Hackintosh? More like crap-intosh.

[seer]

I've 'built' 4 hackintoshes which probably describes most of the OSX86's experiences.

Attempt 1 - heard it was possible to install OSX on non-apple hardware, thought "that sounds cool!" Tried it on the nearest free hardware available and had limited success as it was totally random components.

Attempt 2 - Heard specific hardware worked that I had (in my case a DELL Latitude D820) and spent a little time finding the drivers etc and had a 90% functional system (only wireless didnt work)

Attempt 3 - Knew exactly what hardware was required, 100% supported motherboard, specific nvidia card etc etc. Built and installed a perfectly functional hackintosh in less than 2 hours. Less than £300 I had something better specced than a top of the range imac hooked up to my 46" Plasma and have had that as my mediacentre/living room surfing machine for about a year. No update has broken it, and works beautifully

Attempt 4 - Considering myself something of an expert on the process, I challenged myself to get COMPLETELY UNSUPPORTED hardware working. It took several weeks and I got it 80% functional (dodgy sound and occasional crashing of the NIC). I was just happy to have got so far, learnt a lot of really cool things and most of all... enjoyed it!

Hackintoshes are a hobby, those of us technically interested in the challenges have never ending patience and I actually PREFER it when something doesn't work so I can research it and come up with a solution. If you are not a geek that likes hacking and battering hardware into working... either read some excellent guides on guaranteed to work hardware.... or don't bother. You really cannot expect any old PC lying around to stand better than a 10% chance of having sufficient hardware support within OSX to work.

 

[eelpout]

I'm tempted to build a hack Mac Pro Nehalem quad, because it can be done for about $1000 vs Apple's [absurd] $2500. And it will have better graphics too.

But, I'm not sure I want to set myself up to break out in a cold sweat whenever an update comes out. And then there's Snow Leopard which will be out within 6 months. You know you'll have to start all over again when that drops.

 

[nanofrog]

I'm tempted to build a hack Mac Pro Nehalem quad, because it can be done for about $1000 vs Apple's [absurd] $2500. And it will have better graphics too.

But, I'm not sure I want to set myself up to break out in a cold sweat whenever an update comes out. And then there's Snow Leopard which will be out within 6 months. You know you'll have to start all over again when that drops.

The move from Leopard to Snow Leopard probably won't be as much of a hassle from what I can tell.

Ultimately, we need to get our hands on a copy though.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

OP, if you built this then its your own fault for not looking up parts. I've built several hacks that have worked 100% because i spent 5 minutes with Google.

 

[VirtualRain]

Hackintosh, jail breaking, overclocking... I lump them all together into a hobby focused on doing more with less (or for less). It's a great learning experience and fun to tinker and tweak but I've had my fill of it over the years. I now loath the headaches associated with all of them and prefer for my computers and related devices to "just work" which is why I've moved exclusively to Apple products for their elegance, simplicity, and seamless integration. It's rewarding to not be fighting against the grain now... and just using something as it was intended! (What a concept! )

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

and just using something as it was intended!

Wheres the fun in that?!

 

[Tesselator]

The move from Leopard to Snow Leopard probably won't be as much of a hassle from what I can tell.

Ultimately, we need to get our hands on a copy though.

I see torrents of the beta all over the place. And getting on the Bata is (was) pretty easy too.

 

[nanofrog]

I see torrents of the beta all over the place. And getting on the Bata is (was) pretty easy too.

I don't like messing with torrents though. Sometimes I get on Beta programs, but not always. I did on Win7. Unfortunately, I didn't even look into it for SL.

I'll just wait for the official release.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

SL already works on Hackintoshes. The guys who have it working arent publishing the details yet because they dont want Apple to patch anything on the disc.

 

[windywoo]

I would hate to be the type of person whose time is "valuable". Get over yourself.

 

[Tesselator]

I'll just wait for the official release.

That's my plan as well. I like supporting Apple in this way. Great product, I need/want it, priced about right, deserves my loyal $upport.

I would hate to be the type of person whose time is "valuable". Get over yourself.

Nnnyaah, I can understand it tho. When I was teaching at two Universities, heading up the CG dept. at one, and also running a post production house (graphics for film and TV) I was making enough to pay others for their expertise but had no time of my own to monkey around with individual systems. DEC (when I had DECs) and DELL here in Japan are great about showing up with 2 or 3 technicians and a trunk-load of replacement parts within an hour or so after called. In those days "my time was valuable", more valuable than the respective company support costs. So it really wasn't an ego thing so much as it was just good business sense.

I would want to assume people here saying their time is valuable are in similar boats.

 

[nanofrog]

I would want to assume people here saying their time is valuable are in similar boats.

Not just the individual's time, but take into the consideration the time loss of multiple people when the system is down.

For SOHO/SMB/consultants, and the like, a missed deadline can cause all kinds of problems. Future revenue loss for starters. "I'll never call you again, and will make sure no one else I do business with does either" might be left ringing in their ear.

Eventually though, it might just come down not wanting to deal with the issues, and finally to one's ego.

 

[10THzMac]

Well I would not start building a hackintosh for a time-critical project right now. I think people build these things to overcome the challenge of doing it and just finding out how the systems work. And it can be fun. The people who make these things also save the rest of us some money by showing how to get PC hardware working in regular Macs, as I found out with the graphics card game recently.

Another point is that if you want a big tower with massive expansion, e.g. for many GPUS, hard disks and so on, the Mac Pro does not do it and you have to build a hack.

If you are going to go down this route, you must not be the sort of person who either gives up easily or does everything on the basis of costing your own time. Do you charge your children to spend time playing with them? This is now my least favourite thread since I started reading MacForums.

