OSx86 Hackintosh
- Thread starter CherBear
- Start date
wolfpackjeeper
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- 500' and 500KCAS, RAF lakenheath
it is supposed to work great if you built your system to match the os. But it takes a bit of work to get it going right
My laptop is only around 6 months old, hopefully it will be able to work. It is a hp HDX 16 with 4g ram. Nvida 9600 series...
Partitioning as we speak. I will keep you updated.
xcm
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Southern Oregon
its hardly a hack anymore.
RedHeep
NAXJA #1499
- Location
- Landenberg, PA
It's my understanding that you have to build the PC with the parts that the mac OS will operate. It doesn't just work on any PC.
wolfpackjeeper
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- 500' and 500KCAS, RAF lakenheath
that was my impression as well.
Not entirely, after MAC switched from PPC to x86 architecture it is just a matter of creating the drivers to run with alternate hardware. The distro I will be using is the iPC one. It comes loaded with all these third party drivers to get everything to work.
Drivers galore
Drivers galore
RedHeep
NAXJA #1499
- Location
- Landenberg, PA
Right, but you are still limited hardware wise to what's available. You'd have to pick carefully an off the shelf laptop to do it.
IMO more trouble than it's worth. I looked at it when I built my media pc, but the effort required and the limited amount of experience with unknown errors was a turn off.
I did buy a macbook however . . .
IMO more trouble than it's worth. I looked at it when I built my media pc, but the effort required and the limited amount of experience with unknown errors was a turn off.
I did buy a macbook however . . .
Exactly, that is why I am doing as more of a novelty than anything else... I already have Vista, 7 and Ubuntu on this laptop. Might as well add snow leopard right?
:cheers:
And yes, some of the functions of my laptop will not work because of a lack of drivers, so far the list includes:
Finger print scanner (didn't expect that to work)
Built in microphone
Possibly my wifi, but not a big deal since I run lan 95% of the time
Some of the video outputs (HDMI) wont work, don't use it.
Hopefully everything else will run well. I still need to get my partitions sorted out. Cant seem to get the MFT where I want it.
- Location
- Lafayette, IN
I tried this very early on, as I had a laptop that was very close to the Intel dev machines that Apple shipped out. Very close wasn't good enough, I didn't have audio, wifi, or accelerated video. OSX is a lot better now for driver support, but still...
Either build a machine that has known compatible hardware, or just buy a Macbook.
CherBear, I ordered a Macbook through the ITaP shopping site for $1100. It was very nice hardware, and a very good price. Of course after 3 or 4 months I got tired of applications crashing, having to reinstall the OS, and Apple's stupid design choices and decisions. Apple hardware seems to hold it's value, I sold it on eBay (to a guy in Cupertino nonetheless) for $1100.
I wouldn't recommend trying to triple-boot it. Run OSX by itself. Apple doesn't ever think you'll run multiple OSes (save for Bootcamp), so they don't really have an interest in playing well with the other partitions on your system.
My name is Brad, and I'm a PC, but at least Apple fanboys can't give me crap since I gave it a fair shot.
Either build a machine that has known compatible hardware, or just buy a Macbook.
CherBear, I ordered a Macbook through the ITaP shopping site for $1100. It was very nice hardware, and a very good price. Of course after 3 or 4 months I got tired of applications crashing, having to reinstall the OS, and Apple's stupid design choices and decisions. Apple hardware seems to hold it's value, I sold it on eBay (to a guy in Cupertino nonetheless) for $1100.
I wouldn't recommend trying to triple-boot it. Run OSX by itself. Apple doesn't ever think you'll run multiple OSes (save for Bootcamp), so they don't really have an interest in playing well with the other partitions on your system.
My name is Brad, and I'm a PC, but at least Apple fanboys can't give me crap since I gave it a fair shot.
Can't agree with this more. There's no real reason beyond novelty value to run it on PC hardware, plain and simple.
Or just run it in VMWare or Parallels (avoid Virtualbox). It'll save the hassle of having to repartition and if you don't like it it's gone without a trace.
My name's casm and while I prefer OSX for my desktop machines, I'd dearly love to put the Apple zealots up against a wall and shoot them.
