Posts Tagged iDeneb

My Dell Mini 10v running a retail version of Snow Leopard. For $300 this is one of the cheapest and easiest Hackintosh's out there. But are you up for the challenge?

Also known as the OSx86 project, getting a non-Apple made computer to run any form of OS X is considered an accomplishment, and there’s even a name for your new machine: A Hackintosh. Officially, its against Apple’s Terms of Service to run OS X on hardware that wasn’t created by them, but wheres the fun in that? Now because it’s against Apple and what they believe, creating a Hackintosh isn’t for everyone, but if your a good sport, you’ll go buy the retail Leopard disc and at least reward Apple for a good operating system.

So do you have a Hackintosh? Do you plan on making one? Well I’ll share a key secret: there is no 100% guide to making a Hackintosh. Part of the challenge is picking pieces that are going to work in your machine, then you have to decide if your going to run a clean copy of Leopard or a modified version thats more/ less suited to your hardware. Kalyway, iATKOS and iDeneb are examples of modified Apple software thats been created to assist you in your journey. The advantage to running these modified versions are that your probability of success is higher, and most hardware-related errors can/ are solved in therse versions. On the downside, because its modified, it might not run just like a Mac, as a clean copy would. Its up to you which you choose, but if you can get a clean copy running flawlessly, your less likely to run into problems in the future.

A Hackintosh can be anything, in any shape or form. Seen above, you can see my Dell Mini 10v running a retail version of Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.1 to be exact!) and so far its been smooth sailing. The Dell Mini lineup is a small setup of netbooks that can run Leopard pretty dang well right out of the box, and for the few errors you encounter, some great guys (melkort and bmatlis I believe) created some great software to make the process much simpler. On another note, the desktop Hackintosh is probably the most popular as it saves you money and provides a great deal of hardware flexibility and choices when it comes to Apple’s selection.

Don’t get the the idea that running a machine like this is a walk in the park. Sometimes its just a matter of building a computer and running software the way it was designed, on the other hand, hardware and software hacking knowledge can and will be required to get your machine up and running. Its always a risk, but the reward is great.