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First Psystar Mac Clones Ship
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Apr 28, 2008 10:27 AM
An anonymous reader writes "According to Gizmodo, Psystar has begun shipping its Macintosh clones, thus proving that the company is not a hoax. Initial impressions seem to be positive, though Software Update does not work."
Related Stories
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Hardware: $399 Mac Clone Most Likely a Hoax 233 comments
timholman writes "According to Gizmodo, an investigation has shown that the $399 OpenMac is almost certainly vaporware, as is Psystar itself. The company's address has actually changed twice this week, according to its web page, and Psystar is no longer accepting credit card transactions. Too bad for those who may have already ordered an OpenMac."
Submission: First Psystar Mac clones ship by Anonymous Coward
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Hardware: Psystar Open Computer Notes, Benchmarks and Video 304 comments
Engadget has had a chance to play around with Psystar's Open Computer and has a few things to say about the controversial machine. "Okay, so we've been playing with the Psystar Open Computer for a few hours now, and we've formed some early impressions and put together a short video of it in action. We haven't really tried to stress the system yet, but based on our other experiences with OSx86 machines, we're expecting things to generally go smoothly. That said, there are some definite rough patches and issues, all mostly having to do with the fact that OS X isn't really built for this hardware."
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Mac Cloner Psystar Ships First Service Pack 468 comments
Preedit writes "Not only is Mac clone maker Psystar continuing to defy Apple's ban on third-party Leopard installations, it's supporting the hardware with updates. Psystar Mac clones shipped as of Monday will include a 'service pack' that features fixes for a range of problems, some of them inherent in Apple's own software, according to InformationWeek. The fixes address a range of troubles, from glitches in Apple's Time Machine backup feature to quirks in the Keyboard Viewer and Character Palette entries in Leopard's system preferences menu. There's also support for the latest version of Java and other updates. According to the story, by offering a full menu of support, Psystar appears to be daring Apple to attempt to enforce provisions in the Leopard license agreement that forbid third-party installations and sales." We've been discussing Psystar clones for a while.
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Your Rights Online: Apple Files Suit Against Psystar 805 comments
Reader The other A.N. Other, among others, alerts us to the news that Apple has filed suit against Psystar, the unauthorized clonemaker. (We've been discussing Psystar from the start.) The suit alleges violation of Apple's shrink wrap license and trademarks, and also copyright infringement. News of the lawsuit, filed on July 3, first surfaced on a legal blog. There's speculation that the case has been sealed.
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Apple Suit Demands That Psystar Recall OpenMacs 759 comments
Da'Man writes "The Psystar saga takes another series of turns. Not only is the website down but an examination of the suit filed by Apple shows that the Cupertino Goliath wants Psystar to recall all Open Computer and OpenServ systems sold by the company since April. It seems that Steve Jobs is out to totally sink Psystar and put an end to Mac clones."
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Your Rights Online: Mac Clone Maker Psystar Files For Bankruptcy 366 comments
StikyPad was one of several readers letting us know that Psystar has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. We've discussed the Mac clone maker's battles with Apple extensively. The company apparently has over $250,000US in debt, and states that it cannot turn a profit in the current economy. "The Chapter 11 filing will temporarily suspend Apple's copyright infringement suit against Psystar, which is currently before the US District Court of Northern California. But once the bankruptcy protection is sorted out, the copyright case will resume." And PC Mag is reporting that, on the other side of the Atlantic, two new clone companies are just getting started. Like PsyStar, FreedomPC and RussianMac promise to deliver PCs with OS X preloaded.
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Psystar Crushed In Court 640 comments
We've been following the case of Mac cloner Psystar for some time now. Apple was just handed a summary judgement over Psystar, and as usual Groklaw has the scoop. Here is the order (PDF), though PJ supplies it in text form at the link above. "Psystar just got what's coming to them in the California case. ... It's a total massacre. Psystar's first-sale defense went down in flames. Apple's motion for summary judgment on copyright infringement and DMCA violation is granted. Apple prevailed also on its motion to seal. Psystar's motion for summary judgment on trademark infringement and trade dress is denied. So is its illusory motion for copyright misuse. ... So that means damages ahead for Psystar on the copyright issues just decided on summary judgment, at a minimum. The court asked for briefs on that subject. In short, Psystar is toast." Reader UnknowingFool adds, "There are still issues to be decided but they are only Apple's allegations: breach of contract, induced breach of contract, trademark infringement, trademark dilution; trade dress infringement, state unfair competition, and common law unfair competition. Even if Psystar wins all of them, it is unlikely to help them very much."
