I think that this is maybe the most interesting thing for PC users: using the OSx on a PC!

Some little bird whispered to me that soon Apple will realese an official Leopard system for Pc users. Anybody else heard of that?
Did anybody try allready the OSx on a PC computer? I saw on the net that there is a complete forum about the case you can find it on: http://www.insanelymac.com/ and understood that not all hardware is compatible with the OSx.

Happy weekend to all of you,
Jonathan

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Pro. violinist who likes some experiments...
www.myspace.com/pagannini

Some hackers have managed to get OS X running on non-Apple machines, but doing so is illegal - it's prohibited in the EULA that comes with OS X.

I don't think Apple will release a dedicated OS X for PCs anytime soon, especially since their hardware sales are rocketing.

Frank
SOS Moderator

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Imagination is more important than knowledge - A. Einstein

Apart from a lunatic core I can't see why anyone would want to risk running apps on an 'hacked' OSX. I mean seriously, what is the point? Surely it's just asking for trouble, operational headaches, constant workarounds, 'under the hood' tweaks etc. etc. etc. Why not just get a Mac?


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Web Site | Twitter | iTunes

Yeah ... unless it was a specific pc affiliated to apple and osx was licensed only to run on that pc.

Hang on .... I think that's the Mactel's

People will allways do stuff like this, especially as its against the EULA

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There are 10 kinds of people who understand binary; those who do and those who don't

Quote ChrisCarter:

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Why not just get a Mac?

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Possibly because you can build a machine of equal spec at half the price that Apple wants to charge you?

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[url=http://www.facebook.com/pages/hifi-studios/117322741632389[/url]

Quote hifistud2:

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Quote ChrisCarter:

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Why not just get a Mac?

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Possibly because you can build a machine of equal spec at half the price that Apple wants to charge you?

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But then it will be a cheap copy, without the designed features such as V. quiet fans - oh and it will look naff too, like 99.9% of PCs
(- even the many that copy Apples designs that fail miserably and look like "wannabes".)
It would be quick though, I'll grant you that !

Apple's aren't the cheapest, but there are plenty of PCs that are much more expensive than anything Apple do !
My Vaio was easily as expensive as my Mac and some gaming PC's cost over £3000 !!!!!!!!!

I think running OS-X on a PC would be utterly brilliant as whist I have time for the platform, I hate Windoze because, well, how long have you got ???
The problem is PCs are virtually all different
The reason for the stability in the Apple OS is due to the limited hardware options.
For the hardcore PC nerd, this is far too restricting, but then the nerds like to solve problems - ie just to get the thing to work.
I prefer to use the computer, work "with it" not "on it" and I don't have time to mess about.

If Apple made a PC OS, it would be just as crap as Windoze
Truth is, it ain't going to happen.
So if you want Mac OS and Windows, buy an Intel Mac.

Quote hifistud2:

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Quote ChrisCarter:

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Why not just get a Mac?

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Possibly because you can build a machine of equal spec at half the price that Apple wants to charge you?

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That's a bit of an urban myth these days - at least as far as I'm concerned. A Mac Mini, iMac or MacBook are all great value for money and I think you'll have a hard time building an equally-spec'ced machine with parts of equal quality at significantly lower cost.

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Imagination is more important than knowledge - A. Einstein

Quote:

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The reason for the stability in the Apple OS is due to the limited hardware options.

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I think this hits the nail on the head really. The whole point of macs has always been that the hardware and OS are designed and built by the same company, thus avoiding so many of the variable that exist in the PC world, that can give rise to unexpected problems.

I'd also note that within that PC world, the way most of us eventually attain comparable stability to the mac is by taking a similar route: ie narrowing the options. We research which chipsets, audio hardware etc are known to work well together, and focus on those. We don't just install any old free game and plug any old cheap device into our computers while we're in the middle of an important audio project.

So using a hacked OSX on a PC it was never designed for would seem a very odd thing to want to do, as it would satisfy neither of these ways of doing things. Apart from anything else, if you've got enough patience to want to bugger about with something like that, then it's really not that hard to set up a comparatively stable PC using WinXP.

