The Hackintosh Guide 453
An anonymous reader writes "A 'Hackintosh' is a computer that runs Apple's OS X operating system on non-Apple hardware. This has been possible since Apple's switch from IBM's PowerPC processors to Intel processors a few years ago. Until recently, building a PC-based Mac was something done only by hard-core hackers and technophiles, but in the last few months, building a Hackintosh PC has become much easier. Benchmark Reviews looks at what it's possible to do with PC hardware and the Mac Snow Leopard OS today, and the pros and cons of building a Hackintosh computer system over purchasing a supported Apple Mac Pro."
apple ][ clones (Score:5, Funny)
its apple ][ clones all over again..
and look what it did for the popularity of apple hardware.. they got so big, that ibm decided to make its own PC too.. stirring the behomoth into action.
the best thing steve jobs could do on his his death is to open-source Mac OSX (maybe..)
2cents from toronto
jp
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This is the truth. According to Jack Sams, IBM Boca Raton started what they initially called 'Project Chess' after noting the success of the Apple II.
However, what made the Apple II successful and what made the Macintosh successful are two completely different stories.
Re:apple ][ clones (Score:5, Insightful)
What made the Macintosh successful and what made OS X successful are two different stories as well.
It's not "the" guide (Score:5, Informative)
It even says on the first page,
Re:It's not "the" guide (Score:5, Informative)
Bah. Who needs to build a Hackintosh? I have Snow Leopard running in VirtualBox.
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Bah. Who needs to build a Hackintosh? I have Snow Leopard running in VirtualBox.
What's AV performance like? One reason it would be nice to build a Hackintosh is to have a cheap, fast box to run something like Logic Pro on.
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AV performance? I get better performance out of AirVideo running in a single CPU VM (WinXP) than I do from a dual core Mac running on bare metal.
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Yeah. Mac hardware is nice. Their software, however, is turning into bloatware.
There is a social network inside of iTunes.
There is a social network inside of iTunes.
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Not trying to be a troll or anything, I'm honestly curious. I thought the entire point of buying a mac was the software. I was under the impression that "Mac hardware" is basically the same thing as PC hardware. What exactly makes Mac hardware nice?
(Note: Apple has done some interesting things, like the iphone. I even own one apple product, a first gen 16gb touch.)
Re:It's not "the" guide (Score:5, Interesting)
What exactly makes Mac hardware nice?
The industrial design of Apple computers is simply the best in the world. I don't know of anyone who disputes that -- at least someone who can point to a computer manufacturer who has anything better.
As far as functionality is concerned, their mice are crap, keyboards are great, and their laptops are good for everything except 3d acceleration. Multi-touch trackpads without buttons are the best design out there, along with their island style keyboards which are also without equal. iMacs are the best looking desktop computer, bar none.
Is everything overpriced? Yes. Is their OS better than Windows 7? Depends on what you use it for. But now, iTunes takes as long to load as Photoshop CS5. Spotlight is broken for all practical purposes, even though I rebuild indexes every couple of weeks. Steve will soon release an iMac that runs iOS as well as OS X, and you can see where it's going from here. In order to improve the user experience, Steve is going to prevent his users from running unsigned processes. He'll lose all of the nerds who switched to OS X, but that's such a small number of people, he's not going to care when the reward is 30% of all software sales.
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The industrial design of Apple computers is simply the best in the world
Ok, so esentially they are really good at putting the components together, but the components have no real difference from PC components?
I get the impression that they are just more asthetically pleasing, with some nice peripherals.
Again, I'm not trying to be a troll, just trying to understand the rabid fanbois.. I mean the software isnt the best, the basic hardware is comparable to a PC's... Is there a reason I should consider Apple computers in the future... Will I get what I pay for, or will I pay for th
Re:It's not "the" guide (Score:4, Interesting)
"just trying to understand the rabid fanbois"
There is nothing to understand in a rabit fanboy of anything. Unless you want irrational reasons.
If you want actual reason, the GP is spot on. The main difference between Apple and the rest of the world is that they sell a complete package.
Remember, the vast majority of people do not buy a Mac. No need to scratch your head for a reason to buy one. No need to feel superior if you don't buy one either - you are just following the majority.