Fine, I have given up trying to run it natively for two reasons:
1.) I have two partitions that I cant merge easily because they are not physically next to each other. Which would limit me to 10gb of space for the mac osx partition.
2.) The mac osx installer doesn't want to "see" my hard disk. I say "see" because it obviously recognizes it in the built in disk utility, but wont allow me to install to it. :dunno:
Perhaps the partitions were all too small or not the right FS?
Anyone know what file system mac uses for installation directories?
I had formated it fat32 simply because I knew linux could work with it, I assumed osx could...
1.) I have two partitions that I cant merge easily because they are not physically next to each other. Which would limit me to 10gb of space for the mac osx partition.
2.) The mac osx installer doesn't want to "see" my hard disk. I say "see" because it obviously recognizes it in the built in disk utility, but wont allow me to install to it. :dunno:
Perhaps the partitions were all too small or not the right FS?
Anyone know what file system mac uses for installation directories?
I had formated it fat32 simply because I knew linux could work with it, I assumed osx could...
- Location
- Lafayette, IN
I think installed it is over 10GB... so it might be a size limitation. Also OSX uses EFI instead of a conventional BIOS, I'm not sure if that is a factor or not. Mac uses HFS+ as a filesystem, it's proprietary, so you might have to wipe out that partition so it sees it as blank and can format it. OSX can read/write FAT32 once you get it up and running, but it can't install to it.
If you have another drive somewhere I'd throw that in and try that so you don't somehow lose the other partitions on the drive. Using a hex editor to restore deleted partitions = not a good time.
I thought it might have been a size factor, but that wouldnt explain why it didnt show my 275gb vista partition... Must be the file size then right? I had left a 5gb partition of unformatted ( or maybe it was unnallocated) space on the drive by accident. Didnt see that either.
It gave me no options to install anywhere. :banghead:
RedHeep
NAXJA #1499
- Location
- Landenberg, PA
Totally agree with everyone.
I bought a macbook to take on my deployment because it's awesome at all things media. Photos migrate between applications, videos play well and I think it has good website software for an amateur.
I wouldn't go out of my way to install it on a machine just to install it. XP does everything I need it to do on my other laptop and the media machine in the cabinet.
I did just get office for mac for $9.95. Sometimes a government job works out for you.
I bought a macbook to take on my deployment because it's awesome at all things media. Photos migrate between applications, videos play well and I think it has good website software for an amateur.
I wouldn't go out of my way to install it on a machine just to install it. XP does everything I need it to do on my other laptop and the media machine in the cabinet.
I did just get office for mac for $9.95. Sometimes a government job works out for you.
So I discovered that you had to format a drive to the Mac OS FS before you could install anything.
Did that using the built-in disk manager. Then I let it install while I went to class (bad idea). Came back to see that Mac did not recognize my keyboard...
So I go and try to boot back into windows, it seems mac has taken the liberty to install itself as the boot partition. fml.
Go get my Gparted live CD and change the flags on the partitions so my windows partition will boot.
Now Im back to here! yay.
Did that using the built-in disk manager. Then I let it install while I went to class (bad idea). Came back to see that Mac did not recognize my keyboard...
So I go and try to boot back into windows, it seems mac has taken the liberty to install itself as the boot partition. fml.
Go get my Gparted live CD and change the flags on the partitions so my windows partition will boot.
Now Im back to here! yay.
- Location
- Lafayette, IN
This is making me nostalgic for the days when I had time and motivation to do projects like this.
Just not nostalgic enough to ever try it again.
Hope you get it working, just for the feeling of accomplishment!
(You own a license to run OS X right?)
Just not nostalgic enough to ever try it again.
Hope you get it working, just for the feeling of accomplishment!
(You own a license to run OS X right?
)
wolfpackjeeper
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- 500' and 500KCAS, RAF lakenheath
How do you get that $9.95 copy of Office Mac if you work for the gobment. I could use one.
Its ironic how the government practically gives licenses away... yet they come after me when I get one for free
Just kidding, I am a law abiding citizen. Only murderers and serial rapists would steal from the internet.
