Apple's MacBook Air, iPhone and iPod may be all the rage, but the company's desktop computers are still relative rarities: although analysts' figures vary, Apple desktops certainly comprise less than 10 per cent of the worldwide market.
This low market share is often attributed to the relatively high prices of Apple computers. However, another reason could be the fact that users rarely have an opportunity to experience Mac OS before buying a computer. This would require a visit to one of the Apple retail stores or an accommodating Mac-owning friend. But there is another way: for some time, various different images of Mac OS X have been available on the internet that have been modified to circumvent its tight coupling to Apple's hardware. These allow the operating system to be installed on a standard PC. To date, Apple has taken no action against such activities, which perhaps indicates that the 'buzz' around its OS is not entirely unwelcome.
However, Apple's licence agreement does state that Mac OS X should only be installed on Apple hardware, so this is a controversial subject. The versions available for download that we discuss in this article are unauthorised. You might feel morally justified in using one of these after you've bought a legitimate copy of Mac OS X Leopard, but you will still be breaking copyright law. Combine that with the dangers of downloading software from unofficial sources, and it's clear that taking this route is only for the adventurous, on securely isolated test computers. We certainly don't recommend you do this — however interesting the results may be.
In the best case, Mac OS X Leopard on standard PC hardware can use full graphics acceleration (Quartz, Core Image) and all of the CPU features (SSE 4.1, for example).
Talkback
I found Kalyway was the easiest way to install from scratch, direct from DVD, and this is on commodity ASRock hardware, with IDE, DDR RAM, AGP and a Core2 Duo (Conroe) (Socket 775)
The only problems are the AGP slot, which isn't quartz enabled, the Intel 865 chipset is a known problem, but there is an AGP GART plugin for those who want to test it.
The real issue is network cards, an unsupported network card can bork the whole installation, I turn off the internal as it just wouldn't boot and socket a 3Com, worked fine after that.
It's not true to say that keyboard and mouse must be USB, they're not on mine, and both work fine. I did however buy a wired USB apple keyboard, and then found that with that plugged into the USB slot, it was seen by both the BIOS and the OS, (even the volume keys worked) but the mouse only worked if it was plugged into the keyboard in this configuration, but this is hardly surprising, as that's the *only* way it can work on a real Mac.
I have it installed on a single drive, and boot switch via the BIOS popup, and crappy default browser aside, (easily remedied with Firefox) it makes for a pleasant enough experience, If you're curious it's well worth a look, but don't expect to find any books what explains how it works under the hood, there aren't any. Nor are the "geniuses" in the Apple store of any use, as they have no idea either.
I'm hoping to get hold of some apple hardware soon, or failing that I may just ditch XP for OSX come my next upgrade.
You can buy a MINI, costs about the same as a PC - you can run Mac, WIN & Linux. You get full support including in-store plus iLife. To get that with even the cheapest PC, you would have to pay that anyway, why not get an Apple "PC?" All you need is keyboard, mouse & monitor - you are set.
If you want more power, all Macs (including the MINI) run all three OSes - what more do you need?
"When it comes to the Zephyroth image for AMD platforms, some limitations must be accepted. For example, it's not possible to execute 64-bit programs with an AMD processor."
I'm using the latest Kalyway release and I believe my AMD is running in 64-bit mode. I have no way of verifying this, except from past experience. You would have to use the "-legacy" flag which would load OS X in 32-bit mode. Everything works great except for my onboard video card.
Decent power + upgradeabilty for a sensible price.
The Mini doesn't have decent power; the iMac is not upgradeable. Only the Pro is decently powered and can be upgraded - but the price is sky-high. I can build an AMD based PC of the same and more specification for about a quarter of the price of a Mac Pro.
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You can build an 8 core Xeon system for that little? I'm calling BS!
FYI: Mac Mini is as powerful as most people need a system to be. Second hand prices on ebay are around the 200 quid mark with a gig or so of RAM. I'm running one as a main media centre. It's plugged into an array of external drives for the expanded storage (no expandability huh?) and the RAM has been upgraded. I'm not bothered about upgrading the internal HD as there's only about 10Gb of 80Gb used anyway, so the spare 70Gb handles temp storage for live PVR recordings (thanks to Elgato EyeTV and a USB freeview tuner) - completed recordings are automatically copied to the external storage and scripted folders move any programmes older than a week into a 'to sort' folder where I can review whether to back-up or delete them. Current storage on the Mini is around the 2Tb mark if I don't include the NAS drives available to it. It also runs a 150Gb iTunes library flawlessly, is plugged into the TV/Stereo via the cinema amp and gives the choice of either S-Video/Composite/HDMI with an adaptor or native DVI output for connectivity. Networking is only 100Base for the wired (Gb would have been nicer), and 802.11G for the wireless (again, n would have been nicer), but it's passable if most of the network activity is only web surfing. For large cross-network file movement, I can live with the speed comfortably. All in all a nice set-up with a tiny footprint and very cheap to achieve (cheaper than the nearest PC for this form factor:power ratio).
It's powerful enough to handle running OS X 10.5 and runs Paralllels for virtualisation. VM OS installs include WinXP, Vista, Win2K, Ubuntu 8, PCLinuxOS - so all bases covered really.
I don't think many users will push this little system to its limits and if you are then you're not likely to be in the 200 quid (400 dollar) market for a PC anyway.
And... how much did the array of external drives cost? And the RAM upgrade? As for the small footprint blah-blah-blah, take a look at Shuttle XPCs - performance wise, they blow the socks off a Mini, some of them even off a Pro, AND I can put whatever hard disk size I want on them... no need for an external drive array. The Shuttle SN26P and a few others, can take 2 hard disks - I'm working on one now, it has 2 hdd's, one of which runs Leopard. Total cost of components there was under £400 - new. How much does a NEW Mac cost?
So... your Mini cost 200 quid SECOND HAND on Ebay; then you go telling me about how I can't build an 8-core PC for a quarter of the price of a Pro... What, a used Pro on Ebay?
I actually costed the stuff; yesterday I built a PC about the specs of the lowest priced Pro; components cost me 221.76 quid and I spent just over an hour putting it together. AND I can upgrade it later to the spec of the mid-range PRO, or more.
And like you say, who needs all this power, except for very specialized apps?
And upgradability... is your mid-range Mac - the iMac, the one that costs... what, double what my Shuttle cost - is that upgradable?
As for the rest... scripts, NAS storage, what have you - all that can be done on a PC, which costs at most half the price of a similarly specc'ed Mac, and under either of the three operating systems - Linux, Windows or OSX
You're comparing Apples with oranges and talking rubbish, secure in the knowledge that most people won't notice.