Could you have Mac OSX on a PC?
Asked by
XOIIO (
18328
)
November 25th, 2010
from iPhone
Could you have a computer with windows on one disc partition and OSX on another, and you could boot either one? What would it take to make that happen? I think it would be cool.
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14 Answers
Yes. You can have Windows on the mac, and OS X on a PC. Google for hackintosh.
It’s a lot easier to have Windows on a Mac than the other way round, though…
Not by that much, the process has been simplified.
Cool!
now the apple sticker I put on my PC can be real!
Technically, yes. It is not hard to make a “Hackintosh” and I know quite a few people who have done so.
Legally, you are not allowed to run OS X on any hardware that is not from Apple. I know that there were lawsuits over that, so Apple might have changed their license to allow anybody who paid for a full (as opposed to upgrade) version of OS X to run iton whatever computer they want, but I am not sure if they have.
I dont think anyone will sue you for doing it :), and if you buy the actual os x licence I dont see anything wrong with that. Illegal does not mean unethical
Read the reviews for your PC to OSX hack very carefully. A couple of my friends did it and they lost certain functionality. One lost his ethernet altogether, and the other lost his built in monitor camera.
@RealEyesRealizeRealLies did they lost the functionality in both windows and mac os x or just on mac side? If is just on mac, is pretty common as there are not a lot of drivers for the hackintosh
But some don’t lose any functionality. I’ve seen lists somewhere that show which PC’s work best for this. They’re not all the same. Check your model.
This question has already mostly been answered, but I should add a note. The stability and reliability of a legitimate Mac comes from the parity of the hardware and software. Many people assume that problems coming from Hackintosh installs is the OS’s fault. This is partially true, but remember that Mac OS X was not designed for the hardware you’re using.
@Vortico Correct. There was a time when the Mac OS was actually on the motherboard and the startup discs merely contained updates and patches. Nowadays it’s a little different but Apple like to have enough proprietary stuff to make life hard on anybody who likes to do anything other than rely on Apple for all of their computing needs.
Personally, I still wonder about the appeal of OS X. The speed, stability, and security advantages that OS X has over Windoze are also present in Linux, As for the eye candy UI, there are Mac4Lin and Macbuntu
I don’t get it :/
Bottom-line: I understand your Macintosh-envy. There is no reason to buy any other machine anymore, since Windows runs perfectly on Mac – but why would you really want to? – (yes, I DO understand why you might HAVE to).
To add something constructive to this thread, there is a good reason that Windows on Mac works better than vice versa. Apple is a hardware company. THAT’S what they do. To run that hardware, they have created an OS – currently OS X 10.6.x. That OS (and all Apple OSes before) have been designed around the hardware, and since Apple controls ALL (theoretically) the hardware their OS runs on, it just plain WORKS – by design!
Microsoft, on the other hand, is a software company, and despite a few dalliances into making some hardware (like mice and keyboards) that’s what THEY do. Their OSes, unlike Apple’s, is an attempt at a one-size-fits-all solution for every piece of hardware made under the “PC” logo. (BTW, Linux flavors are, too, but no one ever expects everything to work “out-of-the-box” when using Linux. Since Linux is, at least in part, an open-source project, when enough users find themselves in need of a driver for their particular type hardware setup, someone is usually smart enough to figure out how to write one.) Back to Microsoft – and I almost feel sorry for them – but since there are virtually an infinite number of hardware configurations really out there – from high-quality manufacturers that rival Apple in component quality to bargain-basement junk – Microsoft has to figure out how to make an OS that can handle virtually any misguided electron-bounce that can possible go awry. And when manufacturers are competing for the “cheap-as-possible” slot, they will buy any supposedly-on-spec chip they can find – even though there is no real quality control (and that electron bounces the wrong way sometimes) and all other ready-made components like disk drives and DVD players, for the best price they can find – quality be damned. This is why Microsoft puts out so much alpha-quality software, and then has the public do the testing for them on all these infinite hardware setups. Microsoft software no doubt works best on high-quality hardware – at first, anyway. Then it goes through thousands of changes to compensate for the mistakes of bad hardware. Then, sometimes, it breaks on the good hardware after the patches have been made for the bad stuff, and by the time it’s high-time for something new – both because the technology demands it, and Microsoft wants/needs to make more money, the process starts all over again. Hmmm. And they almost had it right…
Consistency in hardware quality = predictability – which means that Apple OSes stay working right on Apple hardware through their (sometimes unfortunately) extremely long lifespan.
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