INTERESTING..........
Posted on 04/14/2008 8:45:24 AM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts
Personal technology enthusiasts yearning for the Mac Experience without the Apple Tax—that huge markup that Mac users pay for off-the-shelf PC hardware with OS X—your days of gnashing teeth may be over. Psystar, a plucky little company from Miami, Florida is, for the moment, selling OpenMac, a Mac clone with Leopard pre-installed for $554. You also get:
For another $110, you can get an NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT, and for another $50, you can get FireWire too. Even without that, this price seems a little high compared to other OEM PCs sold by mom and pop. I guess we could call the overhead the Apple Legal Defense Fund Tax, because the EULA (PDF) for Leopard makes the legality of this computer seem dubious.
You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to do so.
Setting aside legalities, the OpenMac supposedly works with Mac-compatible hardware and an EFI emulator. Psystar claims the "OpenMac is a configuration of PC hardware capable of running unmodified OS X Leopard kernels," but the company also says this.
Can I run updates on my OpenMac?
The answer is yes and no. No because there are some updates that are decidedly non-safe. Yes because most updates are not non-safe. It's best to check on InsanelyMac for this information but when in doubt don't update it. You may have to reinstall your OS X if it is a non-safe update.
Well, that's reassuring. So much for a Software Update hack, but it doesn't really matter. A cheap, upgradeable alternative to a $1999 Mac Pro will never be more than a fantasy among personal technology enthusiasts engaging in endless circular arguments on the Internet. Anyone who wants to build their own Mac and patch OS X to run on it is pretty much free to do so—notwithstanding software updates that trash your Hackintosh. Apple doesn't care about you. You can even talk, circumspectly, about your efforts. But try to take one penny of the dollar a year Steve Jobs makes, and you'll be thinking different without the metaphorical equivalent of the KY.
Assume the position, Pystar.
INTERESTING..........
Pseudo-Mac Ping
So where does the $399 come in? Is it $399 without Leopard pre-installed? ‘Cause it’s $554 with.
Then more for graphics and Firewire. Still pretty cheap, though.
Here’s a DIY article I had bookmarked a while back:
http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/build-a-hackintosh-mac-for-under-800-321913.php
I'd be happy just to find a $1,999 Mac Pro.
Looks like $2169 is the cheapest MacPro right now:
http://www.macmall.com/macmall/families/macpro/
I just got my MacBookPro last July so no more new computers for me for a while.
The thing is, by the time you add this and that to this mac clone how much will you be out and still not have the real thing?
How come you always see Tom Cruise only using MAC’s in his movies?... Is the OS Scientology approved ??
( Sorry couldn’t help myself)..
Macs now use the same Intel processors, Memory, graphics boards, drives, USB devices and monitors the Windows users use how is the Mac hardware different?
Leopard is a Unix variant like Linux? Could I repartition a Mac hard drive and run a version of Linux?
or repartition a Windows hard drive and run Leopard?
I mean at least theoretically, assuming there wasn't some code that either had the hardware check tho op sys or the op sys check the hardware.
Is it a question of the Mac having a different BIOS or chip set? Also, setting aside the question of whether MACs basic applications are superior, are the pros/advantages of Leopard mostly related to its UNIX base and thus Linux would share those advantages or does it have distinct advantages over the best Linux distributions?
And that's an older model that Apple doesn't sell anymore. The cheapest new model is $2,299 (one quad-core Xeon 2.8 GHz).
The thing is, by the time you add this and that to this mac clone how much will you be out and still not have the real thing?
Maybe it was a typo and they meant iMac. Those specs don't even come close to a Mac Pro, especially since they don't use Xeon processors. The retail parts for a Mac Pro cost more than what Apple sells it for.
“is the OS scientology approved” lmao... Aw crap I didn’t capitalize scientology now they’re gonna sue me!!
It is possible to run OSX on a pretty standard machine, but you have to have a hacked version.
Macs use Intel’s Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) rather than the older BIOS, so OSX has to be hacked in order to load on a computer that uses BIOS.
It’s a fun project to play around with, but nothing I would suggest for a machine you want to do actual work on.
I do this by two methods: by rebooting to the new OS, or by running the OS in a virtual machine with Mac OS X as the base.
For rebooting, you have to be aware of one thing: Macs don't have old-fashioned BIOSes, they run intel's newer EFI system. If you just want to alternate between booting Mac OS or WIndows, you can use Apple's Boot Camp system, which comes with 10.5 Leopard. But if you want to also boot Linux (as I do) you need to find a free tool called "rEFIt". By using rEFIt, I can boot Mac OS X, Vista, or Ubuntu linux natively.
I have to check it out ! I prefer Mac OS X over Windows.
That's the main technological hurdle. Macs use the more advanced EFI instead of BIOS. I've heard that the latest EFI includes some BIOS emulation, but I'm not sure you can just drop Windows on there without the prepping that Boot Camp does. And I'm sure people have Linux running natively on the Intel Macs.
pros/advantages of Leopard mostly related to its UNIX base and thus Linux would share those advantages or does it have distinct advantages over the best Linux distributions
Apple got stability, security and an application base by going UNIX. On top of that are a lot of very useful libraries that set it apart from other operating systems. Want to apply complex filters to your video real-time using the power of the graphics card? No problem to code that into an application using the Core Video library. All those gee-whiz window animations are also available through the Core Animation library and accelerated on the GPU.
No. It's Hollywood in general. Take a closer look and you'll see Apple computer logos everywhere. If it's not an Apple, rarely will you see a logo of any other manufacturer.
Macs are quite popular in the creative arts arena.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Heh, well that didn’t last long. I figured Jobs would put the kabosh on that in no time.
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