Quote Frank Eleveld:

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Quote hifistud2:

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Quote ChrisCarter:

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Why not just get a Mac?

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Possibly because you can build a machine of equal spec at half the price that Apple wants to charge you?

---

That's a bit of an urban myth these days - at least as far as I'm concerned. A Mac Mini, iMac or MacBook are all great value for money and I think you'll have a hard time building an equally-spec'ced machine with parts of equal quality at significantly lower cost.

---

I'm sorry but think you are wrong when it comes to desktop and/or serious machines. If one knows what he looks for (components)and where to buy them from, a much cheaper machine can be build with same specific as the apple one.

Maybe the only valuable machine to go for is the macbook as when it comes to laptops:
1.The price difference in this case is not as big as with desktop
2.It's much more difficult to build your own laptop

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Pro. violinist who likes some experiments...
www.myspace.com/pagannini

The 13" MacBook is very competitvely priced at £699 for a Santa Rosa chipset with Core 2 Duo T7300.

To get a similar windoze one is looking at a 12" Tosh or 12" HP at approx £799-£829 or Acer at approx £650.
Ok one might get more memory & a bigger hd on the Tosh, HP & Acer
but these aren't vital & easy to upgrade on the MacBook.


The MacBook ofcourse can be dual booted with osx & windoze.
And has a 6pin FW port ... which for me also given the dual boot, size, price & Santa Rosa chipset is a clincher.


The MacBook Pro however at £1299 for a 15" 2.2GHz 8600M GT graphics card 1440x900 wxga screen is not competitive.
And the £1599 1440x900 2.4GHz 8600M GT & £1799 1680x1050 wsxga 2.4GHz 8600M GT are WAY overpriced ...


The imac is a elegant neat all in one idea, that doesn't really have a windoze equivalent unless one goes media centre pcs,
which work out at similar prices when copmared to the 20" imac.
Though I think having to always peer round the baack underside of imac screen to see where one is fitting USB, FW peripherals
could have been simpler by say having a drop down bay.
They are stingy with the memory ... only 1GB unless the top model !
And the 24" ones at £1149 & £1459 are overpriced.



I like the Mac Mini and the fact that its an easy transition for windoze users .... we can keep our existing monitor, just replace the base unit.
And being able to dual boot with osx & windoze on it ... though again stingy with the memory 1GB
And paying £100 more for the 2GHz cpu model (£499), when the 1.8GHz core 2 duo T7100 cpu is currently cheaper than the 2GHz T7300

One could assemble to the same spec as a mac mini far cheaper, but it would be a lot bulkier.
To assemble a pc thats about the same size (parts from kustompc), would bring the price to the same as the mac mini.

Though HP & Acer have Mac Mini equivalents at lower prices.



As for the Mac Pro ... again so stingy with memory 1GB on th £1699 model,
and only one hd : 250GB, not even a 500GB. Nice that it has dual quad Xeon "Woodcrest" for 8 cores.
If it came with 4GB memory, 2x 500GB hd ... it would be superb value.



I think for all windoze users the real clincher is being able to dual boot now on the mac.
And the increase in horsepower due to the switch to intel cpus & intel chipsets.

The lack of these two factors put me off before. But now a £699 2GHz MacBook or £799 2GHz 20" Imac or £499 2GHz Mac Mini

Quote Wurlitzer:

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... The whole point of macs has always been that the hardware and OS are designed and built by the same company...

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This is not the case anymore though!!!

I completly agree about what you wrote of narrowing the options that we PC users do when it comes to audio/video work. But this is also the point, if you BUY your computer from a seller it will cost almost as an APPLE computer. If you are the one who assembled it it will be much cheaper but you should know what to llok for.

Quote Wurlitzer:

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So using a hacked OSX on a PC it was never designed for would seem a very odd thing to want to do, as it would satisfy neither of these ways of doing things. Apart from anything else, if you've got enough patience to want to bugger about with something like that, then it's really not that hard to set up a comparatively stable PC using WinXP.

