Hackintosh OS

[TwoPlAnKs]

As many are aware I'm a scabby student with various part time work that doesn't make me rich enough to own Apple equipment. I've always fancied having a good proper try of MacOS but not fancied buying a Mac just to find out it's shit.

I'm off to investigate Hackintosh OS. AFAIK it lets you run MacOS on a PC using a series of tricks to make it think it's a Mac, since it's compatible hardware underneath. Has anybody on here tried Hackintosh stuff or running MacOS on a PC in general?

[B B Leo]

all seams clear now why u run mac stuff down so much m8!

[sQuirreL]

I have, as a matter of fact. It does work for the most part, but if you just wanna have a good look at OS X, it would be much simpler to just run it inside a VM. If you insist on dual booting, or fitting a machine up just as a Hackintosh, then the main stumbling block that stops you just popping a standard retail disc into your PC is that Mac's use EFI instead of BIOS, so the only thing you need to trick the OS X into thinking is that there is an EFI to talk to, that's the only real problem because Macs have been using the same hardware as PCs for years now: there are plenty of guides showing you how to do that on the internet. Although OS X's hardware library is good, if you are gonna create a device just for OS X then you might as well make sure it's fully compatible. The easiest way to do this is to check which netbooks are fully compatible, because then you don't have to go scouting for parts. Otherwise, you can just visit niche forums looking for people's setups that have worked. Hope this helps.

[maltloaf]

The closer your hardware is to apple hardware the easier it is. This is why loads of current laptops and mobo's with built in gfx are great for the job, as they run intel gma graphics, which is what alot of the first intel macs run (including my macbook) and also with the more current stuff too.

Some good reading here...

http://www.osx86project.org/

and

http://www.hackint0sh.org/

[TwoPlAnKs]

I have, as a matter of fact. It does work for the most part, but if you just wanna have a good look at OS X, it would be much simpler to just run it inside a VM. If you insist on dual booting, or fitting a machine up just as a Hackintosh, then the main stumbling block that stops you just popping a standard retail disc into your PC is that Mac's use EFI instead of BIOS, so the only thing you need to trick the OS X into thinking is that there is an EFI to talk to, that's the only real problem because Macs have been using the same hardware as PCs for years now: there are plenty of guides showing you how to do that on the internet. Although OS X's hardware library is good, if you are gonna create a device just for OS X then you might as well make sure it's fully compatible. The easiest way to do this is to check which netbooks are fully compatible, because then you don't have to go scouting for parts. Otherwise, you can just visit niche forums looking for people's setups that have worked. Hope this helps.

Splendid, a VM sounds just the ticket.

I started reading a guide and it sounded like making it work on my current PC in a spare 30gig I have at the end of one of my drives would make it not worth my while, but if VMs are easier I'll give that a go.

The closer your hardware is to apple hardware the easier it is. This is why loads of current laptops and mobo's with built in gfx are great for the job, as they run intel gma graphics, which is what alot of the first intel macs run (including my macbook) and also with the more current stuff too.

Some good reading here...

http://www.osx86project.org/

and

http://www.hackint0sh.org/

Unfortunately my graphics card is NVidia, due to the fact that NVidia drivers work extremely well in Linux which is my normal OS (at one point, allegedly, better than windows which was a bit of a joke considering the relative userbases, but it was apparently due to their business customers needing high performance for making Toy Story et al.)

I'm gonna try out the VM idea, thanks for the sites.

all seams clear now why u run mac stuff down so much m8!

Que? You confusing me with somebody else? I dislike iPads but I have liked their other stuff for years, especially since seeing some stuff friends have. They do good, in fact the thing that reminded me about trying this out tonight was writing a post on here about how much I like what Apple do, despite disliking the iPad at the moment.