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Mac OS X Intel hacked to run on standard PCs

updated 08:10 am EDT, Thu August 11, 2005

Mac OS X Intel hacked

At least one user has managed to (Trusted Platform Module) to prevent Mac OS X from running on third-party computers. The report noted that users were able to install other operating systems such as Windows and Linux on Intel-based Macs, but that it was not possible to install from the DVD containing the Intel-based Mac OS X on similar x86-based PCs (i.e., systems that lacked a TPM).

by MacNN Staff

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buffalolee
Mac Enthusiast

Joined: Oct 2001

0

08/11, 08:40am | report spam | close Reply |
Time

It was only a matter of time before a hack would come out.

iolaire
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2001

+1

08/11, 08:50am | report spam | close Reply |
please

Anyone able to provide or setup a non-torrent mirror of the movies? I'm interested to see, however I like Apple products and will not buy a Dell to run OS X!

beeble
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2004

0

08/11, 08:56am | report spam | close Reply |
Intel based Mac's

Are there intel based Mac's already? I was under the impression that the developer version released at WWDC was designed to work on standard PC's to give developers a chance to develop their software before Mactel's were released next year. At least that's what Steve Jobs said.

Are there any developers with a copy out there who can set the record straight?

ratpH1nk
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2005

0

08/11, 09:08am | report spam | close Reply |
Hacked?

I don't think this is as much a hack as it is a person who has an Intel chipset/MoBo with similar specs to the one Apple has cobbled together for the developer transition kit.

Voch
Mac Elite

Joined: Apr 2001

0

08/11, 09:09am | report spam | close Reply |
Good luck...

Good luck with that. I'll stick with Apple's hardware.

Horsepoo!!!
Banned

Joined: Jun 2003

-1

08/11, 09:12am | report spam | close Reply |
No good can come of this

The only thing I see is that people trying to shoehorn OS X onto their PC will most likely pirate OS X, pirate OS X apps, and write OS X malware with the free dev tools (which would probably be pirated if they weren't).

I'd love to be as cheerful as others and say that Mac marketshare and mindshare will increase as a result of people figuring out how to install OS X on their PC...but since all of this will be underground activity, it won't be compiled in the marketshare figures nor acknowledged as mindshare.

koolkid1976
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 2003

-1

08/11, 09:16am | report spam | close Reply |
re: Intel based Mac's

"Are there intel based Mac's already?"

Yes. Since you can only install OS X on these machines--without a hack that is--for all intent and purprose it's not a "standard pc"

apple4ever
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2001

0

08/11, 09:17am | report spam | close Reply |
Not surprising

I expected this. And what ever Apple comes up with in the final design of craptels will be hacked as well. Then Apple will start losing hardware sales. Then Apple with be dead. GG Jobs.

itguy05
Forum Regular

Joined: Apr 2005

0

08/11, 09:25am | report spam | close Reply |
Cool

I absolutely _HATE_ Intel (never owned one- always did AMD) and was wondering what I was going to do now that Apple is using InHell chips.

If this is true, will be great to build an AMD machine and have superior performance and the superior OS!

voznap
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2005

-1

08/11, 09:26am | report spam | close Reply |
Not a final version

They hacked the developer's version of OS X. The final Mactel machines are going to likely use a DRM on the processor and a chipset on the board that will likely make it far more difficult, considering you will be required to have the correct hardware to run OS X. Not much different than what they are already doing now. If it isn't a Mac than it won't run.

climacs
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2001

0

08/11, 09:27am | report spam | close Reply |
let's be serious

is Joe and Jane Consumer going to hack their OS X so they can run it on a Dell???

are they really stoopid enough to download it from a P2P network if they are not 133t h4x0rs???

downloading photoshop from p2p is one thing. Downloading a hacked OS X to run on unsupported hardware? lunacy. I can't believe that this would amount to anything near a significant percentage of people.

resuna
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2005

0

08/11, 09:29am | report spam | close Reply |
Bad sign... PS/2 KEXT err

"an right/authorization error due to the kext allowing PS/2 support"

That means that Apple's not just using DRM to prevent booting, but they're also using it to ensure the kernel remains inviolate. The only reason I can think of for locking the kernel like this is to prevent people installing trapdoors below DRM-using applications. Unfortunately, well, it also means you can't use custom or unsupported drivers legitimately while playing DRM-protected content.

If Apple is indeed using DRM this way, that will be a shot in the arm for Linux.

