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HOW TO: Convert a Mac into an x86
inventgeek writes "With the recent announcements Apple
has made regarding its operating environment, Inventgeek.com
has a mod that seems rather fitting. They have converted a Mac
G3 to an Intel P4 System capable of running Windows or Linux. Full how to
is available on there site for those brave enough to bask in what many say could
be Apples greatest folly, and a
blow to Linux." Update: 06/08 17:53 GMT by T : A few further Mac-OS-X-on-Intel notes, about the new Intel development kit from Apple: Readers jimboman78 and shooflot sent in, respectively, links to (mostly positive) comments on the front page of Accelerate Your Mac and a more skeptical but equally preliminary description at Think Secret.
RTFA, the description here is misleading.
The case mod for the G3 was interesting for the most part. The author includes several pictures and descriptions of the mod and is nice enough to include price points and a scale that makes no sense.
http://www.allometry.com
This is just another "fit a PC in a mac" mod. It has nothing to do with Apple's decision to move to Intel chips, nor is it a particularly inventive thing to do. And, ooh, he put an LED in the case. That's *classy*.
Area IV, here I am
...save yourself a few bucks and just buy an X86 box for much, much cheaper....
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The headline should read: "How to put an Intel based processor motherboard into a G3 chassis."
There is no "conversion" going on here.
This is no t the article you are looking for, move along.
How is Mac OSX going to hurt Linux? I mean, people buy Macs to install Linux on them and its not like Apple is going to allow people to install OSX on commodity hardware. Apple is still a hardware company. If anything, the new machiens will just be overpriced commodity Intel gear. $500 for 512 megs of RAM, shit like that.
If anything, its hurts Microsoft bad. Linux is a server OS first, desktop second. There are far more Linux servers out there than desktops and the enterpise is looking for Linux servers to interoperate with their Windows desktops. I don't see OSX making any inroads into the Linux server market, hence, I don't see it to be a threat.
On the other hand, those company's looking to move an alternative desktop may choose OSX over Linux but might have anyway. Not to mention, in a recent survey post people choose Linux to avoid vendor lock in, which is Apple's specialty.
Hardware is not used under license. It is yours.
KFG
See, you just don't get it do you? These prediculators have a job which forces them to spew out stuff every day and even if most of it is garbage it is okay as long as it generates page hits. Now, people in the market for a computer have three choices all of which involve an intel "like" machine.
Most people really don't care what is inside the box and that includes the kernel. They just want the damn thing to work. Apples work even if you have to pay more. In the end it won't really matter one way or the other. People will buy apple cuz they look nice and work well. People will buy windows cuz its cheaper and they know how to put it to work. Some of us will still install linux on top of windows cuz we can make that work.
The rest will make predictions and rake in the money....
Now if Apple decided to allow OSX to be run on commodity hardware, that would be threating to both windows, linux and every other OS. If Apple decided to open up the propriatary components that really define OSX, that could lead to people switching to OSX. As it stands now, the likelihood of Apple doing either is very slim.
"Full how to is available on there site for those brave enough to bask in what many say could be Apples greatest folly, and a blow to Linux."
h tml
I don't think their is any exclusivity to Apple's agreement with Intel, so conceivably some models could continue to be PowerPC/Cell based while others move to Intel. Seems like Apple would then be in a good position, if IBM's Cell processors are compelling, to keep some of its machines based on that platform. This could work out for both Apple and consumers.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jun/06intel.
Not yet.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Companies don't use Linux because they like the UI. Companies go with Linux because it's highly customizeable, they have full access to the source and there are no royalties or licensing fees. Mac-Intel won't impact any desktop Linux users because you won't be able to run Mac OS X on an Intel whitebox.
If Apple ports their OS to Intel, so that it can run on standard PC architecture, then they become an OS vendor, rather than a Mac appliance vendor. Consumers would be faced with three options: Microsoft, with its reputation for unreliability and lack of security; Linux, with its reputation for difficult installation, not being ready for the masses, and no support; and MacOS, secure, stable, and widely supported.
I know which way I'd steer people.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
It would have been impressive if they'd used any of the iMac or eMac series and had the display working. But putting a PC motherboard in a pretty standard case that just happens to have been made by Apple? Lame.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Some people will probably want to dual-boot, at least initially.
But let's go on a brief flight of fancy here.
Suppose Apple were to create a new fork of WINE to run natively in the Aqua environment, and pour a whole bunch of development time into tweaking and improving it (sort of like how they forked the K browser to make Safari.)
