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Success, Yes, But Usable Os X On X86?

ptaylor

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in OSx86 10.4 (Tiger)

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ptaylor
ptaylor
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I've seen a lot of posts that people have successful OS X x86 installations... But are they to the point that you could reliably use it in place of an actual Mac?

 

Specifically, if you already have a PPC Mac, is OS X on an x86 (with the right hardware - Intel 915 board and P4 w/ SSE3) as stable as on a PowerPC chip? Or do you have occasional lockups?

 

Paul

joelogic
joelogic
Posted
Posted
I've seen a lot of posts that people have successful OS X x86 installations...  But are they to the point that you could reliably use it in place of an actual Mac? 

 

Specifically, if you already have a PPC Mac, is OS X on an x86 (with the right hardware - Intel 915 board and P4 w/ SSE3) as stable as on a PowerPC chip?  Or do you have occasional lockups?

 

Paul

 

In place of an actual Mac? I would say no, even go as far to say HELL NO, simply because nothing beats the real thing.

 

But as a replacement for XP? I removed it off my computer this afternoon. :P

ptaylor
ptaylor
Posted
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In place of an actual Mac? I would say no, even go as far to say HELL NO, simply because nothing beats the real thing.

 

But as a replacement for XP? I removed it off my computer this afternoon. :lol:

 

Well, here's the thing... I want a new (faster) Mac, and I'll give my wife my Mac Mini, since she loves it too... But, about the only Mac I could afford would be another Mini, which isn't going to be faster than my Mini... (It's a 1.42 with 1 GB of RAM and a 7200 RPM drive)... Even if I had a spare $2K to throw at a low end dual PowerMac, that seems like that would be money wasted since the new Intel boxes running OS X are reported to be so fast. (I have gotten OS X to run on my 2.4 Gig P4, but it's an SSE2 machine, doesn't have Intel 900 graphics, and thus isn't real usable... But what I can get to work is fast.)

 

Now, for about $200 (or $300) I could get the remaining parts to build my own OSx86 machine, which would tide me over until I could get a real Intel Mac, *IF* it is stable. That's why I'm looking for reports of the experience of others with the right hardware.

 

If only Apple had the Intel-based Mini's ready... Heck, if they had a PowerMac based on Intel I would probably go ahead and get it because it would surely be fast enough to hold me off for a few years...

 

Paul

llothar
llothar
Posted
Posted
Well, here's the thing...  I want a new (faster) Mac, and I'll give my wife my Mac Mini, Paul

 

Hello brother in mind,

 

i'm in exactly the same situation, i would spend US$ 1000 on a specialized Intel/AMD Hardware machine when i know that would run MacOSX.

 

But it seems that people only install it, look at it and then switch back to there WinXP. I asked many times for application benchmarks instead the highly questionable XBench. Nobody replied here and in other boards. Especially i would see developer benchmarks as i'm a programmer and even a single CPU AMD2800XP outperforms a 2x2,3 PowerMac. But no feedback.

 

I can't try it myself at the moment as i'm on a 56KDial up and a 1,2 GB Download would take 120 days. But i could give somebody some bucks to do this for me in the next weeks.

 

But i find it exteremly disappointing that the guys and girls here are not posting anything about there usage experience.

OSX Blows
OSX Blows
Posted
Posted
Hello brother in mind,

 

i'm in exactly the same situation, i would spend US$ 1000 on a specialized Intel/AMD Hardware machine when i know that would run MacOSX.

 

But it seems that people only install it, look at it and then switch back to there WinXP. I asked many times for application benchmarks instead the highly questionable XBench. Nobody replied here and in other boards. Especially i would see developer benchmarks as i'm a programmer and even a single CPU AMD2800XP outperforms a 2x2,3 PowerMac. But no feedback.

 

I can't try it myself at the moment as i'm on a 56KDial up and a 1,2 GB Download would take 120 days. But i could give somebody some bucks to do this for me in the next weeks.

 

But i find it exteremly disappointing that the guys and girls here are not posting anything about there usage experience.

 

 

I know nothing about macs but if you tell me what benchmarks you want to run a friend has OSX running on his p4 3.4 1GB ram nVidia 6800 ultra I'll get him to run them for you :)

OSX Blows
OSX Blows
Posted
Posted
Well, here's the thing...  I want a new (faster) Mac, and I'll give my wife my Mac Mini, since she loves it too...  But, about the only Mac I could afford would be another Mini, which isn't going to be faster than my Mini...  (It's a 1.42 with 1 GB of RAM and a 7200 RPM drive)...  Even if I had a spare $2K to throw at a low end dual PowerMac, that seems like that would be money wasted since the new Intel boxes running OS X are reported to be so fast.  (I have gotten OS X to run on my 2.4 Gig P4, but it's an SSE2 machine, doesn't have Intel 900 graphics, and thus isn't real usable...  But what I can get to work is fast.)

