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The Hackintosh: Delivered


REVENGE

On April 16, Gizmodo published an article reporting that Psystar Corporation was a hoax! So it's rather ironic that one of the first people in the world to be delivered the Commercial Hackint0sh Open Computer is Gizmodo member Patrick, username: WhiskeyFrown. According to Patrick, who ordered his Open Computer on April 10:

"I used this machine all day today at work without a hiccup. So far everything is working perfectly (something I can't say about my G5 it's replacing) Photoshop, Firefox, VMware Fusion (I know…ironic) as well as the OS itself all performed as expected"

Patrick's Open Computer configuration consists of an Intel Core2Duo at 2.66 GHz, 4 GB of DDR2 RAM, and a GeForce 8600 GT; the machine is reputed to score 3585 on Geekbench. Patrick claims that Psystar's customer service was very good, giving him 3 phone calls to:

1. to let me know it had shipped.

2. to let me know UPS got it here a day early and it was on the truck for delivery.

3. to follow up and make sure I got everything and was happy with the machine.

Patrick's video has made frontpage on Gizmodo, proving that Psystar has delivered, if only one, Open Computer out into the world.

 

InsanelyMac users, have you ordered an Open Computer from Psystar Corporation? Do you believe 3rd parties should be able to commercialize the work of Hackint0sh and the OSx86 Project?

 

Sources: theINQUIRER, SlashGear, Gizmodo

 

Update: Gizmodo has a gallery of images depicting the Open Computer, including an view of the internals.

 

In addition, InsanelyMac member Stravaganza has created a list of what he concludes to be the components used in this build of the Open Computer, along with evidence to support his claims and a price estimate based on NewEgg.com inventory:

 

Okay, so I did some research and here it comes. The machine shown in Gizmodo seems to consist of the following components (my best guess). Refer this video if needed.

So:

Case: $69.83 = ( $54.99 item + $14.84 shipping)

Motherbaord: $66.99 = ( $66.99 item + $0.00 shipping)

Processor: $179.99 = ($179.99 item + $0.00 shipping)

Video: $71.99 = ( $79.99 item + $7.00 shipping - $15.00 rebate)

Hard: $68.28 = ( $61.99 item + $6.29 shipping)

Optical: $29.99 = ( $29.99 item + $0.00 shipping)

Memory: $69.98 = ( $78.99 item + $5.99 shipping - $15.00 rebate)

Leopard: $109.99 = ($109.99 item + $0.00 shipping)

Total: $667.04 (v. $829.99 from Psystar)

The question is "where is FDD/HDD cables?"


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I'm getting a Pystar OpenComputer. I tried to get Leopard working on my Laptop a few months ago, but Didn't boot fully, Could only boot into Safe boot which does not enable audio.

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I'm getting a Pystar OpenComputer. I tried to get Leopard working on my Laptop a few months ago, but Didn't boot fully, Could only boot into Safe boot which does not enable audio.

 

Um,

 

Couldn't you search around this forum and use one of the threads to pick out the best parts and build one yourself?

 

I mean you could build a much nicer and quieter machine for about the same price. Also you'll get more familiar with the process of how everything works in case you have to troubleshoot or upgrade your machine.

 

I wouldn't give them a dime for something they really can't support and I can do myself.

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I have sold a hackmac on ebay. it sold for market value...wasn't really satisfied with the price.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/05...le_on_ebay.html

See, the point is this guy sells his hackintosh preloaded with Mac OS X, and he advertises on eBay such fact for promotional purpose. I know that some members of our community sell on eBay their machines, which are somewhat compatible with Mac OS X, but unless I am misunderstood, no one among them sells his machine with Mac OS X installed, and says his machine is Mac OS X compatible on eBay, i.e. they are selling their PCs not hackintoshes.

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^it's not only ebay. craigslist too.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&saf...amp;btnG=Search

 

i've posted this before...

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry713508

 

lots of ppl are sellin' hackintoshes on craigslist. i wonder if any of them are IM members?

 

i heard that psystar is just the FIRST U.S. website/company to sell hackintoshes. i've heard that other countries have websites/companies that sell hackintoshes, legal or illegal accordin' to their various laws. i don't feel like googlin' for a french or german or italian or "insert country name here" version of psystar.

 

Um,

 

Couldn't you search around this forum and use one of the threads to pick out the best parts and build one yourself?

 

I mean you could build a much nicer and quieter machine for about the same price. Also you'll get more familiar with the process of how everything works in case you have to troubleshoot or upgrade your machine.

