Psystar Open Computer Notes, Benchmarks and Video

Engadget has had a chance to play around with Psystar's Open Computer and has a few things to say about the controversial machine. "Okay, so we've been playing with the Psystar Open Computer for a few hours now, and we've formed some early impressions and put together a short video of it in action. We haven't really tried to stress the system yet, but based on our other experiences with OSx86 machines, we're expecting things to generally go smoothly. That said, there are some definite rough patches and issues, all mostly having to do with the fact that OS X isn't really built for this hardware."

Comments

Fan Noise

[rampant mac]

"It's LOUD. Crazy loud. OS X doesn't seem to interface with the fan controller, so it runs at full tilt all the time. It doesn't really come across on the video, but it's loud enough so that it's hard to talk on the phone when the machine is running. There's no way we could deal with this thing on a daily basis."

I watched the video, and he's completely wrong. The fan's so loud that at about 2 minutes into the video it drowns out a passing fire truck.

If you looking for a similar experience, hold a hair dryer (on low heat) about 3 inches from your ear. :)

Anything novel here?

[Lachryma]

How is Psystar's Mac install any different from what someone would get from, say, the Kalyway Install Disc?

In fact, is there anything to suggest that Psystar isn't just making a quick buck from someone else's hacked Mac OS X installer?

Re:"it just works"

[RiotingPacifist]

If something "just works", your not trying to do anything cool enough on it
e.g install MacOS on non apple hardware
convert a 5 y/o box into a PVR
mount your HDD through a loop over a coat-hanger.

One small problem...

[sessamoid]

"The DHCP lease drops every fifteen minutes or so and you have to manually renew it in prefs."

So you have to go into preferences and renew your dhcp lease every 15 minutes or you have no internet? Yeah, these'll sell well.

If I were apple I'd like this

[goombah99]

This thing is such a turd that If I were apple I'd be overjoyed someone made it. A mac mmin actually costs less, delivered! You lose less than a factor of 2 on graphics speeds and smidge on disk writes on the mac mini.

In return the mac mini has wifi and blue tooth, temperature control, software updates, you can re-install the operating system, optical audio, ilife, ...

oh and it doesn't sound like a supersonic jet landing. The mini has lower power bills too.

it's difficult to think of the niche where anyone could possibly want a turn like this.

SO apple should be please that no one can make a cheaper computer, since it sort of puts it to all the whiners who complain about the "apple tax".

Re:If I were apple I'd like this

[nomadic]

This is a first-generation product. It's not polished at all.

So a buggy and flawed first generation system? They're not just cloning the hardware, they're cloning Apple's development model too!

Re:If I were apple I'd like this

[BrentH]

Please, stop the FUD. The Geforce 8600 is not only easily 2x faster than an integrated Intel X3100, it's easily 20x faster. Have a look at a few benchmarks and judge yourselves. http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Graphics-Media-Accelerator-X3100.2176.0.html http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/graphics-cards/3dmark06-v1-0-2-hdr-sm3-0-score,538.html Note that Intel tends to optimize it's chips for these kinds of benchmarks, realworld performance their chips tend to perform even worse than Nvidia or Ati's chips.

Wrong price

[goombah99]

A mac mini delivered costs 599. Go over to mac mall and you get 2Gb memory, parallels, ilife, a printer, and free shipping for $599

Conversely, the a Pystar running mac OS costs
399$ + 155$ (OS) + $50 shipping. = $604

if you want firewire add $50 , the mini comes with it. (note you need pystar to install the firewire for you).

if you want wifi, blue tooth, optical audio, etc.. you'll have to buy them. Maybe they will even work with the OS too. who knows.

then of course the annual power bill is a lot less for the mac mini since not only is it lower power, the operating system power management actually functions.

Re:Psystar- cheap, but is it a deal?

[Martin Blank]

What's wrong with wireless on a desktop? I've done several installations for people who wanted a primary computer hooked up to the router, but had their kids' systems (and I think TiVo, in one case) hooked up via wireless because they didn't want the hassle of running cables to other rooms. It's not a good case for transferring large files all the time, but it works perfectly fine for them for the Internet browsing, e-mail, and gaming that they were doing.

finally, freeriding BSD paid off for apple

[CDMA_Demo]

Ok, so Apple takes BSD, slaps a bubbly GUI on top of it that becomes popular. Because of its popularity, bunch of hackers decide they'll run it differently anyway. The result? More BSD! And i'm sure apple loves that, don't they?

Re:Psystar- cheap, but is it a deal?

[MojoStan]

Look at the specs though, you cant compare the two.

and the options to select it bump it up to the same price as the only slightly slower Apple Mini. Slightly slower? Did you read TFA? The MacBook (which is comparable to the Mac mini) got pwned by the cheap Psystar. This shouldn't be surprising, since the MacBook (and the Mac mini) has a slower notebook hard drive, a slower CPU (with slower frontside bus), and the slower notebook version of Intel's integrated graphics (lower GPU clock speed and less allocated memory).

