Thanks to the seemingly dubious prospect of a Mac OS X-ready PC from Psystar, running Mac OS X on gear not made by Apple has gotten the Macweb all aflutter this week. Rob Griffiths of Macworld and MacOSXHints, not content with Apple's lineup of Macs, or waiting for some random company to make a clone, has created his very own Frankenmac (hence my lame Photoshop attempt to the right).Rob documents the reasons why someone might want to run OS X on non-Apple hardware, and lists some potential pitfalls (like updates not working correctly, or hardware/software incompatibilities). Please note that Rob's article isn't a How-To on building a Hackintosh, but rather a look at why some folks find the idea so appealing, and what the drawbacks are.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-18-2008 @ 4:52PM
WS said...
For the end-consumer, there are several attractive reasons to be able to install Mac OS X on non-Apple machines. The first and foremost (and most obvious one) is cost. It is cheaper to build a power-house PC than it is to buy a Mac. Not to mention that PCs are easily upgradeable and expandable... but this poses a huge caveat for OS X. Namely, the problem is compatibility.
Right now, OS X needs very little work to function efficiently at its core because the mainboard, video card, monitor, RAM, audio, and other integral systems are restricted. Unlike Windows or Linux, that needs to rely on 3rd party vendors and internal coders to make sure all the available hardware works (and works well), Mac OS X is unique in this respect.
If you through that out at the door, OS X will quickly get lagged down with problems. That calls for a ton of resources to be devoted to making sure it runs optimally. This costs money and Apple's grip gets loosened.
I always thought the best practice for Apple would be to release a PC version of OS X, until I get a better understanding of the operating system and the niche Apple carved for themselves...
I think these people who clamber for PC OS X are missing the big picture...
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4-19-2008 @ 1:58PM
starkruzr said...
It's not that hard to just make sure you purchase hardware that is known to be supported under OS X.
People howl about "compatibility" for some reason when for anyone capable of building their own machine, it's a non-issue.
4-19-2008 @ 11:58PM
Ed said...
Compatibility is not a problem. I've been running un frankenboxen for the past year (tiger, and yes I paid for the license.) AMD-based, too, and it still runs nearly as stable as my MacBook.
4-19-2008 @ 9:23AM
Basshead Tech said...
I have built a similar hackintosh based on a Gigabyte P35-DS3R, Core 2 Quad Q6600, Geforce 7300GT, 2Gb Ram and 500Gb Hard Drive. It cost me about £400 total and has performed with very few problems. The processor is happily overclocked to 3Ghz (from 2.4Ghz) using a heatsink and fan. It's been stable and reliable and I really can't find fault with the computer.
While OS X updates can be problematic, this is mainly related to updates that replace the operating system's Kernel or Kernel extensions. I chose this hardware as it requires minimal patching to work so the only update that could have caused problems is the 10.5.2 one. Patched versions of this update that work fine are easily found online.
The bottom line is that I now use daily the much requested 'mid range' mac tower that cost me well under half the cost of the cheapest Mac Pro. This isn't a computer for Apple's target user, i.e. someone expecting a computer that just works and doesn't need any tweaking. For the more seasoned user it's fine though. I have found the performance to be excellent, and have documented the results at www.bassheadtech.com. There are several articles benchmarking the hackintosh, and also comparing OS X, Linux, Windows XP and Windows Vista on the same hardware since it's possible to have all four installed and selected from a boot menu.
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4-21-2008 @ 8:06AM
EMoShunz said...
the biggest reason, for me and many i think, has to do with switchers.
i own a nice amd system that i use to test linux distro's on. i'd love to be able to run os x on it in addition to the 3 other apple systems i've bought since switching back from 10 years of windows use.
price isn't a big issue anymore, maybe 10% more for a 'real' apple hardware system...however it's 90% cheaper to just go buy os x and install it on an existing system for the switchers.
while i'm talking...os x mce to be installed on my old amd would be awesome. (i realize ther is no mce version of os x, but at least front row would be awesome.
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