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Sure, they shipped... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sure, they shipped... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sure, they shipped... (Score:4, Funny)
Oh wait...
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
most people interested in this dont want a cheap mac, they want an expandable mac that isnt complete overkill (like he Mac Pro). The number of people who'd install extra hard drives or replace their graphics card easily outnumber the number of people who can actually make use of 8 cores and dual sockets. the Mac Pro may be fan-fucking-tastic value for what it is, but its baseline configuration is ridiculously over
Re:Sure, they shipped... (Score:4, Insightful)
lets just say that the cheapest configured mac pro with edu discount is $2k (it's more, but lets stick with round numbers), and lets say that the psystar clone is $500 (it's less, but again round numbers). I can handle paying an apple premium, sometimes as much as 30-40% extra for the exact same components because it's from apple, but 300% extra is pushing it a little far. what's that I hear? the specs arent comparable? that's exactly my point. dont want or need a mac pro, it's complete overkill when I just want a graphics card and an extra internal drive. I'd be completely happy with an expandable mini
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Unless the gizmod article or the posting is a h (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I still find it amusing that so many people think that if you put OSX on a OC you'll get the same experience as you do on Mac hardware... You folks know that if Mac ran on anything it would be just a buggy and fucked up as windows right? The only reason it runs smoothly now is because Apple controls the hardware.
That is just a hypothesis (granted it's a very plausible and reasonable one). OSX already does run on a variety of hardware -- just not as big a variety as Windows. While you probably can't run OSX on just any PC, you could probably spec a system out for it specifically (as Psystar has apparently done). The most interesting thing about this company might be that it is a chance to see the hypothesis tested. Linux users are already quite willing to accept hardware limitations to avoid OS instability.
Operation Unsuccessful (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Download the full update from the Apple developer site, do some major moving and backup magic with some of the kext's (apples loadable modules), and run the install. Some people have scripts out that will resolve the issue, but its a doable manual process.
The major issue with the updates, is that some of the modifications (even when using EFI installed OSX with a stock kernel) to the modules that Apple does, breaks the har
Re:Operation Unsuccessful (Score:5, Informative)
What "EFI layer"? Netkas's PC EFI is a marketing name that Netkas put on his branch of my branch of the Apple-supplied Darwin/x86 bootloader.
The only thing EFI about it is that he supplies some of the runtime services functions. I do this as well except in my version everything returns EFI_NOT_SUPPORTED. It is enough that the EFI system and runtime services tables exist and have halfway-valid information and that where a function pointer is expected that it point to some function. The implementation can be as simple as mov $EFI_NOT_SUPPORTED, %eax; ret.
Nothing bad happens when the runtime services functions do not exist. Even if the one for rebooting the system instead returns EFI_NOT_SUPPORTED the system will still reboot because Apple still has legacy code to do this without EFI runtime services.
The point of my booter is to allow Apple to focus on their own systems and to not maintain legacy code yet still continue to provide open source code that will work unmodified on non-Apple machines. The idea is that anyone can take the code they do release as Darwin and boot it unmodified on most PCs. As a side-effect anyone can also take the Apple-compiled binaries from OS X and do the same. That is, after all, the point of it.
Of course, what I provide does not enable you to run OS X. You still have to provide a decryption engine and decryption keys and I don't help with that. Nor does Netkas PC EFI since the decryption engine, as explained by Amit Singh, is in the "Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext"
None of this has anything to do with EFI. Once the kernel is going, EFI is gone except for two tables and a handful of runtime services functions.
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Re:Operation Unsuccessful (Score:4, Informative)
What you don't realize is that you don't have to modify kexts on disk to modify their behavior at runtime.
The way Apple has structured the IOKit you can do everything that needs to be done purely by adding kernel extensions. It is never actually necessary to remove or modify kernel extensions but the hackintosh scene hasn't figured this out yet.
