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

[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]

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

[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.

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

[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.

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: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

[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?

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.

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:Exactly

[Ukab the Great]

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

You need better pickup lines.