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Successful PearPC/Mac OS X Install Documented
rocketjam writes "OS News has an article by a user who successfully installed Mac OS X using the 0.1 version of PearPC, the PPC emulator for x86 machines. He said it took 5 hours to run the first install CD but he did get it up and running on an AMD Athlon XP 1600+ with 512MB of RAM. The article has several screenshots of the Mac OS X install and new user set up running on his machine." See our previous story.
I've gotten OS X Panther to install as well, you can see it here. Took about 7 hours on a Duron 1.6Ghz with 512MB SDRAM.
"But I'm still right here, giving blood and keeping faith. And I'm still right here."
This installation was done with PearPC 1.0. A newer version (1.1 I believe) is already out.
Things should get interesting as this active OSS project develops. I'd imagine they could improve speed by at least 20x on the CPU emulation, for instance.
read the article
"Of course everything was not running very snappy; on their website they warn you: the emulated processor is about 40 times slower than the host processor. Still, I was amazed at what I saw: it worked!"
At 40 times slower than the host, you'd need one hell of a CPU to use this for as your primary environment.
Get a nice usb keyboard/mouse set, and a mac.
The guy from thebroken on screensavers on tech tv had a segment about this. Looked really cool, but was very very slow. Still this is the 0.1 version and anybody who can do cool stuff like this disserves their props
...is that the emulated ppc chip is 40 to 500 times SLOWER than the host.
here see for yourself
OS X treats the right button of a two-button mouse as a control-click, which seems logical enough..
Elaboration follows:
On a Mac, control-click sends the target a mouse-button-2 event. If you plug in a two-button mouse, the Mac automatically understands the second button as mouse-button-2. It's not that the Mac is remapping the second mouse click to some other kind of event; just the opposite.
Furthermore, a third mouse button works as well. Clicking the third button sends a mouse-button-3 event. Same with scroll wheels, and so on and so on.
Basically you can plug in just about any USB input device and it'll Just Work.
I write in my journal
It should be noted that this actually goes against the OSX EULA, which specifically states that the software cannot be used on anything other than Apple branded hardware, unfortunately :(
Do you see what I did there?
First is the obvious that if you can never emulate something the same speed that it would be if it was native. It will always be at least a hair slower.
In actuality, this is MUCH slower. There are a few reasons:
Those are the main reasons. I think we'd all KILL for OS X on PCs, but I think we all know that realistically it's never going to happen.
Still, remember the software is only v0.1 so when they add things like Altivec and just do general optimisations, things should get faster.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The project is cool, but unfortunetly it may never be fully usable. The target goal is for it to run at host/10 speed. For those of you who have used vmware (not an emulator) know that it can be quite slow, and its speed is way faster than host/10. Right now, it works at a speed host/500 or host/40. You know how people are, once the host/10 is reached he might just say to himself "I can do a little better," and host/9, host/8, host/7... One day, it might be usable. I'd love for Apple to release OS X on x86. There are some rumours of an x86 version being developed inside Apple for the day that they might switch to Intel. I am quite tired of the beige computer that I have in front of my face. The thing is that I will never by their overpriced hardware. For those of you that say that Apple will die if they switch to x86, I think that you are wrong. People don't care about the processor. When people buy a Mac, they buy the whole package: - the good looking monitor - the good looking tower - the good looking keyboard - the good looking mouse - the good looking speakers - the good looking OS X. I believe that they can get a lot of the market if the lower the price and switch to x86. In the past few months they have sold more iPods than macs, this should be a red flag that they have to do something about those prices. We all know that the hardware price is a ripoff. What I am wondering is if there is a scheme where the price from hardware goes to sofware. OS X comes with a ton of software for $130, while XP $300 comes with a crappy browser and notepad. They might be making the sofware look cheap and put hidden charges in the hardware. It is possible that I am wrong, but who trusts businesses this days?
I've run OS X on a beige g3 (233 mHz) and i can gurantee that it runs better than an emulated PPC running at, oh, lets say hypothetically... 70 mHz (2800 mHz / 40 ). Most problems running OS X i've had have been to a dearth of memory, not lack of proc.