I plan to update my website in due time with the specifics of how exactly you accomplish this. Aside from the issue of the kernel simply not being able to boot unmodified on a P4 I have an otherwise completely update-proof test box with hardware that is not supported out of the box by OS X. It's no different from any other OS really. Add drivers for hardware support. Add drivers that support hardware better than the OS-supplied drivers and keep the OS-supplied drivers from loading when they would cause problems.
For example, consider a typical Windows installation. Microsoft provides a driver for basic ATA support. Once you install a more appropriate driver, it matches the hardware and drives it in lieu of the MS-supplied driver. The biggest difference is that on Windows NT (and derivatives) the plug'n'play aspect is done once when installing the driver. The system records which driver needs to load for a given piece of hardware. In OS X the plug'n'play happens upon each boot. The kernel builds up the IOCatalogue with information about available drivers and then passively matches the hardware using that information. That usually reduces it down to 1 or 2 potentials, usually just one. Then active matching occurs where each driver has a chance to probe the hardware and actively test whether or not it is able to drive it.
All of this is fully documented by Apple. Once you read the effing manual you realize that the current hackintosh methods are insanely stupid.
As an aside, this is why Windows fails to boot on a different machine to that which it was installed on. The Windows bootloader will not load drivers except those declared in the configuration control set registry hive. An OS X installation, if actually done properly, is able to boot on anything. But so far no one has really done an OS X installation properly which is why we see all these stupid machine-specific installation options in hackintosh spins.
As for the ACPI tables, I'm theorizing on that now. I think the clear answer is to write an open ACPI platform expert as such an animal is needed for Darwin to really be considered an open platform. Doing a fully open ACPI PE kext means that various ACPI hacks employed in Linux can be ported to Darwin. Not having a fully open ACPI PE means that it's somewhat questionable as to whether Darwin can be used freely, depending mostly on whether you consider the Apple-supplied kexts to be parts of OS X or parts of Darwin.
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Re:Operation Unsuccessful (Score:4, Insightful)
There are some of us (music and video producers, artists, etc.) who even occasionally work on computers that are not connected to the Internets.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
apple does not make a HEAD LESS mid-range system.
Re:Operation Unsuccessful (Score:4, Informative)
The sad truth is that if you want a Macintosh with upgradeable graphics hardware, it's going to cost your $2200+. I can upgrade the graphics card on virtually any $199 Wal-mart PC. There's a problem here.
Me personally, I've put almost as much money into my homebrew Mac as a Mac Mini would have cost. I have a slightly bigger hard drive (160gb) and more ram than the base (2gb), but those are both options that could be accomodated. The difference is that my system is running an 8600GTS video card. You can't get that out of a Mac Mini at all.
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Meh (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Plop the mini's hardware into a mini-tower case, and tack on 1 PCI-E x16 slot, 1 PCI-E x1 slot, and 1 regular PCI slot, and then we'd have a machine worthy of my purchase. Until that point I'll keep on using my hacked up generic "mac" and my old PowerMac G4.
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Re:Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:What would I use expandability for? (Score:4, Insightful)
First, I distinguished between "need" and "want". The desires you chose to ridicule were not in the "needs". You didn't ask what our "needs" were, you asked what we would do with expandability. If you asked "what do you need expandability for" you'd get a different answer.
So once you eliminate that straw man, what I need is an adequate GPU, an adequate hard drive, and no integrated display... and a consumer price. Maybe 40% over what Psystar is asking for their box? That would give Apple their usual markup.
The argument that "most consumers don't need" those features is a bit circular, since they're not available from Apple and haven't been available from Apple at a consumer price since Steve Jobs took over. On the other hand, they *are* available from Wintel box shippers, and most consumers are still buying Wintel boxes.
Don't assume you know all the reasons why they do that. I know I'm regularly surprised by people's answers to why they still use Windows after they express desire for my desktop.
And do consider that you'll never find out if you just ask Mac users, because that's a sample that's pre-selected to only include people for whom the current line of Macs is at least minimally acceptable.
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Re:Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
Plop the mini's hardware into a mini-tower case, and tack on 1 PCI-E x16 slot, 1 PCI-E x1 slot, and 1 regular PCI slot, and then we'd have a machine worthy of my purchase. Until that point I'll keep on using my hacked up generic "mac" and my old PowerMac G4.
