Running Mac OSX on a PC

Save yourself shit loads of PC wankery and just buy an old G4 off ebay or if you live in a city look out for office clearances. They're cheap, reliable, lovable and it will surprise you. It won't run OS X 10.6 but it will run OS X 10.5, I'd recommend OS X 10.4. Tiger is still fully supported by Apple, latest iTunes ect. Then when you've finished running OS X on it, run Linux on it.

 

I think part of the appeal of running OSX on a PC is just being able to say you did it. Thats what it was for me at least. I installed OSX on a laptop several years ago, marveled as I got wifi working, used it for half a week, then installed Fedora (which I ran at the time).

 

You are trying to run OSX86 in a VM.... FAIL. Dude, OSX86 barely works correctly on most hardware, so I highly doubt that any VM software works. The only version that kinda works with VBox is Deadmoo, and for VMWare, I dunno. Apparently OS X Server is licensed to be run on VMWare now, so that might be a possibility, but I dunno if they already have it supported.

 

Ableton? Cubase? Reason? REAPER?

 

I've become a professional musician as of late (made a friend who's a producer who has his own studio and got me into recording and mastering), and I've got to say, as much as the Windows fanboys wish there was, there's simply no replacement for Garageband.

How do I explain this?

Garageband is like a sketchpad for artists. It's the most simple, easy way to sketch down an idea for a song, in it's entirety, in less than a half an hour, if you're very familiar with the program. There are plenty of applications like this on Windows, but none of them so well-defined, simplistic and accessible, much less so plug-and-play. With support for VST and AU plugins, as well as a number of different pre-existing high-quality software instruments (that are even better if one gets the jam packs that are easily available on torrent sites) and effects that allow for a quick 15-to-20 minute simple mastering process.

This is all great, but the real kicker is that Garageband files, effects, automation paths, and everything are completely compatible with Logic. This is simply the best thing for most musician's workflow - sketch the idea out in Garageband, produce a little demo of it, then toss it over to Logic and do production and re-recording if necessary. No other ecosystem that I've found in years of searching has ever been this convenient, natural, or efficient. And until you've spent a shitload of time, and I mean a shitload, in an actual studio doing proper recording and the like, you'll never be able to understand why Macs are the choice of computer for a vast majority of professional musicians. It's not just a cliché.

In short, Windows has many great DAW's that are totally useful, like Ableton live, but for composition, production and for the sake that Mac OS X is compatible with nearly all major-use DAW's in the industry, they will be standard until someone figures out how to copy the ecosystem flawlessly. Which, I have to say, I really don't see happening when Garageband and Logic have such a head start. And did I mention you can even take Logic files into Pro Tools, if you so choose? :P

 

I've had some experience with this:
1. I'd like to make it clear that what you are doing is violating the EULA for Mac OS X. Get a Mac, for serious.
2. Make sure you have an SSE3 CPU. Pretty much any new Intel processor.
3. Running in a virtual machine is rather unstable, I don't suggest it.

That's pretty much as far as I got when I realized building a hackintosh is better, and a genuine Mac even more so.

 

This would be an option worth looking into if Macs weren't so ridiculously overpriced. I think having to mess around a bit more to get things running is well worth the money you save, especially since all he really needs is GarageBand.

What are your PCs specs anyway? I remember installing OSX86 Tiger on my Pentium 4 a long time ago and surprisingly it actually worked, but I can imagine that later versions completely dropped support for anything that doesn't have SSE3 and Leopard/Snow Leopard being more demanding.

 

OS X never supported processors without SSE3 in the first place. Out of the first Intel Macs released, the worst processor they used was the Core Solo in the 2006 Mac Mini which had SSE3. The reason you could run Tiger on a Pentium 4 without SSE3 support was because of a custom kernel with SSE3 emulation built in. I don't know if kernels with SSE3 emulation are available for newer versions since I bought a Mac Pro in 2008, but I'd assume there could be.

The guide is probably full of shit. After Mac OS X 10.4.7 or so, Apple changed something that made OS X unbootable in VMWare even when it worked fine natively on the same hardware. Of course, that was over 3 years ago and things have been somewhat improved since then (VMWare Fusion for OS X can officially run OS X server without any hacks and some of those changes made it back to the Windows version) but I can't imagine things being that much better without official support from VMWare on the Windows side.

There's a really simple solution to this and I'm surprised this thread has gone on so long without someone suggesting it.
If you know your hardware supports OS X, just download 'SnowOSX 3.6' from your favorite torrent site, usenet, or rapidshare. It requires an Intel processor Core 2 Duo or newer, but it's pre-patched with support for most supported hardware.
Just burn the DVD boot from it. If it works, you'll boot you straight into the Mac OS X installer. You can launch the disk utility from the installer to format your partition if you already have one ready. You can already have windows installed, it does not matter. The disc may or may not install a bootloader for you, but if it doesn't then it won't be hard to install one from Windows and you can search for that problem when you come to it.

 

Oh, I know OSX never supported CPUs without SSE3 and that the hacked versions merely used workarounds. I just figured that the more recent hacked versions also dropped support for non-SSE3 CPUs, which apparently they did.

 

I've finally achieved it, now, first of all,I'd recommend that you go and read the compatibility list so that you know what patches to install and what not to..
If you're using Win XP, have your installation CD.

Ok, make a new partition from Windows, any file system will work(this is not important now)
Boot up the Mac OS X installer CD, on the welcome screen, go to Utilities(or so) and then Disk Utility.
Select the partition you made before and erase it, this will format it, be sure you have selected "Mac OS X (Journaled)".
Close Disk Utilities and follow the installer, then you'll choose the partition you just formatted, right before installing, you'll see a Customize button, press it.
This part will be confusing and I can't help here. According to the info you got from the compatibility list (I printed it) choose the right patches (or what you think that would be right).(Do not install the Intel Stepspeed(Sorry don't remember its name very accurately) thing, just in case, it fucked everything up for me, making things EXTREMELY SLOW.
BTW, I'd recommend using the third bootloader (the one that isn't Chameleon, don't remember its name, its more eye candy, and I had no problem with it).
Install it, (it really takes too much time, 20 mins for some people, but it took 2 hours for me :/)
Reboot =D (at this point you might be really nervous, :P)
If the bootloader works, you'll see your partitions as nice harddrives on the screen with a white applish background.
Choose the partition you have Windows on, (just to test it is working), then do it again, this time select the partition you installed Mac OS X on, and good luck. =D
If it works as it should, yay. if not.. if you forgot to or you didn't know you have to install certain patch, don't worry, boot up the cd again, do it all again (except formatting the partition), this time just select the items you have to install, and DO NOT select the post-install item.
Try it out again. If it works, YAY, if it doesn't.. well, you might have installed a WRONG item, in that case, (I think) you'll have to start all over. D=

In my case, it works a bit slow, no matter what I do, but that's cuz the laptop I installed it on sucks xD.

Tell me what happened when you have finished :A


EDIT: YOU BETTER READ AND DO THIS, I don't write this much, never :P

 

I ran OSX on my Dell E510 but my netgear wireless dongle didn't work on OSX.