I see people on IRC asking “Where can I get an 0Sx86 10.6 distro?” on a fairly regular basis so I would like to take a moment to explain exactly why myself and others discourage their use.
#1 – Distros cause problems!
If you haven’t noticed most, if not all, distros apply more hacks than are required on the average system in an attempt to function on as many systems as possible. While this may seem like an OK thing to you while things are “working” you may not even notice diminished performance or realize that those bugs you are having are due to a particular hacked kernel extension somewhere that isn’t even required for your own hardware… Additionally if it has over-written “vanilla” kernel extensions on your system a software update could corrupt your install and leave you with an OS that will not boot. If this happens chances are since you used a distro, and didn’t learn for yourself what needed to be patched on your system and how to patch it – you probably won’t know how to fix it.
#2 – The OSx86 Community does not want to support distros!
If you can’t get support from the actual distro developer (most do not support their releases) you will be met with ridicule by others in the community. Why? Because the distro likely broke your install to begin with and because people who use distros generally are unable to articulate what patched kexts they are using or understand basic terminology like kext, permissions, mkext, or how to use basic terminal commands. We have a fairly good understanding of common errors with RETAIL installs but if we had to stop to try and fix every backwater distro out there – that has an error simply because it’s patching kexts incorrectly for a users system, well… We wouldn’t have time to work on anything else. We generally expect people who request support to have a decent level of self-competency so that it does not waste our time.
#3 – Distros encourage laziness!
Instead of learning how and why something works on your own system and improving your own understanding of OS X & PC hardware you want other people to do the work for you. With no profit or reward in it for them. If this sounds like you please do yourself a favor – go buy a mac!
#4 – Distros are Piracy!
This is an obvious one, if you own a retail OS X DVD you wouldn’t need to download a distro anyway, unless you are exceptionally lazy which brings us back to #3. Please support apple! If you want to run OS X on your non-apple hardware the least you should do is purchase a legitimate copy!
#5 – Conclusion
If you want to run OS X on your own PC hardware, do it the right way and learn how to achieve a working retail install from scratch. Please don’t take “shortcuts” with these “distros” – in the long run they will actually cause you much more trouble than learning how to do it for yourself. It may sound like a daunting ordeal at first glance but with utilities like myHack available it has never been easier to run OS X on your own hardware.
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great stuffs here..anyway, i want to know something. are there already a sample built on i5 + p55 with the release of myHack v1.0 ? am going to build my unit on those hardware, so need to know what brands/types are compatible with vanilla kernel…thanks
tanto: I don’t have that hardware to test with but from what I understand you’ll need to use chocolate kernel option, install 10.6.0, update to 10.6.2, then you can revert to vanilla kernel. The other thing you should pay attention to other than that is the audio chip in your perspective motherboard purchase – ALC889a is most well supported, ALC889 and ALC888 are close second.
Conti,
One thing I noticed from distros is that you are pretty much stucked on the distro version as an update can corrupt your system and become non bootable.
I followed the method described on this site and got it working in the 2nd or 3rd attempt. Thanks! Just contributed with a small donation and encouraging others to join.
Only one question… Can I update to 10.6.2 w/o issues or there are risks associated?
BTW, thanks a lot for the effort in putting all this information and utils available to the community. {thumbsup}
Joed: Thank you for the comments and for the support! Yes you can update to 10.6.2 if you are running a vanilla install with no concerns. The only potential issue would be if you are using a version of myHack installer prior to RC5. If you are using RC4.1 or earlier you will need to update to RC5 before you run the 10.6.2 combo update to correct a bug in the Sleepenabler.kext used in previous versions of myHack installer but other than that there are no problems. It is my intention to add this information to the main installer guide as soon as I have some time to spare.
Thanks again for the positive response.
i’ve been using linux and windows for some time and would want to install os x for the first time. i failed to install leopard using iatkos v7 on my p4 pc.
now i want to try snow leopard on my amd turion laptop
but a retail install seems very intimidating
also i have no access to a mac
so i don’t really see a choice between distros and the retail version
its quite hard for a mac noob to do a retail install
nikhil: It is actually quite easy if you follow the simple instructions on this site, however, if you have unsupported hardware the functionality of OS X will be limited and present a significant challenge no matter what methods you use to install. This is why I continue to suggest that anyone who wants to try OS X on non-apple hardware at least obtain reasonably supported hardware (Intel CPU/Chipset, Nvidia Gfx, etc).