Where the clone is faster and has more memory, it lacks firewire, wireless (while you could get away with no wireless unless your using it for a media PC, firewire I find essential no matter what until Apple adds external SATA), The $600 Mac mini only has a DVD/CD-RW combo drive and 80GB hard drive, while the entry-level Open Computer comes with a DVD writer and 250GB hard drive. You need to spend $800 on the Mac mini to get a DVD writer and a whopping 120GB hard drive.

Of course, I'm not saying the Psystar "hackintosh" is a better value than the Mac mini. In fact, I think the Psystar is a piece of crap when it's running OS X (no fan speed control and not update-able). It's kind of ridiculous to compare the two, but I guess we're "forced" to since Apple doesn't offer a headless desktop Mac with desktop (not notebook) parts. At least the Mac mini works like it's supposed to.

The Importance of OpenMac

[saterdaies]

The machine doesn't look that impressive. The thing that's really important is that they've forced the ball into Apple's court. At this point, Apple can respond to the violation of the EULA and see if a court says that the provision is legal or they can ignore it.

If they ignore it, others are likely to follow Psystar (after a long enough time to see that Apple doesn't go after them). Of course, in this case, there's still some threat, but I don't think it's outrageous to argue that if Apple ignores it for over a year that the provision looses some weight.

Personally, I hope they get sued. If they win their suit, it will be a new era for the Macintosh. If they loose their suit, they've lost, but at least we know.

Re:"it just works"

[shadwstalkr]

Except that it doesn't. I use Linux mostly, but I work in a physics research lab that uses exclusively* macs. We still use several G4s with OS X 10.3.9. I can't install network printers on half of them, for no apparent reason. I can't mount them using firewire on newer macs. No error messages, it just stalls.

We got two new iMacs last month. One of them turns off randomly. Both of them crash randomly when we use our analysis software (a two-year old powerpc program). The OS is so slow it's nearly unresponsive (to me, the people that only use macs don't have a problem with it). On a related note, the iMac makes no hard drive noise, so I can never tell if it is just slow in responding, or if I didn't double click fast enough. File sharing is a pain to figure out. I can't easily change my icon theme without buying third party software. Don't get me started on the usability of the single menu bar. I can't find any easy way to uninstall Garage Band, et al, so that the automatic updater stops bothering me about them. I can't find a way to move windows between desktops ("spaces"), and all new windows seem to open on the same desktop that the program originally opened on, making multiple desktops virtually useless. I need third party software to have an automatically changing desktop wallpaper. Our IT guy told me that to take apart the iMac you have to buy suction cups from Apple to pull the glass off before you can unscrew the case. The "mighty mouse" can fake a right button, but you have to lift your index finger off the left side for it to work. My advisor was so used to this that he didn't even realize he was doing it. I can't drag windows around by alt-clicking on the window. I can't close a window that is minimized without showing it.

These are just the bad things that I can think of off the top of my head. There are a lot of great things that I haven't mentioned. Maybe coming from Windows I would be blown away, but in Linux all this stuff actually just works, plus all the stuff that does work on the mac. If macs work for you, great. Just realize that you're paying a 100% tax for a pretty box, and stop telling me that it just works.

Note that I'm not claiming in any way that macs can't do something. All that I am saying is that if I, a power user of several decades, couldn't figure out how to do it over the last year it didn't "just work." I welcome any solutions to problems that I mentioned, except solutions that include spending money.

* The computers that run our expensive research equipment are windows. It's cheaper for them to give you a computer with windows than it is to develop a cross-platform solution.

Re:"it just works"

[hagbard23]

I'm not doubting you might be having hardware problems, but several of your complaints are not actually problems.

Move windows between Spaces: Hit your spaces key, and drag the windows between spaces. Easy peasy.

Automatically change desktop wallpaper: right-click (or control-click) on desktop, select "Change Desktop Background". I have a folder of Digital Blasphemy pics, so I hit the + button at the bottom of the left hand side, and navigate to that folder. Then I check "Change Picture", select "Every Hour", and check Random Order.

I have a feeling that Spaces is "supposed to" separate things by application, not necessarily by window. Linux and Windows throw all windows into one huge Alt-Tab clusterfsck, where Apple says: Command-Tab is for switching applications, and Command-` is for switching windows within an application.

Menubar at the top of the screen? Ever hear of Fitt's Law? Rather than the fiddly wasted screen space of dozens of menu bars repeated in every window, I've just got one.

Uninstalling Garage Band? Just delete the folder. No uninstaller application needed.

Just because something is different doesn't mean it's broken

Re:"it just works"

[UnknowingFool]

We got two new iMacs last month. One of them turns off randomly. Both of them crash randomly when we use our analysis software (a two-year old powerpc program)

Well if you got new iMacs, they are Intel iMacs. PowerPCs programs would not necessarily work unless they were compiled for Universal.

File sharing is a pain to figure out.

I acutally have the opposite experience. I have Windows and Linux machines at home. It takes only a few clicks to turn on Windows Sharing and share files. Windows unfortunately makes me reboot if change the workgroup.

