The Hackintosh Guide

An anonymous reader writes "A 'Hackintosh' is a computer that runs Apple's OS X operating system on non-Apple hardware. This has been possible since Apple's switch from IBM's PowerPC processors to Intel processors a few years ago. Until recently, building a PC-based Mac was something done only by hard-core hackers and technophiles, but in the last few months, building a Hackintosh PC has become much easier. Benchmark Reviews looks at what it's possible to do with PC hardware and the Mac Snow Leopard OS today, and the pros and cons of building a Hackintosh computer system over purchasing a supported Apple Mac Pro."

Comments

Mac vs. PC

[ReneeJade]

A mac is a personal computer. PC stands for personal computer. Can we please stop using the terms as if they are mutually exclusive? It makes you sound ignorant, and renders the term "personal computer" useless as a means of differentiating a computer for personal use from any other kind of computer. K thanks.

Re:Mac vs. PC

[CohibaVancouver]

Can we please stop using the terms as if they are mutually exclusive?

No.

They're in the vernacular now. Can't speak for other languages, but in English, to say "My PC is busted" generally means "My windows PC is busted."

"My mac is busted" is straightforward. When further differentiation is required on the PC front we say "My Linux PC is busted" (although more than likely, we'd say "My Linux Box is busted.")

A parallel is saying "I'm American" - While not technically correct, this is understood in the vernacular to mean "I'm a citizen of the United States." Canadians like me have to say "I'm Canadian" even though I live in the Americas. It's the understood vernacular.

Re:Mac vs. PC

[Moridineas]

Yeah I know, you have a point. I guess I'm just stubborn and obsessed with semantics. If I was Canadian, I would happily say that I was from America, and let people interpret it however they like.

That seems somewhat silly, and I actually think you're wrong about the semantics.

What does "America" mean? The most obvious answer (and ignoring the handful of towns around the world named America) is that it's an abbreviated form of "The United States of America." To what else could it possibly refer? North America? No, that doesn't make sense because if you say "America" referring to a continent, how do you differentiate between North and South America. Likewise, if you're referring to both continents it doesn't make sense, because they -- the landmass as a whole -- is referred to as the Americas (pl). It's possible that in a historical sense "America" (s) could be used to refer to the entire landmass, but this is most certainly not a modern usage. Deprecated!

So, if you were a Canadian it would make perfect sense to say you were either from North America or from the Americas. Neither statement is particularly useful nor descriptive but they would be accurate. Saying you were "from America" would mean you were from the United States of America (unless as I said earlier you were from the handful of towns or cities around the world named America).

So is this a pedantic semantic argument? I guess so, but I don't see how you could possibly justify that usage of America.

Re:Mac vs. PC

[Americano]

If I was Canadian, I would happily say that I was from America, and let people interpret it however they like.

I sort of enjoy calling Macs PCs and then watching the inevitable rage or confusion that follows.

So you value pedantic correctness over effective communication with your fellow humans? That says volumes about you, and very little of it positive.

But the term "American", when referring to people, is quite exclusively reserved for referring to people from the USA. At least that's my understanding of it.

It is exclusively reserved for referring to people from the USA only by informal convention & long-standing usage, not from some inflexible rule of language. Just like "Macs" are "Macintosh PCs" and "PCs" are "Windows PCs," in long-standing usage and informal convention. This is mindless semantic argument, made solely for the sake of argument. What is the point? You know what's meant, I know what's meant, and everybody else reading knows what's meant by the "Mac" vs. "PC" distinction.

Re:apple ][ clones

[Hatta]

What made the Macintosh successful and what made OS X successful are two different stories as well.

I did this once

[tpstigers]

Just to see if I could. Later that day I got bored and ditched OSX for a Linux distro. Other than as an intellectual exercise, I don't really see much of a point in this. If you really want a Mac, just buy one. Sure they cost more, but all your hardware will work without any effort on your part.

Not worth the trouble

[tylersoze]

I have setup several Hackintosh's at home for my family, a dell 9 mini and a couple of desktops, and I have to say it's just not worth the time and effort. I should have just bought a Mac mini and a Macbook that "just worked" out of the box.

Actually let me amend that, it is worth your time if your time is worthless. :) The money I could have made (as a freelancer contracter) in the time it took to setup and support them would have more than offset the cost of a real Apple machine.

Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX

[Gauthic]

10.6 was released in late 2009, not 2008.

One year's of no updates appears much less stagnant than 2 years.

But the problem is, that if Apple releases updates every year or year and a half, people complain about costs of upgrades. If Apple waits too long to release an update everyone thinks that the sky is falling and MacOS is DYING. (Oh NOES!)

The Mac is not dead.

OSX Doesn't Make Money

[mpapet]

Long ago (in computer industry terms), OSX got Apple back on the road to financial success. OSX has become a favored, octogenarian at Apple. Treated well, but generally irrelevant to other projects.

Every time there's a consumer buying content for one of Apple's dedicated entertainment devices, they are made richer. The best part of this scheme is two-fold.
1. It's early days for dedicated entertainment devices like the ipad and even the iphone. Tons of money yet to be taken from the consumer while the personal use doctrine is being dismantled.
2. The distribution of entertainment is a U.S. government sanctioned oligopoly. Apple has become an blessed member of the oligopoly.

Contrast the scale of those revenue generating opportunities with the general purpose computer (OSX) where once the tower/laptop is sold, that's about the end of the revenue stream.

Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX

[adisakp]

Apple doesn't like OS/X anymore. The platform has basically been stagnant since the inception of 10.6, in 2008. Hardware support is poor, even worse than Linux. For instance there is no way to make a Nvidia GTX460 run under OS/X at the moment, in spite of it being the best bang-for-the-buck video card right now. It was impossible to have an AMD 5xxx series run until only a few months ago!

This is hardly a new issue. Apple doesn't care about supporting hardware configurations they don't ship. It allows them to focus on supporting a small number of hardware configurations and giving the maximum stability and ease-of-use for their users.

The cost is that they have always been and will always be behind the performance curve on supporting the latest add-in hardware that is available on the PC. Plus if you were really interested in "the best bang-for-the-buck", you probably aren't buying an expandable Mac Pro (which is $2,500 / $3,500 / $5,000 depending on model you select).

In OSX, AMD 5XXX support came because they are shipping all 3 of these configs with the AMD5770 standard -- again, they really only support hardware they ship.

FWIW, on the PC, MS doesn't write the drivers for Windows. The hardware manufacturers do. If there was an actual GFX card after-market on the Mac, NVidia and AMD would write the drivers for the Mac (and there's a good chance AMD did write them for Apple when they won the bid to include 5770's in Mac Pros).