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
It's mostly a problem of emulating the PPC chips themselves. There are emulators for the 68k based Macs (basillisk and executor to name two), and PPC based ones can be emulated too recently (SheepShaver has gotten this ability recently, I understand). Once you've got the chip emulated, the rest isn't that bad.
This is why there have always been "Mac on Mac" emulators (like Mac on Linux, or SheepShaver to run MacOS on PPC based BeOS and Linux machines). They don't have to deal with the whole processor issue, they just have to provide the right environment for the software.
So the ability to run OS X on Intel hardware is quite novel and interesting.
As for running Darwin, you can. Darwin is open source. The problem is that you can't run OS X on top of the x86 version because you can't get the source code to that. So you'd either have to rewrite ALL of the OS X libraries and then use emulation to run real Mac programs, or you'd have to use emulation to run the OS X libraries AND the software. Neither is easily done. Since they both require the CPU emulator, why not skip the middle man?
As for the "Virtual PC works well", see that post of mine I referenced above. It's MUCH easier to fake a x86 on a PPC than vice versa.
No one is claiming this is anywhere near usefull yet, but you never know what will come out if something like this.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
It already does run on Linux and presumeably other *nixes. It will take A LOT of optimization before this becomes more than a neat hack, but from the look of things, there is a lot of room to improve. I'll bet if a version were made to completely take advantage of every bit of performance of something like an Opteron or Athlon 64-FX while running 64-bit native, it could be genuinely useful.
I don't see where Apple hardware is really that much more epensive, especially when you consider the higher quality and better design of Apple's computers. Add the OS and iLife and I don't think there's any comparison. Maybe you haven't looked at Apple's hardware lately, thats the only reason I can see for your statement.
This is a comparison after a quick search on Dell.com and Apple.com...
eMac - $799 Dell Dimension 4600 - $746
1.25 GHz G4* 2.8GHz P4*
256MB RAM 256MB RAM
40GB HD 40GB HD
Combo Drive DVD-ROM Drive
12" PowerBook - $1599 Dell Inspiron 600m - $1368
1.33GHz G4 1.4 GHz Pentium M
256MB RAM 256MB RAM
60GB HD 40GB HD
64MB Graphics 32MB Graphics
Combo Drive Combo Drive
*note - regarding the eMac vs. the 4600 processor. I am writing this on a 2.66MHz Sony Vaio that seems for most things no faster than my 1GHz G4 PowerBook, so I don't think that comparing the two processors is too far off.
FX!32 was an optimizing emulator, with native system calls somewhat supported (in windows & linux both). It is much like what transmeta later came up with and called "code morphing". It would load a program, and run it like a normal emulator, and cache it in native form, but as a section was accessed more, it would attempt to optimize that section more and more, which meant inner loops might be as efficient as native code, while the startup section was as fast as another emulator. Really cool technology, and meant that they were quite good at running x86, and combined with the native system calls, were often faster at one point than x86-native execution. Unfortunately, for Alphas, and Microsoft (because alphas got buried at compaq in favor of Itanic, and microsoft, because NT 4 on Alphas was more stable than any other Windows OS to date (2000, server2003, XP) on any other hardware (x86 and ia64, as all the others died pre-2000).) they didn't keep it going, otherwise hacks like x86-64 would not have been needed at all. It would have been like the Mac's 68k->PPC transition, another case where emulated code was faster than native.
Emultion doesn't have to be slow, it just is hard to find examples of where it isn't, because for computers I can only find 2 examples that aren't really old systems where everything has many times over the power: C64-era and like.
I think you misunderstood the emphasis of my post. I try to avoid italics, but I'll put them in:
"Macs aren't that expensive compared to PCs."
In other words, Macs are more expensive, but they aren't so much more expensive that it will be cheaper to buy a PC and emulate a Mac than it will be to simply buy a Mac.