What they need is a Mac Pro Mini (or Mini Mac Pro). Basically, half a Mac Pro:
* Single dual or quad-core CPU
* 4 DIMM slots for 8G-16G RAM (2G standard)
* PCIe x16 slot (with room for dual-width cards)
* PCIe x4 slot
* PCIe x1 slot
* Two internal 3.5" bays, w/RAID1 or RAID0 on the chipset.
* One internal 5.25" bay (Dual layer DVDRW standard)
* Priced from about US$1100.
Of course, Apple will never do this because it would absolutely slaughter higher-margin Mac Pro sales.
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Re:Meh (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I hear this sentiment a lot.. but what does it really mean? Are there people who aren't using computers as tools to accomplish a task? Is hacking an OS to work on X piece of hardware NOT an app
So.. shall the bets begine (Score:2)
On the other hand, the EFI bootloader they are using from netkas, thats another story...
I actually have OSX running on my Dell Vostro 1500, and while everything in the base model works perfectly with OSX, my customized model, the intel wireless card does not work.. *sigh*
Re:So.. shall the bets begine (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple legal (Score:4, Funny)
Loud! (Score:4, Insightful)
Mac Mini (Score:4, Funny)
Am I the only one who thinks it would be hilarious if every model they shipped out contained a faulty motherboard, with signals rerouted to hide the fact everything is running from a Mac Mini stashed in the "powersupply"?
That would be great.
I've got to say, for a scam they are really committed.
At first, I thought this was all interesting and going to have an interesting legal battle attached to it. Then it was clear this was a scam and there would be no fun to watch. Now I'm starting to wonder if I'll get to see the legal fight after all. Maybe it's not a scam?
Re:Mac Mini (Score:4, Insightful)
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You Don't Actually Need Software Update (Score:5, Insightful)
That way if I need to reinstall, which does happen now and then, I don't need to download again.
There's no serial number check on manual downloads, but I expect that soon we'll be seeing the Apple version of Windows Genuine Advantage.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think the problem is just that Apple's "Software Update" doesn't work. More likely the problem is that you can't update your OS without causing it to stop functioning. Psystar hacked the OS to run on generic hardware. If you install an update that overwrites part of that hack, your machine doesn't work anymore.
Re:You Don't Actually Need Software Update (Score:4, Insightful)
If there is ever an Apple version of Windows Genuine Advantage I'll quit using OS X, it will be erased from my drive and I'll never develop software for the Mac again.
My computer, once I purchase it, should always function as long as there is not a hardware issue. I shouldn't have to prove I'm not stealing from the company, I shouldn't need an internet connection to unlock software, I _should_ be able to replace hardware components of the computer and I _should_ be able to transfer the software to another computer.
End of story. I use a Mac because I think Apple understands that these are rights and they improve usability.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course the Mac Pirates will just find a way around that as the Windows Pirates did with XP and Vista. So maybe Apple wouldn't bother and just allow OEM installs for Non-Apple branded hardware?
Uh oh (Score:4, Funny)
I converted my gaming machine into one (Score:3, Interesting)
It is fast fast fast fast fast.
Only few things I have to put up with.
1. You have to turn on AHCI in the BIOS or you will kernel panic randomly. This makes the machine sit for about 20-30 seconds probing SATA ports and whatnot until it finally launches into the OS bootloader. This is a bios/board problem, not an OS X problem. Annoying at worst.
2. Machine will sleep (using kernel patch) but upon wake, I have to manually assign an IP then go back to DHCP to get the machine to go back online.
3. If I boot into windows and want to go back to Mac OS, I have to turn off the computer, unplug it and wait 15 seconds before plugging in and starting back up. If I don't, after the white screen with the apple, the graphics card will shut down and I can't see. Must be some flag in the card or board that windows sets that the drivers I'm using isn't resetting.
4. Switching resolution can cause a blue screen where you can't see anything. Rebooting will take care of it.
5. Some 3D apps won't work. Second Life is one example.
First thing's first (Score:5, Interesting)
I've got to wonder why Software Update isn't working on them, even though they've admitted to using the EFI loader hack. In my experience, only OS updates (ie 10.5.1->10.5.2) are potentially dangerous anymore, and I managed to update from 10.5.1 to 10.5.2 without issue on an oldish Shuttle AMD barebones box here after patching EFI/Vanilla kernel.