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Well regardless whether you pirate or buy a legit copy the license from Apple is violated by not installing it on an Apple branded machine. That $30 won’t protect you from Apple’s lawyers if they ever decided to follow the RIAA’s lead and start suing users who violate that license.
That is a matter of interpretation.
Yes Apple has stated in the EULA that you may only install OS X on Apple-Branded hardware. However, there are larger laws, consumer rights dictate that we can use software and hardware in accordance with our own individual desires so long as we are not re-branding aforementioned software, calling it our own and reselling it for a profit or otherwise inflicting financial damages on original software maker, that is what the laws and licenses and copyrights are intended to protect – not to give carte blanche to software makers that anyone has to follow just because they say so.
The other clause in the EULA that could be potentially violated is the clause about reverse engineering or decrypting files. Now some portions of the OS are open source and those are generally what we have modified so that clause does not apply to them, as to decryption – well AMD users who are using bin patchers (which decrypt binaries) are in violation and the older dsmos.kext is as well. FakeSMC however is an emulator written from open source so it falls into a sort of grey area that does not technically violate the EULA from what we can tell since it is not bypassing any ‘protection’ or decrypting any binaries but is merely functioning the way a real SMC hardware device functions.
To state it simply just because the EULA says something doesn’t mean it’s enforceable … or not enforceable.
Additionally I would like to point out that an EULA violation is VERY DIFFERENT from piracy. Piracy (copyright violation) is a serious crime in most nations and usually carries a hefty fine and additional punishment depending on severity and local laws. An EULA violation is a completely different animal. Just because you have used software in a way that the author did not originally intend does not mean you have illegally copied and distributed their software or owe them ‘damages’. In cases of companies like psystar though that are violating the EULA and selling computer systems for profit I believe there is a genuine case for seeking damages and personally I feel this kind of profiting from the hard work of others (1 being Apple, 2 being the OSx86 community they steal the methods to run OS X on non-apple hardware from) is highly inappropriate. This kind of behavior hurts the entire open source movement. Developers are becoming increasingly reluctant to release their source code because people like psystar will take it and slap their own name on it (often violating the open source license) and then sell it for a profit with no royalties or even so much as a reference to the original author.
Additionally purchasing a copy of OS X is the LEAST you could do to support Apple for all the hard work they have put into this fine operating system. PS: I also own a real Mac.
Anyone hear of “Try before you buy?” I do not think this is such a outlandish concept. Where are the free trials from Apple? I’m a Linux user. Never used Mac. Suddenly I hear one day that MacOSX is Unix based. Would make sense from a guy who is used to having a totally free operating system to want to try it free for a bit before they decide to buy. $29 Is 29 more dollars than what I’m currently paying. One would think in the business world it would be smart to give out free trials to those users. After all, even Microsoft is giving out free trials of Windows 7 currently to hook linux users? Where’s the love Apple?
So as to this site, and it’s arrogance, quit assuming that everyone is a pirate as they may have a legitimate reason for wanting to try out the distro.
Let’s not forget the improvements the MacOS could benefit from having real Linux users and programmers coming over to the Mac. After all, they copied a lot of things from Unix already to make it what it is today. This kind of site is what makes anybody else wanting to try a Mac stay away from the community because we think that Mac users have such big ego’s.
You have clearly misinterpreted my post. First let me say I have been using linux since circa 1994 when the very first versions of slackware came out. I still use linux today, in fact my primary business role over the last decade or so has been that of linux developer, linux network administrator and system builder (both linux and windows). I have also done PC repair, tutoring, web development and other odd jobs here and there over the years but I have used linux more extensively than any other OS and I still use it every single day. In fact this site itself is powered on my very own flavor of linux running on my own dedicated server.
