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

apple ][ clones

[johnrpenner]

its apple ][ clones all over again..

and look what it did for the popularity of apple hardware.. they got so big, that ibm decided to make its own PC too.. stirring the behomoth into action.

the best thing steve jobs could do on his his death is to open-source Mac OSX (maybe..)

2cents from toronto
jp

Re:apple ][ clones

[morgan_greywolf]

and look what it did for the popularity of apple hardware.. they got so big, that ibm decided to make its own PC too.. stirring the behomoth into action.

This is the truth. According to Jack Sams, IBM Boca Raton started what they initially called 'Project Chess' after noting the success of the Apple II.

However, what made the Apple II successful and what made the Macintosh successful are two completely different stories.

Re:apple ][ clones

[Hatta]

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

It's not "the" guide

[Artifex]

It even says on the first page,

This is not a detailed guide on building your own Hackintosh; it's a description of my personal experience building one, and how the result compared with my existing Mac Pro. If you want to build your own Hackintosh, there are many comprehensive resources on the Web. I've found Insanely Mac to be very useful.

Re:It's not "the" guide

[morgan_greywolf]

Bah. Who needs to build a Hackintosh? I have Snow Leopard running in VirtualBox.

Re:It's not "the" guide

[copponex]

Yeah. Mac hardware is nice. Their software, however, is turning into bloatware.

There is a social network inside of iTunes.

There is a social network inside of iTunes.

Re:It's not "the" guide

[Americano]

Just play a little faster, jeez. :)

Re:It's not "the" guide

[copponex]

What exactly makes Mac hardware nice?

The industrial design of Apple computers is simply the best in the world. I don't know of anyone who disputes that -- at least someone who can point to a computer manufacturer who has anything better.

As far as functionality is concerned, their mice are crap, keyboards are great, and their laptops are good for everything except 3d acceleration. Multi-touch trackpads without buttons are the best design out there, along with their island style keyboards which are also without equal. iMacs are the best looking desktop computer, bar none.

Is everything overpriced? Yes. Is their OS better than Windows 7? Depends on what you use it for. But now, iTunes takes as long to load as Photoshop CS5. Spotlight is broken for all practical purposes, even though I rebuild indexes every couple of weeks. Steve will soon release an iMac that runs iOS as well as OS X, and you can see where it's going from here. In order to improve the user experience, Steve is going to prevent his users from running unsigned processes. He'll lose all of the nerds who switched to OS X, but that's such a small number of people, he's not going to care when the reward is 30% of all software sales.

Re:It's not "the" guide

[adisakp]

FTA: "Full disclosure: I worked for Apple in the late 1980s and am the author of "MacPaint 2.0". I use Macs for all my serious work and consider PCs to be best suited for video games."

The author shows a bit of seriously incorrect anti-pc attitude in this statement dismissing Windows. That statement might be true for him personally but it's not true for the majority of people out there.

70-80% of PC's sold today have some sort of integrated display chipset that can sometimes slowdown trying to handle the "enhanced" desktop experience of Vista / Win 7. They are certainly not "game machines" unless you like playing the latest games in low resolution at 8-12 Frames Per Second.

Nope, many of those systems are sold to do general purpose office work (primarily e-mail) but also Office (with a capital "O" as in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint). And an awful lot of people buy them for basic home use, like browsing the web and looking at flash videos. The cheap little non-video games are ubiquitous because you can buy a full system including a monitor and printer starting at $400 or less where the cheapest all-in-one mac is $1200 and the mac mini - which doesn't even have a keyboard - now starts at $700.

Re:It's not "the" guide

[Cwix]

The industrial design of Apple computers is simply the best in the world

Ok, so esentially they are really good at putting the components together, but the components have no real difference from PC components?

I get the impression that they are just more asthetically pleasing, with some nice peripherals.

Again, I'm not trying to be a troll, just trying to understand the rabid fanbois.. I mean the software isnt the best, the basic hardware is comparable to a PC's... Is there a reason I should consider Apple computers in the future... Will I get what I pay for, or will I pay for the privilege of being locked in a walled garden?

If there is a good reason to look into Macs, I will consider them the next time I'm purchasing a computer.

