How to Build A Hackintosh

But listen here, Mac geeks. Thanks to the efforts of an increasingly active online community of developers, building a Hackintosh--a PC built from components that runs OS X like a charm--has never been easier. And by choosing your own hardware, it's entirely feasible to rival the specs of a brand-new Mac Pro for around half the cost.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2b732e10b8c6.jpg[/atsimg]

In the first of a three-part guide, we explain the basics of installing Mac OS X on a homebuilt PC. It's much easier than you might think

PopSci: Part 1
PopSci: Part 2
PopSci: Part 3

Has anybody tried this yet!
I've been looking into doing this for some time and it's getting to the point where I would like to try this for myself, just to see if it works. . .

You can. There was a company at one point in time that was selling hackintoshes but they got shut down.

In addition you can also run the Mac OSX on your pc using virtualization. VMWare to be specific.

However this is sort of bypassing one of the things that makes a Mac great. The OS is made to run specific hardware. With that in mind everything works the way it's supposed to on the Mac.

With a PC you have the flexibility of running an operating system on a wide range of hardware. Which is the strength of Windows. However it also has alot of quirks.

I have both an iMac and a Win 7 pc at work and at home.

I thought PCs could already run MAC OS's, and that would probably be for less than half the cost.

I would also like to know what kinds of functional software some of these computer hackers actually run that is inherently advantageous to operate on a MAC as opposed to a PC. That would be the only true test for evaluation if the amount of lost time tinkering, building, and downloading all kinds of stuff is worth any kind of savings. How do you recover all of that lost time? Do you have a computer to just endlessly play with app downloads? Do you have a job you can't afford that kind of downtime or a risk of losing data?

One would think it's cheaper to by and purchase extended support to what's best for your needs, most people don't have the need for what MAC's were built to better facilitate, which nowadays I would be at a loss to tell anyone if any advantages still exist at all!

Its just every IM or engineer at work that looks into these sorts of things actually don't run much software outside of MS Office, and phone apps and internet stuff, meaning, they really aren't relying on uninterrupted and quark-free software operation for any monetary gain, or reliance.

Originally posted by Illustronic
I would also like to know what kinds of functional software some of these computer hackers actually run that is inherently advantageous to operate on a MAC as opposed to a PC.

Good point Illustronic. My first question is, WHY would anyone want to do this. So I started reading the article.

And the first half of the first page explains why the author wants to do it: Because it's less than half the cost to build a hackintosh than to buy it from the Apple store. OK so he's saved half the cost of a new Apple, but it still doesn't explain WHY he would want an Apple in the first place, since in this case it won't be an Apple but instead a hackintosh. Why not just build an ordinary PC instead?

Alas, with all the explanation of why he's doing this, I didn't really find an explanation, so maybe the author has a reason, but didn't want to share it with us? Maybe they like the MacOS better? If that's the only reason, it's not a good enough reason for me to mess around with this. And if there's a better reason, what is it?

I build all my own desktop PCs (not laptops) so if I had a reason to try this, I might try it. I have extra hardware lying around and multiple boot partitions on some PCs. But I really can't think of any reason to try it.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


He did it simply to show off his l33t 5k1llz.
There is no real reason to go out and get a mac if you already have a pc. Same way there is no real reason to go out and get a pc if you have a mac.

With virtualization (VMWare) you can run either operating system on either set of hardware.

Reasons for wanting to have either OSX or Windows 7? If you want to develop applications you should have the appropriate dev environment running on the operating system you wish to target.

reply to post by AnteBellum


Without the correct hardware, you would run into driver issues if you tried to install Mac OS X onto any old PC. I would go with what works if you're going to flip the money.

As for me....I think I'm a little too geeky to run a Mac

reply to post by AnteBellum


Though Mac moved to the Intel platform in 2006, the similarities end at the BIOS level. MAC has their own BIOS and of course Windows has theirs.

When you buy a motherboard in which to build a system around, it comes with a Windows BIOS.....and a MAC BIOS isn't available....you have had to go to the MAC store for that and pay their exorbitant prices.

I owned an Amiga years ago that used a Motorola 6800 CPU as did the MAC at the time.
You could buy a $100. ROM chip containing the MAC Bios and with the MAC OS you could boot your AMIGA as a MAC.

This is similar, they've a tool called multibeast that is emulating the MAC BIOS on the Intel based hardware.
Now the OS X sees the hardware configured exactly as with any store bought MAC...without the proprietary crap and high price.