Anyway, you say that you shouldn't judge by a top-of-the-line system, but that's what you did. $3000 gets you an unbelievably kick-ass Mac. Since Apple doesn't actually sell bottom of the barrel pieces of junk, I think it's fair to consider something like the eMac, which starts out at only $800, and it's a very nice Mac. The Mac midrange is the iMac, which starts out at $1300. I have a budget and "true technical expertise" and would happily buy either one, if not for the fact that computers that weigh over ten pounds don't agree with my lifestyle. Of course, if I could afford it, I'd get a G5, but I'd also get a better PC than your decent $800 example if I wanted a PC and had the money.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
With the PearPC, the entire machine is simulated, so it's a whole lot slower. Sort of like projects to get Wine working on the PPC - they have to simulate the processor as well as the environment.
"Basically you can plug in just about any USB input device and it'll Just Work." As a Mac user, I can tell you that this is not really true. Visit the Mac forums you will see many scanners, all-in-one print/scan/fax devices, etc do not work well on Macs. Many common and modern devices such as KB/Mouse, printers, cameras, etc do just work fine though.
"Many other stories are fairly gray, but I'm pretty sure the license to use OSX pretty much says that you are only allowed to install it on Apple hardware (although correct me if I'm wrong). This is promoting a fairly blatant breach of the license (Pear doesn't actually breach that license by existing)."
There is nothing to say that the terms of said license are legal. Thus far there is no reason to believe that licenses which extend control beyond what a copyright grants are legal, and a copyright grants the owner of said copyright control of distribution, it gives no authority over how a work is used once distributed.
Remember, without the copyright ALL the rights would be in the hands of the public. Copyright is the public giving the author/whathaveyou what is essentially a contract allowing them to control distribution for a limited time. The public owns OSX (well technically nobody does, or humankind does, ideas aren't ownable even under our screwed up legal system yet), apple just holds a copyright.
Simply because powerful copyright holders try to claim they own the material doesn't make it true, ideas aren't really ownable.
"The standard reply to the "I want OSX on Win" plea is that Apple will never do it as it would kill their hardware sales. However I don't think this is the case: Just look at Sony, they are aimed at the same market as apple : High end Multi-media. And their PC's are just as, if not more expensive, than Apple."
Yes but it's worth noting, apple at least has decent overpriced hardware. As a former sony employee, I can assure you, sony WILL put the cheapest piece of crap in the system they can find so long as it has spec X that the consumer looks at. And it's not like their other products, they don't give support for their pc's/computer hardware (internal hardware is altogether different, cdroms, burners, dats, etc) which even rivals that of gateway or compaq.
I agree though, sooner or later it'd be nice for Apple to go x86. For it to happen though, they are going to have to clue in to the fact that Mac hardware is has become too pclike and they don't have the tight hardware experience they used to have.
It used to be that you went to store, bought X piece of mac hardware, go home, plug X hardware in. Your done.
Now it's the same as a pc, you go to store, buy X hardware, go home, plug X hardware in, pray, install driver if your prayers were answered, pray driver works.
Better OS and included productivity suites like iLife? Yes.
Comparable in price? I do not think so.
Most Mac lovers are used to paying the MSRP as set by Apple - no discounts, no sales. As a result, when they need a price comparison, they go to Dell.com and price out a system. However, what they fail to realize is that most PC consumers price-shop!
To use more lame automotive analogies, Mac users are like Saturn car buyers who have always paid the no haggle price and are happy with it. However, they also expect PC buyers who buy Yugo (cheap white box), Toyota/Honda/Ford/GM/VW (Dell, HP, etc), or Lexus/Audi/Mercedes/BMW (Alienware, VAIO, IBM Thinkpads), to not price shop i.e. negotiate at the dealership!
Case in point: The Inspiron 600m was recently advertised to be $1050 after discount and rebate, 2/3 the price of a 12" PB.*
The price comparison with 4600 is even more ridiculous. At $770 and with free shipping, you could get a 2.8 gHz 4600 with a 17" LCD! Many web sites advertise such sales. Personally, I have recommanded http://www.techbargains.com/query.cfm to friends and family members.
So in summary, Macs maybe better in many, if not most, aspects compared to an x86 running Windows but one thing it is not is cheaper!
*NOTE* - I would still buy the PB anyway and recommand Macs to friends and families. I am just a (disgruntled) Mac user who had to pay $280 to fix my iBook's logic board that was not covered by the recall!
