Anyone left Windows behind for good with their hackintosh?

[BryanBe]

I've used M$ OS for years (since Windows 3.11 days) I started to read in these forums about how to install MacOS on my PC and decided to give it a try. Guess what? I absolutely love it! I don't think I'll ever switch back to Windows. I just have XP installed under Parallels for some .NET programming...

 

MacOS is the best OS ever! W00t!!!

[S.SubZero]

I've been in OS X for the last couple of weeks, for no other reason than it takes about 20 screws to get the hard drive out of this laptop and I'm too lazy to change to the XP64 drive. Which is unfortunate since there's some stuff on there I need. I also find some stuff in Windows, especially video playing, to be a more pleasurable and reliable experience.

[iSkylla]

I've pretty much left it. I have OSX 10.5.2 working flawlessly, almost everything works, my wireless card is the only thing that doesn't. I have VMWare Fusion and I can virtualize my Vista drive if I need and I also have an XP test environment so it's all good. I love OSX.

[skanero]

in my hole life i've used this OS:

 

Windows 3.11

Windows 95

Windows 98

Windows 98SE

Mandrake

Windows ME

Windows XP/Ubuntu

Windows XP/OSX86 10.4.6

OSX86 10.4.8

 

And now i have a real MacBook with 10.5.2

 

Once you go Mac, you never go back lol

[SquidMan]

I started out with it on my External HDD because Tiger wasn't liking my SATA internal HDD, but when I moved to Leo, I ditched windows, and its the best thing I have EVER done with my PC. I haven't used Windows in about a year.

I definitely recommend it.

[dantastic]

It's a bit funny, but I have never ever not even once booted windows on my laptop. I bought the laptop to be a linux laptop. I was doing a project that require me to use linux on the laptop. I have a stationary mac since previously so I'm well use to Mac OS X.

 

 

I was looking for something stylish, powerful that would be compatible with Linux. Well, after I was done with the main task I bought the laptop for I realized I had a new toy.

 

Always wanted myself a macbook pro and now I pretty much have one, looks a bit diffrent, the specs are the same or better. I have 2 partitions, 1 40GB system and one 200GB home directory. This way it's not the end of the worlf if I install something that break my system.

 

I only use OS X. I am happy out. I believe that if Apple would sell OS X for regular PCs that the OS would grow in a scary rate.

[Akinetopsia]

i've always been a windows guy - i admit, i even used to bash other ose's (osx included). I'm a programmer/web designer and musician, i spend countless hours in front of of the computer everyday -- and seriously, with time, i got very tired of windows just growing bigger and bigger, without actually improving - they keep building their system on a codebase that's over 12 years old, you have to run two antivirus on top of eachother, anti-spyware, and, as a coder, it takes about 3 weeks and my sytem crawls - start any ide and/or photoshop, a browser, and ugh! Productivity literally goes out the Windows™.

 

Honestly, HACKED versions of OSX boot and overall run FASTER than WINDOWS on it's OWN platform !

 

Dont get me wrong, windows used to be an excellent operating system to get what you wanted done. But now, i really can't cope with it's bad sides -- try any microsoft Live product, and you know that their defenition of "Live" isn't live as in "real time".

 

I experimented with OSX86 since 10.4.1 mostly because i was looking for an alternative, and always were curious about apple's system. Now i can say that i've found my next platform, as i'm getting a iMac as my next computer.

 

I still use windows for work, but i'm gradually moving to os x, and even tho i thought i'd never say this, the hell with windows. IMO, Bill did a great job for the time he was there, but now it just feels like Window's time as the leading os is up.

 

edit -----------

 

only thing that throws me off are the damn keyboard shortcuts..

[twelve]

I have dualboot on my hackintosh, but actually I boot in Windows very seldom -- once in two weeks or rarely, only for games.

 

But I have another PC at home, it works under Windows and acts as a server (24/7 download and seed station). This is a Celeron-478 on Intel D845GLAD -- i tried to install OSx86 Tiger on it, but unsuccessfully.

[jeffswims2win]

Oh hi there,

 

We've talked before. But yes, I have. I popped in my Zephyroth Boot Disc, formatted my entire hard drive for mac, and now I'm all mac. Windows sucks. It's ugly, and I have no more use for it. But if you ever need to use it, just use VMWare Fusion Trial (PM me for the keygen), and you can install windows on that. I did that, it installed Windows in less than 3 minutes. I absolutely recommend ditching Windows if your hackintosh is working fine.

 

Have fun!

[rtomek]

I left windows behind for Linux about 4 years ago. I now use my hackintosh and I love it, left Linux behind on my home computer for it. I still have Linux at work at least...

[ecotopian]

What solution do you guys recommend regarding updates??? I ran them recently and it made my machine unbootable. Are there any patches that can be applied to Zephyroth 10.5.2 beforehand that allow updates to be applied and still keep it running?

 

Also - anyone successfully get Macfuse/ntfs-3g to work? When it's installed, all my NTFS formatted drives disappear. The moment I uninstall it - they show back up - I'd like to be able to read and write to NTFS formatted drives while in OS X.

[nkear5]

I don't think I can completely move away from Windows at this point. After all I love my games . However when I'm shipped off to university it will be OS X all the way. With an official mac too

[Harloe]

I'm planning on building a Hackintosh soon for fun, a cheap but powerful machine. I plan to have Windows on it and Mac OSx86. I do need Windows on it and I don't want to install Parallels on my MacBook Pro. I figure building a machine is going to help me learn about the architecture of PC's =] Which I really need to learn about!

[unohoo]

I agree that the hackintosh runs faster than Windows or Mac but isn't it still a beta build? I am enjoying its overall performance but to ditch othetr OS's in favour of hackintosh is moving into bootleg country proper.

