>Microsoft sells software, Apple sells hardware with matching software.

Something Microsoft would love, love, love to change about themselves. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Surface

And according to companies like HP , they are officially a competitor. At least for them. On paper. They have yet to make any real world moves to proof they actually compete in the hardware sector. A 800 million dollar write off with the first device does not really count.

I feel the need to point out that you can run Mac OS X on pretty much any recent Intel processor and a wide range of motherboards. It is not locked to Apple hardware.

Have you seen the docs for what it takes to get that running? Have you seen the docs for what it takes to complete a normal "update"?

Trying to run OS X on non-Apple hardware makes the old days of "cumbersome" Linux-systems look like kindergarten-stuff.

I'd hardly say it just runs.

If you spend the time to research and get the parts that are supported by OS X, building a Hackintosh is breeze. I have had no problems with the one I built.

That's sort of what he's going for though- remember the old days of Linux when only certain devices were supported? When using OS X like this, you don't even have the luxury of writing in new code to support them.

It's definitely limited. But hackintoshes are a planned and strategic undertaking. You want OS X but don't want to pay the rape rates requisite of the apple brand. So you build your pc based on the hardware guide so that everything will work from the start. If you need to add more hardware, you just buy the brand that will work. There's not enough limitation to make it suck, and you're paying 700-800 bucks for a computer that the mac equivalent would run you 3 grand.

Could you give us a couple links to kick off our own research? I've been wanting to do this for some time now but have been putting it off.

Tonymac is the best you'll find:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/

Their recommended builds are excellent, even if you were only to use them for Windows.

Maybe I was unlucky with my hardware but for me it was an uphill battle all the way and I never got anything near working.

The best I had was a system which booted (incredibly slowly) and for which I could never get wifi working.

YMMV, but you have been warned. Even with good documentation, there is absolutely no guarantee you'll get anywhere at all.

You've really got to just follow the hardware guides to the tee, and I personally recommend using their prebuilt configs. If you go on tonymac or the other hackintosh sites they will have different hardware lists that are more or less guaranteed to work, as all the components will be ones used in mac desktops and have built in support. There is definitely a huge dick around if you try and be adventurous and go off the beaten path, and you will spend hours messing with the loader configs and kexts etc.

The OSx86 Wiki [0] is a good place to start.

[0]: http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Na. If you get the right parts(mainly gigabyte motherboards) and read TonyMacOSX, you can get a Hackintosh up as easy as a Linux install.

It's literally build the computer, put the required software on USB drive(Unibeast). Boot computer, format drive, install OSX. Run Multibeast. Voila. Keep usb drive for when you update.

When the Hackintosh movement started that was the case, sure. Nowadays it's a lot easier - tools like MultiBeast make it trivial on fully compatible hardware.

Have you read the updated docs? Oh, you didn't get the memo. Oh, the memo is stuck in 1999. Oh.

Theres a reason they call them Hackintosh. It's not because that is an officially supported configuration.

There's a giant difference between "not officially supported" and "a cryptography chip locks you out".

I guess you should take a look at what installing a hackintosh system entails. It starts with flashing your BIOS and it doesn't get any better afterwards.

You're either running a massively unsupported configuration (even for hackintosh standards) or just plain trolling. I'm posting this from a hackintosh I triboot with Windows and Debian. The difficulty involved reading a HCL when I built the system 3 years ago. The installation involved burning a disc and booting from it.

Nope. You burn the disk and install OSX as normal. Depending on the hardware you might need to download a few kext (Kernal Extensions AKA "drivers") Comparable to installing Linux or Windows.

> It starts with flashing your BIOS and it doesn't get any better afterwards.

Not true at all. Maybe if you're using old or unsupported hardware.

At most you'll need to set your BIOS to Optimized Defaults.

There is a certain working around the official seals involved. Google DSMOS.

When I was dabbling with Hackintoshes a few years ago, updating the OS was not supported (regardless of your hardware) and there were a couple of other limitations. Have most major issues like that been sorted out?

Nope, I'm burning a new usb install for Mavericks as we speak lol, have to do a whole new install for a major upgrade like this.

Which I did/do for my Macbook Pro anyway. So when I got into the Hackintosh scene, it's second nature. I typically recommend formatting when upgrading anyway. Just doesn't feel right to just upgrade. Maybe it's just left over nightmares from when I was on Windows. Only way to upgrade was to format.

> OSX won't even run without a chip confirming its an authentic Mac.

You mean EFI? Because Macs don't have any special hardware inside, and especially not any "authentic Mac" chips.

They have at least one special chip that must be emulated - the smc. If you havent read the story of the copy protection poem you should check it out.

And it's worth pointing out that the SMC does more than copy protection. It's also responsible for some power management functions and practically all the thermal management - which is nice because it means you get sensible fan speeds even when running a different OS that doesn't have drivers for the Mac.

What chip? I have a hakintosh with 10.8.4..