I can't find any easy way to uninstall Garage Band, et al, so that the automatic updater stops bothering me about them.

To uninstall any application drag it to the Trash.

The "mighty mouse" can fake a right button, but you have to lift your index finger off the left side for it to work.

Yes that is slightly annoying. However any USB mouse pretty much works on a Mac so you plug in a multibutton Logitech or MS mouse if you want.

I can't drag windows around by alt-clicking on the window.

For OS X, you can only drag windows by clicking on the titlebar.

I would say that it seems some of your issues are because you are a power user. You have expectations on how it should work because they worked that way in Windows and Linux. Unfortunately your experience with Linux and Windows does not translate. It's not that it doesn't just work. It doesn't just work the way you would like it to work.

Re:Apple Upgrade Tax

[HuguesT]

Re: between fink and macport, the choice is easy: neither.

Fink is essentially not being maintained actively. I'm on the developer mailing list, I receive maybe 10 mails a day. The software in the repository is very much out of date. I also have terrible experience with missing packages.

MacPort is for those who have a spare Mac to do their compiling on. I don't have that. Ever tried compiling the Gnome or KDE libraries? I've done my share of 24h compiling stretches when X11 was young, I thought we had moved beyond that, but no, apparently.

So when I need something non trivial like a new version of emacs or TeX, this is scouring the net time and searching for a precompiled version somewhere. Thanks to everyone who provide them!

This is why I have a spare Linux machine, which costs less than a mac, for these times when I need new software not yet available.

For F/OSS, Apple Macs are a second class citizen, simple as that.

Re:"it just works"

[Hackeron]

One of them turns off randomly.

Hardware problems likely.

Both of them crash randomly when we use our analysis software (a two-year old powerpc program).

I've only used rosetta briefly and it was stable for me, but running analysis software under hardware emulation? - not the best idea.

The OS is so slow it's nearly unresponsive (to me, the people that only use macs don't have a problem with it). On a related note, the iMac makes no hard drive noise, so I can never tell if it is just slow in responding, or if I didn't double click fast enough.

So your complaint is the iMac is too quiet? -- install the OS onto a loud external USB drive then go into System Preferences -> Startup Disk and let it boot from USB by default.

File sharing is a pain to figure out.

Click on System Preferences -> Sharing and tick File Sharing -- from there your public folder is shared onto the local network, to add anything else just right click -> Get Info -> Sharing.

Mac also supports NFS (not tried NFS server though), but you can mount NFS shars with mount_nfs -P host:share destination.

I can't easily change my icon theme without buying third party software.

Never tried but I'm sure you can find free icon collections and just overwrite the default icon files in the original location.

Don't get me started on the usability of the single menu bar.

KDE has this feature although it's a bit crippled and isn't system wide - but it's without a doubt one of my favourite things in OSX.

I can't find any easy way to uninstall Garage Band, et al, so that the automatic updater stops bothering me about them.

OSX doesn't have software installation (some packages come with installers but they just copy the application over to /Applications) - every application is a special self contained directory that you simply drag to trash when you are done with it - because OSX has spotlight, it creates any file associations as soon as you copy the application somewhere spotlight keeps a track of (think a pimped out inotify daemon on Linux).

I can't find a way to move windows between desktops ("spaces"),

Click on spaces in the dock and drag+drop the window wherever you want.

And all new windows seem to open on the same desktop that the program originally opened on, making multiple desktops virtually useless.

Go into system preferences -> spaces and assign whatever applications you want to whatever space you want.

I need third party software to have an automatically changing desktop wallpaper.

This is in system preferences -> desktop -- it's right there on the first page: "change picture: every": 5 seconds, 1 minute, 5/15/30/60 minutes, every day, when logging in and when waking from sleep.

Our IT guy told me that to take apart the iMac you have to buy suction cups from Apple to pull the glass off before you can unscrew the case.

I've never tried to take apart an iMac but a quick google search shows this: http://home.comcast.net/~woojo/DFFA53A0-F23D-4541-9015-481FD3B6532E/iMac_Disassembly.html - no suction cups needed.

Macs are generally harder to disassemble and when I had to take apart my Macbook Pro for a hard drive upgrade, there were something in the range of 4 groups of different screw types to keep track of - but at least the screws don't just fall out like my on my Fujitsu laptop and then the warranty people claim you unscrewed them and forgot to screw them back in :)

I guess anything that has smooth edges and no little plastic doors will be harder to disassemble.

The "mighty mouse" can fake a right button, but you have to lift your index finger off the left side for it to work

Re:Psystar- cheap, but is it a deal?

[MBGMorden]

Um, no. This computer runs a hacked copy of OS X using PC_EFI (by netkas) just like virtually every other OSx86 system. Those do NOT require a "Mac Edition" video card to run. I'm running a similar home-built Mac system and I'm using a regular old MSI Geforce 7600GT on mine. I had it in my Windows machine before it got donated to the Mac. It works just fine.