Suddenly the Macintosh becomes a box which can run damn near all Windows apps and damn near all Linux apps, without ever leaving OS X.
At that point, there are only three groups of people who would ever have any reason to run something other than OS X: Platform bigots, open-source zealots, and penny-pinchers. Granted, those three groups comprise a significant portion of the market, but think of how many more there are out there.
A conversation which goes on about 20 times a day in big-box computer stores:
"I need a new computer, and my nephew says Macs are good. Do you have them?"
"Yes, we carry a few, but keep in mind that Macs can't run Windows software. If your old computer ran Microsoft Windows, you will need to buy all new software."
"Oh. Well what's good then?"
Suddenly the #1 reason why people who consider Macs go with something else evaporates.
That doesn't address the #2 reason (cost), but I think it will still make a huge difference in future Macintosh market share.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The devkit runs a P4 660, a stock proccessor that you can buy on newegg, it has Intel GMA integrated graphics, but will support existing (and future) PC video cards so long as the vendors have supplied a OS X driver. 533MHz DDR2 memory, SATA-2 hard drive. Firewire 400, USB 2, Pheonix BIOS. There is already a list out of wireless adapters that do and don't work with x86 OS X. I haven't read anything about the ethernet controller, but it is most likely a Realtek or something similar.
1)So best case senario, the x86 version of OS X will run on any PC with commodity hardware so long OS X drivers are available.
2)Mid case senario 1: OS X will require a certain Intel chipset (such as the 945G) and any mobo with that chipset will run OS X.
3)Mid case senario 2: OS X will require the same model Intel motherboard that Apple will be shipping with.
4)Worst case senario, OS X will require an "available to Apple only" motherbard and won't run on any other board.
Cases 1 & 2 would require minimal to no investment to get me running OS X on my existing P4 box. Case #3 would be something I would do with my next PC, but still very easy to manage. Cases 2 & 3 aren't even likely, or even feasible, beacause of upgrading issues. Case #4 would be the existing Apple lock-in.
Apple has been moving towards commodity hardware for years. The existing G5's use IDE hard & optical drives, a PCI bus for expansion cards, and 8X AGP. Now that Apple will be moving to an x86 proccessor, the only thing Apple could do to prevent OS X on a "Dell" would be a "Apple-Inside" chip.
Free MacMini
The obvious answer: These machines bear no resemblance internally to the machines Apple will release to end users in 2006. They're just dev kits hacked together to let developers get a crack at the x86 architecture and get their apps ported in time, like the Yikes machines were hacked together to ship more G4s while working out the kinks in the next-generation Sawtooth motherboards. The final x86 Macs will probably use EFI, for one thing, and other custom parts that Apple hasn't developed yet and will never be available on the open market.
Not so, in my humble opinion. The only thing that made a mac unique was the OS and the processor, and the processor was making the pc cost-prohibitive for joe america to own, and quite frankly making it impossible for mac to compete on any real level with intel and amd. Put an intel in a mac, and it's still a mac. It's all in the OS.
Currently, wanting it illegal and making it illegal are, thankfully, two different things.
My Sysadmin Blog
Well non-Apple PPC hardware has been around for a long time, and I haven't heard of anyone getting Mac OS working (natively) on any of it.
There will be more interest when it's x86, but I don't see any fundamental change here.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
We aren't even up to licensed software use yet. Copyright covers copying, not use. Many of the provisions of most EULAs are actually well known to have no legal standing, and none of the rest have been tested to any degree. The whole thing relies on people thinking it's a contract (that's the function of the stupid "I Accept" button), and it isn't, it's license, a grant of copying, not a restriction of use.
It's all a big con job done with the waving of hands, smoke and mirrors to take in the credulous.
The "S" people are a special case because they are well known for using "extra legal" means for getting what they want. Extortion isn't law, no precedent has been set that "Guido" hasn't already established.
And the device is just a stupid dowsing rod thingy anyway, you'd have to be a moron to buy one.
Hey, I wonder if Travolta's got one.
KFG
But let's go on a brief flight of fancy here.
IIRC, when Apple first starting morphing Rhapsody into OS X, there was this concept of "boxes". There was a red (windows applications), yellow (java), and blue ("Classic") box.
Where that technology went is anybody's guess. But the fact that it probably still exists, and now no longer would have to emulate the processor, makes me think that in a year or two, Jobs will be saying "Oh, and one more thing..." just as he leave the stage, and then go on to show how to use any Windows application on a Mac/Intel.
Just my tinfoil hat speaking.