You can get pissed at people that buy a Mac and try to convince you it is the best thing since sliced bread with ads level arguments - they are annoying - but well they are the same guys that, long ago, were trying to convince you that Win95 was the best thing since sliced bread. Get over it.
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One thing I've yet to find in any Windows/PC laptop is a decent touchpad or trackpoint... I'm not a fan of lugging a mouse with me when I'm running to a meeting or on the couch at home.
Every single trackpoint (my favorite input device until I got a Macbook) has a "ghost movement" issue (less these da
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Good to know.
I should have mentioned, what really matters for audio is latency -- for example, if you're playing an electric guitar through GarageBand or Logic's amp simulators, latency in the sound card can be very noticeable (I've had issues even with GarageBand running natively on a G4 Mac Mini).
It "feels" as if a virtualised OSX would introduce extra latency, but I don't want to jump to conclusions. Does anyone have experience with doing latency-sensitive audio work in VirtualBox?
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Just play a little faster, jeez. :)
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Same here, and it runs quite nicely, albeit a bit slow. But it's fun to play with.
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Actually, it's telling me:
Pardon our server... it's being serviced at the moment. Please refresh this page (F5) or use your browsers "Back" button.
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FTA: "Full disclosure: I worked for Apple in the late 1980s and am the author of "MacPaint 2.0". I use Macs for all my serious work and consider PCs to be best suited for video games."
The author shows a bit of seriously incorrect anti-pc attitude in this statement dismissing Windows. That statement might be true for him personally but it's not true for the majority of people out there.
70-80% of PC's sold today have some sort of integrated display chipset that can sometimes slowdown trying to handle the "enhanced" desktop experience of Vista / Win 7. They are certainly not "game machines" unless you like playing the latest games in low resolution at 8-12 Frames Per Second.
Nope, ma
Mac vs. PC (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mac vs. PC (Score:5, Informative)
While I agree with your point, separating them into Mac and PC labels makes it easy for conversation regarding the two. It's a convenience thing.
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I feel the same way about RAM versus ROM being used as mutually exclusive terms. It's not often you come across Read-Only Memory where you cannot randomly access the data. But unfortunately these are the labels we're stuck with since RWM is not pronounceable.
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While I agree with your point, separating them into Mac and PC labels makes it easy for conversation regarding the two. It's a convenience thing.
Saying "OS X" and "Windows" works quite well too. See, a "Mac" is a computer made by Apple. "Macs" run Windows (and Linux) quite well.
The problem is that a massive breakdown occurs in your differentiation when one runs Windows on a Mac instead of running OS X on a Mac.
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Fashion Accessories vs Computers. I had to buy brown clothes just so they would match my Zune.
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Can we please stop using the terms as if they are mutually exclusive?
No.
They're in the vernacular now. Can't speak for other languages, but in English, to say "My PC is busted" generally means "My windows PC is busted."
"My mac is busted" is straightforward. When further differentiation is required on the PC front we say "My Linux PC is busted" (although more than likely, we'd say "My Linux Box is busted.")
A parallel is saying "I'm American" - While not technically correct, this is understood in
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The United Mexican States ?
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Because it sounds scary.
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A parallel is saying "I'm American" - While not technically correct, this is understood in the vernacular to mean "I'm a citizen of the United States." Canadians like me have to say "I'm Canadian" even though I live in the Americas. It's the understood vernacular.
A well kept secret is how many Canadians like you have immigrated to America... Maybe we should start a swap program - say 1 Canadian for 2 Americans? You still have a lot a of space...
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Lenovo-compatible (Score:2)
Well, its history is derived from "I have an IBM-compatible PC"
So would the proper term be "Lenovo-compatible" since IBM sold its PC division to Lenovo about half a decade ago?
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"PC", on the other hand, is not used exclusively to refer to a personal computer running Microsoft Windows. It can just as easily refer to any personal computer. One of the meanings is logical and useful, the other one isn't. Not that I really mind. I sort of enjoy calling Macs PCs and then watching the inevitable rage or confusion that follows.
If confusion follows then you are not using the word in its commonly accepted fashion. Languages evolve - and words take on new meanings. There are plenty of words whose modern meaning differs from the older meaning; or whose meaning is very context specific.