---

Well, I just waste so much time "playing" with my winXP and it comes to a "NEVER AGIAN" point


I see what you mean about the hacked system, it just becomes as the same thing as twicking with your original XP system = TOO much headach. (Apart of legal problems of using a hacked system but this is an another issue).

I just hope that Apple WILL realese soon a legal OSx Leopard for PC. I'll be one of the first to buy it!
Nowadays, is not hard to get the SAME components as are on the APPLE machine, and as far as I can consider the OS is THE ONLY difference.

BTW. who cares if the computer is "nice" to watch or not.
If one really wants, can use an original APPLE case if other one are not poshy enough

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Pro. violinist who likes some experiments...
www.myspace.com/pagannini

Quote Frank Eleveld:

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Some hackers have managed to get OS X running on non-Apple machines, but doing so is illegal - it's prohibited in the EULA that comes with OS X.

I don't think Apple will release a dedicated OS X for PCs anytime soon, especially since their hardware sales are rocketing.

Frank
SOS Moderator

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Funny that. No sense of irony, duplicity, double standards or hypocrisy about it either.

I wonder what they are scared of?

But beyond the monopolistic practices of Apple, why on earth would any one want to run OSX Lepper or aardvark or whatever it's called this week? Judging by the issues with it, I'd give it a wide berth.

Apple machines have function as well as design.
Looking great is good PR for you business.
For people like us, it is the "quiet-ness" that makes the design appealing.

It is possible to buy decent quiet PSUs for PCs and a quieter case, but the Apple G5 case / design, puts them all to shame as it uses thermal zones and 9 fans. the machine is whisper quiet.

The joke is you could achieve a similar result for a PC build, but spend a fortune in the process !!!

Apple DO charge a premium for their products but, in my view,( based on 20 years in the industry ) the Mac OS is vastly superior to anything MS have made - including Vista ( or whatever it is called this week ??) -
A clear copy of OS-X with "g-widgets" everywhere and a 5 wait to boot.

I had hoped Vista would be everything MS wanted it to be.
I really wanted to like it, but once again it is too little , too late and nothing works with it properly ( yet )

Clear Vista should be given a wide berth.

If I could put Os-X on my Vaio - I would !
Ultimately Apple will never port it to a full PC Os, because it would be just a flakey as XP & Vista are.

Quote Scope:

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Apple machines have function as well as design.
Looking great is good PR for you business.
For people like us, it is the "quiet-ness" that makes the design appealing.

It is possible to buy decent quiet PSUs for PCs and a quieter case, but the Apple G5 case / design, puts them all to shame as it uses thermal zones and 9 fans. the machine is whisper quiet.

The joke is you could achieve a similar result for a PC build, but spend a fortune in the process !!!

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Now you're just being silly Scope, really silly.

I would love to run osx on my pc,
give bad old bill the kick up the a**.

If i had to change a few components, so be it,
it would be far cheaper than buying a mac,
im used to messing about getting things working,
so tweaking/hacking would not bother me.

myself i doubt they would make it available because ,
the amount of different configurations of pc
would be a big stumbling block,but you never know,
anything is possible.

im goona try it , if i get chance.

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A gentleman is a man who can play "jump" on keyboards, but chooses not to

Guys - you should know better by now.

If we can all return to the point of the original post: ie, Johnny is interested, for better or worse, in running OSX on a PC. Everyone's entitled to their opinion and input on how useful that might be and how it might work (or not).

But save the generalisations about which OS is "best" and which is "crap" (on both sides) for the playground, please. We've been there a million times before and it's no use to anyone.

Thanks.

There are torrents available apparently of a hacked Leopard (don’t tell the WWF) install and no doubt someone here will give it a try; hacked OSs are not my thing.