 

I wouldn't give them a dime for something they really can't support and I can do myself.

i agree with terrancew_hod, build one yourself. i would pick out parts for you but i only use premium parts and it would cost you over $1000. you can find your own "parts that are better than psystar's parts" that meet your budget, but it would cost more than psystar's pc. but psystar's uses the cheapest parts available and not the best parts so that will lead to a short shelf life (my parts are carefully selected 'cause i won't be upgradin' for at least 5 years after that, even longer than that if i get lucky).

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Well in the end it's up to Apple to decide and at the moment I don't think they have need to be or are worried. In fact I bet they are quietly interested. They could choose to legally kick butt & close them down forever anytime they want. But these machines do not really threaten Apple, in fact there are some compensations.

 

1) They know these machines will die as soon as Joe average clicks update. So as most have the longevity of a mayfly nymph why bother to do anything at all?

2) Business will not touch them for obvious reasons. So no danger of loss of capital from sales of any significance.

3) Apple sells quality machines even if they are a bit expensive and these are well ..... Ask yourself would you buy or build something like that? I would have to be really desperate. If Falcon NW or someone like them did it & said they will support OSX updates themselfs online then I would be worried.

4) It generated lots of good publicity about OSX & a lot of 'faction' about how bad MS is & how people hate Windows. Prime time news etc.

 

I also speculate that Apple have thought extensively about going beige box/open box etc & hence head to head with MS & their tempting 90% market share but have decided against it for now. Yet at least some people at Apple who like the beige box idea are quite keen to see what happens & are treating it as a kind of free lab experiment while reasuring anyone 'in house' who is against the idea that they can terminate it at will if the results are undesirable & it's highly likey to self terminate anyway.

 

As a final thought if gray imports started coming in from the Far East just as IBM's were cloned in the 2-386 days then I would be worried if I was Steve, now that would kill Apple in its present form.

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What people don't understand is releasing OSX to run legally on generic hardware would destroy Apple completely, at least as long as they're in the hardware business. Think about it. How can Apple charge so much for hardware when PC equivalent hardware costs so much less? The answer is the operating system. And if they control what machines can run the OS, then they can do whatever they want within reason.

 

That said, yes, I'm running OSx86. But I understand it can break at any time and I don't expect it to run at 100%. Soon I'll be purchasing my first Mac and I'll do so confidently knowing all about it and how to use it. I know that's not everyone - probably most people who get this up and running won't buy real macs. But the reason this project has become so successful over the years is because of a dedicated community who volunteered their time to make this OS work.

 

No company should be profiting off of that work.

 

 

If you really believe that no one should profit (to derive benefit) off the work of another then shouldn't you also believe that no one should deny another the profit from their work ( as the user of this forum are doing )?

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It wouldn't be far-fetched to think that Apple might be reconsidering the possibility of allowing OSX to be installed on generic PCs, maybe without official support like they don't support Windows running through Bootcamp. Look at most of the OSx86 hackintosh running so flawlessly on generic PCs so far. Once you get all the correct hardware, the only unstable part is the software update, which Apple can easily fix.

 

Like someone mentioned it before, no one believed Apple would go intel years ago. And years ago, no one would've believe that Apple would create a boot loader so you can install Windows on a Mac. Or that iPods would work flawlessly through iTunes for Windows. Heck, we can't believe there's Safari for Windows. But here we are.

 

This isn't about Apple or Mac being better than Windows or PCs, it's about opening a product that could potentially make Apple a very profitable company in the PC market. So before Apple calls their lawyers to take action against Psystar or certain ebay users, they have to at least entertain the idea of OSX for all.

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Apple won't support other PCs. They don't have the support staff like Microsoft to handle everybody's hardware variation. However, if Apple takes a Psystar co. to court over Mac compatible computers, and loses the case, the court may then require Apple to make their OS independent of hardware. This is what they essentially did to Microsoft. So the result of this may very well be that Apple will have to not only let people put OSX on any machine, if they can do so already, but also support it on those alternative machines. That's the Apple risk.

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I've got a nice list of parts that makes this whole process allot cheaper.

 

The PC most people already own $0.00

The software and instruction that is offered freely $0.00

Maybe three hours max time and effort $0.00

Total $0.00

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Hey kids, I have a Psystar Open Computer!