It's almost trivial to get a vanilla kernel up & running on an Intel hackintosh now, only slightly more difficult on an AMD box -- there are even several quite good pre-packaged installers now with 10.5.2 that do everything for you if you don't like to get your hands dirty.
All that said, it's going to be funny when all of the people duped into buying these can't update to 10.5.4 or whatever and end up with a bricked box. At least if you do it yourself, you develop the skillset to boot into single user mode, disable kexts, remove caches etc.
Maintaining a functioning, stable, up-to-date Hackintosh (with Quartz Extreme running properly etc) is a lot like keeping a '60s Volkswagen running. Not particularly difficult, but you build up the skills over time and it takes quite a bit of patience. I think there are going to be a lot of pissed off people once they realize what they've bought into.
What is Psystar really selling? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does Psystar's installation of OSX violate Apple's EULA? Is Apple's EULA even legal? I have no idea, but Psystar is not the company who is going to spend millions slugging it out in court trying to get Apple's EULA declared invalid. This is a Fly-By-Night operation and Psystar's behaviour so far -- from the constantly changing addresses to the questionable background of its owners to the fact that they have built their entire business model on selling freely available OSX hacks -- tells me exactly what is going to happen next:
When Apple Apple sues -- and make no mistake, they will sue -- Psystar will fold and disappear. That's been the Psystar game plan all along. Take as many orders and collect as much money as possible before they get shut down. And if you happen to be one of the people waiting for delivery when Apple's lawyers attack, well, it sucks to be you.
Re:Software Update does not work. (Score:5, Insightful)
Annoying over-used buzzwords aside, my guess is that the update situation on these will be just like other hackintosh setups, where you can update, but you have to obtain a hacked update installer, or go through a very manual process to do it.
My original hackintosh setup for example was running 10.4.8 and couldn't use software updates, but I was able to move it over to 10.4.10 eventually (though I'm now running on 10.5.1).
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Re:Why no cease and desist from Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
On what grounds? Psystar is installing a retail boxed product of MacOS X on Psystar hardware. There's no copyright violation, so none of the extreme remedies in the Copyright Act apply. Any legal restriction Apple seeks to impose that their software can only be run on their hardware runs afoul of "tying" restrictions in antitrust law. Apple would have to win an antitrust case before they could get a cease and desist order.
What we'll probably see is heavily restrictive DRM in future Macs to prevent this. Or an end to retail sales of MacOS.
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Re:Why no cese and desist from Apple? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to wonder why they have not tried to get a preliminary injunction to halt shipment pending legal matters. They probably could get that fairly easily.
They're probably weighing it against the possibility of having their "you can only install the copy of OS X you bought onto our list of blessed hardware" clause in the OS X EULA ruled invalid.
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Thanx for the cheap, easy threadjack (Score:5, Insightful)
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Naysayers (Score:3, Insightful)
This whole episode is a reminder of Hanson's Law: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity!
price not $399 (Score:3, Insightful)
Shipping is another $50 (macs ship free).
so the total price is $609 without wifi or blue tooth. compared to $599 for the mac. The cpu is a bit
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Re:It is a fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
As to "profiting off someone else's work", EVERYBODY does that to some extent. ISP's are "profiting" off of Google, Ebay, etc because people buy internet access because of those items. Gas stations are profiting off of car manufaturers because they supply fuel for something that someone else made. Paper companies profit from fax/copier manufacturers because they generate a need for their product.
The bottom line is that Apple sells an operating system. They have a legally questionable clause in there stating that when you buy it you can't install it except on computers that they deem appropriate (namely, ones they made themselves). If that clause is successfully shot down, things will likely return to a semblance of fairness: people who purchase software from a company can install it wherever and on whatever they want to.
I mean seriously: if Microsoft came out with EULA stipulations tomorrow that stated that regardless of how well it worked, you couldn't install MS Office (even a legally purchased copy) on a WINE-equipped Linux machine, Slashdot would shit a jagged brick coated in hot sauce. Apple does the same though and it's reasonable behavior.
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