[Akinetopsia]

hehe..

 

well, while it is true that it's not always an easy task to set up a stable hack, and that still i have minor issues (occasional network drop, tho easily fixed - no sound and that it behaves like an old atx that doesnt want to restart/reboot by itself) everything else is working flawlessly, and i think it gives a great opportunity to ppl that want to try the os beforehand, instead of blindly buying a real mac and realize it's not what you need.

 

sure, it's less of an issue now that you can install windows on a mac, but i think it's still an option accessible mostly to power users. Yes, apple makes money with the hardware, not that much with their os, but if you have to choose a system that you are going to use everyday, letting people have oportunity to try before buying is something apple should support - instead of being snob and greedy.

 

to get back on topic, i do still use windows say, whenever i want to watch a movie (but i'd love to use front row instead) and whenever i need to work as i havent found equivalents to the tools i normally use (there's still not very much choice for applications). But OS X is very appealing now that i could toy with it.

[riff-raff]

I tried - god how I have tried. But 3 things keep me from migrating completely to OSX: Boot time is a full 2 minutes; sleep doesn't work; and there is so much more software available for windows.

 

I tried just leaving my rig on (bc sleep doesn't work) and my power bill went up by 40 dollars! Also, video converstion seems ALLOT faster on windows. If I could get a 30 second startup and reliable sleep, I would seriously consider switching.

[mschilling]

I don't have a desktop to compare with, but wow, that sounds like your computer is drawing too much power. I have a little tester that shows power used by appliances, and my laptop only draws 20W of power which isn't much more than a night light. My printer in standby (energy saving) mode for comparison draws 7W. Hardly a drain on the electricity grid.

[exman]

Windows is my main OS. OS X Hackintosh is just for fun.

[anurup]

Don't have Windows on my hard disk. But in all fairness, I haven't had it for the last eight years or so which was approximately when I discovered Linux.

 

I do dual boot Leopard and Fedora however. Both are really equally capable for the tasks that need to be accomplished. However, for video encoding I still make the shift to Linux. Mencoder is great, fast and hassle free.

[39thRonin]

I started this trek with MacOS X a long time ago. I started with the original deadmoo image (6Gb), with the rest of the disk dedicated to WinXP. Within 30 days, I had reduced the WinXP partition down to about 30Gb, and with the release of JaS's 10.4.8 DVD I completely wiped my drive and installed MacOS X exclusively. I have never looked back. As a non/occasional gamer, I've not felt the need to keep XP around at all. MacOS is so stable I've been able to complete Master's level work as well as real work on this box without missing a beat. No crashes, nolost data - it's been rock solid.

 

So solid, in fact, that I bought a Mac Pro for my main machine, an iPod touch, an AppleTV, a couple of AirPort Extremes, and lots of other Apple products. I'm getting a MacBook Pro after the next hardware update, and an iPhone after my Verizon contract ends this summer (and they have 3G as well).

 

All of this began with a 6Gb flat image... I've never regretted it at all... Within a few months, I will have, for the first time in a very long time, a completely M$-free home...

[bapo]

I love my hackintosh....i use xp pretty much only to transfer games to and from my DS

i don't need the computer for gaming. xbox 360 takes care of that. i've even started recommending my friends hardware setups that are compatible with the kalyway install disk and offering to install mac for them

just so they can get away from vista because that $hit blows.

[Kybla]

I always wanted a Mac, but I always had PCs, since old XT (Intel 8088). Since the beginning, I went the M$ way, but always dreamed about Apple. And then the Time Has Come - it became possible to have OSX on my AMD. It took me about month of trying to make it working, but finally, using Zephyroth (thanks!), I got it to work almost stable. At first, I feared to dive into it, because - what if it won't be like in my dreams? I had some experience with MacOS before, but as I was using Windows every day, in my work as well as at home, what if MacOS wouldn't be as good as I always thought it is? And what if I just won't be able to get used to it?

 

Well, it took just a month, and all my fears are away, as well as my Windows (well, I'm still using XP at work, but I found myself using MacOS shortcuts on it, THAT quickly I got used to them (after using Windows for almost sixteen years almost every day!). At first, I had Windows ready on the second disk to be able to use them in case of need .. then I started to use that disk in Leopard, still leaving NTFS partition on it .. and finally I formated it as HFS+ and installed XP in Parallels using image drive only and I boot them just occasionally (I have to use Sony Vegas, which sadly is not for Mac). And I have to say - MacOS is just like in my dreams. Well, yes, there are some things I'll never get used to, like iPhoto, and some things I really miss, like Altap Salamander or IrfanView, but overall, I will not return to Windows. Especially not to Vista, which ruined everything I liked about XP.

 

My next computer will be either real Mac (MacBook), or the most OSX86 compatible custom built Hackintosh (there's still couple of things to solve on my AMD).

 

Thanks to everyone who ever contributed to OSX86 project to make this all happen.

[!Shaun!]

I looked at macs ever since tiger debuted and always liked them. I can remember the days of customizing my windows desktop to look like mac. And then i found the osx86 project, took me a long time to get the almost perfect running system but i got there and was i pleased lol! Without deleting windows off the system of course it gives me reassurance if things go wrong. After using OSX for a long time it's sold to me, i guess this will be one reason why Steve Jobs will be happy about the osx86 project if he can at all because like many i'm just going to go buy a real mac. I've decided with the iMac it suits my needs so will be getting one in the next week or so

 

Kalyway = absolute hero... thankyou!

[vbetts]

Right now Os X does not suit my needs, mainly because I play games on my computer again, like Phantasy Star Universe.(Segas support for Mac sucks too.)

[Vista Master]

1 PC with MAC

1 PC with Vista

Both the same power