 

However, I ordered it without Leopard pre-installed thinking I could just do it myself. But at the time I had never heard of the Hackintosh or InsanelyMac community so had absolutely no idea what I was getting into: WOW.

 

I got the machine a few weeks ago and first tried just cloning an existing Leopard drive onto one partitioned with GUID and then I used the Ubuntu-install they shipped my machine with to attempt to load EFI. Good lord.

 

So from there I basically chipped away at this for the past few weeks, having no idea what I needed or didn't need in order to make this happen, no idea where to look or how involved this was even supposed to be. I didn't think this was a Hackintosh (the Psystar rep I spoke with before it shipped said it wasn't) and so I had no idea what was necessary to install Leopard.

 

Many trials later, I've got it running as of 30 minutes ago, updated to 10.5.3, everything seems to be working and in order except for the microphone...which is actually what I was looking for when I stumbled upon this thread.

 

I ordered their basic model with the upgraded processor, the memory pre-installed (I normally get memory from OEMPCworld but it was easier to go with Psystar's); at the time they didn't include a graphics card so I ordered the 8600GT separately from NewEgg when I ordered the computer (30$ after rebate, shipped). In the end my total was about 630$ shipped... they had upgraded the video card during the several weeks it took them to get this to me -- after getting everything working I removed it and put in the 8600GT (got it working after some shenanigans). I also threw in a 500 gig drive (80$) but that's an aside.

 

At any rate, I didn't even know about Netkas, InsanelyMac, Hackintoshes, any of it... when I ordered this....heck, people were busy just trying to prove Psystar was totally fake -- AFTER I had pulled trigger and ordered the darn thing! Lucky for me, they are real.

 

Now here's my thoughts, having only skimmed this thread (I've already read about a hundred InsanelyMac threads for today so am tapped out):

 

I had an Apple IIc when I was 12. I am 33 now and have spent thousands of dollars (of money I couldn't really afford to spend) on many Macs over the years. I fix them for a living and therefore have supported dozens of other people buying into the cult of Mac. I'm really not worried about Apple. Isn't Microsoft's business model based entirely on the raw volume of letting your OS work on as many machines as possible? So the worst that would happen is Apple might make billions and billions of dollars beyond what they're already making. Heck, for all we know, we are beta-testing this for Apple -- showing them just how their OS can live splendid existences on a variety of machines. Course, I have to fix so many genuine Macs all-day every-day that one reason they want to keep the system closed is to keep the problems relatively finite (which is still a kind of infinite) -- so surely they want to retain control of "the Mac experience." But I believe it's time to loosen those reins for those brave enough to roll their own Mac.

 

For Netkas, OSX86, et al., as people have basically said, it's some twisted code of ethics all around. The way I figure it, besides the collective wisdom that led Psystar to figuring out the right combination of components to put together, they are charging 150$ for the Leopard install. So that means that 100$ is for Leopard itself and 50$ is for Kalyway, Netkas, InsanelyMac, etc. AND Psystar's labor in setting up Hackintoshes that are safe to send into the wild. So they profit 50$ per machine (minus their own efforts/labor). Yes, I think they should pay some sort of royalty (not sure to whom since the open-mac community here seems to involve so many wonderful minds/efforts)... I just don't know how much they're going to make off of that part, themselves, at the end of the day. How many of these are they going to sell?

 

By this twist of logic (and please help me hone it), 50$ is not a lot per computer depending on how long it takes them to set up each one...now maybe they don't spend an hour configuring each one but if they do, then 50$ for an hour of labor means that, in a sense, they're not charging for the intellectual capital of the Hackintosh but for the labor of assembling one so that non-tech (or lazy) people can get one. Hmmmm.

 

As for the machine and components itself, good lord I love it. This thing is zip zip zippy -- easily the fastest Mac I've owned and therefore it's ironic that it's taken me so many real Macs to get here to one that actually responds how I need my computer to respond (haha he says after having only used it in the process of creating it). I am thrilled with it. I am thrilled that this machine brought me to this community as I would never have known the full possibilities. It made me learn, it's made me evolve my thinking, and that dividing line between PCs and Macs has faded one more degree.

 

And now that I know what I'm doing, I can do this more cheaply, and more easily, going forward :) I love a deal and this entire experience was 600$ well spent.

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Hey kids, I have a Psystar Open Computer!

 

However, I ordered it without Leopard pre-installed thinking I could just do it myself. But at the time I had never heard of the Hackintosh or InsanelyMac community so had absolutely no idea what I was getting into: WOW.

