Leopard hacked for Intel PC consumption

We've come to expect our Apple-related hacks early and user friendly these days, but we've still got mad respect for the folks at OSx86 Scene who've managed to get Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard up and running on Intel PCs on launch day -- the day before if you felt like being a bit less upright about it. The hack requires a minimum of trickery on your part: just a burnable DVD, USB thumb drive and a bit of luck. Not everything's super tested just yet, and OSx86 Scene will be expanding support and simplifying the process as time goes on, but this is sure a promising start.

[Via dailyApps, image courtesy of mac.nub]

[BigD @ Oct 27th 2007 9:15PM]

I might have to try this....have ubuntu, mac os, and vista on one box.

[Chris @ Oct 27th 2007 9:19PM]

Thats exactly what my Thinkpad does. And its great.

For work on the road I use Ubuntu, at work (I have an Ubuntu workstation at work) I use Vista for Office and Outlook, and for fun/personal their is Mac.

Mac does boot the fastest by far though.

[Alan Lau @ Oct 27th 2007 10:23PM]

DO THIS ON A MAC THEN!

[bugmat @ Oct 27th 2007 10:20PM]

Exactly what I want. Initially considered flirting with a macbook pro simply for bootcamp...but if I can get a great PC to triple boot Gutsy, Vista and Leopard it'll be the best option - save some dollars and have the best of all 3 worlds! Great work by the guys at OSx86!

[Jack O Lantern @ Oct 28th 2007 12:32AM]

Who let the cat out of the bag?

[ethana2 @ Oct 28th 2007 4:34AM]

Don't do this on a Mac. Locking software to hardware with a TPM is a practice that I condemn to hades. Death to it!

[Raymond @ Oct 28th 2007 6:54AM]

Hmm... I wonder if this will "brick" your PC/laptop the next time Apple releases an update to OSX. Hey, it happened to iPhones. It could happen to your PC.

[Billy Fiul @ Oct 28th 2007 12:15PM]

Great, now I can use an inferior OS with a low market share and no third party software development on my Windows box. But it's so easy to use -- even a typical Mac user can do it. Hahahah, yous is so studip.

[Tim @ Oct 29th 2007 11:47AM]

Hey, if it works better than Vista on my PC, I'm down with it.

[kev @ Nov 15th 2007 9:24PM]

@Alan: Do you EVER say anything else?

Not everyone wants to buy Apple's one-size-fits-all laptops.

[thethirdmoose @ Oct 27th 2007 9:16PM]

Is there a way to manually patch the leopard dvd? I don't feel like torrenting the image.
Also, does the family pack come with 5 dvds? because that would be awesome.

[kingroach @ Oct 27th 2007 9:35PM]

yes.. just make a copy of your dvd.. and point teh script to your dvd image

[GBot @ Oct 27th 2007 9:20PM]

Anybody who has instructions for patching the original, unpatched Leopard image file, please respond to this post with a link. Thanks!

[rn_itan @ Oct 27th 2007 9:22PM]

Nice Move! Let's create a Dual boot for windows pc...haha

[Morgan @ Oct 27th 2007 9:25PM]

Them hackers is smart!

[dscassa @ Oct 29th 2007 3:37PM]

Them hackers is smert.

[Luigi193 @ Oct 27th 2007 9:26PM]

OR you can get a mac, and run Linux, OS X, XP, and Vista all in Virtual machines all at the same time!!!!!!

[Luigi193 @ Oct 27th 2007 9:27PM]

But don't flame me, because I still think this is really cool, I was just pointing something else.......please don't hate me...

[melloncollie @ Oct 27th 2007 9:36PM]

What's the point of buying another computer, if you can run the OS without the computer itself?
It's just a waste of money. I'm not too keen on wasting money.

[thethirdmoose @ Oct 27th 2007 9:37PM]

Actually, you can do this on a PC or linux, and for cheaper (because VMWare for PC is free and open source). It just depends where you want the performance hit.

[DT @ Oct 27th 2007 9:44PM]

@melloncollie

Wow, you can run OSs without computers these days? Sweet!

[melloncollie @ Oct 27th 2007 9:56PM]

@DT
Ever hear of context?
It was implying, through use of the former statement, that I do not need the extra computer in order for me to run its native OS.