Why would anyone need to do this ?

In looking at the largest market of Macs in general it's actually in the arts community. The movie, television and music recording industries in particular all prefer and use Macs.

My Brother is a studio musician. He records alot of the music you see and hear on commercials on TV.
Everything is recorded on tracks....you'll have a vocal track, a drum/percussion track, guitar track, etc.

For example, you can use a MAC to set up your own recording studio. This in itself has revolutionized the recording industry. There are a ton of music recording and production tools that are available to exclusively the Mac hardware platform. And that are used in most recording studios.

In the past you always had to go to the studio where everything is mixed together to record your track.
With your own studio you can play along with the existing tracks emailed to you, record your own , save it to a new file and email it back......but you need your own recording studio in which to do this.

Musicians can record and produce their own music without the need of renting a recording studio or hoping to be signed by a big Illuminati controlled/owned music Label as was done in the past.

A step in the direction of True artistic freedom !

The problem being that for most musicians the cost of buying a Mac itself made it cost prohibitive.

This is great in that regard because with PC hardware at such low prices..

You can build a nice system up for a fraction of the cost of a Mac...

I'll have to build up one of these systems as a Christmas present for my older Brother who's a studio musician...
and has wanted a Mac to build a small recording studio around....he'd really appreciate it.

Thanks for posting this ...

You don't have to worry about the bios. There's so many ways of setting up a slick hackintosh these days, and it's really not too difficult. I first built a hackintosh when the scene was in it's infancy in 2006. Did a newegg build for $450, and converted it. Once benchmarked, it outscored the $3,000 mac pro's of the time.

It's kind of like oldschool linux, where you can usually get 90% of things to work with enough time and effort, and if you choose your components wisely, everything runs 100%.

reply to post by nh_ee


VMWare will run OSX on windows.
with an intel core i7 you can run both comfortably with dual monitors.

reply to post by grey580


You are still running through an emulator.
Why bother if you can boot your hardware as a Mac itself ?

This would eliminate any potential compatibility issues as well as eliminating another layer of obfuscation from a system performance perspective.

It's analogous to holding a conversation via an interpreter.

reply to post by AnteBellum


good to hear....

Gives me hope for Gaming on a mac. I own a Macbook Pro and they have the worst graphics cards ever.

The Graphics cards in a 2007 Macbook Pro is worst than the graphics card in a 2004 PC......That is how far behind they are. And considering new Graphics cards get better every 4-6 months...It's rediculous.

Originally posted by nh_ee
Why would anyone need to do this ?

In looking at the largest market of Macs in general it's actually in the arts community. The movie, television and music recording industries in particular all prefer and use Macs.

My Brother is a studio musician. He records alot of the music you see and hear on commercials on TV.
Everything is recorded on tracks....you'll have a vocal track, a drum/percussion track, guitar track, etc.

For example, you can use a MAC to set up your own recording studio.

I think some people need to do this just to see if it can be done. No one needs to climb everest but they still do.

These days anything you can do with a MAC you can do with a PC. Like setting up a recording studio. I heard someone use the "Macs are for graphic artists" line and I thought damn that hasn't been true since the mid 90's.

Originally posted by daskakik
I heard someone use the "Macs are for graphic artists" line and I thought damn that hasn't been true since the mid 90's.

I don't think it's ever been true. Creative types aren't exactly known for the technological savviness

I'd just buy an apple mb. that would be the only way I could ever own a mac pro. anything less and I'd just buy a used mac mini if I had to do it all over again. I wouldn't have bought an imac, nor the keyboard, nor the mouse and i would have saved a lot of money.

a mac by itself is a very dependable basic computer.

reply to post by AnteBellum


Just wanna say you run the risk of wearing out your hardware faster, but it's a small risk. Anyways why anyone would want to run this POS OS is beyond me, go grab a linux flavor for god sake. The linux kernel has gotten to the point that you can actually do more than Windows and OS X can.

Originally posted by Nobama
reply to post by AnteBellum

 

Just wanna say you run the risk of wearing out your hardware faster, but it's a small risk. Anyways why anyone would want to run this POS OS is beyond me, go grab a linux flavor for god sake. The linux kernel has gotten to the point that you can actually do more than Windows and OS X can.

do you run av on linux?

reply to post by ChaosMagician


Why would I? hell I dont even use AV on Windows..well I have one for weekly scans, but I never use real time scanning.