Yeah, that seems like it'd work pretty well. The only things that you might want to look into before embarking on the installation process are the kexts (the Mac equivalent of a driver, which lets your hardware work with the system) for your wireless card and your touchpad (unless you plan on using ethernet or an external mouse, of course). Also, there are a few Macs that are cheaper than $1000 - see the MacBook Air and the Mac Mini.
And their hardware is as good as a 300$ PC.
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I like turtles.
Kerbals, kerbals, everywhere, where they stop, I don't care!Kerbal Space Program
Yeah I wasn't really sure what to call the OS for mac at the time of posting :tongue.gif: but I have dual booted before I use to have unbuntu and windows 7. So i'm not new to changing OSs but will I be able to completely remove windows 7 if I chose to? After just looking up how many gigs a terabyte is I should be fine with both on my comp :biggrin.gif: My computer right now is 550gb and i'm getting along more than fine so 500gb per OS should be fine
I'd imagine you could run a computer with only Ubuntu on it, so you could also theoretically run a laptop with your "Hack OS X" on it too. As far as I know you need a full, legit copy of Mac OS X before you even begin looking for the hacks to being installing etc.
I work professionally with OS X and set up an entire lab full of 15 computers with Final Cut Pro. Final Cut Studio X (the latest one meant to function with Lion) seems to run just fine on Snow Leopard, and I can't sing enough praises about Snow Leopard. Unless you need, need, need Lion I'd go with SL as Apple is increasing a lot of its user restrictions and regulations a lot more with Lion than in previous versions of OS X. Everything is being routed through the App Store now and it may do a serial check every time you fire up the computer in Lion whereas the only time the App Store can check serials is when you are downloading FCPX from the App Store (which is how Apple is distributing software now) - assuming you'd be doing that the legit way.
Think of Leopard like Windows 2000, Snow Leopard like XP (no one would switch if it wasn't being forced upon them by the developer) and Lion more like Windows Vista. I'm looking forward to what Mac OS X 10.9 "Windows 7 Cat" will be.
Good luck with this. I've always wanted to build a "Hackintosh" myself, though I want to base mine off of the "power tower" Mac Pro line.
I don't understand what you're talking about here. How are there more 'user restrictions and regulations' in place? I've purchased apps from the App Store, as well as installed updates from Apple with no errors. Also, I'm getting ready to install Lion in-place tomorrow, following a tutorial that others have praised as working properly, which uses the unmodified files that you can download from the App Store.
I don't understand what you're talking about here. How are there more 'user restrictions and regulations' in place? I've purchased apps from the App Store, as well as installed updates from Apple with no errors. Also, I'm getting ready to install Lion in-place tomorrow, following a tutorial that others have praised as working properly, which uses the unmodified files that you can download from the App Store.
In Lion, everything is built into the App Store such that it can't be shut down, but you can do this in Snow Leopard.
Bear in mind I'm assuming OP is pirating App Store software if he is already talking about shoehorning some version of OS X onto a non-Apple piece of hardware. Apple definitely doesn't want you installing their stuff on unsupported hardware; I just assumed they added some sort of serial protection into the App Store. I didn't want to make a big deal about this in a public forum but it seems from my limited experience that it's very easy to pirate the latest Final Cut Pro onto a Snow Leopard machine simply due to the lack of App Store integration (compared to Lion) in Snow Leopard (previous Final Cut Pro's had serial protection built into Final Cut itself instead of having the App Store block downloads from Apple, due to Final Cut only being installed via disk).
Do you mean you installed OS X onto a non-Apple computer, and afterwards used App Store to purchase, download, and install Apple etc. software? I'd highly recommend against this as Apple has designed it to be a software distribution service meant to sell their licenses to people. They are getting more Microsofty every day; soon I would not be surprised if an App Store update "broke" anything pirated on the Mac.
Righty ho then. My post is both to the OP and a reply to this.
What you want to do is called making a hackintosh. It is the act of installing any mac OS onto non apple hardware (there are a few hardware restrictions that prevent it normally happening). PC DOES NOT NECESARILLY MEAN WINDOWS. PC just means personal computer and refers to any computing device with any operating system for personal use. That includes windows, linux, mac, most phones and so on.
Just about any decent computer website (even amazon has it) you can buy OSX 10.6 (1 down from lion). Uk price £20 to £30. Not got time to check price elsewhere but its damn cheaper that windows regardless.
