OSx86

[forbizzle]

I've been thinking about installing OSx86 on a spare partition I have, and was wondering if anybody has gone through the processes. My hardware should be supported, but considering the trouble i had trying to get my linksys card recognized in Linux I'm not too optimistic.

I was looking at this video which seems pretty good:
http://willjfergus.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/a-detailed-guide-on-installing-osx-on-my-pc/

Anybody have any experience?

[e30]

i did this a couple of years ago when it first broke that osx worked on x86 architecture.

it worked well enough, but not enough to be used everyday. im sure it has progressed further along now rendering it more useful.

[aximxp]

it really depends on your hardware, you can usually get it working on most of the systems out there because the hacks have advanced so much, i had a P4c 2.8 with a radeon 9600 and used it as my primary for a semester of school, worked amazing.. recorded guitar in garageband, the whole 9.

that being said, as a rule of thumb search on insanelymac.com and see if your video card is supported. because if you can't get quartz extreme / coreimage working than there's really no point since it's just laggy enough to be annoying.

search your system on the forums there anyhow and see if your hardware is listed

[ArmpitOfDeath]

What aximxp said. It's not a 'genuine Mac experience' yet though, and you'll be locked out of upgrades as well to a degree. I've run OSX86 on a Core Duo/X1600, Core 2 Duo/GMA950, Core 2 Duo/8600M and a dual-Xeon 5160 system (i.e. virtually identical in terms of spec to the same-class Macs), and I had some really bizarre incompatibilities as well. Which is a shame as I'd love to get OSX working as a truly daily machine on more reliable / better built gear than the gorgeous crap Apple churns out.

[bani-banan]

As far as I know SATA drives are still not supported. You could however change a couple of settings in the BIOS to make the OS think that it's a IDE drive.

Be sure that your processor, grahpicscard, soundcard and network-card is supported.

If that is OK - then go ahead.

The installation is pretty simple. Just follow the instructions over at http://www.insanelymac.com/

Read the threads. Look for your hardware. Read what other people have experienced.

Remember: Don't install crap you don't need. If you have an AMD processor - don't install Intel drivers. (many people have and they wasted roughly 400MB of space.) That doesn't slow anything down, it just takes up space.

In many cases a MacBook is faster at rendering video or transferring files throughout the network - so don't be shocked if it's dogslow.

[forbizzle]

I've got a GeForce 8800 GTX, and it looks like it will be supported. But I do have a SATA hard drive, so that looks like it might be a problem.

Also, I'm not sure the best way to manage my boot loader if I do get over that SATA hurdle.

I have a 500gb drive, and I partitioned it on day one with 4 different drives. I put my default install as Windows XP, then threw Ubuntu on another one of the partitions. Right now Grub is my boot loader, and it's sitting on the Ubuntu partition, but that's likely the area I want to overwrite.

Does OSX have a boot loader?

[aximxp]

to load osx you put the chain0 file off the mac drive on the root of any bootable partition. honestly it's so much easier if you have a dedicated mac drive because then you can just have it default to your main drive and just hit f8 on boot if you need to swap. haven't tried it on a single partition though there's tons of guides on that site

[ashgotti]

I had it running on my Thinkpad t42. It is something you do becasue you can and you have hours to put into it and fixing problems by searching countless forums. When I had it running, I tried to use it day-to-day but because of my old processor, sleepstep doesn't work so it was useless while on battery.

By now, the majority of the hacked install discs release have a variety of patches for common hardware on them, so when you install OSX you select the patches that correspond to your hardware.

If you have a free weekend, give it a try. It's definitely a good way to try out OSX before you buy.

[darknessgp]

If you can try and get the "Kalyway" leopard disk... supposedly it's no hacking things together to work. I haven't tried it, don't have a machine I can afford to do it on. Did try to install it on vmware, but it won't install on vmware, because of the way it handles a virtual machine's hardware.

[davmoo]

I've tried OSx86 on a couple of desktop boxes and a laptop. And in all honesty, it was easier and more practical to just pick up a genuine Mac at a local auction.