Re:Mac vs. PC (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah I know, you have a point. I guess I'm just stubborn and obsessed with semantics. If I was Canadian, I would happily say that I was from America, and let people interpret it however they like.
That seems somewhat silly, and I actually think you're wrong about the semantics.
What does "America" mean? The most obvious answer (and ignoring the handful of towns around the world named America) is that it's an abbreviated form of "The United States of America." To what else could it possibly refer? North America? No, that doesn't make sense because if you say "America" referring to a continent, how do you differentiate between North and South America. Likewise, if you're referring to both continents it doesn't make sense, because they -- the landmass as a whole -- is referred to as the Americas (pl). It's possible that in a historical sense "America" (s) could be used to refer to the entire landmass, but this is most certainly not a modern usage. Deprecated!
So, if you were a Canadian it would make perfect sense to say you were either from North America or from the Americas. Neither statement is particularly useful nor descriptive but they would be accurate. Saying you were "from America" would mean you were from the United States of America (unless as I said earlier you were from the handful of towns or cities around the world named America).
So is this a pedantic semantic argument? I guess so, but I don't see how you could possibly justify that usage of America.
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Talk about completely and utterly missing the point!
Really? We still tend refer to it as 'the new World' when talking about it as a whole :P Otherwise America is indeed a reference to the continent*, we refer to the US as 'the US', surprisingly.
Ok, that's fine and dandy, however when using the word "America" the singular refers to the USA, the pl refers to both continents. You can call it the New World, India, that-place-across-the-pond -- whatever you want! Doesn't change the meaning of America et al.
Strangely enough, prefacing 'South' or 'North' in front of 'America' is usually enough to get the message across...
Yes, that's exactly the point I was making. When the OP tried to make a new usage of the word America (eg, a Canadian saying "I'm from America") that requires a meaning of "America" to refer to Nort
Re:Mac vs. PC (Score:5, Insightful)
So you value pedantic correctness over effective communication with your fellow humans? That says volumes about you, and very little of it positive.
It is exclusively reserved for referring to people from the USA only by informal convention & long-standing usage, not from some inflexible rule of language. Just like "Macs" are "Macintosh PCs" and "PCs" are "Windows PCs," in long-standing usage and informal convention. This is mindless semantic argument, made solely for the sake of argument. What is the point? You know what's meant, I know what's meant, and everybody else reading knows what's meant by the "Mac" vs. "PC" distinction.
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One of the meanings is logical and useful, the other one isn't.
Logical? You're pushing for natural language to be logical? You might want to spend your time on more useful pursuits, like tilting at windmills. There is in any case a historical reason for this usage.
As far as "useful" goes, it depends on context. "Mac vs. PC" was certainly a useful way to distinguish the two major desktop OSs at a time when the Mac OS and DOS, then Windows, were about the only games in town. Nowadays, with the rise of Linux, maybe it doesn't make that much sense; but again, neither
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Funny)
"Want to have a look at my linux box in my Mom's basement?"
You need better pickup lines.
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Sheesh, you sound so much not ignorant, I am in awe.
Re:Mac vs. PC (Score:5, Informative)
A mac is a personal computer. PC stands for personal computer. Can we please stop using the terms as if they are mutually exclusive?
I can tell you are an old-school Mac fan from the 1980's - pre-Jobs '90s from the pedantry. Now please go tell Apple what you just told us since they just finished a years long "Mac vs. PC" ad campaign that flies in the face of what you just said. I'm not even going to bother with the YouTube links at this point.
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It does but it doesn't
Back in the day they where called Microcomputers and or HomeComputers.
You tended to call computers like the Atari, C64, Vic20, TI99/4a, Apple II, and RadioShack CoCo Home computers. You had them at home and could play a lot of cool games on them they had color and often sound. They would run their own OS and didn't use a Z80.
Computers like the Kaypro2X, Osbourne, TRS-80 Model II, and the Zenith Heathkit line microcomputers. They usually ran CP/M the Model II could run CP/M and where se
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dual boots Linux and Widows
I've heard widows are fun but this takes the cake!
-l
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HP-9100A (Score:2)
Nope the first computer marketed as a personal computer was the HP-9100A. And that was 1968. But apart from that you are right.