Bryson
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2002

0

08/11, 09:49am | report spam | close Reply |
hahahah

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in Redmond these days.

webraider
Forum Regular

Joined: Nov 2004

0

08/11, 10:11am | report spam | close Reply |
Possibilities

I think it would be in Apple's best interest to have a Demo Version of OS X, perhaps watered down a bitand with printing restrictions etc... that will run on Intel. You know... kind of like the demo version of Office that came installed on imacs and such. Just enough to wet the appetites of PC users, and it could calm down the attempts to try and hack OS X. The thing is that Apple's OS depends on more than just it's processor to run correctly such as Bios. There are certain ways that Bio's are processed when the OS is booting up. This is possible with Windows emulation of OSX (something that is currently available for Windows and I'm sure will continue to be and be better once intel version ships). The same will apply to mac users...We will have better emulation of Windows if not being able to run the native version.

If Apple can increase it's install base buy curiousity... I can bet that they will evenutally open up the market to a few other PC vendors like Sony... and Maybe even Dell. It wasn't just licensing to Clone makers that was bad for apple before.. it was licsensing when they didn't have a strong enough install base.

If they can compete more with pricing (possible with INtel chips and maybe even eventually AMD), and with a strong enough install base, they could feasibly open the market again to a select PC base and with "authorized" Apple Mother boards to run the Bios correctly. If Apple's market gets big enough... they will have to do that to help it grow more and become a strong competition for Microsoft. This said... Apple will need to have software developers compete more with it's applications like Ilife, and Safari and should never require that these applications be used with it's OS, or we'll have another Microsoft Fiasco on our hands. If the company get's bigger.. opening up it's hardware to other companies actually would make sense to avoid it becoming a monopoly.

Sandkat
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Joined: Jul 2005

0

08/11, 10:20am | report spam | close Reply |
Nice

"I absolutely _HATE_ Intel (never owned one- always did AMD) and was wondering what I was going to do now that Apple is using InHell chips.

If this is true, will be great to build an AMD machine and have superior performance and the superior OS!"

I liked how you coined the term "InHell". Did you think that up all by yourself? That's pretty clever? I bet you were the same person that thought up "Micro$oft". How old are you now?

ibugv4
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2003

0

08/11, 10:34am | report spam | close Reply |
good golly miss molly

I don't get the hoopla about this. ALL Apple programs and Mac-based programs are pirated. As is OS X and Windows. Why is it JUST NOW news? I've seen copies of Jaguar beta months before it came out on P2P. OS X on Intel is going to be an interesting thing, at this point I don't really care anymore. I have my iMac, and it works. I'm only interested in the solutions *I* need to function day to day. What everyone else does is their own business... why waste your time fretting over it? Get back to work!

Stratus Fear
Senior User

Joined: Dec 2002

0

08/11, 10:34am | report spam | close Reply |
re: Hacked?

"I don't think this is as much a hack as it is a person who has an Intel chipset/MoBo with similar specs to the one Apple has cobbled together for the developer transition kit."

No, it's actually a real hack. You can get it to run on other x86 hardware, like an AMD system. It's not just trying to throw together the same hardware as the devkit.

eddd
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Dec 2001

0

08/11, 10:35am | report spam | close Reply |
won't matter much

This is all an interesting exercise, and will no doubt prove to be a nice hobby for �ber-geeks, but I don't see it making much of a difference.

Anyone who would attempt to run a mission-critical machine, a production machine, or even a home machine with such a setup is asking for more problems than it's worth. I would expect Apple to keep an eye on these efforts and periodically throw roadblocks in the way, adding more hardware checks and tightening the security. The result will be a constant dependency on cracks for those that are intent on bypassing Mac hardware, which will render any non-approved config anything but dependable.

As much as I would love to build my own OS X box, I wouldn't bother, since my machines need to work when I want them to work. I imagine most Mac users are the same.

eddd
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Dec 2001

0

08/11, 10:39am | report spam | close Reply |
another thing...

... this type of piracy activity usually results in hurting the honest users. As Apple tightens the security, more hardware will cease to work, making things like 3rd party drives and memory a risky proposition. Imagine having to buy your RAM from Apple in order to make sure it works for years to come. Or your hard drives. Or your optical drives, etc...

