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Psystar's Rebel EFI Hackintosh Tool Reviewed, Found Wanting
CWmike writes "While the world focused on Microsoft's launch of Windows 7, Florida-based Psystar quietly launched Rebel EFI, a software product that should worry Apple a lot more than Microsoft's latest operating system. Rebel EFI allows users to run Apple's flagship operating system, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, on non-Apple hardware. Computerworld test drove the making of a Hackintosh out of a generic PC with the company's new software package and found a product that has a lot of homework still to do. Reviewer Frank Ohlhorst's final analysis: 'Psystar's Rebel EFI (a free trial is available) is an interesting tool, but it is very limited when it comes to the selection of hardware that you can use. The company really needs to create a compatible hardware list and post that on its Web site — and it also needs to create some usable documentation. As it stands right now, you can use Rebel EFI to build a Mac clone, but unless you stick to relatively generic hardware, you will be disappointed.'"
As it stands right now, you can use Rebel EFI to build a Mac clone, but unless you stick to relatively generic hardware, you will be disappointed
So in other words an OS made to run and tested only on 6 or 7 different major configurations of computers is going to need some tweaking before it can run on other, untested and unsupported hardware? This is hardly a suprise. Next thing is we're going to have a story saying that iPhone OS doesn't run so great on the G1...
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
...is that it turns it into a cat-and-mouse game. Just like the Apple vs Palm USB issue. Apple will find a way to prevent OS X from running on this, and people will have a system where any software update could brick their computer. Then the Psystar team will find a way around that. Rinse, repeat. So I can either ignore upgrades, use a different OS, or actually buy a Mac. Sounds like some great choices.
What is it with unethically derivative commercial tools for running OSX on PCs? Back in the PPC days, there was the whole CherryOS thing, that turned out to be a straight rip-off of pearPC. And now this.
Although I am all for the proliferation of decent software, Apple should be considerably nervous about these kinds of offerings. Right now the support loop for hardware is fairly closed; the amount of variables they must take into consideration when providing tech-support is fairly small considering they control the hardware side of things so tightly.
On the same token, it seems these days a lot of add-on hardware is Mac compatible, hard drives, memory, video cards, sound cards, the list goes on...so this leads me a conclusion of Apple putting more bullets in its feet as the list of upgrades and add-ons for Apple machines grows; they lose that hardware control variable.
This leads to the next conclusion, at what point does outfitting a machine with tons of non-factory-spec hardware separate it from a ground up build? If it is just the motherboard, then they are facing a conundrum.
Again, IANAMU, does Apple's support coverage encompass machines with things like user-added memory & videocards? If it does, then eventually they might as well just allow individuals to purchase OEM copies for their build, seeing as their support loop must scale to additional interoperability anyways.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
He's talking about Psystar being unethical in - potentially - taking an open and free tool that does the same thing and re-branding it and charging for it without giving credit.
Aside from the detail that Apple is busy suing them into a deep hole...
Welcome to legal systems. Whether or not you think justice is being rendered, the rendering takes time.
> You can run a virtual Mac in qemu using the "-M mac" option.
I have heard this before. Is this an out of tree patchset? On Fedora 11 I get this:
$ qemu -M help
Supported machines are:
pc Standard PC (default)
isapc ISA-only PC
I'd love to explore OS X a bit, but the price tag to get in the gate and look around is just to much unless you have already drank the Kool-Aid. The mini at $599 is sort of a joke and everything else goes over the 1K line.
Democrat delenda est
Do you really hear yourself? Apple could care less if Joe User comes in, buys OS X , and makes a hackintosh. They do care when some business comes in, takes their intellectual property, packages it in competing hardware, and sells it as their own. I'm also sure they do have a problem with folks who go out and download it via Torrent. Psystar can't even prove that they bought OS X. They 'lost' their receipts. Funny thing that...
There is nothing 'dubious' about it. Apple owns OS X. They can license it to whoever they choose. You may not like it, but that doesn't make what Psystar is doing right. If someone else tries to make profit off of Apples product without license from Apple, then Apple is absolutely within their rights to prevent it.
Think you can do it better, than purchase something Like NeXT and design your own with your own time and money and then Open Source your result.
Maybe they put unicorns and fairy dust into it, too, but I doubt it.
A Mac is just a fancy PC with a pre-set hardware spec. If it was really some bizarre, proprietary hardware configuration then Windows and Linux wouldn't run on it. And the fact that you can run virtual OSX on a non-Mac if you don't care about unsupported hardware just reinforces that.
The catch here is that Apple's Mac OS X license forbids installation on anything but a "Macintosh Brand Computer", hence when you install snow leopard you are violating its license. That's the main sticking point. Not that I like stupid tie-downs in licenses like that, but the law looks to be on Apple's side. Pystar themselves may not be violating the license, but they're blatantly assisting and encouraging their customers to do so. Should make for an entertaining battle...
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
It's perfectly legitimate to resell products at a profit without permission or "license" from the manufacturer. That's exactly what any retail store does to make money (in the case where they buy from a distributor and aren't the original manufacturer).
I was going to post a rebuttal but this has to be a troll. I refuse to believe that anyone is this retarded.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
I don't see why permission would be needed.
Do you need permission from the provider of wood to make chairs with it that you will sell? If I buy a vase and paint it, do I need to ask the maker for permission to resell it?