[bugmat @ Oct 27th 2007 10:23PM]

No flame - but PCs are still cheaper than Macs for the specs you get. Also virtualization is never as good as having the real thing. If you triple boot and you want to use both at the same time you can always then use VMware or parallels in your Leopard on your cheaper more versatile PC. I can't wait for them to sort out the bugs ;)

[almostinfamous @ Oct 27th 2007 10:28PM]

@bugmat WTF?

as long as you dont upgrade RAM or HDD from the apple store, which is admittedly a very huge rip-off, macs are pretty competitive with the mid-high to high-end laptop market which is where they are aimed.

[eh @ Oct 27th 2007 10:46PM]

OSx86 is for people who want a high end gaming computer for a consumer level price, cant afford a new computer or mac, cant afford to buy multiple computers, or kids at the mercy of what their parents buy.

Many OSx86 users have ended up buying macs for their next computer because they get addicted to using OS X and dont want to go back to Windows.

[pyro @ Oct 28th 2007 3:25AM]

@ed

Or they just realized that they can spend half the price building a PC to their own specifications that has higher quality parts and a longer warranty.

[Matt @ Oct 28th 2007 3:57AM]

Maybe I'll buy a Macintosh when they make a computer that:

Isn't the size of a few pieces of bread, has intergrated graphics, no expandability, and lackluster hardware.

or

Doesn't have a built in ultra-glary LCD and limited expandibility.

or

Doesn't have a base price of $2500 (without a monitor), and still only has a shitty graphics card in the base config.

Until then I'll just keep building my own computers, or getting them from Dell.

[seagramx @ Oct 28th 2007 7:50AM]

Maybe I'll get a Mac when I don't have time to become Dr. Frankenstein.

[dj-kenpo @ Oct 28th 2007 1:07PM]

@almostfamous: no, they're not. it depends where you're buying from. bestbuy? overpriced, so i guess macs seem somewhat price competitive. but smaller pc shops or ebay, you can get some really good specs for next to nothing. pc hardware at the same specs is far cheaper if you shop for it.

[Isaac @ Oct 27th 2007 9:32PM]

Wait, I am a little confused about this. In the instructions it made it look like you need to do all that stuff from leopard. Is that true or can I just do it from vista?

[Johnny C @ Oct 27th 2007 9:42PM]

Yeah, this all has to be done through Mac OS X. It looks like they did it in Tiger; I wouldn't see any reason why it would have to be Leopard. I guess you're out of luck on Vista. It looks like this is only possible right now for people who already have a version of OSx86 on their PC or have a Mac.

[billy bob thorton @ Oct 27th 2007 10:24PM]

It works just fine on a computer without any previous Apple software. You do not need to own OSX first, but if you don't Steve Jobs will come and eat your first born son, or maybe just sue you.

If you're new to this I highly recommend disconnecting critical drives unless you have their IDs memorized. Also something to keep in mind is the configuration of the image that your use. The hardware setup needs to be similar to avoid issues. Also I needed a usb keyboard.

[eh @ Oct 27th 2007 10:46PM]

Yes the PATCH requires OS X. You can, however, get a fully working Tiger OSx86 iso and install that so you can run the patch, the installation of the Tiger versions are a breeze and actually easier to install than XP. The scene is getting ready to release a fully working Leopard disc that wont need any patching or USB steps to get working.

[kingroach @ Oct 27th 2007 9:35PM]

sorry about the "teh"..lol

[cjh6793 @ Oct 27th 2007 9:38PM]

Crap. This is the one time I wish I didn't have AMD.

[Dae @ Oct 28th 2007 1:56AM]

This time only? really? I like AMD but they are the lacking CPU to date.

[RedBull Runner @ Oct 28th 2007 3:06AM]

Don't worry, there will be a full installer DVD for leopard with AMD support soon, or so i've heard. Basically the same way they did tiger. If you dont mind using tiger, you can already find those all over.

[Ominx @ Oct 27th 2007 9:43PM]

Looks like Apple was a little naive to release OS X without any serial number protection or activation this time around. Two years ago with Tiger it wasn't much of a concern...but they should've seen this coming. There's gonna be a whole lot of pirated copies running out there.

[DT @ Oct 27th 2007 9:48PM]

Still a miniscule amount compared to the Apple machine installed base. I don't think Apple is too concerned with it. Why piss of 99.99% of your users with SNs or activations to stump the few who are going to do this?