Stratus Fear
Senior User

Joined: Dec 2002

0

08/11, 10:40am | report spam | close Reply |
re: won't matter much

"Anyone who would attempt to run a mission-critical machine, a production machine, or even a home machine with such a setup is asking for more problems than it's worth. I would expect Apple to keep an eye on these efforts and periodically throw roadblocks in the way, adding more hardware checks and tightening the security. The result will be a constant dependency on cracks for those that are intent on bypassing Mac hardware, which will render any non-approved config anything but dependable. "

Actually it runs fairly reliably if you have a CPU with sse3 support. Darwin runs on all these machines to begin with, and it IS the underlying OS, so I don't see why stability should really be an issue.

Stratus Fear
Senior User

Joined: Dec 2002

0

08/11, 10:42am | report spam | close Reply |
re: another thing...

"As Apple tightens the security, more hardware will cease to work, making things like 3rd party drives and memory a risky proposition. Imagine having to buy your RAM from Apple in order to make sure it works for years to come. Or your hard drives. Or your optical drives, etc..."

...

If you think that, you really don't know anything about computers. Even WPA on Windows can't do that. That's just inane.

michaeljohn63
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2005

0

08/11, 10:44am | report spam | close Reply |
I Trust Apple!

Apple has managed to survive in this industry for 30 years. I think we an all give Apple SOME credit for seeing the advantages and disadvantages of the move to Intel. For one thing, Apple can always change its mind any time it wishes, and if Intel Macs make it too easy for people to port OS X to non-intel Macs, Apple can go to some other platform of its choosing (back to PowerPC or to a more proprietary version of an Intel chip, or Cell, or whatever).

Apple knows alot more about what its doing than any of us, or Dvorak, or any other pundit. After seeing Apple survive so many downturns, and come out just fine (like right now), I am prepared to give credit where credit is due, and assume that whatever happens, whether OS X is hacked, or remains proprietary to MacTel, Apple has a plan up its sleeve, and will be able to deal with it, or even take advantage of it.

Todd Madson
Mac Elite

Joined: Apr 2000

0

08/11, 10:59am | report spam | close Reply |
Mactels

For the person who asked: the developer kits aren't a set of discs for a standard PC.

It's a G5 tower case with a special intel motherboard and 3.6 ghz Pentium processor and development toolset for same.

I'd be interested to see if it could be made to run on wildly disparate hardware but yes, in the end, it is really only going to run nicely (read good experience) on the genuine article.

For me? I'll stick with my G5 dual for the foreseeable future.

zwiebel_
Dedicated MacNNer

Joined: Jun 2003

0

08/11, 11:22am | report spam | close Reply |
RE: I Trust Apple!

michaeljohn63

Ditto!

ecrelin
Junior Member

Joined: Oct 2000

0

08/11, 11:24am | report spam | close Reply |
Apple's plans

have not always been so stellar. I've been putting Macs (or trying) into enterprise level business for 20 years, when they literally the only computer in the education market and they were peer level with PCs in business, Windows didn't exist. Its true that corporate IT types wanted to buy PCs from the guys in the blue suits who came in constantly to work on the mainframe rather than two hippies in a garage. But Apple blew it. Jobs was a kid, full of himself, his invicibility, and greed and he blew it. They have scuttled thier ability to move into that market by boneheaded coporate decisions since the beginning. They've done a great job creating an image that they are nothing but a niche player but that was never their "plan". They are an ivory tower organization, always have been. They hired "evangelists" right out of business school who were utterly clueless to try to sell to corporate accounts. Idiots. I was one of a small handful of people who made Apple a success in the desktop publishing market in spite of themselves then and maybe people who like their machines will help them succeed in busting into the PC world now, again in spite of themselves. I love Macs but s**** Apple corporate. Viva la hack!

ershler
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Dec 2001

0

08/11, 12:30pm | report spam | close Reply |
OS X on non-Apple PC's

One of the big advantges Apple has always enjoyed is that they control the hardware and the software. One of the major problems that MS has is that Windows has to run on a gazillion different machines of different designs and components. Of course Apple has a financial stake in keeping OS X on "MacIntel" but also one of reputation. If people start hacking to OS X to run on generic PC's and then they run into trouble, what people are going to believe is that OS X is a crappy operating system, not the fact that it's been twisted out of shape to run on hardware for which it was never designed or tested. You see any example of that in one of the earlier posts. One poster does not want to run OS X on a Dell so this individual might try a Toshiba and fall flat on his or her face, then Apple will get the blame. The only way to assure that OS X will run as smoothly and reliably as it does it to keep it on Apple hardware.

