Mac Convert

[Lance Peters]

A while ago I purchased a MAC laptop and have not looked back since - Question was of course what to do with the quad core PC i have.

Well found the answer - Converted it to run OSX.

So I have snow leopard running perfectly - everything working on PC hardware - Took a little tech knowledge but there are some great guides out there and since Apple staring using INTEL makes it much easier.

[Jamie Strickland]

been running SL on my dell mini now for a long time, recently purchased a dell 14Z laptop with identical specs on the macbook pro (then the new one just came out) and then we compared it against a real mac and the results were pretty much exactly the same. The big advantage the real mac had was clearly the battery though ! It cost me less than 1/2 the cost of the real mac so I am pretty happy with it, although if cost was not an issue I would get the mac.

[Lance Peters]

been running SL on my dell mini now for a long time, recently purchased a dell 14Z laptop with identical specs on the macbook pro (then the new one just came out) and then we compared it against a real mac and the results were pretty much exactly the same. The big advantage the real mac had was clearly the battery though ! It cost me less than 1/2 the cost of the real mac so I am pretty happy with it, although if cost was not an issue I would get the mac.

Mine is a desktop - so rather than have it sit there doing nothing....

[Jamie Strickland]

I would do it on my desktop but its an AMD and it doesn't look like it would be possible to make it work :D

[Roger Clark]

Another option for old (or new) pcs is to convert it to a linux box and make it a backup file server. Ubuntu 10.04 has a lot of the look of a mac, but still some of the ease of the windows gui (personally the best of both in my opinion), and all free. Performance is stunning. Software installation is easier than any other system I've seen (and I've seen a lot of systems). Also, very secure. Now if we could just get photoshop on linux....

Roger

[Lance Peters]

Another option for old (or new) pcs is to convert it to a linux box and make it a backup file server. Ubuntu 10.04 has a lot of the look of a mac, but still some of the ease of the windows gui (personally the best of both in my opinion), and all free. Performance is stunning. Software installation is easier than any other system I've seen (and I've seen a lot of systems). Also, very secure. Now if we could just get photoshop on linux....

Roger

Hi Roger - yes have used Linux in the past - NO Photoshop is a deal breaker for me - GIMP is not bad but a way to go yet.

[Roger Clark]

Lance,
Linux has come a long way in the last couple of years. In my opinion, it is now easier to use and manage than either windows or mac os. For the photographer, however, it is not ready as last time I checked, gimp did not do 16 bit. It is for that reason I said turn old pc's into backup file servers. For example, I have a linux machine in the basement running samba. Samba allows me to mount disks on that machine like there were on a windows pc or laptop. With mac, one can use NFS and do the same thing (with more functionality). Being on a different circuit and UPS, if there is a power surge or attack on the one machine, my files are backed up to another (more secure) machine. I also do backup to usb hard drives and keep them offline, but I don't do that every day (or week). So it is nice to have the other machine there waiting for backup at any time. And since I already had the machine, the only cost was adding drives. There is also "wine" where one can run windows programs under linux. I don't know if cs5 is working in wine yet.

Roger

[Chris Ober]

There is success with Photoshop through Wine or variants of but you're stuck with older versions for complete funcationality.
Newer versions reportedly work but with some limitations which may or may not affect you. http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=17

[Chris Ober]

Welcome fellow Hackintosh user :cheers: I built mine specifically so I could run Snowy.


A while ago I purchased a MAC laptop and have not looked back since - Question was of course what to do with the quad core PC i have.

Well found the answer - Converted it to run OSX.

So I have snow leopard running perfectly - everything working on PC hardware - Took a little tech knowledge but there are some great guides out there and since Apple staring using INTEL makes it much easier.

[Jamie Strickland]

Honestly I dont think linux has come a long way, it doesnt have much more going for it now than it did 10 years ago when the big hype was that it was the future for companies to move to linux to save money. They still say that but I still dont see it, nor does the vast majority of the industry. Being in IT we have investigated Linux for years and years and it always goes back to the same thing, it works for basic things or specialized things (like high end CAD software we use for car crash tests) but the vast majority of software that companies or even individuals run does not work. Until there are commercial applications available from adobe, microsoft etc its pretty much useless as a desktop for the everyday user i think. Yes openoffice and others work for basic things but once you get into complex things there are often big problems with advanced spreadsheets with not being able to run macros, not being able to open files, or losing things when you save it and someone opens it up again in excel. With google getting involved it may finally go somewhere though, they maybe able to get companies to make software for it which will change that. Our CEO is convinced we are going to switch from MS products to linux ($$$$$) but he is really the only one that thinks that, switching 20,000 PC's all over the world is a pipe dream.

If there is one smart thing apple has done for its PC market is switch to intel, now there are more companies making things that were not doing before, I would never have used a mac before but now virtually everything I want runs on it and if there is something that doesn't you can do it with vmware or parallels.

