The Hackintosh

I havent been around for ages so I thought I would come back with a gift.

Recently I have been looking into installing the Mac OS Leopard onto a pc. I had tried many different computers and not all work. I was able to get every single one to boot (Pentium 4+) but each one had specific minor problems. The main issue was getting the sound working and work certain pc's it is near impossible.
If you check out the OSX86 project on Wiki or google 'Mac OSX on a pc' you can find many diferent guides on how to do it. Each installation is unique so you have to make sure to read everything.

Currently I am running a Toshiba Satellite A200 laptop with triple boot (Vista/Leopard/XP)
On this specific laptop installation using the Kalyway 10.5.2 DVD it was nearly flawless. Out of the box everything worked minus the DVD writer. After a few minutes of searching I found the cure and now the system works flawless.

I have not benchmarked anything but from just basic experience OS X Leopard runs much faster and much more efficient than Windows XP. Needless to say it makes Vista just seem like a joke.

The reason I am writing about this is the abundance of software written for mac surrounding video/music editting and I know a lot of the homegrown crew would benefit from it.

If you have any questions send me an IM and Ill see what I can do.

And do the right thing, buy a copy of Leopard. Its only $120.00 from the Apple site (you can more than likely find it cheaper, I just checked Apple. Even if you have to use a patched DVD to install, its still good to own an actual copy of said OS.

I was able to turn a $700 laptop into essentially a $1200 mac with very little work or snags. Now that its set up I dont think I will ever go back to Microsoft. Soon I will be adding a linux partition so I can quad boot.
The main issue is certain things I use can only be used on windows platforms, some mac so its worthwhile to multi boot.

Anyway thats my post for the day.

Peace

or just buy a mac and benefit from all the glory that is dual monitoring, black magic cards to grade on an external monitor. The general sexiness of sitting next to a mac all day etc.

FOrget what I said, Im drunk.

Good to see you back Ryan.

Hows the tattoo buisness treating you?

pretty neat stuff ryan. still got that piece I sent you awhile back?? the portrait one?? anywho hows it been going??

Vista was a joke man, it was all a rib by Bill Gates and boy how their faces were red.

Ignore me.

Tattooin is going solid, been running the shop for a year and a half and it lets me have fun.

I was going to buy a mac flat out but I decided to go the way of a cheaper laptop and convert it. I can run pretty much any feature needed. The only thing that does NOT work is I cant double tap on the trackpad to use it as a double click. I cured that problem quick because I use a Wacom tablet to run all my mouse duties.

Dual monitors/Airport Extreme as well as loads of other shit work right out of the box.

Granted if you have the money to buy a Mac and not look back, go ahead. This is just a more cost effective way of using the OSX platform. Eventually I will buy a real mac, I just wanted to run everything first.

I just find in the world of laptops, mac doesnt provide me with much. Either the screen's are small or with the case of the airbook (which I almost bought) its too easy to lose. I live a life that restricts me from buying something I can lose.

Its not a mac but for the price it is close enough. Reading over the mac forums I have actually noticed loads of people with issues ranging from USB dropouts to loss of primary display and that is all on legitimate Macs of all varieties (Power book, Mac Pro, iMac) and Apple doesnt seem to be on top of the problem. With all that said, I chose the cheaper alternative. It wont be long till I upgrade yet again but I got to stop blowing money. Last weekedn alone I blew $4000.00 just on random shit for fun so its gonna be a month or two until I get a legit powerbook. Once I got that I can test side by side and see the benefits/short comings of each.


And yes, Vista is a fucking joke. It came pre installed on the laptop so I tried to use it for a week or two. It has certain features that are nice (added Wacom support and features) and the look of it is OK and the longhorn indexing for searching is blazing fast. But that is where it ends....... It is brutal. I feel sorry with anyone stuck with Vista

No but seriously I think Vista is awesome.

I am debating weather or not to get a mac, and I had my mind set on a mac for awhile but I did some resurch and I can get a 24inch Imac 3.06ghz with 4 gigs of ram and 1 tb hd space for 3 grand. Or quad core HP pc with the same graphics card as the mac, 1.5tb space, 8gigs of ram and I can watch tv on it . also has a printer and wireless and whatnot. So should I go with the pc and just put leopard on it when I want to use final cut and stuff?

EDIT: I should also mention that the pc has a 24in monitar aswell, but is only 2.83GHz. The total cost of the mac is 3100 and the pc is 3600.

Would final cut pro and all the other mac programs work properly with it?

FCP is just Premiere!

From what I hear it's better, but I dont know if it is or not. I just want whatever is best for my new laptop. Plus I'll probably be learning it in school pretty soon.

ya apperently my friend can get leopard working perfectly.

Do you have any links to tutorials or anything? I'm seriously considering this.