 

[DoFoT9]

haha dont go bashing something that you havent fully experienced OP, a hackintosh is a beautiful piece of hardware - the challenge of building a hackintosh is to hack it! (hack in this case meaning to tinker with).. you cant just expect it all to work , its not a real mac

 

[Tesselator]

Do you charge your children to spend time playing with them?

For 500 points: What is Ritalin?

Seriously with all the mommies and daddies putting their kids on Adderall, Buspar, Catapres, Concentra, Cylert, Daytrana, Desipramine, Facalin, LiquADD, Metadate CD, Methylin, Prozac, Ritalin, Srattera, Tenex, Tofranil, Wellbutrin, and/or Vyvanse I would have to say that indeed, it's popular or common for parents to think of their time as more valuable than the health and happiness of their children. Sad, but true.

 

[DoFoT9]

For 500 points: What is Rutalin?

isnt it Ritalin??

my dad can prescribe it

*twitches*

 

[Tesselator]

Huh? What are you talking about?

 

[DoFoT9]

Huh? What are you talking about?

get with the times man lol !!!!

ritalin, as in the drug that is prescribed to ADD/ADHD/whatnot youngesters??

or are you talking about something else

 

[Tesselator]

You missed it. You corrected my spelling... I corrected it by editing the post and then acted coy and innocent.

Oh well.. dry humor seldom works on-line...

 

[DoFoT9]

You missed it. You corrected my spelling... I corrected it by editing the post and then acted coy and innocent.

Oh well.. dry humor seldom works on-line...

ahh of course, how immature of me (thats my best feature eheh)

your mistake is still apparent though, mainly from my quote of the mis-spelt word. i might change it to make you look better if you are nice and grovel

 

[pastrychef]

Like quite a few others, I decided to try and in stall OS X on an MSI Wind. I originally did it out of curiosity. After having done it, I must say, I'm very impressed with how well it works. First, let me list the things that do not work:

1. When using the VGA port, video mirroring doesn't work. Extended desktop does.
2. The internal mic.

That's it! Everything else is running great, including trackpad scrolling, sleep, Quartz Extreme, Core Image, Bluetooth, Wifi, and webcam. Fusion can even run off of the Windows boot partition.

In my opinion, the build quality of the MSI Wind is not as good as a MacBook or MacBook Pro, but for it's price, one really can't complain. Would I ever replace my Mac Pro with a Hackintosh? Probably not, but this is a little machine that I don't mind bringing with me just about anywhere and don't mind tossing around.

 

[mmcxiiad]

I purchased a dell mini 9 (1.6ghz, 2gb ram, 64gb ssd, $400 refurb). In this case, the process of hackintoshing it is well documented and everything is working. It is fairly quick and works well.... for what it is. this is not my primary machine, so i use it for leisure (surfing the web, email, watching movies on the airplane via plex, etc). From a software perspective, it runs great & the OS actually believes it is a mac. I couldn't be happier with this part of my hackentosh.

From a hardware perspective.... it does leave a lot to be desired. It is cheap plastic. So definitely after using a unibody laptop you know that these two computers are in different leagues. Also, the screen resolution is not great (1024x600) but I can live with this.

To me, it is like eating Gourmet meal from a fancy restaurant, served at McDonalds (no wait staff, plastic utensils, cheap paper napkins, industrial plastic seating, drink machine).

For me, this is just something to use until apple creates a device (please, please, please make it a tablet) that can replace this. The day I can buy it, this is going on ebay.

On the other hand, for many other people it is a great way to fall in love with the mac experience, and then want the whole package.

 

[Tesselator]

Like quite a few others, I decided to try and in stall OS X on an MSI Wind. I originally did it out of curiosity. After having done it, I must say, I'm very impressed with how well it works.

This thing?:




How cute! And what are they? Like $300 or something? Kewl!​

 

[Wild-Bill]

Hack HTPC

My goal is to build a Hackint0sh for HTPC duties. Sure, the Mini is a great small form-factor, but it is too expensive for what you get. Building a custom Hackin0sh inside a slick home theater PC case will have it look as if it is right at home under my 46" Samsung, and come in at a cheaper price point than the Mini. All I need to do is some research into the most compatible components that will give me nice 1080p resolution, digital audio, at an economical price. From there I can be a bit more generous with the money for the case. I will also need to get some aftermarket IR remote capability.

Once that's done, I'll install and configure Plex and either use an Apple Remote or perhaps a Logitech remote. My Mac Pro will serve content over gigabit Ethernet.

I just need to find the time & patience to do it. I've got some older AMD PC components lying around, but I don't think my board is "out of the box" compatible so I may end up selling it.

 

[VirtualRain]

My goal is to build a Hackint0sh for HTPC duties. Sure, the Mini is a great small form-factor, but it is too expensive for what you get. Building a custom Hackin0sh inside a slick home theater PC case will have it look as if it is right at home under my 46" Samsung, and come in at a cheaper price point than the Mini. All I need to do is some research into the most compatible components that will give me nice 1080p resolution, digital audio, at an economical price. From there I can be a bit more generous with the money for the case. I will also need to get some aftermarket IR remote capability.

Once that's done, I'll install and configure Plex and either use an Apple Remote or perhaps a Logitech remote. My Mac Pro will serve content over gigabit Ethernet.

I just need to find the time & patience to do it. I've got some older AMD PC components lying around, but I don't think my board is "out of the box" compatible so I may end up selling it.

Why use OSX for a HTPC? Does it have some advantages over Win 7 in this dept? It definitely sounds more challenging (or in other words, destined for head-aches! )