.

Re:MS better watch their back

[TheOtherAgentM (700696)]

I don't agree. As someone that grew up on Windows and decided to try out Apple midway through college, it's not that simple. For us here on Slashdot, we realize the programs are similar in nature and are intuitive enough to figure out. However, I have switched many of my friends to Apple, making sure they knew how difficult it would be to unlearn what they already thought about computers. Most of them don't get very far in learning. That may be okay in a lot of cases, but if you are someone that has to be productive and you've learned to do things certain ways, switching is going to make Apple seem real inferior. Switching is not as easy as it appears.

Re:VMWare

[blackmonday (607916)]

If I remember correctly, the developer Intel Macs didn't ship with iLife. I'd be interesting to install them anyway and see what happens.

You'd have to be a masochist to run Final Cut Pro on Rosetta. Thank you sir may I have another!