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Micro computer: 8 bit computer Mini Computer: 16 bit computer Mainframe: 32 bit computer Super Computer: 64 bit computer
Those are so painfully wrong it hurts. A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor (i.e. a single integrated circuit as the CPU). It has nothing to do with the address space. Minicomputers were multiuser machines that were smaller than mainframes (one or two cabinets).
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All computers are PCs.
You must be very wealthy.
What? (Score:4, Informative)
building a PC-based Mac was something done only by hard-core hackers and technophiles
What? This is a load of crap. Granted, it's not the simpest thing to do, but I'd say it was two years ago that hackintoshing became simple enough for the somewhat technical to figure it out.
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed...for example, the Dell Mini 9 has been notoriously easy to make into a Hackintosh for quite a while. Hell, even Gizmodo posted a walkthrough [gizmodo.com] in early 2009.
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10v works fine too http://twitpic.com/tywtq [twitpic.com]
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I have a 10v running Snow Leopard that works great. It didn't take all that long to do, either. I didn't want to spend the money on a mac mini just to dabble in some iPhone development. And my other laptop is too old to virtualize os x.
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hardware quality (Score:2)
Did you see the picture of the case he chose? He says he chose it because the HP blackbird case is one of the highest quality aluminum cases he could find. I had to laugh. Having looked inside a mac tower case it's just astonishing that such a spagetti looking case could be considered "high quality". In the end perhaps the case as little to do with the function of a computer. But one of the main points of building your own is aesthetics and as far as that goes mac cases are the best you can possible g
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What? That is completely wrong. It used to be something only done by people willing to spend a lot of time on it (one might call them hard-core), but it has recently become much easier.
Slashdotted! (Score:2)
Support is the main thing (Score:2)
I did this once (Score:5, Insightful)
Wish Apple put some work on OSX (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry if this sounds like a lament,
Apple doesn't like OS/X anymore. The platform has basically been stagnant since the inception of 10.6, in 2008. Hardware support is poor, even worse than Linux. For instance there is no way to make a Nvidia GTX460 run under OS/X at the moment, in spite of it being the best bang-for-the-buck video card right now. It was impossible to have an AMD 5xxx series run until only a few months ago! Performance is not good enough. From experience OS/X guzzle memory like no other OS I know. I use two boxes at work, a Linux HP PC with 4GB of RAM that never ever swaps, and a MBP laptop with 4GB of RAM that becomes slow as molasses after a week of use due to memory issues.
I'm extremely disappointed in Apple's focus on the mobile platform at the moment. There is only so much that can be done with a telephone and a hobbled tablet, nice though it may be.
I have some experience with Hackintosh. In my opinion, be prepared for a world of hurt, very comparable to the Linux experience of 10 years ago. Basic features not working (e.g suspend-to-disk), no support, needing to be very careful about what hardware can be accommodated, performance issues, and very shaky future. Apple could basically pull the plug anyday. At the end of it a little more software is available, from the big editors. Realistically a lot of the free software tools that I like do not run as well as under Linux (for instance Inkscape).
I used to like the OSX development tools but they are not portable, I wasted a lot of time with them, so this is as basic as I can make it now, so my software runs everywhere.
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I used to like the OSX development tools but they are not portable, I wasted a lot of time with them, so this is as basic as I can make it now, so my software runs everywhere.
That's rich, and what, Microsoft's dev tools are? Just write the MV part of your apps in C++ and V part in the one that best suits the platform. On Windows I assume that's .NET and on iOS / OS X that's Cocoa / UIKit. Besides, you're not going to find a standardized UI API on any platform, be it Windows, OS X, iOS, Android, Java, Symbi
Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX (Score:4, Insightful)
10.6 was released in late 2009, not 2008.
One year's of no updates appears much less stagnant than 2 years.
But the problem is, that if Apple releases updates every year or year and a half, people complain about costs of upgrades. If Apple waits too long to release an update everyone thinks that the sky is falling and MacOS is DYING. (Oh NOES!)
The Mac is not dead.
Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX (Score:4, Informative)
From experience OS/X guzzle memory like no other OS I know. I use two boxes at work, a Linux HP PC with 4GB of RAM that never ever swaps, and a MBP laptop with 4GB of RAM that becomes slow as molasses after a week of use due to memory issues.
