EFiX Allows Mac OS X to Boot on a PC

[polaris20]

Careful there skippy, not everyone who thinks it's a dead certainty Apple will sue is a nutbag. It isn't a question of the size of the potential market either, it's the legal precedent. Psystar wasn't all that big and they got served pretty quickly.

Oh, I disagree.

It's a dongle designed to enable an end user to install and operate OS X unlawfully.

It's a dongle designed to enable an end user to install and operate OSX against Apple's EULA.

That's wishful thinking. A company the size of Apple isn't going to sue overnight. They'll carefully build their case, maybe even allow EFiX to make a few bucks so they have something to sue for, and then lay the hammer down.

Lay the hammer down for?? The company isn't selling computers with OSX, or OSX. Unless EFI-X has reverse engineered proprietary Apple code, they haven't done anything wrong.

BitTorrent doesn't give away free music, movies, programs. The product could be used that way, but they don't do it. Bit Torrent isn't "illegal".

 

[milo]

No, Apple simply does NOT make the desktop computer that most people want.

People want a "normal" computer. Apple used to make one, the G4 towers sold for $1500 in the 1990's You's think Apple would package an Intel quad core mainboard inside a midsize tower and sell it for the same price that HP sells their quad core midsize tower. If they did, Apple could double the volume of their desktop sales overnight.

Amen to that. There's nothing stopping Apple from making a great (way better than the mini) desktop for under a grand (even with the same profit margins as their other boxes).

 

[ChrisA]

Go, go, Apple legal.

Lots of parasites coming out of the woodwork and trying to attach themselves to Apple.

In the long run, this is no good for us, the consumers. Apple makes its money by selling hardware. In the long run if people can run OSX on PCs, Apple will lose its revenue stream, go belly up, and then NOBODY gets to run OSX any more.

Sun Microsystems used to be just like Apple. They sold their OS only for use on their own hardware and the hardware used Sun's own CPU chip the "SPARC". But Sun changed. Now they've open sourced their OS and anyone can download it free and run it on a PC. Sun still sells SPARC based computers but now they also sell Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron based machines.

Could Apple make money the way Sun does? By giving away Mac OS X for free and selling hardware? I think they could. The Apple hardware would be the best hardware and the only hardware with Apple support but by giving away Mac OS X they create a huge demand and gain market share and some percent of those people will want Apple brand hardware. People still buy Sun hardware and pay a ppremium pric for it too even if they no longer need it to run Solaris.

Seems to be working for Sun.

 

[kingtj]

Bottom line?

Products like EFiX and to some extent, the Psystar product line, simply proves one thing. There is a market out there the current Mac product line doesn't really cater to.

Now, it may well be that Apple doesn't WANT to cater to that market..... That might or might not be a financially wise decision.

Nonetheless, you see all the complaining even on these forums about Apple not offering a "mini tower", or a "headless iMac", right? That's part of this whole issue.

The Mac Pro is a great workstation, but a lot of people are balking at paying upwards of $2000 for one, when really, they're simply a "computer enthusiast", looking for something "high performance, but still considered a desktop PC vs. a workstation". That means, they don't want to burn money on Xeon processors, vs. regular Pentium 4's (or whatever high-end CPU AMD is offering), and for many of them, 2 cores is really "satisfactory", as long as the clock speed is high enough.

Right now, Apple tells these people to buy an iMac -- but that means only having one hard drive, unless you start plugging in external drives and occupying USB or firewire ports. That means NO expansion card slots, and by extension, non-upgradable video. That also means you're forced to pay for an LCD display as part of the purchase, even if you already own 1 or 2 LCD monitors you'd rather use with the system.

So what's a person to do if they really want to run OS X, but Apple doesn't offer them a suitable desktop option? EFiX looks pretty good in this light.

That is craaazy. Especially when not saving money... Why bother
Besides if you want "Ultimate Performance" Get a Mac Pro...

 

[milo]

Unless EFI-X has reverse engineered proprietary Apple code...

Well, that's the million dollar question. I bet they have.

 

[polaris20]

Anyone know how this thing actually works?

If their usb dongle contains any apple code (including code hard coded into chips), or any hardware that violates Apple patents, Apple can probably sue them and win.

And I doubt they could do this without their hardware containing any Apple intellectual property.

I wouldn't be surprised if apple can shut these guys down without even mentioning EULA. It's not like that would be the only thing preventing things like this.

UPDATE: Looks like this "dongle" is just a USB drive, so if it has any Apple code on it, it should be a piece of cake for apple to figure that out and take action.

So if this is just a USB drive with their stuff on it, wouldn't it seem likely that it's possible to just copy it over to a generic USB drive instead of buying their "dongle"?