Re:It's not "the" guide

[gutnor]

"just trying to understand the rabid fanbois"

There is nothing to understand in a rabit fanboy of anything. Unless you want irrational reasons.
If you want actual reason, the GP is spot on. The main difference between Apple and the rest of the world is that they sell a complete package.

• The package that Apple sell is polished at most levels. That is their selling point - they took care of designing everything so that it all works together - and you feel it when using their product.
• The price is not bad especially after a refresh. But you get a very limited set of options, that means, overall, it will be more expensive: for example you cannot buy the 17in laptop with a crappy graphic card or a slower CPU to save a buck. Generally, however, Apple does not make unusable machine. If you buy the cheapest one, it will still give good user experience. That means the cheapest Mac is generally way more expensive than PC equivalent. But it is a "safe" buy.
• Apple makes crazy decision about tech supported (get rid of floppy, ...) and software aswell (walled garden). Since there is only a single Mac provider, people get pissed about that. But well, nobody force you to buy - and you know it in advance - it is not hidden in the fine lines !
• Apple stuff are available soon after they are announced. You can actually buy the stuff ! Similarly, they do not promise stuff. People that bought the first iPhone knew they wouldnt get the MMS, Copy-Paste, ... You get what's on the box - no surprises or false hopes.
• Apple is fashion. Something the geek does not care of, but the rest of the world does.

Remember, the vast majority of people do not buy a Mac. No need to scratch your head for a reason to buy one. No need to feel superior if you don't buy one either - you are just following the majority.

You can get pissed at people that buy a Mac and try to convince you it is the best thing since sliced bread with ads level arguments - they are annoying - but well they are the same guys that, long ago, were trying to convince you that Win95 was the best thing since sliced bread. Get over it.

Re:It's not "the" guide

[rsborg]

Thank you for the good answer. BTW my hp has a rather decent keyboard, I prefer to use it for large amounts of typing over my desktop. The only thing I wish it did have was backlit keys.. which I hear MACs have.

One thing I've yet to find in any Windows/PC laptop is a decent touchpad or trackpoint... I'm not a fan of lugging a mouse with me when I'm running to a meeting or on the couch at home.

Every single trackpoint (my favorite input device until I got a Macbook) has a "ghost movement" issue (less these days, but still a major issue). Every windows-based touchpad (especially in cheap laptops/netbooks) is close to unusable due to false touches (ie, hand resting on pad). My Macbook (and later MB Pro) had the first really usable touchpad I ever used... I instantly became a convert... I'm pretty sure that Apple took what they did with their iPod clickwheel/pad took it to their laptops touchpads, and then made it into multitouch on their iPhone (which is the gold standard for mobile touch these days).

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

[Pojut]

While I agree with your point, separating them into Mac and PC labels makes it easy for conversation regarding the two. It's a convenience thing.

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

[CajunArson]

A mac is a personal computer. PC stands for personal computer. Can we please stop using the terms as if they are mutually exclusive?

  I can tell you are an old-school Mac fan from the 1980's - pre-Jobs '90s from the pedantry. Now please go tell Apple what you just told us since they just finished a years long "Mac vs. PC" ad campaign that flies in the face of what you just said. I'm not even going to bother with the YouTube links at this point.

Re:Mac vs. PC

[RulerOf]

While I agree with your point, separating them into Mac and PC labels makes it easy for conversation regarding the two. It's a convenience thing.

Saying "OS X" and "Windows" works quite well too. See, a "Mac" is a computer made by Apple. "Macs" run Windows (and Linux) quite well.

The problem is that a massive breakdown occurs in your differentiation when one runs Windows on a Mac instead of running OS X on a Mac.

• "Hi, I'm a Mac and I'm full of all the same problems I constantly berate the overweight bastard in the suit for. I'm also utterly full of shit an won't give said fat bastard the satisfaction of calling him by his real name."

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:Mac vs. PC

[Unkyjar]

Nothing paired with the name "Canada" could ever be frightening. Try it in your head. The images it conjures up tend to mix John Candy movies with Southpark.

Re:Mac vs. PC

[Moridineas]

Talk about completely and utterly missing the point!

Really? We still tend refer to it as 'the new World' when talking about it as a whole :P Otherwise America is indeed a reference to the continent*, we refer to the US as 'the US', surprisingly.

