This is a story of torture, pain, and terrible, terrible trouble.
For those of you who are unaware of what the OSx86 project is, it is essentially the dream of being able to run Mac OS X on any PC hardware. A team of developers formed after Apples switch to the i86 platform with the Intel version of OS X Tiger, and have devised a series of patches to get the bloody piece of software running on most any machine. Here are the general instructions, but the way that I got it running in VM Ware differed in a few, crucial ways.
First, let me make one thing completely clear. DO NOT pirate a copy of OS X. This is completely illegal. All of the prepatched downloads of OS X that you can get on sites like bittorrent are illegal, and can be made yourself with a free, legal patch, and a legal copy of OS X that you buy. Also, running OS X on a PC has questionable legality unless you are an Apple Developer or buy a real mac, deactivate the copy of OS X, and install it on other hardware. Check the legality of it before you go any further.
System Requirements:
- Processor supporting SSE2 or SSE3 instructions (Use CPU-Z for Windows to check)
- Windows 2000 or higher/Linux (Mandrake, SUSE, or Red Hat)
- 512MB of RAM (strongly recommended)
- 6GB minimum hard drive space
- 8MB of VRAM
Now, as for the software that I used. I bought a copy of VM Ware Workstation 6.0.1. I see no reason why it shouldn’t work in newer versions, but I know that it works on that one.
First off, I had to configure a virtual machine. Create a new machine, and do the Custom setup. Click through the next step, and you’ll arrive at Select a Guest Operating System. Choose Microsoft Windows, then WINNT in the pull down box. Use 1 processor core. When you get to I/O settings, select the bottom one.
That is the only difference for now that I have found from my own experiences, and this website.
And, as a side note, the install took nearly an hour. Luckily the rest of the computer still worked fine while it was installing.
That guide worked for me up until the step where it said “the system will now boot.” Of course, life really couldn’t be that easy, now could it? I got a bizarre error in about 9 languages at the Apple logo. A quick Google search of the error wording fixed the problem, but it was certainly worrying.
Finally, the thing started working.
I was spared the troubles that many are reporting, such as audio and mice not working. One of the first things that I noticed was not working was the internet. As soon as I fired up Safari, I got the message here:
I fiddled with every bloody setting for network that exists in VmWare. I double and tripple checked the addition to the VMware config file, and everything seemed perfect. I again resorted to Googleing forums. I found a handy program called Maxxuss AMDPCNET, which apparently fixed every single user of any forum ever’s networking woes. I tried it a half dozen times, both as a service and installed, and nothing happened. I seem to be the only one that didn’t work for, but still I had no networking, internet or local. More hours of Googleing. I found a ridiculous number different methods on this website, but now, everything I do just resets when I run the program, even if the config file is read only! For know, this problem persists. I’ll update if I ever do get that bloody thing working, but I just don’t have the time at the moment.
I’m certain that you are asking yourself by now, “How does OS X run under Vmware, Matt?” Well, moderately. I gave it 512 mb of RAM, a 20 GB hard drive and all the performance tweaks I could find, but it still is somewhat sluggish. Programs launch slowly, Animations are laggy, and the audio stutters in iTunes. Without networking, the only way to move files back and forth is to create and mount ISO’s. Programs install slowly, but do work natively. All in all, I would compare it to using the latest OS X on a machine at the very end of the approved spectrum on the Apple list, like an old G3 or G4 with terrible amounts of RAM, and a hard drive that hasn’t seen a clean install in years. It’s usable, if your internet is working…
All in all, it’s a fun project. Certainly not the seamless experience that most users would buy a mac for (It’s harder than any Linux distro I’ve ever tried to get working) but it is certainly an interesting challenge for a morbidly obese block of spare time you may have. Through the OSx86 wiki and InsanleyMac, you should be able to get it running on anything that meets the basic requirements of the software.
Good luck on your OSx86 endevours, fellow ambition comrades.