While on any other computer mac, windows, linux or other google for iBoot. It is technically its own operating system that can run from a CD. Download the .iso and burn it as a disk image to a CD or DVD (it will fit on either, don't think it works from USB) like you would any other .iso.
Take the computer you wish to hackintosh. Work out how to boot from CD drive. Boot the iboot disk.
It does some stuff loading false values into RAM etcetara etcetara.
It will then give some indication (all this is on the website for iBoot in much more detail) that its done doing what its doing and you can eject the iBoot disk. The iBoot "operating system" will stay open.
PLace your mac disk in and with the false ram values it thinks its on geniune apple hardware and will start the installer. The rest i've forgotten. Theres a massive guide on the website for iBoot. Loads of video tutorials aswell.
Pros:
you get a better OS (arguable but usually only by trolls)
on a computer with no OS its cheaper than getting windows (but more expensive than linux which is of course free)
It is cheaper than buying a mac
You can have a mac with more hardware options
Cons:
Less stable than windows (more crashes, most recent versions of iBoot and other kext files are getting closer to fixing this, still crashes arent that common)
No apple warranty or customer service (which is normally brilliant)
Some video cards etc havent got full drivers available yet (more are being written, apparently my laptop hasnt got a wifi driver available, fix is buy a USB wifi adaptor compatible with mac, which is most of them)(my sisters netbook the wifi works but the ethernet and sound don't)
Generally i think the Pros outweigh the cons. The reason I havent done it yet is my laptops HDD has failed so I can't actually install OSx anyway.
iBoot for OSx Lion may be out by now but i haven't checked recently. You have to match the i-Boot version to the version you are installing (presumably apple have failsafes or something and are catching onto them)
These informational posts make me so happy. I wasn't sure if I was going to get anything helpful out of this forum but I just proved my self wrong. I think the only problem with the computer I plan on getting is the wifi but I can always just buy a USB wireless adapter. I'm 100% sure the processor and graphics card will work. Thank you for listing the pros and cons too it really helped
Righty ho then. My post is both to the OP and a reply to this.
What you want to do is called making a hackintosh. It is the act of installing any mac OS onto non apple hardware (there are a few hardware restrictions that prevent it normally happening). PC DOES NOT NECESARILLY MEAN WINDOWS. PC just means personal computer and refers to any computing device with any operating system for personal use. That includes windows, linux, mac, most phones and so on.
Just about any decent computer website (even amazon has it) you can buy OSX 10.6 (1 down from lion). Uk price £20 to £30. Not got time to check price elsewhere but its damn cheaper that windows regardless.
While on any other computer mac, windows, linux or other google for iBoot. It is technically its own operating system that can run from a CD. Download the .iso and burn it as a disk image to a CD or DVD (it will fit on either, don't think it works from USB) like you would any other .iso.
Take the computer you wish to hackintosh. Work out how to boot from CD drive. Boot the iboot disk.
It does some stuff loading false values into RAM etcetara etcetara.
It will then give some indication (all this is on the website for iBoot in much more detail) that its done doing what its doing and you can eject the iBoot disk. The iBoot "operating system" will stay open.
PLace your mac disk in and with the false ram values it thinks its on geniune apple hardware and will start the installer. The rest i've forgotten. Theres a massive guide on the website for iBoot. Loads of video tutorials aswell.
Pros:
you get a better OS (arguable but usually only by trolls)
on a computer with no OS its cheaper than getting windows (but more expensive than linux which is of course free)
It is cheaper than buying a mac
You can have a mac with more hardware options
Cons:
Less stable than windows (more crashes, most recent versions of iBoot and other kext files are getting closer to fixing this, still crashes arent that common)
No apple warranty or customer service (which is normally brilliant)
Some video cards etc havent got full drivers available yet (more are being written, apparently my laptop hasnt got a wifi driver available, fix is buy a USB wifi adaptor compatible with mac, which is most of them)(my sisters netbook the wifi works but the ethernet and sound don't)
Generally i think the Pros outweigh the cons. The reason I havent done it yet is my laptops HDD has failed so I can't actually install OSx anyway.
iBoot for OSx Lion may be out by now but i haven't checked recently. You have to match the i-Boot version to the version you are installing (presumably apple have failsafes or something and are catching onto them)
This. Although it's important to note that there are different variations from the iBoot scheme, such as nawcom's ModCD\ModUSB (which was the solution that I used, and strangely the only one that worked right). They all do essentially the same thing, though.