AVID

ryan, I added you on MSN, I am seriously considering this as well. im fed up with vista. send me an IM whenever you get a chance, I can never seem to catch you online.

just email his eternal ink email. he rarely comes online, but checks that usually once an hour

Due to interest Ill post some info for everyone. There are a few really useful links and I wrote up a basic tutorial of how I did things (Completely from memory so rely on the guides first and cross reference with mine)

To answer a the question regarding software. I have not found a single piece of software that hasnt worked flawlessly yet. Some programs are harder to come by but I have found no compatibility issue. With that said also remember if you are installing a game and dont have the minimum system requirements, doesnt matter if its Windows/Mac/Linux/Unix it will not work. As of yet though I have not had a single issue and am running many current programs.

Its faster, better looking and a conversation piece. Its priceless sitting next to someone who just shelled out a few grand for a Mac and you are sitting there with a more inexpensive PC running the same programs and OS they paid big bucks to use.

Project Wiki
Insanely Mac Forums
Dual Boot Vista - Leopard
General Installation Guides

Those above are some good places to start with. Make sure to read all the system requirements. You must have a processor with certain capabilities (anything Pentium 4 I have had success with / Core2Duo seems to be the best bet)

MAKE SURE YOU READ THE GUIDES! ALL THE INFO BELOW IS FROM MEMORY SO I MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN A STEP OR TWO. IF YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING YOU CAN EASILY RENDER YOU COMPUTER USELESS (Not permanent but if you dont know what you are doing, you wont know how the hell to fix it)

YOU NEED:
Intel SSE3 processor
Minimum 512mb of RAM
Kalyway 10.5.2 DVD
Windows Vista or XP Disc (Make sure you have this because you will have to repair Windows near the end)
A few hours and some patience

You will want to track down a patched dvd image of leopard. You can find it just as easy as a movie, album so on so forth. Search 'Kalyway 10.5.2'

Ill give you a basic idea of how it goes, the process depending on setup can be just as easy or a total pain in the ass hence the reading before you jump into it.

Once you have located and downloaded the Kalyway 10.5.2 DVD you must burn it as an ISO using whatever program you would use to burn ISO files. Personally I use Nero Burning Rom (Not Nero Express) to burn all my ISO files and have never had an issue.


Once you have the DVD, you must go about setting up a partition (you can set multiple on one drive, have a separate drive for each partition.. the possibilities are pretty much endless. Google 'Setting up a new partition" or 'How to shrink partition'. Most of the tutorials tell you to leave the new partition raw, I found this way caused a lot of issues (there are so many different patched DVD's out there that it is hard to find what works best so you are best off with the Kalyway DVD) so what I did was format the new partition as a raw fat32 partition.

*To actively send files between the two operating systems without any extra programs, format a third partition as fat32, that way both Windows and Mac OS' can read the file structure.

**Partition 1 - Windows Vista
**Partition 2 - Leopard
**Partition 3 - Fat32 Shared

Once you have the partitions set (you pick what you want, realistically you can boot Vista/XP/Leopard/Ubuntu
all off of the same drive so its all personal preference)

Now it is time to restart and boot into the installation DVD. If you dont know how, you should probably stop now and take a bit of time to research things. If you know how, do it.

A screen will pop up asking what you want to do (Darwin Bootloader) I usually enter the command -v
to start with diagnostic info.

If everything goes right, you will soon see the apple logo in white on a grey screen and a loading animation.
It will take a minute or two depending on your computer but should load a screen that asks you what language you would like to use. Chose your language and hit next. A new screen will pop up saying start installation or something along those lines. DO NOT CLICK NEXT, instead look at the top and click on 'Utilities' and then on 'Disk Utility'. At this point you are able to view your hard drive layout and should be able to see all the partitions you created earlier. The only partition you must worry about at this point is the volume you pan to install Leopard on. Select it and check the 'Erase' tab. You will have an option of naming the volume and choosing what the file system is. You must make the Leopard partition MAC JOURNALED EXTENDED, name the volume 'Leopard' and click erase. The partition will now be visible by Mac.

Exit the diskutil resume the installation. It will ask you what drive you want to install on, chose the one you just created and it will then ask you what you want to install (The DVD comes with different Kext files for different mobo's, chipsets, video drivers and so on. Do not add anything, just leave as is and install. Installation seems buggy when things are added on installation. Install vanilla and see what you need later.

If everything goes well it will tell you everything installed and reboot.

At this point check to see if you can still boot into Vista/XP (It will still be set as the primary OS)

If you cant boot in and there are any errors, restart with your Vista/XP disc in and click on 'Repair'

Once that is done restart without the disc in a see if it will boot into Windows. If it does, great! you are almost there. At this point you have to get a program called 'FreeBSD'. This program allows you to install a multi boot loaded. Google 'FreeBSD' and I believe there is a tutorial on their site on how to add new OS's to the loader.

Once you have done that, restart and you should see a screen after POST asking you what OS you would like to use. Try booting into Leopard.