I have an entirely different experience. I code on my MBP 10 - 15 hours every single day and I'll go many weeks between reboots. I have 4GB of memory and it's running just fine. I nornally run Eclipse, Tomcat, Postgres, Photoshop, a couple terminal windows, and Open Office all the time.
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Driver issues are purely a matter of politics, especially for the devices you mention: a video card, and, uh, another video card. The only reason they don't exist is because Apple doesn't want them to.
I'd hardly call suspend-to-disk a basic feature. Basic features, to me, include stability and compatibility, both of which are at or approaching genuine Mac hardware, especially with the right CPU (Intel Core or i), chipset (Intel)*, and onboard devices (mostly Realtek). The AMD support is a bit flakey, as
OSX Doesn't Make Money (Score:4, Insightful)
Long ago (in computer industry terms), OSX got Apple back on the road to financial success. OSX has become a favored, octogenarian at Apple. Treated well, but generally irrelevant to other projects.
Every time there's a consumer buying content for one of Apple's dedicated entertainment devices, they are made richer. The best part of this scheme is two-fold.
1. It's early days for dedicated entertainment devices like the ipad and even the iphone. Tons of money yet to be taken from the consumer while the personal use doctrine is being dismantled.
2. The distribution of entertainment is a U.S. government sanctioned oligopoly. Apple has become an blessed member of the oligopoly.
Contrast the scale of those revenue generating opportunities with the general purpose computer (OSX) where once the tower/laptop is sold, that's about the end of the revenue stream.
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It doesn't sound like a lament. It sounds like whining.
Have you even thought that in the time Apple has been pushing their iOS, they have another group of engineers working on OSX 10.x? OSX is a big application, it requires time and creativity to build a competing product that can out sell and out whip the current flagship product of their competition.
Apple has had to up their take in the mobile market since google announced they were pouring out a new phone, mobile os (android) and "tablet" os (chrome).
I
Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple doesn't like OS/X anymore. The platform has basically been stagnant since the inception of 10.6, in 2008. Hardware support is poor, even worse than Linux. For instance there is no way to make a Nvidia GTX460 run under OS/X at the moment, in spite of it being the best bang-for-the-buck video card right now. It was impossible to have an AMD 5xxx series run until only a few months ago!
This is hardly a new issue. Apple doesn't care about supporting hardware configurations they don't ship. It allows them to focus on supporting a small number of hardware configurations and giving the maximum stability and ease-of-use for their users.
The cost is that they have always been and will always be behind the performance curve on supporting the latest add-in hardware that is available on the PC. Plus if you were really interested in "the best bang-for-the-buck", you probably aren't buying an expandable Mac Pro (which is $2,500 / $3,500 / $5,000 depending on model you select).
In OSX, AMD 5XXX support came because they are shipping all 3 of these configs with the AMD5770 standard -- again, they really only support hardware they ship.
FWIW, on the PC, MS doesn't write the drivers for Windows. The hardware manufacturers do. If there was an actual GFX card after-market on the Mac, NVidia and AMD would write the drivers for the Mac (and there's a good chance AMD did write them for Apple when they won the bid to include 5770's in Mac Pros).
Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX (Score:5, Informative)
Is this a troll? The platform has been stagnant since 2008? Wikipedia says OSX 10.6 was released in August 2009, just over a year ago. Even if it had been 2 years, taking 2 years to release a major new OS release is not strange.
As far as all the poor performance and memory problems, those don't seem common to me. Maybe one of your installed apps has a memory leak?
Hackintosh? (Score:2)
... I have an Amoeba 3000, it's even better.
Not worth the trouble (Score:5, Insightful)
I have setup several Hackintosh's at home for my family, a dell 9 mini and a couple of desktops, and I have to say it's just not worth the time and effort. I should have just bought a Mac mini and a Macbook that "just worked" out of the box.
Actually let me amend that, it is worth your time if your time is worthless. :) The money I could have made (as a freelancer contracter) in the time it took to setup and support them would have more than offset the cost of a real Apple machine.
