Anyone running oSX on a PC yet?

[Dave2986]

osx86project.org

just woundering if its any good and worth doing?

[Tak]

I've been running OS X on my PC and Laptop since August last year. Runs great with the right hardware. iLife, Office and most common apps work great.

For best performance and stability ideally you need an Intel system and a chip with SSE3, but it still works well on SSE2 and AMD machines.

You'll have to do a bit of reading to find all the right drivers and patches etc. It's worth doing if you actually like using OS X and Mac apps.

[Xaneden]

Is that using PearPC, Tak?

[Tak]

No, natively PearPC emulates the PowerPC version, IIRC.

I'm using the Intel dev build.

[Bull Dog]

Umm Tak you are aware that AMD processors have had SSE3 instrustions since about May of 2004 right?

[Tak]

Yup, I never said AMD processors don't have SSE3

perhaps I should re-phrase:

..ideally you need an Intel system (i.e. chipset) and a CPU with SSE3, but it also works well with SSE2 CPUs (Intel) and AMD machines (SSE2/SSE3 CPUs and Nforce chipsets).

[steele2887]

Apple's been developing the x86 version of MacOS right alongside the PPC version ever since OS X came out. Back around September of last year, I used the intel dev kit (Albeit a slight modified version) software on an old machine as part of a project and it ran great.

The machine was an old 1.7ghz P4 with 256mb of memory. Rosetta (The PPC to x86 translator) ran great and there weren't too many glitches or incompatibilities. Even being forced to use the SSE2 instruction set (Hence the "modified" part of the software) didn't really make a difference. I didnt do a lot of benchmarking or anything but it was very responsive and load times on apps weren't too bad. The only applications that didnt work well at all were apps that used 3D hardware acceleration, such as the chess program (I don't know what its called). Also, it took FOREVER to install the OS. Also, it took FOREVER to boot it up too. Once you got it up and running though, you couldnt tell the difference between a PPC MAC and an intel MAC.

You gotta keep in mind, though, that I was using a platform that was about 3 or 4 years old and I was using very generic drivers. On a new intel platform with drivers written specifically for it, the MAC OS will run great on an intel platform. It would run even better on AMD platform but I wont even get into that.

[Tak]

Even being forced to use the SSE2 instruction set (Hence the "modified" part of the software) didn't really make a difference.

The modified kernel that converts the SSE3 instructions to SSE2 (or vice versa ) is indeed very clever stuff.

The only applications that didnt work well at all were apps that used 3D hardware acceleration, such as the chess program (I don't know what its called).

Quartz extreme graphics acceleration is limited to the Intel GMA 900 and certain ATi chipsets. Unfortunately driver support for other chipsets isn't available. I bought a Radeon 9600Pro for my machine, to get full acceleration, proper video support, and of course the ripple effect when dropping widgets on the dashboard

Also, it took FOREVER to install the OS. Also, it took FOREVER to boot it up too. Once you got it up and running though, you couldnt tell the difference between a PPC MAC and an intel MAC.

You gotta keep in mind, though, that I was using a platform that was about 3 or 4 years old and I was using very generic drivers. On a new intel platform with drivers written specifically for it, the MAC OS will run great on an intel platform. It would run even better on AMD platform but I wont even get into that.

Yes, it runs perfectly well with compatible chipsets (hard disk controllers etc). Takes about 30 seconds to boot on my system.

[ufster]

Go ahead, you won't regret it.
I - being a *nix man - loved what apple did with it. You should check for hardware support first. OSX is really picky about hardware and if you have nforce3/4 you should forget about native sata and ethernet. If you have IDE hdd(s) and will dish out 10 bucks for a PCI network card that is compatible you get a very nice GUI and 10 apps (Rosetta sucks for anything but very basic apps). As for gaming and such, Linux can handle Windows games quite fast via cedega, in other words even Linux beats the hell out of OSX86 running PPC games via Rosetta.
Anyway, If you want to experience OSX and OSX only (there are very few native apps for OSX x86) you should definately give it a go. Just make sure you won't be stuck with an awful resolution and no hardware accelerated GUI. I had a Mac Mini and it always beat my AMD64(SSE3) system hands down for any "intensive" app.

[Dave2986]

Thanks for the responses guys, My current setup wouldn’t run it but i will definitely make sure my next one will. Looking at OSX compared to XP and even Vista it seems much better, and so far ahead. Makes you wounder why apple havent released a PC version.

[menthel]

Because they make their money on the hardware!

[Jonny M]

Looking at OSX compared to XP and even Vista it seems much better, and so far ahead.

I'm guessing you're Beta testing Vista then?

[Dave2986]

I'm guessing you're Beta testing Vista then?

Yep

[ufster]

Because they make their money on the hardware!

And it would be a pain in the a$$ to support all the other hardware out there and to do so assign many of their productive workforce to developing drivers and fixing hardware related bugs on their OS - since most hardware manufacturers couldn't care less for supporting other os's.
Apple is fine the way things work nowadays, as long as they have reasonably competitive products (remember the late g4 era, ouch!) people will keep buying them.

[bsodmike]

One of the great things is let's hypothetically say you own a G5, and it dies, for whatever reason. And let's hypothetically say that money isn't a problem and you want an instant replacement/upgrade - i.e. buy another G5. Now you go and swap the HDDs across, and any specific cards. It doesn't matter if the new G5 has more RAM or a diff GFX - it'll boot and run fine...

[Jonny M]

Yeah but chances are if you moved a drive with a Windows XP install from a box with an Intel chipset and an Intel CPU into a box with another Intel chipset and an Intel CPU it would work fine as well. I don't see your argument, with a PC if it died for whatever reason, and money was no object and you wanted an instant replacement/upgrade . . . you could change just the failed part.

As much as I like Apples products and operating system, the only desktop system of theirs which I could afford would be the 17" iMac. And there's no way I'm going to buy a sealed box.