 

Now, for about $200 (or $300) I could get the remaining parts to build my own OSx86 machine, which would tide me over until I could get a real Intel Mac, *IF* it is stable.  That's why I'm looking for reports of the experience of others with the right hardware.

 

If only Apple had the Intel-based Mini's ready...  Heck, if they had a PowerMac based on Intel I would probably go ahead and get it because it would surely be fast enough to hold me off for a few years...

 

Paul

 

My friend is running OSX on his P4 with an nVidia card and it's running fine

JaS
JaS
Posted
Posted

i know that with ny intel 865 chipset i get most of the use out of the os im only mising Core imageand that means no dvd playback other then that its stable once you get it set up

if your goign to get the parts to build a dev kit clone then im sure its a nice os and i nice pc

ive heard that the mactel devs are alot faster then there ppc counter parts im thinking about getting the 915 chipset just get get full use out of this

JaS
JaS
Posted
Posted
Hello brother in mind,

 

i'm in exactly the same situation, i would spend US$ 1000 on a specialized Intel/AMD Hardware machine when i know that would run MacOSX.

 

But it seems that people only install it, look at it and then switch back to there WinXP. I asked many times for application benchmarks instead the highly questionable XBench. Nobody replied here and in other boards. Especially i would see developer benchmarks as i'm a programmer and even a single CPU AMD2800XP outperforms a 2x2,3 PowerMac. But no feedback.

 

I can't try it myself at the moment as i'm on a 56KDial up and a 1,2 GB Download would take 120 days. But i could give somebody some bucks to do this for me in the next weeks.

 

But i find it exteremly disappointing that the guys and girls here are not posting anything about there usage experience.

 

the usage is great and its stable alot of programs work and as long as you have an sse3 cpu its fast

i dont know about all the sse3-->sse2 emulation going on and to be hounst i dont want to know it has to be slow even if some dont want to admit it ... well the ppc apps r slow im betting

IceFox
IceFox
Posted
Posted
the usage is great and its stable alot of programs work and as long as you have an sse3 cpu its fast

i dont know about all the sse3-->sse2 emulation going on and to be hounst i dont want to know it has to be slow even if some dont want to admit it ... well the ppc apps r slow im betting

 

The sse3-->sse2 is fast. PPC apps r fast. didn't notice a real difference in performance comparing Fifefox x86 with Firefox PPC.

 

I find it VERY usable. Actually I would migrate from XP to this if QE, CI and OpenGL would be working

JaS
JaS
Posted
Posted
The sse3-->sse2 is fast. PPC apps r fast. didn't notice a real difference in performance comparing Fifefox x86 with Firefox PPC.

 

I find it VERY usable. Actually I would migrate from XP to this if QE, CI and OpenGL would be working

 

right on then i stand corrected :)

Stefan Wouters
Stefan Wouters
Posted
Posted

I installed it and got it running nearly perfectly yesterday on my Dell Inspiron 5150. Even without Quartz Extreme I find it highly usable. I'm running 1280x1024x32, instead of 1400x1050x32, but I trust that eventually someone will get the NVidia drivers up and running for x86. My mouse (Logitec Optical) does not work on my laptop, unless I startup with -s, and then type exit at the console. But then my mouse jumps from one side of the screen to the other side. I'm going to try another mouse today, and if that one does work I'll probably go and get a Mighty Mouse next week.

 

To be honest, I thought I'd install it, look at it and uninstall it. Still thinking about it sometimes, but I'm afraid it's getting less and less important to me. I rarely play games on my notebook, so who needs Windows, eh?

 

I think I'm stuck with OS X now. They should've warned me... :)

ptaylor
ptaylor
Posted
  • Author
Posted
I installed it and got it running nearly perfectly yesterday on my Dell Inspiron 5150. Even without Quartz Extreme I find it highly usable. I'm running 1280x1024x32, instead of 1400x1050x32, but I trust that eventually someone will get the NVidia drivers up and running for x86. My mouse (Logitec Optical) does not work on my laptop, unless I startup with -s, and then type exit at the console. But then my mouse jumps from one side of the screen to the other side. I'm going to try another mouse today, and if that one does work I'll probably go and get a Mighty Mouse next week.