 

I got the machine a few weeks ago and first tried just cloning an existing Leopard drive onto one partitioned with GUID and then I used the Ubuntu-install they shipped my machine with to attempt to load EFI. Good lord.

 

So from there I basically chipped away at this for the past few weeks, having no idea what I needed or didn't need in order to make this happen, no idea where to look or how involved this was even supposed to be. I didn't think this was a Hackintosh (the Psystar rep I spoke with before it shipped said it wasn't) and so I had no idea what was necessary to install Leopard.

 

Many trials later, I've got it running as of 30 minutes ago, updated to 10.5.3, everything seems to be working and in order except for the microphone...which is actually what I was looking for when I stumbled upon this thread.

CAN YOU ENLIGHTEN ME WHAT THE BIOS SETTINGS ARE THAT YOU USED AND WHAT INSTALATION DISC WAS USED AND WHICH KERNEL YOU APPLIED FOR INSTALLATION?

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i dont really get why people are making such a big fuss about this. only difference between the OSx86 community and psystar is that psystar is using the technology that this wonderful community has crafted, or crafted better.. :D .. although i do not agree with making a profit off other peoples work, it so far doesnt look like they have taken .. for example, Kalyway, or JaS, or Leo4All , any of those craked OSes, it seems, they have essentially cracked, there own. if there were using software described in this site, then they would know how to do a proper update on a "Hackintosh" (open computer just sounds stupid as hell) and the computers they sell would be absolutely 100% working (with the exception of manually having to download and install the cracked OS update.

 

the thought of making a profit of building and selling OSx86 computer has crossed my mind, although the legality of Apple, would not be worth it to tempt, and i dont own my own business ;P so i wouldnt do it..

 

so if this company were as smart as they probably think they are, then they would have fully working OSX computers.. but they are not.. and this community is. :P just know that we (meaning this community and Apple.) will always be one step ahead, of those using the brilliance of this community for profit. :P

 

-Robbie

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im not in anyway defending them, i do not think that people should be making profit off this. well if anything, the developers here that have all contributed should be payed by apple, that is if apple ever agreed to it, but in the meanwhile because they dont, we have this great community of people to help with OSx86.

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Does anyone know if the followings work on GA-G31M-S2L?
  • Sleep
  • Wake (from keyboard/mouse/power-button)
  • Restart
  • Shutdown

 

Hi,

 

Just found this thread again.

 

I can verify that all of the above work on the "Psystar build" (including audio, contrary to what a previous post said). I can also verify that you are correct that this is the mobo in my video. I opened up the case to check it out and it is a GA-G31-S2L.

 

I read your list a while back based on the video (nice detective work) and I came back to check it out 'cause I wanted to try and build a hack myself but use better parts (and hopefully a faster <quad?>processor). I want to stay compatible with the original hardware though because I hope to use a clone of the original Psystar HD.

 

If anyone has any sugestions on compatible hardware upgrades I'd appreciate it.

 

<<putting on flame retardent suit>>

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Hi,

 

Just found this thread again.

 

I can verify that all of the above work on the "Psystar build" (including audio, contrary to what a previous post said). I can also verify that you are correct that this is the mobo in my video. I opened up the case to check it out and it is a GA-G31-S2L.

 

I read your list a while back based on the video (nice detective work) and I came back to check it out 'cause I wanted to try and build a hack myself but use better parts (and hopefully a faster <quad?>processor). I want to stay compatible with the original hardware though because I hope to use a clone of the original Psystar HD.

 

If anyone has any sugestions on compatible hardware upgrades I'd appreciate it.

 

<<putting on flame retardent suit>>

Thanks for the kind words. I found out by myself a few thing related to the motherboard. (I wanted to build another Hackintosh and chose GA-G31M-S2L for economical reason.)
  • Restart and Shutdown do not work natively. (There are good patches.)
  • Audio does not work natively. (There is an imperfect patch.) I believe your audio is not working for either analog-in or volume control of analog-out.
  • LAN does not work natively. (There is a perfect patch.)

On top of that,

  • The names of some Core 2 Quad processors are not reported correctly. (There is an imperfect patch.)
  • DDR2 800 RAM is reported as DDR2 667 RAM. (There is a good patch.)
  • All SATA ports works natively unlike some other motherboards which are capable of running Core 2 Quad processors.

At this moment, I feel comfortable with everything except the audio. I am just glad that I can load all four cores with jobs on this cheappy motherboard. Overall, I would give 4.5 out of 5 for this motherboard.