The bolded is really what it comes down to. If it just emulates the EFI standard without infringing upon something proprietary to Apple code, be it patents or whatever, they've done nothing wrong.

Bringing up the EULA is pointless, because EFI-X themselves aren't touching it.

If they have infringed upon Apple patents due to reverse engineering or similar, then of course they can and should be sued.

 

[BenRoethig]

Anyone know how this thing actually works?

If their usb dongle contains any apple code (including code hard coded into chips), or any hardware that violates Apple patents, Apple can probably sue them and win.

And I doubt they could do this without their hardware containing any Apple intellectual property.

I wouldn't be surprised if apple can shut these guys down without even mentioning EULA. It's not like that would be the only thing preventing things like this.

UPDATE: Looks like this "dongle" is just a USB drive, so if it has any Apple code on it, it should be a piece of cake for apple to figure that out and take action.

So if this is just a USB drive with their stuff on it, wouldn't it seem likely that it's possible to just copy it over to a generic USB drive instead of buying their "dongle"?

As far as I can tell, it does in hardware what others do in software. The way Mac OS X works on other computers is by emulation EFI which is an open standard by the way. I would assume this thing comes with an EFI firmware chip of some sort.

 

[Fast Shadow]

The Mac Pro shares a lot more of its DNA with server class machines like the HP DL380 G5 than it does with 99% of PCs.

 

[BenRoethig]

Amen to that. There's nothing stopping Apple from making a great (way better than the mini) desktop for under a grand (even with the same profit margins as their other boxes).

Except unfortunately a bit of ego.

 

[polaris20]

The Mac Pro shares a lot more of its DNA with server class machines like the HP DL380 G5 than it does with 99% of PCs.

Actually it shares more with the XW8600 series than the DL series. But that's splitting hairs.

Mac Pros really aren't any more expensive than an HP or Dell workstation. In fact I think they're a better value, given their construction.

 

[ChrisA]

I see this whole issue as being the same as with the music industry fighting with downloaded music. It's really a stupid fight because the labels could have made money off this. Everyone knows what the customer wants. The recording industry refused to sell what the market demanded. So the customers bypassed the CD and got their music off the Internet. Had the major labels been there with the product napster and iTunes would never have been created.

No we have Apple refusing to sell what people want. Who knows why but they offer no mainstream desktop machine. So people will bypass Apple. That's stupid. Apple could be taking their money but they let it go to others.

 

[_Refurbished_]

95% of the people out there don't "need" server grade items, nor do they want to pay for them. If I have a choice, I choose to buy regular DDR2 RAM. If I have a choice, I choose to buy a Yorkfield. You don't get what you pay for when you choose the more expensive items that come with a Mac Pro. The Mac Pro is an impressive machine, and well priced compared to other work stations.

I can build a system for $800 bucks that will run nicely next to a Mac Pro, be just as quiet, and (hopefully) be just as stable. Just as in the Windows world, there are people who buy top-of-the-line computers and there are people who build top-of-the-line computers. Up until now, Apple has not let this happen. If EFI-X is a success, it will create an entire community of Apple users that we have not seen before. It's very exciting and I'm glad to see it.

 

[Victor Odin]

It compares desktop CPUs to workstation/server CPUs.

Out of curiosity, what do you personally think the difference between "desktop" and "workstation" CPU's are?

For that matter, what do you think the difference is between a desktop, a workstation, and a server?

Can one machine be all three, and what do you think the effect would be if you put a "desktop" chip in say, a "server"?

I realize that everyone thinks about these things in different terms, and I have my own thoughts, I am just curious as to what you think the differences are.

 

[Tibbar]

The whole price argument is rather silly. Yes, Apple's server class stuff may be priced competitively, but the fact remains that you can still buy hardware that is $1500 cheaper, and while it may be desktop, not server-class, it still whoops the Mac Pro in most benchmarks (Gizmodo's review shows this).

The Apple fanboys that are keeping their eyes wide shut have latched on to EFi-X's silly statement that "It is not for [those] who wants to save money." For practically equivalent power, you do save money.

So the point is, now you can build your own "Mac" for less than $1000 that is MUCH more powerful than the iMac and on par with the Mac Pro. And the graphics card is upgradeable!!!

 

[ChrisA]

Actually it shares more with the XW8600 series than the DL series. But that's splitting hairs.

Mac Pros really aren't any more expensive than an HP or Dell workstation. In fact I think they're a better value, given their construction.

I just compared a MP with a XW8600. The Apple machine is cheaper but the thing I like most about the MP is the RAM. Apple uses ECC RAM and that's a big plus.