 

To be honest, I thought I'd install it, look at it and uninstall it. Still thinking about it sometimes, but I'm afraid it's getting less and less important to me. I rarely play games on my notebook, so who needs Windows, eh?

 

I think I'm stuck with OS X now. They should've warned me... :)

 

OS X is, in my opinion, the best Desktop OS you can get...

 

I'm just mostly waiting for word that some people are actually using OS X full time on an x86 environment with it's full capabilities, and not having any real issues... No kernel panics, random crashes, etc...

 

If Apple had such a box out now, I'd buy it, since I could be sure that they would iron out problems over time...

 

Paul

neozeed
neozeed
Posted
Posted

Im on an AMD 64 3000+ with 768MB of ram, and the only "issue" I have when booting is that most of the time it locks at the login screen if the ethernet is plugged in.

 

Im not quite sure why its doing that... Anyways once its booted & logged in its quite usable, Microsoft Office vX runs great, It would be nice if VirtualPC would run, however on the other hand I can see why it wont. Compatibility with the ppc apps is surprisingly good, I moved all my shell stuff from my mini onto the amd and the vast majority works, the only program that was too slow to be usefull was a vax emulator, which I just rebiult as a native app.

 

The only 'critical' thing missing from deadmoo is all the dev tools, but as a user workstation its great.

 

Oh the other thing is that iTunes is a ppc app, and when I rip CD's I get 2x-4x ripping speed, where my mini gets 14-20x.. So for cpu intensive tasks there you can see the difference in rosetta.

 

Most applications though are not cpu intensive, Esp if they are waiting around for the user input data (ie a web browser)

 

Now if there was a way to run Outlook 2001, Id be happy, but for now Im stuck with either terminal services, or outlook express.

 

Id give this 8/10. For an alpha release this is freaking awsome!

Stefan Wouters
Stefan Wouters
Posted
Posted

:) Try using Wine for OSX. Maybe it'll run Outlook 2001?

 

 

Anyway... I'm using it full time now, and I get less issues than I had when running Windows. B) Office runs great indeed, iTunes ripping isn't very fast, but it's rules to be able to use Mail, iCal and iPhoto! MSN for OSX is good too.

I'm going to see if I can compile Qemu later today, using X11. Maybe it's a good alternative to Virtual PC, especially with the new accelerator module.

wow
wow
Posted
Posted

I noticed that browsing with deer park or firefox is 10 times as slow as ff on the xp. I can see the pages build up, and editing a message is painfull the cursor scrolls so slow.

Its like he cant handle the input quick enough.

 

p4 3gzh 1024mb sse2 cpu

 

For the rest it works nice, i like it. but it cant compare aginst xp with its many choices in software. Unison as a news program is funny its the best for a mac, but i cant compare to newsleecher or newspro.

 

But for most people a mac would be enough.

Stefan Wouters
Stefan Wouters
Posted
Posted
I noticed that browsing with deer park or firefox is 10 times as slow as ff on the xp. I can see the pages build up, and editing a message is painfull the cursor scrolls so slow.

Its like he cant handle the input quick enough.

 

p4 3gzh 1024mb sse2 cpu

 

For the rest it works nice, i like it. but it cant compare aginst xp with its many choices in software. Unison as a news program is funny  its the best for a mac, but i cant compare to newsleecher or newspro.

 

But for most people a mac would be enough.

 

I'm not sure about your graphics card, but if you have Quartz enabled you could try Camina, which is made especially for OS X. Works just like Firefox, but it also uses Quartz to render websites. :)

cyrana
cyrana
Posted
Posted
The sse3-->sse2 is fast. PPC apps r fast. didn't notice a real difference in performance comparing Fifefox x86 with Firefox PPC.

 

I find it VERY usable. Actually I would migrate from XP to this if QE, CI and OpenGL would be working

It is not as fast... If I try the same motherboard (915g), w/a SSE3 P4 vs an SSE2 P4 at the same GHz, the SSE3 one is noticeably faster.

Rudy
Rudy
Posted
Posted
Well, here's the thing...  I want a new (faster) Mac, and I'll give my wife my Mac Mini, since she loves it too...  But, about the only Mac I could afford would be another Mini, which isn't going to be faster than my Mini...  (It's a 1.42 with 1 GB of RAM and a 7200 RPM drive)...  Even if I had a spare $2K to throw at a low end dual PowerMac, that seems like that would be money wasted since the new Intel boxes running OS X are reported to be so fast.  (I have gotten OS X to run on my 2.4 Gig P4, but it's an SSE2 machine, doesn't have Intel 900 graphics, and thus isn't real usable...  But what I can get to work is fast.)

