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Mac OS on a PC: Can it be done?

B

Ball

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 7, 2007
20
2
I am thinking about getting a Mac but I would really like only one computer. I currently have a Sont VAIO and it is great except for Windows. I think that is the case with most PCs. Now with that nightmare called Windows Vista thing are only going to get worse and that is why I would like to run the Mac OS on a PC.

I think it would be good for Mac because from what I know and I don't know much, the main reason Mac are a joy and PC can be a pain in the butt are the respective operating systems.

What has kept me from getting a Mac is the fact that it is proprietary. When Dells starting sucking PC uses had many choices but with the G3 and G4 logic board problems Mac users don't have a choice.

Form a business point of view Apple could clean up if their OS was available for PCs and anything that can even in a small way put the screws to MicroSoft would be a good thing. I would venture to say that 99% of the problems PC have are Windows related.

My Sony is a robust machine. I would really love it if it would behave like a Mac.
 
Not legally, and its not great if you manage (difficult, and crashes on updates etc.) to do it. I recommend Ubuntu for now :)
 
It CAN be done. But as far as I know it is illegal. It is very hard. It should NOT work flawlessly. Its better that you buy a Mac.
 
It can be done but it is illegal, they are called hackintoshes *cough*. It works best if the hardware is the same as macs.

To be fair windows does have to deal with a lot of hardware.
 
Just buy a mac. I gave hackintosh a try prior to getting my mac and it ran but not very well. Ultimately it sold me on the whole thing. Within a couple of months I'd scraped together the money to buy a macbook pro and I haven't looked back since.
 
  • It can be done
  • It's illegal
  • It generally works assuming your hardware's from after 2004
  • It's not to difficult anymore
  • Apple wont release OS X for generic PC's
 
Download.com recently posted a video on how to do this. But in the video the guy specifically tells you not to do it. (Kinda strange... if you don't want people to do something, why show them how?)
 
Zwhaler said:
Download.com recently posted a video on how to do this. But in the video the guy specifically tells you not to do it. (Kinda strange... if you don't want people to do something, why show them how?)
Click to expand...

Interesting. What version of OSX where they using?
 
Err.. google it.

It is possible, and its been done lots of times, including my success.

Its gotten rather easy too. Used to be mind-numbingly annoying and difficult.
 
Yes,ofcourse it can be done....who cares if its illegal heh?!
thats what i though first,3 of my friends tried many ways to do it..they end up screwing up their computers...
so i decided to sell my brand new Siemens laptop and buy this macbook pro..which is such a peice of awesome hardware!!!

im 18,a hairdresser -not great income- but i thought that it still worth it losing moneyfrom selling a new windows laptop..and paying lots more for this ''screamer''.:apple:
 
XheartcoreboyX said:
Yes,ofcourse it can be done....who cares if its illegal heh?!
thats what i though first,3 of my friends tried many ways to do it..they end up screwing up their computers...
so i decided to sell my brand new Siemens laptop and buy this macbook pro..which is such a peice of awesome hardware!!!

im 18,a hairdresser -not great income- but i thought that it still worth it losing moneyfrom selling a new windows laptop..and paying lots more for this ''screamer''.:apple:
Click to expand...

This isnt windows talk buddy. THIS... IS... SPARTA!
 
My experience:

It is easy if you follow one of the numerous guides out there.

Easier still if you buy hardware that has already been verified as working (from a list i saw there was about an 75% success rate with most components, and patches and drivers arrive all the time)

Once it is installed it worked flawlessly.
 
I had a buddy in school who pulled the stock motor from his old Ford pickup and dropped in a Cadillac engine. He called the thing a Fordillac.

It was a unique bit of engineering but it never seemed to be worth all the trouble he had. Nothing ever worked quite right.

My question is - why would anyone want to take the Mac OS (Cadillac engine) and drop it into a PC (old Ford pickup)?

Just buy the damn Caddy (Mac) and be done with it. Besides if Apple had to start making sure their software worked on every jerk-water machine out there the software wouldn't work half as well as it does.
 
Why would people do such a thing? Simple:

You get a consumer Mac tower or mobile computer, free choice of CPU, Board, faster RAM, faster GPU Cards, all that the "rest of the prosumer/gamer" wants but not get from Apple. And the other thing, it´s a cheap way to get into Mac OS X for a non Apple user, also it is just a "project of interest", why not, people do things like putting OS 7/8 on Nintendo DS or PSP and so on, why not on PC? And don´t forget, you may get OS X to work on PC but you may not get a Mac experience from it.

And to repeat it: It´s illegal, don´t try this at home. :)
 
It goes against the User agreement. You will lose out on a lot of the things that make OS X so great. Considering the cost of putting together a PC that would give you the most out of OS X you'll be better off just getting a Mac. The new iMacs are rather inexpensive and would be a great starting ground for you.
 
If it's a new machine just add the extra cost if any and get a real mac. If you only have an old machine it can probably be done. Intel CPU with SSE3 and Nvidia graphics but not so new that it has 512MB vram or more is recommended. Also you will never know what updates might break your machine.

Also you might miss out on power saving features and such.
 
Works great if you have the right hardware. It actually works a lot better on a desktop than a laptop. You might lose out on a lot of things that should work on a laptop like wireless, trackpad, sleep mode.

If you have an intel 3945 wireless card you can pretty much forget about wireless.
If you have synaptics trackpad there's no 2 finger scrolling or regular scrolling for that matter.
Some video cards won't work with it leaving you without quartz extreme or core image.
Sleep may not work on your laptop when you close the lid.

As you can see most of this is negligible on a desktop but really necessary for a laptop which is why I made the switch. If you have a newer vaio notebook I suggest selling it to get a macbook. It'll make your life a whole lot easier.
 
OldManJimbo said:
My question is - why would anyone want to take the Mac OS (Cadillac engine) and drop it into a PC (old Ford pickup)?
Click to expand...

I think you have that the wrong way round - why would you buy a Mac (Cadillac engine) and drop Windows onto it (old Ford pickup).

Now that Mac's are Intel, using OSX on a PC isn't exactly dropping it into something old or crappy is it since the specifications are pretty much exactly the same - but in saying that there is a slightly different structure/design to the two builds which benefits OSX.
 
OldManJimbo said:
...My question is - why would anyone want to take the Mac OS (Cadillac engine) and drop it into a PC (old Ford pickup)?...
Click to expand...
Put it this way:
If MacOS is a Cadillac engine and you can fit it in a Ford pick-up you could probably fit it in a sexy two seat roadster too. What analogue would you use for Apple hardware?
 
Ball said:
I would venture to say that 99% of the problems PC have are Windows related.
Click to expand...

99% of the problems Windows has are PC related. What makes macs brilliant is the fact that the operating system is tightly integrated with compatible hardware. Of course, some would argue that it cripples macs as well.

I'd buy a mac, you'll really enjoy the real deal.
 
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