The MP and the HP XW8600 are both very nice computers but bolth are far more than most people need. I'm doing software development work that uses a database and really can use the fastest system I can get.

Apple needs to sell a "mainstream" desktop, I moderate quad core with room inside for two disks a coupe PCI cards would be ideal, just like the old G4 power Mac was.

I have an XW8400 that I'm using right now to type this with. We are going to replace it. The 8400 has two Xeon CPU chips each running 3.6Ghz and I have 4GB RAM and a pair of SCSI-320 disk drives. The new 8600 would have a pair of four core Xeons and some SAS disk drives in it but it sells for over $4.5 K I can get a nice 8-core MP for slightly less.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

I see this whole issue as being the same as with the music industry fighting with downloaded music. It's really a stupid fight because the labels could have made money off this. Everyone knows what the customer wants. The recording industry refused to sell what the market demanded. So the customers bypassed the CD and got their music off the Internet. Had the major labels been there with the product napster and iTunes would never have been created.

it's not the say thing as downloading music as you are paying for mac os x.

 

[macphisto]

But seriously. This is evolution at work. Apple have a product people want, but refuse to package it in a way that a lot of people want. So, nature finds a way. It's how the universe works.

If Apple make OS X available for PC, then they can stop these upstarts in their tracks.

But by making it available for the PC, they then become like Microsoft and have to support even more hardware configurations, driver and such.

Or if they sell a PC version and offer no guarantee/support that it works and a consumer runs into a problem, then it is "Apple's fault" even though it explicitly stated that it may not work with "your configuration", which would erode Apple credibility and the reputation that Apple has worked to establish over the years. (And this is reaching, but it could be an extreme case).

 

[Plutonius]

Apple Support

Is Apple legally bound to support OSX even though it is being run in a PC ? If so, I think they have to object to it.

 

[Tibbar]

Victor, I guess there are several things that can set apart server-workstations from desktops. Many server boards have dual CPU sockets and support different RAM and lots more storage. Historically, Intel server CPUs supported extra features like 64-bit processing, virtualization, etc. but these have trickled down to the desktop CPUs now.

I think of workstations as massively powerful desktops (often with multi-core server components and high-end graphics) for a specialized task such as CAD design, a high-end video editing/compositing system, or medical imagery that requires real-time feedback.

I usually think of servers as relatively autonomous machines that have tasks related to web services, backup data centers, computing clusters, or render farms. You send jobs to them, and they send you back results. They stay on constantly and if their nodes are packed in close spaces, they need power-efficient components, because running them for a year or two could cost more in electricity than the server itself. AMD Opterons and Intel Xeon processors have some very efficient variants. Did you see the new 6-core Intel Dunnington press release yesterday?

I guess desktops are just lower end. They don't have error-checking RAM, usually. They support lots of consumer software well but maybe they would choke a little on the workstation tasks (really, though you can build a pretty powerful desktop).

Maybe someone else can continue with differences...

 

[rhpenguin]

Edit: it appears that people are doing it for cheaper by buying used parts and overclocking them. As for used parts, ...well, need I say more? And overclocking reduces the stability and reliability of your computer. Enjoy your piecemealed computer.

I do enjoy my piecemealed, overclocked computer running OS X reliably. I have been enjoying it at 3.8GHz since January of '07. In that time I've been able to replace my motherboard (from an Asus P5B-VM to a P5K) to add more functionality for a modest $100 and add a new video card (7600GT to 8800GTX).

This machine handles Photoshop and Illustrator better than the crappy iMac (2.4GHz) and cost me a hell of a lot less than a Mac Pro. I also have dual matched LCDs which is something I can not accomplish with the iMac or Mini.

 

[nixfu]

GIVE ME A XMAC NOW!

OR ...or.... I'm gonna build my own man!! I'm serious. I am tired of waiting. I am tired of having only a choice between a laptop glued to the back of a monitor or a 5000-core super computer.

I want a DESKTOP...A REAL DESKTOP.


Do it....or else!!


I'm telling you man...I am serious this time. I am giving Apple until xmas, and then I am heading to hackintosh-land.




/it's NOT about price, its about product. If apple had a desktop, I would buy it...even if it was a little more expensive than a similar Dell.

 

[BenRoethig]

Out of curiosity, what do you personally think the difference between "desktop" and "workstation" CPU's are?

For that matter, what do you think the difference is between a desktop, a workstation, and a server?

Can one machine be all three, and what do you think the effect would be if you put a "desktop" chip in say, a "server"?

I realize that everyone thinks about these things in different terms, and I have my own thoughts, I am just curious as to what you think the differences are.