[Ominx @ Oct 27th 2007 9:56PM]

Yea your right with pissing off legitimate users. I just finished my third install (Family Pack) and would have been annoyed if I had to go through the typical MS type activation. It really was painless and that's what Apple wanted.

[dhughes @ Oct 28th 2007 12:10AM]

I wonder if it's Apple's long term goal to eventually give away the OS and pretty much just make hardware products and some applications.

I don't really see how Apple can charge for their OS anyway isn't OS X BSD based and isn't BSD open source?

It would certainly make Microsoft shudder since they are pretty much Windows and some apps. Their only real hardware is the Xbox and Zune.

If Apple gives away their OS, and any Intel (and AMD?) based PC can run it, MS or at least Windows is doomed!

[John @ Oct 28th 2007 1:55AM]

The keyword is "hack." You can't just up-and-install Leopard on your x86 PC without any problems. Also, OSx86 has been around since Tiger, so it's not anything new.

Also, I did this on my last computer (a Dell Inspiron 6000), and, while it was pretty cool, there ain't nothin' like the real thing. It took a week to get my
video card to support both Core Image and Quartz Extreme simultaneously, and since my monitor was widescreen, I couldn't just "deal" with a 1024x768 display on a 1280x800 display. On top of that, Intel's wireless network cards were barely supported (when I used it, support for open networks only was just beginning, it might have progressed since then). You can't install operating system updates immediately, because they run the risk of essentially bricking your partition. Manual installation of packages is a requirement for even thinking about trying this, but luckily, its all fairly easy once I learned how to use the terminal commands. At the end of the day, though, OS X doesn't run nearly as well on a PC as it does on a Mac box, which should be expected.

I'm sure Apple isn't too concerned about this community, since the majority of its users are basically trying OS X out before they buy.

[OS11 @ Oct 28th 2007 12:51PM]

Apple naive? That's funny.

No, all mac OS upgrades were free until around 1993 or so. Then when MS started charging for Windows 95, Apple joined in. Old school Mac users still use the free os approach, so Apple isn't about to piss off the core of mac users by requiring a serial number.

Apple makes stuff that is easy to install, maintain, so putting a serial number in there is insinuating their customers are thieves. They use the Karma approach, plus the OS comes free with every new mac, so unless you don't buy one but every 4-6 years, you basically are fine.

As for BSD, yes, Apple uses FreeBSD as the foundation, but the upper layers are extremely well crafted, and that's why OSX has been so popular with former Linux and Windows users.

Plus OSX Leopard is a TRUE, Certified UNIX, Linux is not, so it's pulling them over in droves.

All n All, I really doubt Apple cares if there are a couple million copies of OSX running on PC Clones. A Mac is much better built machine than what you can get, build in the PC world, so at some point these people will move up to a Mac anyway, so it's not something Apple has to worry about.

----

[Matt @ Oct 28th 2007 4:02AM]

I don't know why everyone keeps saying Windows activation is so horrible.

I've probably done close to 20 XP installs and several Vista installs in the last few months, and activation has always been a breeze.

[Jamar @ Oct 28th 2007 7:49AM]

My install was near-perfect. Install, patch the audio, and it's in a near-perfect state. No, I don't care about wireless, because most places I am I'll have Ethernet, and other places my cellphone works perfectly as a modem.
Of course, I'd like to have a perfect install, but I like having a laptop that can take a few bumps and bruises better (had a Powerbook, amazed at how fragile the thing was, now running OSx86 on a Panasonic Toughbook).

[Thomas Bags @ Oct 27th 2007 9:48PM]

You sure it doesn't support AMD? It has all the same features as Intel chips.

[Mitch @ Oct 28th 2007 5:40AM]

Yah, i would like to know too. My AMD has SSE3. Has anyone had any luck?

[Chris @ Oct 29th 2007 6:10AM]

It may have the same features, but OSx does not include an AMD specific hardware abstraction layer. Think of it as a sort of dictionary to convert the higher level OS software to low level hardware instructions.

[Ipaq3115 @ Oct 27th 2007 9:48PM]

Cool

[Simon @ Oct 27th 2007 10:01PM]

Im trying to do this..the torrent is mind-numbingly slow, though. And thanks to engadget's reporting of this (i presume), the website is no longer accessible for instructions. :^(