 

Now, for about $200 (or $300) I could get the remaining parts to build my own OSx86 machine, which would tide me over until I could get a real Intel Mac, *IF* it is stable.  That's why I'm looking for reports of the experience of others with the right hardware.

 

If only Apple had the Intel-based Mini's ready...  Heck, if they had a PowerMac based on Intel I would probably go ahead and get it because it would surely be fast enough to hold me off for a few years...

 

Paul

 

if you're looking to buy a Powermac, i got a brandnew one im selling at http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=361694

ptaylor
ptaylor
Posted
  • Author
Posted
if you're looking to buy a Powermac, i got a brandnew one im selling at http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=361694

 

Sorry, I don't have anywhere near the money you need to get for it... And I figure that I would be disappointed as soon as the Intel based machines became available...

 

Paul

joelogic
joelogic
Posted
Posted
Sorry, I don't have anywhere near the money you need to get for it...  And I figure that I would be disappointed as soon as the Intel based machines became available...

 

Paul

 

IMO its stable, and its running more than well enough that I've dumped XP. I guess the bottom line is to look at what it actually is: development software not specifically designed to run on joe schmo pc's. Apple won't support it, so any tech support or hell, any issues at all, will be handled by the rest of us in similar boats. If you're willing to accept that, and the possible crashes, losses of data, possibly intermittent instability, and the massive chunk of "who the hell knows", then I'd do it.

 

If not...best stick with the sound (albeit expensive) PPC system.

 

I had plans to buy a PPC system, but the fact that they are moving to Intel has made me wait. I dont want "old and busted" when I could wait for the "new hotness" so to speak.

 

 

oh yea. not to mention its illegal, if anyone seems to care about such things anymore, you scurvy dogs :D

emm
emm
Posted
Posted

Well this is my first post.

I have been reading this forum for the last week while building my (1st mac) Pc.

I have 915gavl m/board P4 3.0HT all is working.

Core Image Supported, Quartz Extreme Supported, all Resolution, sound,

Good scores in xbench compared to some I have seen.

 

I did the install from marklar tiger DVD with oah750d replaced no problems.

 

Are some versions of the oah750d better than others?

If so what one?

But it is not as stable as I had hoped.

 

Thanks Emm

ptaylor
ptaylor
Posted
  • Author
Posted
IMO its stable, and its running more than well enough that I've dumped XP. I guess the bottom line is to look at what it actually is: development software not specifically designed to run on joe schmo pc's. Apple won't support it, so any tech support or hell, any issues at all, will be handled by the rest of us in similar boats. If you're willing to accept that, and the possible crashes, losses of data, possibly intermittent instability, and the massive chunk of "who the hell knows", then I'd do it.

 

If not...best stick with the sound (albeit expensive) PPC system.

 

I had plans to buy a PPC system, but the fact that they are moving to Intel has made me wait. I dont want "old and busted" when I could wait for the "new hotness" so to speak.

oh yea. not to mention its illegal, if anyone seems to care about such things anymore, you scurvy dogs  ;)

 

Well, I can deal with minor glitches and no support... I'm pretty good about backups, so I don't think the loss of data would be a big deal...

 

I know what you mean about "old and busted"... That (along with the lack of money thing) is what's kept me from getting a PowerMac... I've read so much about the single processor Dev boxes running as fast as dual PowerMacs, and considering that I've seen how fast it runs on my 2.4 box with only SSE2, I would hate to spend a bunch of money now on a PPC machine when in less than a year, it would be a very outdated box... (Assuming they put out Intel Mini's first... I'll probably order the day they are available...)

 

Paul

Breed
Breed
Posted
Posted
Are some versions of the oah750d better than others?

If so what one?

But it is not as stable as I had hoped.

 

Thanks Emm

 

My first post too ;)

 

i915GEVL, Celeron 325 ...

 

I've installed from DVD too, with "better oah750d" patched file and had a lot of Rosetta crashes. Then I moved to "deadmoo's patched original oah750d" and now I have a perfectly stabile emulation with PPC apps.

 

LLAP,

 

Breed

johnny_utah
johnny_utah
Posted
Posted
I have been reading this forum for the last week while building my (1st mac) Pc.

I have 915gavl m/board P4 3.0HT all is working.

Core Image Supported, Quartz Extreme Supported, all Resolution, sound,

Good scores in xbench compared to some I have seen.

 

I did the install from marklar tiger DVD with oah750d replaced no problems.

 

Are some versions of the oah750d better than others?

If so what one?

But it is not as stable as I had hoped.

 

Thanks Emm

 

Ditto.

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