Ok, that's fine and dandy, however when using the word "America" the singular refers to the USA, the pl refers to both continents. You can call it the New World, India, that-place-across-the-pond -- whatever you want! Doesn't change the meaning of America et al.

Strangely enough, prefacing 'South' or 'North' in front of 'America' is usually enough to get the message across...

Yes, that's exactly the point I was making. When the OP tried to make a new usage of the word America (eg, a Canadian saying "I'm from America") that requires a meaning of "America" to refer to North America. That doesn't exist. You use NORTH America or SOUTH America to refer to the landmasses. That's what gets the message across.

Re:Mac vs. PC

[Unkyjar]

But they don't use it in any official capacity anymore to belay the snickering of their peers. (grin)

What?

[DurendalMac]

building a PC-based Mac was something done only by hard-core hackers and technophiles

What? This is a load of crap. Granted, it's not the simpest thing to do, but I'd say it was two years ago that hackintoshing became simple enough for the somewhat technical to figure it out.

Re:What?

[Pojut]

Indeed...for example, the Dell Mini 9 has been notoriously easy to make into a Hackintosh for quite a while. Hell, even Gizmodo posted a walkthrough in early 2009.

Re:What?

[garcia]

10v works fine too http://twitpic.com/tywtq

Re:Imagine if you had to Hack Windows to run on a

[i.r.id10t]

Except Windows NT 4 had a PPC build/install disc option ...

Re:Imagine if you had to Hack Windows to run on a

[NiceGeek]

"I know of no DRM in Amiga OS to make sure it wasn't running on hardware Commodre hadn't been paid for."

There isn't any DRM in OS X either. It's a matter of drivers, and EFI.

Re:Imagine if you had to Hack Windows to run on a

[morgan_greywolf]

Connectix Virtual PC was released in 1997. That was, what, 13 years ago? I wouldn't call that "relatively recently."

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.

Wish Apple put some work on OSX

[HuguesT]

Sorry if this sounds like a lament,

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! Performance is not good enough. From experience OS/X guzzle memory like no other OS I know. I use two boxes at work, a Linux HP PC with 4GB of RAM that never ever swaps, and a MBP laptop with 4GB of RAM that becomes slow as molasses after a week of use due to memory issues.

I'm extremely disappointed in Apple's focus on the mobile platform at the moment. There is only so much that can be done with a telephone and a hobbled tablet, nice though it may be.

I have some experience with Hackintosh. In my opinion, be prepared for a world of hurt, very comparable to the Linux experience of 10 years ago. Basic features not working (e.g suspend-to-disk), no support, needing to be very careful about what hardware can be accommodated, performance issues, and very shaky future. Apple could basically pull the plug anyday. At the end of it a little more software is available, from the big editors. Realistically a lot of the free software tools that I like do not run as well as under Linux (for instance Inkscape).

I used to like the OSX development tools but they are not portable, I wasted a lot of time with them, so this is as basic as I can make it now, so my software runs everywhere.

Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX

[bkmoore]

Apple puts development work into OS X to support the current generation of Macintosh computers. Because Apple only has to support a very small slice of hardware, they can concentrate their development work on building features and improving the OS. Sorry for not supporting third party hardware. That's their business model and it works for them.

Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to like the OSX development tools but they are not portable, I wasted a lot of time with them, so this is as basic as I can make it now, so my software runs everywhere.

That's rich, and what, Microsoft's dev tools are? Just write the MV part of your apps in C++ and V part in the one that best suits the platform. On Windows I assume that's .NET and on iOS / OS X that's Cocoa / UIKit. Besides, you're not going to find a standardized UI API on any platform, be it Windows, OS X, iOS, Android, Java, Symbian, Blackberry, WebOS, etc.

One more thing about your "guzzle memory" quip. Before you point fingers at the OS, did you ever think the app you're using might be a at fault? I have several Macs that run non-stop 24/7 until a patch popups up that wants a reboot. I have never seen the problem you mention. I think you're getting confused about how OS X manages memory. I suggest you read this and take another look at what's running on your MBP:

Is my Mac using too much memory

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.

Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX

[RManning]

From experience OS/X guzzle memory like no other OS I know. I use two boxes at work, a Linux HP PC with 4GB of RAM that never ever swaps, and a MBP laptop with 4GB of RAM that becomes slow as molasses after a week of use due to memory issues.