*NOTE 2* - Sure there is little difference when doing everyday tasks but when it comes times to encode AAC/DivX/render etc, I find a higher clocked P4 or similarly clocked Pentium-M to be superior to G4.
I'm not holding my breath. I'm sure it will improve, but not enough that this will be useful outside of special cases. The overhead involved in emulating something like a PPC chip within the limits of the x86 architecture is absolutely incredible, and clever programming can do a lot but it does have limits.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
You can buy non-apple PPC machines, yes. I haven't seen any non-apple motherboards for sale, though. IBM sells several PPC workstations - but they're even more expensive than a Mac. Yellow Dog Linux sold generic PPC machines for a while, but from a quick look at their website they now appear to be only selling Apple and IBM machines, as well as PPC BriQs - tiny g3 or g4 systems that fit in a 5 1/4" drive bay.
Ask and ye shall see pain: OS X on WinXP on OS X
"But I'm still right here, giving blood and keeping faith. And I'm still right here."
SoftPear is trying to do just that.
"But I'm still right here, giving blood and keeping faith. And I'm still right here."
Yes, SF.net have a Compile Farm, two of which is are Apple computers.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
I'm pretty sure a scanner is an input device
You're wrong. A mouse or keyboard or similar input device complies with the HID (human interface device) device class specification. A scanner belongs to the Image class. Totally different drivers.
A scanner is not an input device.
I write in my journal
The article at osnews.com ran PearPC v0.1 and had a Finder infinite loop (last 15 minutes) which has been fixed since then.
Pear PC 0.1.1
FPU: fixed fmaddx and friends (That means your Finder will no longer crash-loop)
Unfortunately it doesn't mention anything about the dock loop issue.
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
I heard it probably won't work because x86 CPUs don't provide so good support for virtualization and VMWare relies on virtualization.
Apparently there's no way to 100% hide the fact that stuff is being virtualized on x86s.
Whereas it's possible on PowerPCs. IBM has been doing virtualization for decades ( and likely holds tons of patents on it).
Of course you can resort to emulation, but that's really really slow.
There have been a lot of people installing Panther since PearPC's release (esp. at different OSX emulation sites), and some have had different experiences installing/running OSX than others (different from the guy in the article). I'll quote somebody as an example..."[...] for me it's entirely usable. Changing a theme takes around 30 seconds, a wallpaper around 8 seconds, applying sytem icons takes around 40 seconds. It's not as slow as I would have imagined."
.1.1, not .1, is the latest version of PearPC. Especially with the JITC-enchanced version, the new version has some speed improvements and stuff :)
Also,
It's really not terribly bad on PearPC though. This has all been documented at Emaculation for about 3 days now.
The Jitc version of PearPC runs approximately 1/10-1/15 slower than a real mac. I successfully installed 10.2 on an Athlon64 3200+ and I can honestly say it's only a little slower than when I hacked 10.2 to run on a Powermac with a 603e procesor. The installation took about an hour and a half for a base install, and with the refresh set to around 40, it's quite usable. Were there a network bridge avaliable for Windows, I wouldn't mind doing basic functions on it.
Even the animation is bearable- again- only slightly slower than that 603e mac, which didn't have hardware acceleration either.
Also remember this is only the first release, 0.1. It's bound to increase in speed with subsequent releases. Just the fact that it works now is incredible in itself, given the architectural differences from x86 to ppc.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Just playing devil's advocate here, but even if he didn't pay for Windows Server 2003, he could be running the 180-day evaluation version. I've got a machine running it on campus for one a group in the CS capstone course who insisted on testing their final project with it.
From Judge Easterbrook's opinion:
(IAN[Y]AL)Actually I don't see any. What they call "Crescendo/PCI" cards are made for the PCI PowerMacs, but install in a PDS slot, not PCI. The Crescendo/7200 is special - because the PowerMac 7200 doesn't have a PDS slot, they had to make it for the PCI. It appears to be unique, and comes only in G3 flavor.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
They didn't refund the money out of the kindness of their hearts, they were taken to court. They grudgingly refunded money.
Not to start a flame war or anything, but they didn't just refund the cash out of the blue.