In the current incarnation, the workstation xeons are essentially core 2s with SMP support added. Doesn't sound like much, but it effectively doubles the price per CPU.

 

[kingtj]

Just saw your post and +1 agree!!

I spent many years building my own PCs from scratch. My first 3 jobs were working as a back-room tech, assembling and fixing these "generic clone PCs", in fact.

The fact is though, we no longer live in the early 1990's - and PCs have pretty much become commodity goods, just like microwave ovens or clothes washers. Back when I saw BIG advantages to building my own custom PC, it was a world without USB ports, for starters. Lots of devices anyone can just load a driver for and plug into any USB port today required special-order PC cards to do back then. Not nearly as many things came standard on a motherboard either, and quality of given "staple item cards" like network adapters or sound cards varied wildly among different brands and models.

These days, I don't even really *like* having to mess around with things like installing a CPU on a socket, spreading the heat-sink grease properly, and affixing a heatsink and fan with the "fasteners du jour" that inevitably require careful pushing and prying with a screwdriver. I just want a computer that meets my needs and is ready to go, out of the box. I'll have plenty to do, just customizing and installing all the software and peripherals, anyway.

I certainly can't claim to speak for you, but I wanted to point out that after I bought my first "clone shop" PC, I said the same as you: I resolved always to build my own systems piece by piece, for the same reasons you said: I wanted to tinker, I wanted to choose the best components, I wanted to be able to upgrade. It was only after building a few PC's and looking back, that I realized that, other than the hard drive and RAM and maybe the odd video card, I wasn't actually able to upgrade anything. By the time I was ready to upgrade a CPU, the socket/slot architecture had changed so I needed a new motherboard too, and that also entailed a new kind of RAM, and in one case a switch from AT to ATX-style cases and power supplies, by that point it was easier just to buy another box and start over...

After I realized this, my next machines were Dell laptops, followed by my PowerBook, and now an iMac. I've never missed the ability to "tinker" beyond upgrading hard drives and RAM.

 

[feakbeak]

I certainly can't claim to speak for you, but I wanted to point out that after I bought my first "clone shop" PC, I said the same as you: I resolved always to build my own systems piece by piece, for the same reasons you said: I wanted to tinker, I wanted to choose the best components, I wanted to be able to upgrade. It was only after building a few PC's and looking back, that I realized that, other than the hard drive and RAM and maybe the odd video card, I wasn't actually able to upgrade anything. By the time I was ready to upgrade a CPU, the socket/slot architecture had changed so I needed a new motherboard too, and that also entailed a new kind of RAM, and in one case a switch from AT to ATX-style cases and power supplies, by that point it was easier just to buy another box and start over...

After I realized this, my next machines were Dell laptops, followed by my PowerBook, and now an iMac. I've never missed the ability to "tinker" beyond upgrading hard drives and RAM.

I can certainly understand that. I may do a bit more than you in tinkering, but not much. I've rearranged my RAID array a couple times on my current machine. You are right if you want a new CPU, unless the socket architecture was brand new when you built, you'll probably need a new board, which often means you need new RAM, etc. My general cycle is to build a new system every 4-5 years, about halfway through that cycle I upgrade my GPU and usually add RAM. I may swap up hard drives at any time.

An iMac would work well with me and I could probably live with just having one large hard drive and having the RAM be a little less expandable than your average desktop might be doable for me. What kills the deal is the GPU soldered onto the MB. I game a bit and while I'm not hardcore I know the usable life of a GPU for gaming isn't going to last as long as I expect a system to last, 4-5 years.

I still wouldn't be happy having my display permanently tied to my computer. I love the current iMac design, but I'm just too practical about these things. If the GPU was user-upgradable, I could possibly consider an iMac. But honestly, is it really asking that much for Apple to produce a consumer desktop that isn't a gimmick?

 

[jzuena]

Sun Microsystems used to be just like Apple. They sold their OS only for use on their own hardware and the hardware used Sun's own CPU chip the "SPARC". But Sun changed. Now they've open sourced their OS and anyone can download it free and run it on a PC. Sun still sells SPARC based computers but now they also sell Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron based machines.

Could Apple make money the way Sun does? By giving away Mac OS X for free and selling hardware? I think they could. The Apple hardware would be the best hardware and the only hardware with Apple support but by giving away Mac OS X they create a huge demand and gain market share and some percent of those people will want Apple brand hardware. People still buy Sun hardware and pay a ppremium pric for it too even if they no longer need it to run Solaris.

Seems to be working for Sun.

I am fairly certain that Apple doesn't want to be like Sun. Morningstar stock grades on Sun - Growth: C, Profitability: C-, Financial Health: D.