I have an entirely different experience. I code on my MBP 10 - 15 hours every single day and I'll go many weeks between reboots. I have 4GB of memory and it's running just fine. I nornally run Eclipse, Tomcat, Postgres, Photoshop, a couple terminal windows, and Open Office all the time.

Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX

[Kildjean]

It doesn't sound like a lament. It sounds like whining.

Have you even thought that in the time Apple has been pushing their iOS, they have another group of engineers working on OSX 10.x? OSX is a big application, it requires time and creativity to build a competing product that can out sell and out whip the current flagship product of their competition.

Apple has had to up their take in the mobile market since google announced they were pouring out a new phone, mobile os (android) and "tablet" os (chrome).

It's not like apple has been sitting on their laurels either, its been roughly less than a month that they seeded the last build to developers for 10.6.5 (MacRumors: Mac OS X 10.6.5 Build 10H542 Seeded to Select Developers (September 14, 2010))

You describe your discontent with the iPhone and the iPad, but have you thought what was the most advanced phone before the iPhone came out or the expectations the world had based on a smartphone would and should be before they came out? Apple may not have the perfect platform for mobile computing out there, but they sure stirred the honeycomb when it came to what could be done. Now everyone wants to be the next iPhone. The iPad did the same thing for mobile computing, where the best there was, was a laptop with a tiny keyboard and a tiny screen. They as well in that market stirred it up so good, that even Microsoft and HP ditched their original product because they knew it was no match to what is currently out there.

Like you I own several desktops and laptops from Apple, the most recent being a unibody MBP with 8Gb of ram. If you are experiencing memory leaks or poor performance it could be there is something actually wrong with your hardware. Maybe you can build some portable mac development tools and give them to the community or make yourself a buck or two. =)

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).

Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX

[nine-times]

Is this a troll? The platform has been stagnant since 2008? Wikipedia says OSX 10.6 was released in August 2009, just over a year ago. Even if it had been 2 years, taking 2 years to release a major new OS release is not strange.

As far as all the poor performance and memory problems, those don't seem common to me. Maybe one of your installed apps has a memory leak?

Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX

[carlhaagen]

"From experience OS/X guzzle memory like no other OS I know. I use two boxes at work, a Linux HP PC with 4GB of RAM that never ever swaps, and a MBP laptop with 4GB of RAM that becomes slow as molasses after a week of use due to memory issues." Complete bullshit. What you are describing is according to every person on the planet and their grandma the exact experience with Windows. First off, OS X (or "OS/X" as you refer to it as) doesn't shit itself up after a few days of uptime on 4GB. Not on 2GB either. Nor on 1GB. I right now have over 19 days of uptime on the very MacBook with 2GB of RAM that I'm typing this rant on, and, lo and behold, the swap file is currently at just 11MB. This machine is my work machine, on which I do a crapload more than just writing "word documents" and watching youtube clips on. Secondly, OS X doesn't "guzzle memory like no other OS"; it makes proper use of the memory YOU HAVE, instead of, like Windows, starting to hit the swap immediately after boot to "conserve valuable RAM for when it's needed" instead of putting it to proper use when it's at your disposal. You can successfully run even the hungrier OS X 10.5 on 512mb of RAM (I'm running it on a G4 iBook with that little memory), and, really, it's not like a snail on holiday even on that amount of RAM.

On top of your completely off statements, you referring to Mac OS X as "OS/X" kind of tells me you really don't have even the little experience of the OS you claim you do.

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:Apple needs a desktop mini tower at $1000-$1500

[UnknowingFool]

I think the reason that Apple doesn't have a $1000-1500 mini desktop is because that market is heavily saturated and competitive. All of their desktops are in very select markets with little competition. They can get much more profit per unit. If they released a mini desktop as you suggested they would be competing with Dell, HP, Lenovo which are low margin on each unit but overall makes profit by selling high volume. Apple wouldn't make much money selling low volume (relatively) so it's not worth it.