 

Simply out of curiosity, would you tell me which one is wrong in the following?

  • RAM GeIL GX24GB6400DCKA
  • Graphics eVGA 512-P2-N756-TR
  • ODD Lite-On LH-20A1L-05

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Nice people in this forum can get real vocal, rushing to the defense of hack gurus on the topic of profiteering. I like what Hackerino said. $50.00 profit to make on each PC is, in my opinion, a formula for disaster when you factor in support and warranty. Any mom-and-pop system builder makes more than that doing Windows installs. Besides, I would like to mention a few things about EFI and Apple so people can contemplate what transpires in the next 6 moths:

- Apple doesn't create or won EFI. It's all Intel work to rally board manufacturers behind the standard, just like the way they did it with AGP, PCIe, USB, etc. It just took Taiwanese companies sometime to catch on because they each try to differentiate among themselves on BIOS tweaks. Those days are being numbered. SOme EFI boards are appearing already.

- When Intel announced EFI standards and TPM, a lot of big companies joined the frey. VIsta supports EFI natively. Nearly all notebooks makers have TPM installed on their latest machine. They do this for reason of support( or ease of it), not for discourraging people from messing with the innards.

- Apple is no different. Their business philosophy is far better than that of MS. They create designs of hardware for winning hearts and minds of user. And to turn a profit at those servicing center, akin to premium car dealership.

Case in point: if you take a vanilla PC built to the same specs as an iMac, throw in the same beautiful monitor, buy an aluminum KB and mouse; all of a sudden you have a difference of only $250.00. You end up with an ugly duckling. Apple had the right idea all along guys.

They designed and built beautiful products and can charge a hefty premium over it. Imitators and struggled over the years since the introduction of iPod, and now the iPhone.

About OSX vs. Windows. We all admirers of OSX for its beautiful and superiority. Apple would love to have these vanilla OSX PCs propagate themselves, to eat away the install base of MS. When EFI becomes the de-facto standrad in 2009, Apple will just lower the price of their gear and the flood gate will open. Look what happens with the iPhone 2.0. No one will look at Nokias , Samsungs or Mots. The iPhone itself sit in the stratosphere 2 $199.00. They are even opening up the platform for future software developers. That is smart business modeling!

Waht Apple is quietly saying is: "NOW THAT YOU LIKE OSX. DO YOU WANT TO OWN A PLAIN VANILLA CLONE, OR WITH A FEW MORE BUCKS A MONTH ON AN INSTALLMENT PLAN, YOU CAN OWN A PIECE OF ART."

 

As far as we tinkerers are concerned, we will always have our own vanilla box the way we want it, at the price we are willing to pay. Oh, lest I forget, those hack gurus to whom we owe so much will always be hacking away in their dungeon labs, never ask to make money on their invention. It's just their nature, behaviorally. So we all need to send in donations every now and then. Hacking existed way before commercialization.

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I know it can really make you seem like a douche-nozzel to just jump into the middle of things sometimes, that said, I don't care if I look like a douche-nozzel or a douche-nuckle.

 

People have asked questions and made statements in this thread, but I think some have missed the real point. OSx86 will never have an effect on Apple Computer's profits. 3rd party companies selling boxes that are supposed to run OSx86 out of the box cannot compete. We have established this already. But, the real point is not whether or not Psystar has infringed against Apple, or if they have nicked code from the OSx86 community, its not whether Apple will make OSX available to non-mac hardware users. People have asked, why does Apple allow this to go on? Why do you think? Companies like Psystar, and communities like this are offering free R&D to Apple. If Apple was to ever decide to do something different, they already have alot of the equation laid out for them. If Apple wanted (and I am not saying they do) to release OSX on a generic PC platform, they have alot less R&D to do, all they really need to do is sit back and watch.

 

BTW, it is perfectly legal for a company like Psystar to sell legitimate copies of OSX as long as they aren't turning a profit of the software. If I was to buy a copy at retail, I would be perfectly within my legal rights to sell it to someone else for what I paid.

 

Apple has shown over the past decade that it IS willing to take it's business model in a different direction, don't be suprised what you see in the future. Business is dynamic, and has to be if it want's to stay competitive.

 

So when you write "The Hackintosh: Delivered"...who is delivering what to whom?

 

Being that this is my first post here, I'd like to give props where props are due...Macgirl has a kikass avatar, and to Mebster, Yeats was a genius.

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