So with that said I completely agree with your last statements about MacOS benefiting from real linux users and programmers coming over to the OS X platform. My personal reasons for switching to OS X as my workstation were actually a product of the linux development I was doing but a desire to be able to work with some of the graphic design and multimedia applications that MacOS had to offer in addition to the pure linux environment I was used to working with. It still had bash and the ability to xforward apps from my linux server here locally so it has fit in quite nicely with my current work and gave me a few additional features that were unavailable on any other OS.
I could never give up linux completely, I value OS X for the polished applications available for it and the stability it provides but it is still a bit too closed down and particularly when it comes to server usage I would never rely on anything but linux.
Try before you buy? Sure I support that absolutely. But do you need a distro to try before you buy? And what are you going to see with something that is patched together poorly? That is like saying a crippled live linux distro actually shows you what linux can do compared to your own finely tuned gentoo install. Hell even ubuntu can’t come close to showing you what linux is capable of and I would consider it a lot better than some of the OS X distros I’ve seen over the years. So if you want to try OS X and you have no access to a mac… You could always just “borrow” a dmg or dvd from a friend and still learn how it works and get a nice clean retail install to play with. Most of what I wrote on this page is targeted at the people who have no desire to understand how or why the OS X operating system works, they just want to show off to their friends that they can run OS X on non-apple hardware or are just too lazy to do anything themselves. Those people will most likely end up having more problems with a distro than had they simply done it right the first time, I have seen it happen time and time again.
So as to this site, it is not arrogance nor was I trying to suggest that everyone is a pirate who wants to try the OS before they buy it. Mac users with “huge ego’s” usually just buy macs and often condemn anyone who would run OS X on non apple hardware like we are lepers… What I want to achieve here is helping people to get OS X running on their PC’s as easily as possible but to understand what they are doing well enough in the process that they have a genuinely good experience with it and it works as close to a real Mac as possible. I could say the same for linux, I see so many people going to ubuntu but then they have all kinds of problems that they don’t know how to solve because they simply have not actually learned anything about how or why linux works or what to do when something goes wrong. That is what causes many people to think linux is ‘so hard’ that they keep using windows.
I was in much the same mindset as you at one point in time, after learning more about OS X I decided to buy a legitimate copy & in fact I even purchased an apple laptop which has performed fantastic over the years. So no offense but you might try not to make such bold statements or accusations as to my ‘arrogance’ when you know little or nothing about me or my reasons for posting this article or working on this website.
I think that if you want to run MacOSX on a PC, you need to learn about the process of loading and setting up the BIOS for a properly running system.
I purchased Apple systems for nearly 15 years and I LOVE MacOS X. I just refuse to spend $4500 on an Apple system that cost about $1800 to build. That is just obscene profits. As it is Apple uses commodity components same as Dell or HP does, so why can they justify 2.5 times the cost of components to sell us a MAC?
We don’t do Windows! Malware-Spyware-all those things that can screw up your PC do not happen on the MAC. For those who understand; MacOS X is a marvelous piece of work done by Apple engineers. BSD is a UNIX that has a beautiful GUI on the screen. If Apple has done it, then Linux developers should have been able to do that by now.
Apple deserves to be paid for their operating system. An even though there comes a new one about every 18 months, it’s only $129.00; not the myriad of levels of users that you get from uSoft.
Building a hackintosh is getting to be tech mainstream. There are plenty of sites with information and lots of folks have been successful in loading MacOS X on a PC.
Conti,
With your new installer, i don’t see why anyone needs a distro anymore :) I have a bunch of Allianz commercial usb thumbdrives lying around and i use them to host my bootloader and kexts. I don’t even touch the drive at all. This would not at all be possible with a distro, unfortunately.
D.
I am no expert and still learning a lot on hackint0sh. I started out trying various distros (trust me, I tried them all). My reason was it would be easier to install and get going. Lo and behold, I spent numerous hours “guessing” and like many others I got it to work. Once I have it running, I found myself looking at things like kexthelper, osx86tools, efistudio and so on …. Again, I did not learn anything except knowing the tool name. I have no idea what those tools do. One day, I did an update thinking that I “know” the system now. Well… it broke afterward. No problem, I thought to myself, I can reinstall using distro because I did it before. Well … since I don’t remember or understand what I did the first time, I was unable to do it again.