As for the Mac Pro, people always forget/don't seem to realize that the Mac Pro is not a consumer desktop; it's a professional workstation. As such it is priced competitively with other workstations. People who are buying one are using it to edit sound/music/video/graphics for a living not simply to play games/edit their home movies/surf the web, etc. It's the same reason a professional DSLR camera costs a scale more than a digital consumer model.

Re:Imagine if you had to Hack Windows to run on a

[uglyduckling]

"I know of no DRM in Amiga OS..."

Then you don't know anything about Amiga OS. The OS was tied heavily to the custom chips on the motherboard, and to the Workbench ROMs, all of which were copyright owned by Commodore and normally only sold with a complete system. Even now, Amiga emulators are (in theory) illegal if you don't buy a licensed ROM image - as is the case with many emulators of very old hardware. I think most people are happy to copy now because it's so obsolete, but in the late 90s and early 2000s it was very common for the documentation for emulators of 80s and 90s hardware to suggest that you copy your own ROM image from your own machine in order to use it.

Why bother?

[Medievalist]

Ubuntu is easier to install and supports more hardware and software.

Hackintoshes are like teaching a pig to sing. Even if you succeed, it just wastes your time and annoys Apple.

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:unfair practices

[StripedCow]

Sorry I am not going to spell it out. FTC should be involved whenever (paying) consumers are being held back by artificial means.

Next to no apps for NT on PowerPC

[tepples]

Except Windows NT 4 had a PPC build/install disc option ...

But how many publishers of applications for Windows provided universal binaries?

Re:Exactly

[Ukab the Great]

"Want to have a look at my linux box in my Mom's basement?"

You need better pickup lines.

Re:but $2500 for a 1 cpu base system is too high

[UnknowingFool]

but $2500 for a 1 cpu base system is too high cut it down to $2000.

Why don't you build a similar model on Dell and see how much it costs you. I think if you matched specs, it's close to what Apple charges. Most of the time you come within $200 but there are still enough differences to say whether it's a difference. i.e. iLife comes with OS X, etc. And don't build one with a iCore i5 and call it the same as a Xeon. They're not the same processor.

also apple should make the mini more like $500-$600.

Again price out what it takes. Also take into account the form factor. A micro-ITX form factor costs much more to build than a regular size because parts are more specialized. If a small form factor isn't worth it to you, then it's not for you. The only thing that comes close to the mini is the Dell Inspiron Zino HD which isn't as small.

and why not have a imac like system without the screen or at least a mate imac.

Read my post above about why Apple doesn't make a generic desktop. They won't make much money as the market is saturated and they have to compete with the likes of Dell whose business model is to sell at very little profit for lots of volume. It's not a matter of can't; it's a matter of that there isn't enough profit in it for them. And businesses are in it to make money for them.

apples pushing games on mac and the video cards are not there and with the imac the card in the system is weak for the screen size.

I don't think Apple has ever advertised any of their computers are hardcore "gaming machines" like Alienware. They've advertised you can play games on them which is true. It's more a problem of you what you want.

Re:Pros and cons

[imthesponge]

Just because you can technically do it doesn't mean it's allowed by your license agreement. An analogy is, if I have volume-licensed software at work that doesn't require activation, that doesn't make it legal for me to take it home and install it, even though the software technically will permit it.

I did it, though relying on the old x86 wiki

[MoriT]

For $500 I built a gaming machine that dual-booted nicely with much better hardware than I could get in a Mac Mini, especially the base version, and I've been able to upgrade it piece-meal in the four years since. Why? Well, there are some programs that are Mac-only, but mostly because I like the user interface for general day-to-day use. I can't get the polish yet in Linux. It may be purely aesthetic, but it matters to me.

I have a licensed copy for the machine, and stuck a mac sticker onto my case. No reason to break the EULA if I don't have to, and it just says "apple-labeled hardware" ;-)

Re:Apple needs a desktop mini tower at $1000-$1500

[mikestew]

It's why auto mechanics drop $40k on a Snap-on/Mac setup.

And it's why I'm happy to spend the money on Macs today. If a stint as a pro auto mechanic taught me anything, it's not to go cheap on your tools. Yeah, Craftsman may have the same lifetime warranty as Snap-On, may still turn a 10mm bolt, but when you're using that wrench a dozen or more times a day Snap-On doesn't look so expensive. There are differences that don't show up on a spec sheet.

