New to Mac OS X on PC's

[tmafcerqueira]

Hey there,

I'm new to this world, as said in the title. One thing that's driving me mad is that I see tons of posts with installation related issues and I can't figure out why. I mean, there's an x86 version of OS X. Ok, there's also some graphics related problems... But most nvidia and ATI cards support OS X, or at least, have drivers for it. The main issues should be sound, USB, wireless, etc. Is there something I'm missing?

I'm looking at these forums because my brother recently bought a laptop and is already cursing Vista, after only a week of use. He likes the Mac OS, in fact, he is an apple enthusiast (he didn't bought a macbook because, inittialy, that wasn't supposed to be his laptop...) and I would like to see him running it. He has a top of the line laptop, an Asus V1S.

Thanks

[Bergamot]

Ok, well keep a few things in mind:

 

1. People mainly post to these forums when something goes wrong, so you're going to get a very skewed image of the OSx86 community. I have a feeling that a lot of people do their research, buy compatible hardware, it works well for them, and they're never seen on this site again. Also, note that there are plenty of people having problems with actual Macs, over on the official apple support site.

 

2. Being "x86 compatable" just covers the processor; there's a lot of other things in your computer (multiple chipsets, graphics processor, network adapter, etc.) that also need to be supported by the operating system, or they simply won't work. Any place where your hardware differs from official Apple-supported hardware is a potential failing point. Sometimes the OS doesn't support your hardware exactly, but supports very similar hardware, and just has to be tricked into accepting yours as well. Research is the key.

 

3. Getting everything working well on a laptop is much harder than on a desktop. If your desktop computer's onboard graphics chipset doesn't work with OS X, you can just get a new graphics card. If your laptop's graphic chipset doesn't work, you really don't have any other alternative. There are plenty of people who are successful with laptops, but it usually involves a decent amount of planning (before you buy the laptop!) and even then a lot of luck.

[Reveeen]

Unlike Windoze, you just can't (shouldn't) figure any hardware will do. The further you stray from "the original" the more problems you are going to have. What you are reading is the difficulties folks that *think* they know better are having.