Stratus Fear
Senior User

Joined: Dec 2002

0

08/11, 01:00pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: OS X on non-Apple PC

"One of the big advantges Apple has always enjoyed is that they control the hardware and the software. One of the major problems that MS has is that Windows has to run on a gazillion different machines of different designs and components. Of course Apple has a financial stake in keeping OS X on "MacIntel" but also one of reputation. If people start hacking to OS X to run on generic PC's and then they run into trouble, what people are going to believe is that OS X is a crappy operating system, not the fact that it's been twisted out of shape to run on hardware for which it was never designed or tested. You see any example of that in one of the earlier posts. One poster does not want to run OS X on a Dell so this individual might try a Toshiba and fall flat on his or her face, then Apple will get the blame. The only way to assure that OS X will run as smoothly and reliably as it does it to keep it on Apple hardware."

I personally don't believe this is an issue considering that it requires a HACK to get it to work on non-Apple hardware. Anyone with enough skill to do such a thing understands that it shouldn't be expected to run flawlessly, regardless of whether or not it actually does. You won't see Joe Sixpack doing this, and he won't be able to comment on it and call the OS c*** because he won't see that.

Anyway, this thread ISN'T about Apple opening the OS to the PC market, it's about a hack, so let's not speculate on anything other than the implications of the hack.

testudo
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

0

08/11, 01:08pm | report spam | close Reply |
hack? Uh-oh!

I personally don't believe this is an issue considering that it requires a HACK to get it to work on non-Apple hardware.

Oh c***, you can hack OS X and put it on any PC? And then you can use said OS X and Safari to download p***! That means OS X supports downloading p*** on PCs. We need to bannish OS X from the shelves until we can warn the parents out there that this is nothing but a s**-driven OS that their kids shouldn't even see!

Sure, its one thing to be able to download instructions on how to make a bomb to kill hundreds of people. But we're talking s-e-x here!

Stratus Fear
Senior User

Joined: Dec 2002

0

08/11, 01:13pm | report spam | close Reply |
re:hack? Uh-oh!

"Oh c***, you can hack OS X and put it on any PC? And then you can use said OS X and Safari to download p***! That means OS X supports downloading p*** on PCs. We need to bannish OS X from the shelves until we can warn the parents out there that this is nothing but a s**-driven OS that their kids shouldn't even see!

Sure, its one thing to be able to download instructions on how to make a bomb to kill hundreds of people. But we're talking s-e-x here!"

Nice try, but the general public probably doesn't read Slashdot everyday. They won't even understand what a hack is or how to do it. The kind of idiots that would make that statement are the ones that would just buy the Mac in the first place.

The kind of thinking that said stupid people are smart enough to be able to use said hack just doesn't even make sense.

MacnnGregor
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2004

0

08/11, 01:13pm | report spam | close Reply |
Wrong-o!

"One of the big advantges Apple has always enjoyed is that they control the hardware and the software. One of the major problems that MS has is that Windows has to run on a gazillion different machines of different designs and components. Of course Apple has a financial stake in keeping OS X on "MacIntel" but also one of reputation. If people start hacking to OS X to run on generic PC's and then they run into trouble, what people are going to believe is that OS X is a crappy operating system, not the fact that it's been twisted out of shape to run on hardware for which it was never designed or tested. You see any example of that in one of the earlier posts. One poster does not want to run OS X on a Dell so this individual might try a Toshiba and fall flat on his or her face, then Apple will get the blame. The only way to assure that OS X will run as smoothly and reliably as it does it to keep it on Apple hardware."

As above, I don't think this is a problem. Anyone moving OSX to a non-supported pc will hardly be worried about performance or driver issues! They will get the same problems that they get with Windows but they will see a better interface. This will be a problem for the street corner pc guys who make custom off the shelf boxes, but by in large most computers sold come from a few big companies that use pretty standard parts and if someone was going to make a splash in the MacTel market, they would use supported hardware with the correct drivers. All garage-built boxes would work like c*** and thus be no different than they are now and be of no surprise to those who buy garage-built c***.

In the open market Apple will get no more blame than MS unless Apple does a bad implementation on its own.

INHO pretending to be marketing gurus is a waste of time on this board, but what the heck, its about opinion so knock yourselves out.

Jabrwock
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2005

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08/11, 02:03pm | report spam | close Reply |
Not surprising

The TPM is a device like any other, and the installer DVD can only trust that the device driver was not hacked to give a false positive "reply" from the TPM. So all you need to do is get similar hardware (minus the TPM), modify the installer DVD, and voila, it installs!