I've since given up turning wrenches for a living and make my living with computers as my primary tool. I can save some pennies and get a laptop that I'll use because I have to, or spend more and get a Macbook Pro that is the first laptop that I actually enjoy using. Same with my 27" i7 iMac. I like good tools. Whipping out spec sheets and telling me how you could build "the same thing" for less isn't going to sell me. Because in the end, what you're really saying is, "I want what's cheapest". That's fine if I'm buying a set of coffee mugs. Not so fine when we're talking about what I use to make my living.

IMHO, it's worth the time and effort.

[phillymjs]

If you're careful, hackintoshing is not that big of a hassle. I have two. The first one I built as an experiment about 2 years ago, just to see it for myself. It worked well enough that I put it into service as a fileserver in my home running OS X Server 10.5, replacing an ancient G4 2x450MHz machine. A couple weeks ago I upgraded it to OS X Server 10.6. It's rock stable and performs very well.

The second one is about a year old, and was built to replace two machines: an aging gaming PC, and an old Power Mac G5 that was my primary desktop. I chose my components carefully and got Mac Pro performance for about half the price, and the machine dual boots OS X 10.6 and Windows 7 Ultimate. I enjoy the occasional PC build, and for $1200 in savings, I didn't mind needing to get my hands a little dirty to get OS X running on it. Already having a functional Mac meant I could keep the hackintosh on my workbench for about a month, testing things risk-free, blowing it up and putting it back together, and generally figuring out every last little detail to make sure it would do what I wanted/needed and give me trouble-free operation.

It did take a little work to get them up and running, but once you reach that point you're pretty much set. I am pretty careful about updates since sometimes they do break things, but others usually figure out the fixes pretty quickly and post them on the sites where hackintoshers congregate. I also keep very good backups, via Time Machine as a matter of course, and by making bootable clones to secondary hard drives before I install anything major.

~Philly

Re:but $2500 for a 1 cpu base system is too high

[UnknowingFool]

$2000 gets you a pc with I7 and likely SLI video / 1 high end video card + 6gb ram not just a 1 socket Xeon that is just about same price / speed as a i7 920 / 930 + mid rage video with 3gb system ram no apple wants $2500 for that also apples 1K psu is over kill for hardware is the base system.

Sigh. A Core i7 is not the same as a Xeon. Intel charges you (and Apple) more for the Xeon as it is a workstation/server CPU. If you can't spec the same, the comparison is useless.

AS for the imac apple just needs one with a mate screen.

What do you mean by "mate screen"? If you mean use an additional monitor, you can attach a separate monitor if you have the right cable. On the high end iMacs, you can even use the iMac as a monitor alone.

also with the laptops apple needs a lower priced 17" screen system $2,299.00 or $1800 just to get a 15" screen? 13" is to small and there are pc with 17" under $1000 but apple wants $1800 just for a 15"?

Just like the Mac Pro, the MacBook Pro laptops are designed for professionals. Hence the "Pro" in the name. Again match specs before you complain about pricing. To use an analogy, your complaints about pricing would be similar to you complaining that luxury cars cost more than other cars. Yes they do; there is a reason they are called "luxury." There are differences. Whether the differences are worth it to you is another matter.

Re:Imagine if you had to Hack Windows to run on a

[Arker]

Microsoft POSIX subsystem was carefully crafted to satisfy a federal procurement requirement without actually being useable at all. It implemented POSIX.1 only. It could not create a thread, open a socket, use RPC, etc. The one and only practical use for the thing was to circumvent the requirement for POSIX compatibility in the Federal Information Processing Standard 151-2.

Dont confuse this with the third party Interix/SFU implementation which replaced it starting with XP, and is actually somewhat useful.

Re:but $2500 for a 1 cpu base system is too high

[snuf23]

There is still a large gap in Apple's product line between consumer iMacs and professional Mac Pros. There is no consumer grade Apple computer that is very expandable or upgradeable in the sense an average Windows desktop is.

I don't think Apple really cares about that market segment. If they did have a decent i7 desktop that handled a large amount of memory it would cut in to their Mac Pro sales. A magazine publisher I used to work for is currently dealing with this now. They don't have the budget to replace their older PPC G5s. The IT department is actually trying to get them to use Mac Minis!