Apple needs a desktop mini tower at $1000-$1500 (Score:2)
Apple needs a desktop mini tower at $1000-$1500
The mini is priced a little to high and only a core2 cpu?
the imac are nice but the price is a little and high + the lack of a mate screen is a trun off and there lots of people who don't want to be locked in to a screen.
also the imac is weak in video card area for it's price.
The mac pro is cool but the base system needs to take $1000+ off it's price and boast the ram to 4gb min.
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I think the reason that Apple doesn't have a $1000-1500 mini desktop is because that market is heavily saturated and competitive. All of their desktops are in very select markets with little competition. They can get much more profit per unit. If they released a mini desktop as you suggested they would be competing with Dell, HP, Lenovo which are low margin on each unit but overall makes profit by selling high volume. Apple wouldn't make much money selling low volume (relatively) so it's not worth it.
As
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but $2500 for a 1 cpu base system is too high cut it down to $2000.
Why don't you build a similar model on Dell and see how much it costs you. I think if you matched specs, it's close to what Apple charges. Most of the time you come within $200 but there are still enough differences to say whether it's a difference. i.e. iLife comes with OS X, etc. And don't build one with a iCore i5 and call it the same as a Xeon. They're not the same processor.
also apple should make the mini more like $500-$600.
Again price out what it takes. Also take into account the form factor. A micro-ITX form factor costs much more to build than
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$2000 gets you a pc with I7 and likely SLI video / 1 high end video card + 6gb ram not just a 1 socket Xeon that is just about same price / speed as a i7 920 / 930 + mid rage video with 3gb system ram no apple wants $2500 for that also apples 1K psu is over kill for hardware is the base system.
Sigh. A Core i7 is not the same as a Xeon. Intel charges you (and Apple) more for the Xeon as it is a workstation/server CPU. If you can't spec the same, the comparison is useless.
AS for the imac apple just needs one with a mate screen.
What do you mean by "mate screen"? If you mean use an additional monitor, you can attach a separate monitor if you have the right cable [wikipedia.org]. On the high end iMacs, you can even use the iMac as a monitor alone.
also with the laptops apple needs a lower priced 17" screen system $2,299.00 or $1800 just to get a 15" screen? 13" is to small and there are pc with 17" under $1000 but apple wants $1800 just for a 15"?
Just like the Mac Pro, the MacBook Pro laptops are designed for professionals. Hence the "Pro" in the name. Again match s
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There is still a large gap in Apple's product line between consumer iMacs and professional Mac Pros. There is no consumer grade Apple computer that is very expandable or upgradeable in the sense an average Windows desktop is.
I don't think Apple really cares about that market segment. If they did have a decent i7 desktop that handled a large amount of memory it would cut in to their Mac Pro sales. A magazine publisher I used to work for is currently dealing with this now. They don't have the budget to replac
unfair practices (Score:2)
What is unfair, of course, is that it is allowed to run Windows on a Mac, while it is not allowed to run OSX on a PC.
Time for the FTC to look into this, I would suggest.
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Sorry I am not going to spell it out. FTC should be involved whenever (paying) consumers are being held back by artificial means.
Why bother? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ubuntu is easier to install and supports more hardware and software.
Hackintoshes are like teaching a pig to sing. Even if you succeed, it just wastes your time and annoys Apple.
IMHO, it's worth the time and effort. (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're careful, hackintoshing is not that big of a hassle. I have two. The first one I built as an experiment about 2 years ago, just to see it for myself. It worked well enough that I put it into service as a fileserver in my home running OS X Server 10.5, replacing an ancient G4 2x450MHz machine. A couple weeks ago I upgraded it to OS X Server 10.6. It's rock stable and performs very well.
The second one is about a year old, and was built to replace two machines: an aging gaming PC, and an old Power Mac G5 that was my primary desktop. I chose my components carefully and got Mac Pro performance for about half the price, and the machine dual boots OS X 10.6 and Windows 7 Ultimate. I enjoy the occasional PC build, and for $1200 in savings, I didn't mind needing to get my hands a little dirty to get OS X running on it. Already having a functional Mac meant I could keep the hackintosh on my workbench for about a month, testing things risk-free, blowing it up and putting it back together, and generally figuring out every last little detail to make sure it would do what I wanted/needed and give me trouble-free operation.