Also, I'm getting ready to update to Lion today or tomorrow, but it seems like the only way to do it right now is by installing OS X Snow Leopard, then following a tutorial on burning an image within the downloadable Lion update.
This. Although it's important to note that there are different variations from the iBoot scheme, such as nawcom's ModCD\ModUSB (which was the solution that I used, and strangely the only one that worked right). They all do essentially the same thing, though.
Also, I'm getting ready to update to Lion today or tomorrow, but it seems like the only way to do it right now is by installing OS X Snow Leopard, then following a tutorial on burning an image within the downloadable Lion update.
I think I'm going to stick with snow leopard and then go to lion in a year or so :biggrin.gif:
Agreed-- I can't seem to fully use it, what with 27 inches of glorious HD screen, a i7 @3.4ghz (8 threads!), 12GB of RAM and a 6970M 2GB. Running a ton of stuff on it and it's only using 5GB of RAM, a minuscule amount of CPU power, and the graphics can handle just about anything I've thrown at it.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” — Albert Einstein
"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig." — Robert Heinlein
And their hardware is as good as a 300$ PC.
Kerbals, kerbals, everywhere, where they stop, I don't care!Kerbal Space Program
I only have 240..and you have 1,000.
You should be fine.
I don't understand what you're talking about here. How are there more 'user restrictions and regulations' in place? I've purchased apps from the App Store, as well as installed updates from Apple with no errors. Also, I'm getting ready to install Lion in-place tomorrow, following a tutorial that others have praised as working properly, which uses the unmodified files that you can download from the App Store.
Mac won't run on a PC because you don't have the exact configuration it's designed for.
In Lion, everything is built into the App Store such that it can't be shut down, but you can do this in Snow Leopard.
Bear in mind I'm assuming OP is pirating App Store software if he is already talking about shoehorning some version of OS X onto a non-Apple piece of hardware. Apple definitely doesn't want you installing their stuff on unsupported hardware; I just assumed they added some sort of serial protection into the App Store. I didn't want to make a big deal about this in a public forum but it seems from my limited experience that it's very easy to pirate the latest Final Cut Pro onto a Snow Leopard machine simply due to the lack of App Store integration (compared to Lion) in Snow Leopard (previous Final Cut Pro's had serial protection built into Final Cut itself instead of having the App Store block downloads from Apple, due to Final Cut only being installed via disk).
Do you mean you installed OS X onto a non-Apple computer, and afterwards used App Store to purchase, download, and install Apple etc. software? I'd highly recommend against this as Apple has designed it to be a software distribution service meant to sell their licenses to people. They are getting more Microsofty every day; soon I would not be surprised if an App Store update "broke" anything pirated on the Mac.
...... Macs will run on a 'PC' (by which I assume you mean Windows)...
You mean "with some work", right? It's not designed to "Just Work" out of the box like that...
Yes, exactly the same way that the Windows OS will work on a Macintosh. You just need to install the correct software.
Latest iMacs are SWWWWEEEEET though.
These informational posts make me so happy. I wasn't sure if I was going to get anything helpful out of this forum but I just proved my self wrong. I think the only problem with the computer I plan on getting is the wifi but I can always just buy a USB wireless adapter. I'm 100% sure the processor and graphics card will work. Thank you for listing the pros and cons too it really helped
This. Although it's important to note that there are different variations from the iBoot scheme, such as nawcom's ModCD\ModUSB (which was the solution that I used, and strangely the only one that worked right). They all do essentially the same thing, though.
Also, I'm getting ready to update to Lion today or tomorrow, but it seems like the only way to do it right now is by installing OS X Snow Leopard, then following a tutorial on burning an image within the downloadable Lion update.
I think I'm going to stick with snow leopard and then go to lion in a year or so :biggrin.gif:
Should provide you all the info you need.
it's clear that windows suck in every way possible except when it comes to gaming.
on-topic: this is more reliable http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/
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Retired StaffAgreed-- I can't seem to fully use it, what with 27 inches of glorious HD screen, a i7 @3.4ghz (8 threads!), 12GB of RAM and a 6970M 2GB. Running a ton of stuff on it and it's only using 5GB of RAM, a minuscule amount of CPU power, and the graphics can handle just about anything I've thrown at it.
"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig." — Robert Heinlein
You forgot about over-clocking (atleast in my experience), compatibility with software, and compatibility with hardware.