At this point, I decide that I am going to read some more. Spend endless hours reading and just following “conversations” on irc. I dare not to ask because I have no idea what to ask. Simply asking how do I install on my XYZ computer or what distro to use is just does not sound right.
Finally, I did my install using retail. It was much much simpler than distro and basically no guess work. Why, because you have to understand what is needed.
Since then, I have done numerous retail installs on various hardware (processors) just to gain a better understanding on various things (such as dsdt, efi, device-id, scripts , update, backup and etc…)
When SL came out, my first SL retail installation took 45 minutes and I was up and running (needed some tweaks but they weren’t major).
Speaking from my own experience, I encourage people to go retail. You will never look back, believe me. It may seem daunting at first but it is actually simple. Again, help yourself by doing a lot of reading and observing because at the end of the day, it’s your system.
In Soviet Russia… distro’s install YOU!
Well people that know me from irc know that i hate dirstros… Not for a lot of resons that people might think and i did also use them once. The reson i really dont like them are because people dont know what that did trigger the kernel panic in 99% of the times because they cant say if any of the hacked kexts that was on the distro from default all the suddon get problems with some kext you just install, or what kexts to restore after a update.
I have to say the distro is good for the first time user but honest installing is just as easy as using a distro. It do take the same knowing your hardware level to use distro as retail.
I mean the following:
Distros dont magic discover your graphics card, you have to pick the injector.
And retails need the same so you will need to know atleast nvidia or ati and pic-express or agp.
distros dont discover the audio chip and that is the same with retails. You will need to know the codec of the audio chip or try with voodoohda.
same with chipsets, etc etc… the diffrence is once is where you google to find lets say a nvidia “driver” for osx86, and if you just use logic it is just as easy to find them. else you can get even pointers to what to google or a link to the “driver” even tho i am sure if you google (And i havent tested this tho) nvidia driver osx86 you will find the names of some of the injectors, and someone talking about efi strings.. :D
Well what i mean is this:
when you go retail, you know what you change because you have to spend some time on finding the kexts, then installing them so you might pick up on what the issue is when you get a kernel panic when rebooting after installing the nvidia driver we talked about before, or a audio driver etc etc. abd that makes it more easy for us to help and for you to figure out.
I guess my point wasn’t clear enough. Granted piracy can’t possibly be “stopped” but if enough “distros” show up I could see apple deciding to take a tougher stance toward the entire hackint0sh scene and make it a lot more difficult for all of us – so far they have been extremely tolerant toward us!
It is $29 for a legitimate copy, if you can’t afford to spend even that much on an OS I suggest you try linux, you certainly won’t find windows for that price.
Shortcuts, fall into two categories for me, helping hands or hand outs. This site is all about the helping hands. We will attempt to show you the simplest and most effective methods for installing OS X on your PC, while also teaching you why it works so if you do run into problems later you are well equipped to handle it.
We will not give hand outs, if you want to have all the work done for you let me reiterate that the solution is quite simple: Buy a Mac. They work very well out of the box and need absolutely no “geeky” tech skills to use.
well it’s a matter of opinion remember that not all users are tech savvy but since almost everyone knows about the os running on x86 hardware almost all want to see it running. I don’t see the distro as a piracy but as a convenient way to introduce to you what this os is.While asking and begging to know how a problem can be solved on how to use a retail version the distro can be a useful thing knowing that you already have a few files and some instructions on how they do their job.
Furthermore I see no point in buying the os if you’re still going to use windows in the end.
but its not always about hackintosh. sometimes people simply want to run osx and arent necessarily computer geeks like the rest of us. even the computer illiterate should have that choice. AND if you pirate you pirate. nothing much can be done. and the few that actually buy an osx disc should still have the option of easily installing this on a non intel-mac. why not take shortcuts? man is and always will be lazy. thats just the way we’re created. if there is an easier way to do osx why do we have to bother with the learning all the command line and etc??? the hard works already done for us??
Agreed 100%.
If people contemplating using distro then hackint0sh is not for them.
Well said my dear friend. The problem with most people is that they are looking for short cuts. I mean , you’re already installing a hacked system. I do expect folks to read up & study a bit before installing.