It did take a little work to get them up and running, but once you reach that point you're pretty much set. I am pretty careful about updates since sometimes they do break things, but others usually figure out the fixes pretty quickly and post them on the sites where hackintoshers congregate. I also keep very good backups, via Time Machine as a matter of course, and by making bootable clones to secondary hard drives before I install anything major.
~Philly
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Until (relatively recently) you *couldn't* run Windows on a Mac.
Saying Apple has a monopoly is absurd. That's like saying Commodore had an monopoly on the Amiga OS because it only ran on their hardware.
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Except Windows NT 4 had a PPC build/install disc option ...
Next to no apps for NT on PowerPC (Score:3, Insightful)
Except Windows NT 4 had a PPC build/install disc option ...
But how many publishers of applications for Windows provided universal binaries?
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Microsoft POSIX subsystem was carefully crafted to satisfy a federal procurement requirement without actually being useable at all. It implemented POSIX.1 only. It could not create a thread, open a socket, use RPC, etc. The one and only practical use for the thing was to circumvent the requirement for POSIX compatibility in the Federal Information Processing Standard 151-2.
Dont confuse this with the third party Interix/SFU implementation which replaced it starting with XP, and is actually somewhat useful.
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Connectix Virtual PC was released in 1997. That was, what, 13 years ago? I wouldn't call that "relatively recently."
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Sorry, I assumed that the topic was running the OS in question on native hardware, not through emulation.
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Commodore didn't have a monopoly on Amiga OS?
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Until (relatively recently) you *couldn't* run Windows on a Mac
No, that just isn't true. It just didn't run natively. Connectix Virtual PC [wikipedia.org] for the Mac came out in 1997 (It was a Mac product before MS bought it), Soft PC [wikipedia.org] was around in 1996. And later there was the FOSS Bochs x86 PC emulator [sourceforge.net]. Those products had to emulate an Intel CPU, so there was a significant performance hit. I recall MS-DOS running in emulation on a Mac even before the switch the PPC processors.
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The article is about building a "Hackintosh". Silly me, I assumed the topic at hand would be running the OS on native hardware.
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Re:Imagine if you had to Hack Windows to run on a (Score:5, Informative)
"I know of no DRM in Amiga OS to make sure it wasn't running on hardware Commodre hadn't been paid for."
There isn't any DRM in OS X either. It's a matter of drivers, and EFI.
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...so then it should be a trivial matter to pop my Snow Leopard disks into a PC that lacks an Apple logo and create virtual machines to my hearts content in either vmware or virtualbox.
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http://www.taranfx.com/install-mac-os-in-virtualbox [taranfx.com]
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That's correct. Google is your friend. There's numerous ways to do it. VMware, Virtualbox as mentioned, maybe some others.
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"I know of no DRM in Amiga OS..."
Then you don't know anything about Amiga OS. The OS was tied heavily to the custom chips on the motherboard, and to the Workbench ROMs, all of which were copyright owned by Commodore and normally only sold with a complete system. Even now, Amiga emulators are (in theory) illegal if you don't buy a licensed ROM image - as is the case with many emulators of very old hardware. I think most people are happy to copy now because it's so obsolete, but in the late 90s and early 2
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Cool story bro.
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That $29 Snow Leopard is an upgrade from Leopard. That $169 Mac Box Set is an upgrade from Tiger or Leopard. Only way you can get an original copy of Mac OS X is with a Mac, and it's licensed for use with that Mac. Sure, they don't serialize or put registration restrictions on the software, but you're still breaking the license agreement.
You can use the "upgrade" disc to do a full install. The main difference between the Snow Leopard upgrade and the Mac Box Set is that the Box Set includes the latest version of iLife. Normally iLife does not get upgraded when you upgrade the OS. That is worth about $100 separately at retail. And if you're installing OS X on a hackintosh, you're breaking the license agreement anyways.
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Not really. I personally build my own systems at home just so that I can upgrade piecemeal as needed. I also run into performance problems on some games. Now, I'm NOT the type to go out and drop $500 on a video card - I typically make it by with budget components, but you still have to upgrade every once in a while.
My current gaming PC for example is a dual-core Pentium 1.8Ghz with 2GB of RAM, a Geforce 9600GT vid card, and Windows XP. It's starting to show some age in newer games. My next upgrade will