What are the criteria for installing OSX on a non-Mac machine?

[supertom]

Hi everyone,

 

Has anyone ever written a primer on installing OS X on a non-Mac machine? I understand that hardware is a criteria, and from there it varies from component to component, including drivers which makes it theoretically possible to install it on any machine designed for Windows (please note that I emphasized theoretically).

 

For example, I believe an Intel Dual Core processor is a good starting point. Anyway if I'm totally wrong feel free to slap me in the right direction.

 

Thanks,

[Gringo Vermelho]

No two PCs are the same, this makes it difficult to write a useful, general installation guide.

 

If you look around you will find guides for specific hardware.

 

If you wish to collect general information, read and compare a bunch of guides and see what they have in common. Prepare to be confused because there are many ways to accomplish the same thing. People get creative and make use of what they have available.

We have gross, misconfigured and frankensteined hacks limping along, we have streamlined hackintoshes that rival the latest MacPro, and everything in between. Take your pick.

 

A dual core Intel CPU on a motherboard with Intel chipset is a great start, if it's a Pentium D not so great, but even that will work as long as you use a patched kernel.

 

Good luck with the primer, feel free to send me a PM when it's done.

[mulcyber]

Hi everyone,

 

Has anyone ever written a primer on installing OS X on a non-Mac machine? I understand that hardware is a criteria, and from there it varies from component to component, including drivers which makes it theoretically possible to install it on any machine designed for Windows (please note that I emphasized theoretically).

 

For example, I believe an Intel Dual Core processor is a good starting point. Anyway if I'm totally wrong feel free to slap me in the right direction.

 

Thanks,

 

http://www.esolangs.org/wiki/Turing-complete

 

"A programming language is said to be Turing-complete if it is in the same computational class as a Turing machine; that is to say, that it can perform any calculation that a universal Turing machine can.

Turing-completeness applies to abstract systems (such as languages and formal automata) but not to real ones (such as computers and interpreters.)

No actual computer can be Turing-complete. However, it is also obvious that physical computers are perfectly capable of performing practical, finite computations in spite of that."

 

Every program that runs on a physical computer is a turing machine, but physical computers can't run all the possible turing machines. So what runs on a physical computer is a physical subset. What runs on the Intel Architecture is a physical subset. This is where I think the theoretical aspect of your argument fails. There is a proprietary Windows OS which constrains which drivers are available to drive hardware. There is proprietary Mac OS X OS wjhich constrains which drivers can be written. These subsets do not contain the same membership. There are thousands of different computers with thousands more of possible hardware combinations all of which produce turing machines (programs) that are not identical to those turing programs produced by alternate hardware configurations. This is similar to phrases in one foreign language not having a direct translation into another language, even though nearly all expressions are adequately translated. The elements of both languages would have to be identical, which means they are the same language. PCs are not TMs. But there is a TM which could implement an Excel computation and so on.

 

There is going to be a huge overlap and also TMs which are only very slightly functionally different.

It is theoretically possible to count to a million, but nothing practical about it. Your purpose is to espouse a practical primer. Bringing in an intractable theoretical possibility doesn't contribute to a reason why writing such a primer is practically feasible esp. when the big problem is drivers.

 

I have some sympathy for your goal. Something which listed the major installation methods, the difference between AMD and Intel cpus, the problems presented by different sounds cards and graphics cards, why you needed to find out what kind of hardware before you started installing. Comparing your hardware to Hardware Compatibility Lists and so on. But you aren't going to write a guide that turns thousands of users into developers who can write their own device drivers. Or produce a 11,000,000 page manual. Nor can a computer algorithm be devised that can do it for you (infinite regress). There is no Universal Language. This sort of reminds me of the huge chore Linux developers suffered when they tried to make MS Office work on Linux. I think an overview of the different install methods, their strengths and weaknesses, the major kexts and what they guard against or fix, tips for laptops, might be doable. There are several Hackintosh sages and one can learn a lot from going over their posts. But you know, people don't like to read instructions. I think that MaLd0n's DSDT.aml Auto-Patcher is a minor miracle. Borges Rulz!

[supertom]

Thanks guys! I guess what would be helpful then would maybe be like a checklist that someone could go through to get a general idea whether their machine would be a good candidate for installing OSX then? What with the way new hardware comes up almost every day it's going to be a full-time job to maintain the list though.

 

That said I have no idea where to start. I'll probably be poking around the forums to learn more over time.

[mulcyber]

Thanks guys! I guess what would be helpful then would maybe be like a checklist that someone could go through to get a general idea whether their machine would be a good candidate for installing OSX then? What with the way new hardware comes up almost every day it's going to be a full-time job to maintain the list though.

 

That said I have no idea where to start. I'll probably be poking around the forums to learn more over time.

 

Yes. I researched first and found out what hardware would work pretty much out of the box. I built that computer. My motherboard came as a Revision 2, rather than as an older Revision 1.

That meant I had a Realtek 8111E chip, not a 888D (iirc) and so I finished and had no internet connectivity. Very luckily, Lnx2Mac released his Realtek 81xx package about four days later which covered me. Graphics kexts don't work for one year, but then a breakthrough is found in the next month.

 

I have a request for your primer. I read at least 4 guides before I started my SL install. None of them said anything about your PS2 mouse and keyboard not working and you better have USB devices handy. I'm not sure that I had to, but I also turned on legacy usb devices in Bios. Well, I did have USB mouse and keyboard also, but I can see why people are frustrated about not being warned.

 

I thought you were going to argue with me. I had dug out my Lecture Notes in Computer Science #298, starting at the bottom of page 315. The volume is entitled "Mathematical Foundations of Programming Language Semantics". I found it and two other volumes in the series at a used bookstore for $1 a copy! Talk about being in the right place at the right time

Maybe if everybody offered up their pet peeves and things to avoid when installing, it would flesh out the primer with nubile colorful anecdotes. I wish I could open two different copies of Firefox at the same time without making a new profile. Oops, that's post-install.