I have my data on an external raid, then backed up to another USB HD, and then also backed up to Mozy online every day, having all the data within the house only saves you from a HD crash, it does not protect from someone stealing the pc's or fire / flood etc... something to keep in mind

[Jamie Strickland]

Welcome fellow Hackintosh user :cheers: I built mine specifically so I could run Snowy.

omg there are at least 3 of us :)

when I ordered my dell 14z laptop I made sure I got the exact same video card as the macbook pro and investigated which laptops would work before I ordered it :)

I am seriously considering buying a new motherboard /processor to do it to my desktop now

[Chris Ober]

Why would commercial application developers need to change the kernel? They have the same restrictions when working with Windows or OS X and can't modify the source. With Linux, they have access to view the actual and full code which is unlike what they get from MS or Apple. Commercial developers go where the money is.

There are plenty more debated reasons Linux hasn't taken off on the desktop (it's getting better) even though it's hugely popular as a server. (September 2008 Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer admitted that 60% of web-servers run Linux versus 40% that run Windows Server)
Lack of interface standardization.
Lack of drivers due to hardware manufacturers not wanting to open up to third party developers forcing them to attempt creating one through reverse engineering.
Lack of customer base, i.e. they won't make money by porting to Linux. Lack of customers could be due to lack of support or drivers creating a cycle.
The general elitist attitude of many support resources. RTFM replies abound even though half the manuals are gibberish to novices.
Installation of software is getting a lot better but if it doesn't work, you're often stuck with cryptic command line troubleshooting, dependency ****, lack of tech support.
Lack of support.

OS X <> Linux OS X is NeXTSTEP and BSD based. Also UNIX-like.
Linux <> UNIX Linux is UNIX-like.
I know, I know... semantics to some...


The biggest problem in LINUX has been its conceptor, Linus Torvalds. Kernel changes needed to be approved by him for a long time and that has scared off a lot of commercial developments. I strongly believe that when that hurdle is gone, many companies will be comfortable to 'trust' linux. In fact, Adobe already embraced LINUX in the form of the MAC family. I think it is a matter of time and momentum.

Anyway, as Lance mentioned, I made the switch to Mac too, since OSX is a UNIX based OS. Apple has embraced the LINUX (UNIX) brand fully and made it successful and packaged it nicely. I love it. Anything I need windows for, I run a VMware session and replicate it at will. In my VMware session I don't care about viruses anymore: if windows gets infected, I just restore my first backup, which takes just a few minutes.

[Roger Clark]

Thus far LINUX is competing with desktop and lowrisk serving, but is not getting near high risk application serving, at least not on a wide industry scale. There are interesting changes in progress: the French government has issued a statement of direction to replace all Windows with LINUX, so momentum is building.

Gee, I didn't mean to start an OS war. I simply meant to show a low cost way to use old pcs as a file server.

But I will note that if the world is something like 60% web servers running linux, that is pretty wide industry scale high risk application to me. Also the city of Munich converted to linux a number of years ago. Google is linux. Many spacecraft are run and are commanded by linux. Pretty high risk if you ask me.

But we probably should not continue debating operating systems as the debate will likely just degrade.

Roger

[Lance Peters]

Last time I was abducted by aliens - I noticed they were also running Linux :2eyes2::D

[Jamie Strickland]

why did you for start this post ! LOL

I was not able to get my AMD desktop working properly so I just built a new pc with essentially the same or better specs as the Mac PRo

Intel i7 930 quad core 2.8GHZ (same as apple)
Gigabyte X58a-UD3R motherboard (it has usb 3, esata & firewire)
ATI 5770 1GB video (the exact same one from Apple)
12GB DD3 1600 RAM (better than apples 1066MHZ for the 2.8 processor)
1TB HD

man this thing is so fast !

to buy the same pc from apple with the exact same specs is 3774 on their site ! this cost me just over 1k

for anyone interested info here on it http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010/08/building-customac-customac-pro-2010.html

the biggest killer, to upgrade from the std 3GB to 12GB from apple is 1275 bucks alone ! I got 12GB of faster ram for $270

[Lance Peters]

why did you for start this post ! LOL

I was not able to get my AMD desktop working properly so I just built a new pc with essentially the same or better specs as the Mac PRo

Intel i7 930 quad core 2.8GHZ (same as apple)
Gigabyte X58a-UD3R motherboard (it has usb 3, esata & firewire)
ATI 5770 1GB video (the exact same one from Apple)
12GB DD3 1600 RAM (better than apples 1066MHZ for the 2.8 processor)
1TB HD

man this thing is so fast !

to buy the same pc from apple with the exact same specs is 3774 on their site ! this cost me just over 1k

for anyone interested info here on it http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010/08/building-customac-customac-pro-2010.html

the biggest killer, to upgrade from the std 3GB to 12GB from apple is 1275 bucks alone ! I got 12GB of faster ram for $270

Yep increased performance for less $$ - gotta love it.

TonyMac site is great and fantastic work on IBOOT - Forums are a little intolerant of newbies - if anyone does need any help PM me or Im sure Jamie would hep out also.

[Jamie Strickland]

Yep increased performance for less $$ - gotta love it.

TonyMac site is great and fantastic work on IBOOT - Forums are a little intolerant of newbies - if anyone does need any help PM me or Im sure Jamie would hep out also.

hey now I am one of those nubs lol !

I think I encountered every possible problem getting this to work ! I installed it on my netbook a long time ago and another dell laptop a while back but this one was by far the biggest pain, mainly because of hardware ! one bad motherboard (wouldnt read all the ram) and a processor (the motherboard just kept rebooting

but now its working and working awesome !