Mac OSx on a built PC?

Discussion in 'Building a new PC' started by algore, Mar 20, 2008.

  1. algore

    algore Member

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    My buddy wants to buy a Mac Pro. I'm trying to convince him to let me build him a better computer at less than half the price. If a PC is built with the Xeon processors, will it run OSx? I mean, for real, not the Hackintosh. I don't want to get into the OS debate, but this means that he is really willing to spend over 3 grand to not learn windows. Thanks a lot.
     
  2. varnull

    varnull Guest

    Don't waste your time and his money.. just install linux. (os-x is only proprietary bsd/unix anyway dressed up for apple hardware)

    mac os-x doesn't run well (if at all) on intel chipsets because it is built for very specific apple hardware. AMD kit is even worse.. close to 0% success rate.. Very few people have managed to get it to run successfully, even after hacking it to the point it can no longer be considered os-x

    It can't be considered a viable full time OS for a machine.. I hear reports of no network cards and no sound drivers working at all. As you can't re-compile a kernel with the right modules for the hardware that leaves the situation of loading them afterwards as standalone modules and is fraught with difficulties.. usually because other core parts of the OS will still only use the kernel modules. As they are closed source (it is copyright proprietary software after all) there really isn't much you can do about it either.

    If your friend likes the "look and feel" of os-x there are many open source alternatives which are very similar. Dreamlinux looks almost identical, right down to the ipod loader ;)

    I hope that at least goes part way to explaining why this is a flawed plan from more than just a "it won't work" position.

    If he wants to buy a Mac then let him.. they are excellent machines with well built applications. Excelent professionally integrated hardware and software has been Apples trademark for a very very very long time. They sell into their market of professionals and people who want things to work without question. I always found using the office mac to be a joy compared to the more powerful intel P90/windows3.1 machine that was always getting screwed up in some way or other. How times haven't changed since '94.....
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 20, 2008
  3. algore

    algore Member

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    Thanks. I forgot about Linux. I might can talk him into that.
     
  4. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Yeah agreed, Linux will work on standard PC hardware and once you know what you're doing, there's pretty much nothng it can't do.
     
  5. algore

    algore Member

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    What do y'all think about just getting him a OSx skin? He's not exactly tech savvy.
     
  6. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    lol well that's purely down to you, whether he'd accept that. I'm not exactly sure you could pull the wool over his eyes and sneak XP on there.
     
  7. algore

    algore Member

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    ha, i just meant maybe he doesn't really car which he uses, he may just be familiar with the looks. i haven't seen a skin that good yet.
     
  8. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    I think StyleXP's Panther Scheme is supposed to be quite good...
     
  9. core2kid

    core2kid Regular member

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    Yea, I use that skin, it is really good. It doesn't give you the complete feel of OSX though, its just like a normal windows skin. Use ObjectDock for the dock things in OSX.
     
  10. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Last time I used stardock software, it ruined my XP install so badly I had to reformat. It was a relatively new install of XP too. Things may have improved since, but still... risky.
     
  11. algore

    algore Member

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    thanks everybody for responding. i tried the stylexp and it ended up giving me the blue screen. its all no good really, just buy the program you want. im done. if he wants it, he can buy a mac. sorry for the bad words.
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2008
  12. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    That's fair enough, I never had that issue with StyleXP, but there you go, problems can happen. You'd be well advised to remove a certain word from that post though, we have young members here too.
     
  13. core2kid

    core2kid Regular member

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    Forget about it all***
    ^
    |

    Little more "young people friendly"

    lol.
     
  14. abuzar1

    abuzar1 Senior member

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    I used to have Mac OSX on my computer. Worked perfectly, in fact the performance was much better than "real" Macs. If you want I can tell you what parts to buy to get a real install working perfectly.
     
  15. LOCOENG

    LOCOENG Moderator Staff Member

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    I've used Objectdock for the last few years and never had any problems with it. Tried Rocketdock on my new system and it looked good, but I couldn't find where to add more than one toolbar as I like one on the top three sides. Truthfully I think anything can cause a conflict in the right environment.
     
  16. tuttie

    tuttie Member

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  17. varnull

    varnull Guest

    At least they are honest about the success rate.. 2-5% with fully working applications on AMD boards.

    AMD 64 dual core success rate is currently 0%. everybody who claimed to have it working have now found that it doesn't survive more than a couple of reboots :lol:

    You really can't go selling a hacked unstable experimental os to somebody and not expect some really harsh words WHEN.. not IF it messes up. There are plenty of advisories about running mac drivers/modules on the wrong hardware if people can be bothered to look for them. Blowing the graphics cards seems to be pretty high up on the risk list.

    I'm answering the OP more than the rest of you lot here.. be cautious.. this is very experimental software. I killed a very expensive sparc64 bit cpu years ago experimenting with mac-os. Only plus was it was my hardware so I kept my teeth.
     
  18. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    I knew it was unreliable, but I never realised it was that bad. Thanks a lot for the info, varnull, you've been an asset to this thread.
     
  19. H08

    H08 Guest

    Well, You can run Mac OSX on your PC, but it would involve you downloading a mac osx for pc torrent(wich can be extremely long, mabey about 3 days) and not being able to get updates. and when your windows guy like me and start using it for a couple of days you'll realize that you should have never wasted your time downloading it
     
  20. abuzar1

    abuzar1 Senior member

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    You do get updates, but I agree on the software being crap.
     

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