If it doesnt work, restart with the Kalyway DVD in and go to the Disk Utility again. This time what you want to do is as follows. Click on 'Leopard' and I think it is the 'First Aid' tab. You will see Verify Disk/Repair Disk, Verify Permissions/Repair Permissions. Start with verify disk, then repair, then verify permissions, then repair. This will make sure everything is good to go and the drive is active.

Restart and on the selection screen, chose Leopard again. When it says Boot: put in -v to boot with diagnostics. If everything worked right you should be loading into Leopard at this point and filling in all of your info.

Both boots should work.


My best advice before doing this is make sure you have a pc you can use just in case you need to google something and you cant boot into either OS. It is not foolproof, what we are doing is taking something meant for something else and adapting it to our machines. All of this is for research purposes only.

Take your time and dont jump in until you have an idea what you are doing. Insanely Mac forums are full of guides. Almost every problem I had cured has been due to articles there (and a bit of common sense).

Dont try and jump in and just install Leopard just yet. Dual boot for a while first.

Not everything will work. Currently I have a few minor issues (cant double tap track pad, laptop input/headphone port does not work) but the benefits greatly outweigh the downfalls. The sound issue is just with the inputs themselves. I have HD sound through the speakers no problem and a USB soundcard works fine.

I picked up a Toshiba Satellite A200 for $700.00 and it came with 2 gig ram, core2duo 1.76mhz, 200 gig sata drive. For speed its a HUGE improvement over even XP I find. Big monitors are a dime a dozen now too. Buy a laptop with s-video out or HDMI out (A200 Models come with either or both) and just plug into a big tv as a secondary monitor.

As for storage space what I do is run external drives that way if I need to go somewhere I grab a drive and go.
I have almost 3tb of active storage space on the go (I have been accused of being the second worst downloader in all of Shaw Cable's service area. Roughly 160gigs a month transfer)


I set everything up with the laptop, wireless draft n router, 500gig wd MyBook and a 3 year warrenty for $1200.00 taxes included. thats more than half of what the mac goes for and with the WD MyBook's you can get them for pretty cheap ($140 for a 500gig)

For $2000 you could have a sweet fully functional system with enough money left over to buy a few hookers or somethin.

And for printers, the best bet by far are the new Kodak printers. The ink for an entire set is only 20 something dollars so it gives you tremendous bang for the buck.

One thing I have noticed with the Mac that I dont like is they find any way possible to get money out of your pocket. If I am paying $2000 for a Macbook Air, I really dont think I should have to pay an extra $100 to get the Superdrive (DVD-RW/CD-RW....)

Been looking into doing this for the past couple months for my laptop. Got a decent one, so I was looking to dualboot XP/Mac for FCP. The only reason I haven't done so is cause the laptop is my only computer at the moment, and I can't fuck up my xp. Once I get my desktop working (soon) I'll be doing this as well, and I'll post either a video guide or an image guide on how to do it.

Also, you can dual monitor with the hackintosh. And it seems like you missed one of the pinnicle forums that was part of this project (Well, mainly the forums)... www.insanelymac.com

The Macbook air is a piece of shit. Just a commidity. I sell PCs at best buy and never once have I sold a air in the 6 months we've been selling em.

Personally when it comes to notebooks, Mac doesn't really do anything for me. Id rather just buy something else. The main thing with computers is the market moves so fast keeping up to date can be such a waste of money. Just look at the core2duo CPU's. When they first came out you were paying out the ass for em, now the are being dwarfed by quadcore and octocore.

if you have the windows xp disc you installed with you can repair anything that screws up but I wouldnt suggest doing it on a primary computer. I have 4 desktops and 1 notebook on the go so I always have something to back up on. Ill admit I was worried installing it on the notebook but I couldnt be happier

and for everyone out there, there are a lot more beneficial programs for Mac out there than just Final Cut. The iWork and iLife sets have some decent software. If you play music, there is a lot of power available. I find for recording multi track Leopard beats any Windows OS hands down for speed.

Thing I like about Mac is they are always expanding the multimedia uses for professional applications like music/movies and neat things like This

Thanks for the guide man, ill give it a shot when I get some free time.

okay, I have an HP Pavillion dv9000 laptop, it has an AMD processor that I believe is SSE3, but dont know where to look to make sure. I may not know enough about computers to do this, but am willing to learn. im desperately tired of vista. and I dont see anything for AMD processors anywhere. the only thing I found for an AMD is a torrent for the iATKOS or whatever it is that is compatible with AMD. but I see no tutorials/walkthroughs for it.

You can dump down to XP.

Kalaway Mac dvds also offer versions that are compatible with AMD chips. Which AMD processor do you have? If it's an X2, you should be fine.

lets do some fuckin stunts!

yes, it is an x2 processor, but I was wondering how to do a dual boot between xp and a mac os. ive always been interested in using mac, but never had time, or the availability to use any. I guess ill just settle to dump down to xp. ill look on those forums posted above for step by steps.

you been working on it at all?? like working on portraits?? in general?? im still unsure about it. but I know iw want a tat from you, just dunno what it will be