So I am writing my first blog post in my Hackintosh computer, which was kind of a bitch to put together. But for the resources discussed in places like these (which made me think it would be easier than it was), I would never have attempted such a ridiculously nerdy thing.
And nerdy it is! You have to become familiar with “kexts” (something Id never heard of until this) and you have to be able to figure out how to enter “boot flags” (and which boot flags to enter), how and where to get the correct Mac OS X distributions, which PCs might be the best bet, and more than anything, you have to have the patience to see it through.
I started out with Snow Leopard, using iBoot to get it booted after formatting a hard drive. A good way to start, but that had all kinds of problems, and the Apple store would not let me get away with updating it to the newer versions (either “Mountain Lion” or “Mavericks,” their latest). They can tell if you’re running a hacked version, and you will get a message saying your computer “could not be verified.” DOH! It ain’t a Mac; it’s an old Dell! And it doesn’t send out the right signals, and unless you can figure out how to make it do so (which most sane or normal people can’t), you are SOL. So I was stuck with an older version which worked — barely — and had a lot of bugs. Like not being able to view or edit jpg files, no matter what. When I installed sound kexts, I lost Internet, and when I installed Internet kexts I lost sound.
Finally, in exasperation I decided to try out a hacked version of Mavericks, which first required an interminable 16 hour dirty download (which caused incredibly irritating malware symptoms to spring up — fake “help” and real porn) and forced me to run MalwareBytes to get rid of the trash. But eventually, I got the right torrent to give me the right image file. Not an easy-to-burn iso, mind you, but a .dmg — which had to be custom-installed onto a USB drive and then booted up for the install.
Six installations failed and gave me a black screen after installing, no matter what I did, each taking over a half an hour. I kept entering boot flag after boot flag, but nothing worked. Finally it occurred to me that the NVIDIA video card (which I bought only because I was told that Macs want “better” video cards) might be the problem, so I pulled it and tried installing the system with only the Dell’s internal graphics card. Amazingly, that let the installation proceed past the black screen and on to the initial sign-in, and from there I had it working, with only adjustments.
So here I am.
There is a certain moral lesson here. If you want a Hackintosh, you have to be determined. Or crazy.
Comments
3 responses to “Enter title here (Hey, that’s what it said!)”
I want a custom I2C bus 2X16 LCD controller. I’m rolling my own with the help of a friend.
I never had that level of trouble when I played around with it (on a Dell Mini 9, and then on a random i7-920 desktop).
But you’ll never be able to trust an OS update to not break it, sadly.
That’s why my home server is a new base-model Mac Mini, now that I decided I have better uses for my time than Linux administration…
(I mean, if you derive pleasure from the process of making it go, I understand that and more power to you.)
Interesting- running a Mac OS on a Dell. I wonder if a reason you decided this is related to the impending death of XP. As Windows 7/8 needs a lot more RAM to function than XP did, they are not good OS for old computers. Old Dells can still function, but don’t have the RAM etc. to adapt to Windows 7. Do the various Mac OS require less RAM than Windows 7/8?
You have more gumption than I did. Ten years ago I tried updating drivers etc. to get an old Dell to function better. More hassle than I had patience for. Finally decided to cut the Gordian Knot with a new Dell. Ditto with dealing with the end of XP- I just bought a newer Dell.
Over the years, I had tried various configurations of Linux, and decided that getting them to function as I wanted required more hacking ability and patience than I had.