If you require quad cores then Macs are currently very expensive but this will change when Intel releases a quad core mobile CPU that should work in future iMacs. I don’t think it’s due until H208 though.
Dual core Macs seem reasonably prices IMO.

Been looking at the Mac Pro desktop pc.


Having dual xeon (server) cpus is nice,
that mobo possibly a Tyan Tempest i5000XT supporting 4x PCI-Express x16 & max 16GB memory is neat
(though only 1GB !!! is porived on the £1699 )


The design of the case, the component layout, memory slide tray etc is excellent.


Though only 250GB SATA & 1GB memory & 7300GT graphics card on the £1699 model.
And the sorry to say extortionate price for memory & hd upgrades.


BUT

I am not sure for a PC DAW we need to go server, unless you need 16gb of memory !
A lot of pc mobos take max 8GB anyway
or need the extra horsepower of 8 cores (currently 2x quad) that a pro like Redleicester needs ...

How many applications can take advantage of 8 cores.
In any case single cpu oct cores are not too far away.

(Meanwhile should anyone be maxing out their quads, they are v easy to safely overclok just by adjusting FSB in the BIOS,
no need to adjust multiplier, nor voltage, might have to relax memory timings a little).


Apple are doing the right thing for themlseves by keepng only 1 line of pcs : not segregatng between pro & non pro users.
As a pc vendor this cuts out so much wasted parts overheads, unsold stock,
faffing about with different assembly configs, head scatrching over fault diagnosis & repair.
Also makes it easier to sell ...
all cutomers know exactly what they are getting every time,
its a no bariner .... they are getting the same machine, just different cpu, hd, memory.



Looking at prices

Can aesmeble a

Quad core Q6600
Intel DP35DP mobo (has 3x PCI & 4x PCI-E slots ) : max 8GB memory ... (will need windoze 64bit to take advantage of 8GB)
4GB Corsair DHX memory
500GB Western Digital 16MB cache SATA300 hds x2
MSI 8600GT Silent edition heatpipe 256MB DX10 graphics card
DVDRW LG Serial
Noctuna 120mm heatsink & fan
Seasonic 430W psu
Antec P182 tower case.


At £715 INcluding delivery : £984 less than the £1699 Mac Pro and WAY more bang per buck.



Or to match the £1699 Mac Pro's 7300GT graphics, 1GB memory, 250GB SATA (no point getting this as the 500GB is only £8 moore)
keeping all other components the same


£523.44 ... a £1176 saving !



May want to add the ultra quiet PAQ case which would add another apporx £140 to the cost,
but still £1036 & £840 below the Mac Pro £1699 for the DAW specs above.

Me wantie this beastie.... just waiting for it to arrive on these shores:

http://www.supermicro.co.uk/products/motherboard/Xeon7000/7300/X7QC3.cfm



Quad-quad core.... now that's a monster.... oh and te small matter of max 192Gb of RAM.

Oh, and whilst I agree that on the whole Mac's look pretty (if you like your whitegoods with TFT screens built in) there is much consternation in the industry, particularly Post that the MacPros STILL aren't properly rackmountable - in a server room, no one cares how pretty something is, but they do want sliding rails, ease of access, and bolt-in security...



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Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Quote redleicester:

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Me wantie this beastie.... just waiting for it to arrive on these shores:
http://www.supermicro.co.uk/products/motherboard/Xeon7000/7300/X7QC3.cfm

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What are you going to run on that beast? If you have the space then surely two DP systems will be much more cost effective unless you have a single application that will load all 16 cores!

Quote redleicester:

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Quad-quad core.... now that's a monster....

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Quad core ... that's sooooo last year ... want Oct x4.
Or a Cell, or mebe sumting harnessing the power of a 8800GT graphics chip or even an FX5200 chip

Quote:

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oh and te small matter of max 192Gb of RAM.

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Given the price of RAM, thats a mortgage deposit for a small house

Quote:

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on the whole Mac's look pretty ...there is much consternation in the industry, particularly Post that the MacPros STILL aren't properly rackmountable -sliding rails, ease of access, and bolt-in security...