This is to foil Joe Average from borrowing his bud's OS X DVD and installing it on his PC. Hardcore techies will always be able to find a way to modify it to install on regular PCs, no matter what Apple does.

snodman
Mac Enthusiast

Joined: Oct 1999

0

08/11, 05:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
This is not

something human beings will be able to do, really. They started with a brand new 1.6 Gz SSE3 Pentium 4 PC, installed BSD Unix on it, pulled that hard drive from the PC and INSERTED IT IN A MAC, then installed all the (STOLEN) OS X developer version for Intel packs into it by hacking them, then pulled it back out of the Mac and reinstalled it into their PC. In the end what do they have? The first geek on the block who could boot Mac OS X on a Dell. But that is about it. They mentioned that their camera would import pictures into iPhoto, but good luck PRINTING or SCANNING (shudder) anything without drivers. Good luck ever patching the thing (notice 10.4.1 in the movie?). It is not something you could do anything productive on, and by the time real MacIntels ship in 8 months the OS will be even more chained to the hardware. Even now nobody has HACKED Apple's OS X - this is just a workaround and a kludge at that. If you can boot BSD on your PC you can install stuff over it and likely still boot. All the copy protection in the Developer version of OS X for Intel does is prevent you from installing it on a PC other than a developer box and that is still the case from what the kiddies in France are saying.

sosumi
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 1999

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08/11, 07:06pm | report spam | close Reply |
Lol...

bye bye, Apple...

Stratus Fear
Senior User

Joined: Dec 2002

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08/11, 11:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
Kludge?

It's far from a kludge. It runs just great if you have an SSE3 CPU. That and printer drivers are included in the dev kit, just like a regular Tiger disc.

jonathanquinn
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2005

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08/12, 12:37am | report spam | close Reply |
JOB

100$ paypal to anyone who can combine everything on to one file, that i can burn, and boot up. must be working. if intrested email me jonathanquinn@gmail.com. I do not want to have to modify or change anything running a dell intel celeron 2.33, w/ 256 ram and 30 gig hd. email me for questions.

virtudesign
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2005

0

08/12, 10:11am | report spam | close Reply |
osx on ugly hardware

see the how-to and osx running on an ugly sony laptop...

http://www.uneasysilence.com/os-x-proven-hacked-and-running-on-an-ordinary-pc/

virtudesign
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2005

0

08/12, 10:13am | report spam | close Reply |
one more thing...

you'll have to format the whole hd to install.

gorf66
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Dec 2001

0

08/12, 11:46am | report spam | close Reply |
RE: JOB

Wow! 100 bucks?!

ibugv4
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2003

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08/12, 01:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
RE: RE: JOB

So some cracked out script kiddie, that $100 to make a bootable CD for someone across the country means one more weekend rave they can go to and talk about how 1337 they are.

tonalsickness
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Feb 2005

0

08/15, 09:18am | report spam | close Reply |
hmm

I think i've decided to try my craptastic dell laptop with this... might actually want to use it again if it works. I can't stand windows but i want to access the internet when i go home and my school gave it to me for free back in '02. might partition drive and use it.

question is if i do this do i still get autoupdates etc with this... and would it be worth it since all apps currently will just run in rosetta... a 1.6 GHz p4 laptop runing OS X... it'll probably run about the speed of my 700 MHz iMac for most tasks.

d4nth3m4n
Addicted to MacNN

Joined: Oct 2003

0

08/15, 06:40pm | report spam | close Reply |
so there is a front page.

saw this on another forum and i had to log in.

nice to see the 'NN getting some press. this osx on x86 thing might prove to be a great thing for apple.

anyone notice the stock price is damn high?

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Mac OS X Intel hacked to run on standard PCs

updated 08:10 am EDT, Thu August 11, 2005

Mac OS X Intel hacked

Related Articles

Recent Articles

Time

please

Intel based Mac's

Hacked?

Good luck...

No good can come of this

re: Intel based Mac's

Not surprising

Cool

Not a final version

let's be serious

Bad sign... PS/2 KEXT err

hahahah

Possibilities

Nice

good golly miss molly

re: Hacked?

won't matter much

another thing...

re: won't matter much

re: another thing...

I Trust Apple!

Mactels

RE: I Trust Apple!

Apple's plans

OS X on non-Apple PC's

re: OS X on non-Apple PC

hack? Uh-oh!

re:hack? Uh-oh!

Wrong-o!

Not surprising

This is not

Lol...

Kludge?

JOB

osx on ugly hardware

one more thing...

RE: JOB

RE: RE: JOB

hmm

so there is a front page.

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