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."
It's not "the" guide (Score:5, Informative)
It even says on the first page,
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.
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:It's not "the" guide (Score:5, Informative)
Bah. Who needs to build a Hackintosh? I have Snow Leopard running in VirtualBox.
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.
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.
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.
Re:Imagine if you had to Hack Windows to run on a (Score:3, Informative)
Connectix Virtual PC was released in 1997. That was, what, 13 years ago? I wouldn't call that "relatively recently."
Re:Somewhat aside (Score:1, Informative)
I guess. Have you ever hooked a Kill-a-Watt up to a computer while running a video game with 2x SLI video cards on a high-end system?
I have trouble passing 250W, no matter how many things I leave running, or purposefully try to bog down the hard drive and video cards.
Re:Pros and cons (Score:1, Informative)
Nope.
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.
In closing, if you're building a Hackintosh you may as well pirate it, because purchasing a disc isn't going to change anything.
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.
Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)
10v works fine too http://twitpic.com/tywtq [twitpic.com]
Re:Mac vs. PC (Score:1, Informative)
[...] the fact that USAians are called americans and no one else[...]
Could you please get out of your bubble and travel down to South America? You'd see that NO ONE there call USAians "americans" since that term is used to refer to themselves (USAians are usually called "yankees" or "United Statians")
Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX (Score:2, Informative)
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, Symbian, Blackberry, WebOS, etc.
One more thing about your "guzzle memory" quip. Before you point fingers at the OS, did you ever think the app you're using might be a at fault? I have several Macs that run non-stop 24/7 until a patch popups up that wants a reboot. I have never seen the problem you mention. I think you're getting confused about how OS X manages memory. I suggest you read this and take another look at what's running on your MBP:
Is my Mac using too much memory [blogspot.com]
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.
Re:Imagine if you had to Hack Windows to run on a (Score:3, Informative)
"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 2000s it was very common for the documentation for emulators of 80s and 90s hardware to suggest that you copy your own ROM image from your own machine in order to use it.
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?
Re:but $2500 for a 1 cpu base system is too high (Score:3, Informative)
$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 specs before you complain about pricing. To use an analogy, your complaints about pricing would be similar to you complaining that luxury cars cost more than other cars. Yes they do; there is a reason they are called "luxury." There are differences. Whether the differences are worth it to you is another matter.
Re:Imagine if you had to Hack Windows to run on a (Score:3, Informative)
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.