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Macs are for design houses and fashion houses

Yep, Nuendo 4 supports multiple CPUs and multiple cores, but no, I'm not going that bananas - just a nice 8-core jobbie with 16Gb of RAM for now. The best thing about such boards IMHO, is unlike the MacPro locking you to PCIe only, the PC versions tend to have a goodly blend of PCIe, PCIX and vanilla PCI, so it's an easy move to make in terms of I/O.

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Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

If memmory latency is a serious requirement then it might have to be

AMD Octcore

its quad has on die memory controller as per norm for AMD, & quad memory channels,
which according to spec "128-bit wide memory controller, for dual 64-bit channels for simultaneous read/writes"

the Oct, when it materialises will be likewise.

Even though Intel are "taking" this, from AMD, for their Nehalem, AMD are old hat this.
We might still get a Return of the Jedi with the AMD Oct.

Going back to the original point, as has been discussed, OSX in PCs is prety much a non starter. The question then is : why do people want it? Is it because it is an alternative to Windows? Or because it looks awfully pretty? If it's the latter, then google flyakite and osx and you can download a nifty theme for XP which makes your XP look like OSX. Very slick and I use it quite a lot! (But then I'm odd) If it's the former, then you might want to look into the various options on Linux. Okay, your industry standard apps might not work, but after having had a look at the Linux forum, the open source / shareware alternatives seem to be coming along.

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Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)

Quote Dave B:

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Going back to the original point, as has ... The question then is : why do people want it? Is it because it is an alternative to Windows? ... you might want to look into the various options on Linux. Okay, your industry standard apps might not work, but after having had a look at the Linux forum, the open source / shareware alternatives seem to be coming along.

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Hi Dave B,
sure it's only for the function, all these "stable OSx" thing.
With Linux industry standard apps do not work? so what's the point to use it??? I wanted a better alternative to windows for pro. music production.

Edited by johnny Stecchino (05/11/07 12:59 PM)

There's not a chance in hell of Apple releasing OSX for the pc, apart from the fact that the instability of all the different systems would drag down the name of OSX, they are a hardware company first and foremost - Just look at the Logic Studio 8 release, it's practically a loss leader. A freebie designed to get musicians buying macs to run it.

I find it odd though when people talk about OSX/macs for stability. I'm a mac and pc user, I have the mac so I can run software that is specific to the mac, namely Digital Performer and Logic. I don't use the mac because OSX is in any way superior or more stable to Windows XP. If I could run Digital Performer or Logic on Windows XP I would, as XP works just fine for audio. The main area where OSX is superior is in networking and online security, both issues that are low priorities in a typical studio.

The only thing I would change is to take core audio from the mac and put that into Windows, replacing the dire audio system that Windows has always had. I mean ASIO is essentially a hack on the Windows OS to make professional audio viable because, as I've said before and still say, Microsoft will *never* provide the audio infrastructure for professional work when 99.9% of their user base lies somewhere in between MS Word and Half Life.

There's no escaping the fact that there is more audio software on the PC today, but there are some very choice items on the mac platform that do mostly justify choosing OSX over Windows. But if you're not a Logic or DP user I can't see much reason to 'go mac' when you will definitely have more hardware choices, more software available and most likely better performance on the PC for the Windows versions of your DAWS, e.g. Cubase, Nuendo, Ableton.

Yep, I have managed to install and successfully test OSX on my old Dell PC (Intel Pentium 4 with 2,6 GHZ) quite a while ago: OSx86 Project exists almost since OSX was born. Though everything was running quite well, I could not install drivers for my RME card, coz they did not exist by that time and I was too lazy to purchase a new PCI-Express version of it.
Apart from that the system seemed quite stable and working well, however I would prefer buying Mac hardware to avoid potential incompability that may occur while performing such a sensitive task as music recording.
Also it looks cooler...
Just not to go for Vista

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Yuri Gladkov
http://www.yuri.lu

Edited by cyberglad (05/11/07 03:56 PM)