Why “OSx86 Distros” are bad.
I see people on IRC asking “Where can I get an 0Sx86 10.6 distro?” on a fairly regular basis so I would like to take a moment to explain exactly why myself and others discourage their use.
#1 – Distros cause problems!
If you haven’t noticed most, if not all, distros apply more hacks than are required on the average system in an attempt to function on as many systems as possible. While this may seem like an OK thing to you while things are “working” you may not even notice diminished performance or realize that those bugs you are having are due to a particular hacked kernel extension somewhere that isn’t even required for your own hardware… Additionally if it has over-written “vanilla” kernel extensions on your system a software update could corrupt your install and leave you with an OS that will not boot. If this happens chances are since you used a distro, and didn’t learn for yourself what needed to be patched on your system and how to patch it – you probably won’t know how to fix it.
#2 – The OSx86 Community does not want to support distros!
If you can’t get support from the actual distro developer (most do not support their releases) you will be met with ridicule by others in the community. Why? Because the distro likely broke your install to begin with and because people who use distros generally are unable to articulate what patched kexts they are using or understand basic terminology like kext, permissions, mkext, or how to use basic terminal commands. We have a fairly good understanding of common errors with RETAIL installs but if we had to stop to try and fix every backwater distro out there – that has an error simply because it’s patching kexts incorrectly for a users system, well… We wouldn’t have time to work on anything else. We generally expect people who request support to have a decent level of self-competency so that it does not waste our time.
#3 – Distros encourage laziness!
Instead of learning how and why something works on your own system and improving your own understanding of OS X & PC hardware you want other people to do the work for you. With no profit or reward in it for them. If this sounds like you please do yourself a favor – GO BUY A MAC!
#4 – Distros are Piracy!
This is an obvious one, if you own a retail OS X DVD you wouldn’t need to download a distro anyway, unless you are exceptionally lazy which brings us back to #3. Please support apple! If you want to run Snow Leopard on your non-apple hardware the least you should do is purchase a legitimate copy!
#5 – Conclusion
If you want to run OS X on your own PC hardware, do it the right way and learn how to achieve a working retail install from scratch. Please don’t take “shortcuts” with these “distros” – in the long run they will actually cause you much more trouble than learning how to do it for yourself. It may sound like a daunting ordeal at first glance but with utilities like myHack available it has never been easier to run OS X on your own hardware.
Tags: Distro, Hackint0sh, OS X, OSx86
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 20th, 2009 at 13:51 by Conti and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
great stuffs here..anyway, i want to know something. are there already a sample built on i5 + p55 with the release of myHack v1.0 ? am going to build my unit on those hardware, so need to know what brands/types are compatible with vanilla kernel…thanks
Joed: Thank you for the comments and for the support! Yes you can update to 10.6.2 if you are running a vanilla install with no concerns. The only potential issue would be if you are using a version of myHack installer prior to RC5. If you are using RC4.1 or earlier you will need to update to RC5 before you run the 10.6.2 combo update to correct a bug in the Sleepenabler.kext used in previous versions of myHack installer but other than that there are no problems. It is my intention to add this information to the main installer guide as soon as I have some time to spare.
Thanks again for the positive response.
Conti,
One thing I noticed from distros is that you are pretty much stucked on the distro version as an update can corrupt your system and become non bootable.
I followed the method described on this site and got it working in the 2nd or 3rd attempt. Thanks! Just contributed with a small donation and encouraging others to join.
Only one question… Can I update to 10.6.2 w/o issues or there are risks associated?
BTW, thanks a lot for the effort in putting all this information and utils available to the community. {thumbsup}
nikhil: It is actually quite easy if you follow the simple instructions on this site, however, if you have unsupported hardware the functionality of OS X will be limited and present a significant challenge no matter what methods you use to install. This is why I continue to suggest that anyone who wants to try OS X on non-apple hardware at least obtain reasonably supported hardware (Intel CPU/Chipset, Nvidia Gfx, etc).
i’ve been using linux and windows for some time and would want to install os x for the first time. i failed to install leopard using iatkos v7 on my p4 pc.
now i want to try snow leopard on my amd turion laptop
but a retail install seems very intimidating
also i have no access to a mac
so i don’t really see a choice between distros and the retail version
its quite hard for a mac noob to do a retail install
[...] Source : myHack Blog [...]
That is a matter of interpretation.
Yes Apple has stated in the EULA that you may only install OS X on Apple-Branded hardware. However, there are larger laws, consumer rights dictate that we can use software and hardware in accordance with our own individual desires so long as we are not re-branding aforementioned software, calling it our own and reselling it for a profit or otherwise inflicting financial damages on original software maker, that is what the laws and licenses and copyrights are intended to protect – not to give carte blanche to software makers that anyone has to follow just because they say so.
The other clause in the EULA that could be potentially violated is the clause about reverse engineering or decrypting files. Now some portions of the OS are open source and those are generally what we have modified so that clause does not apply to them, as to decryption – well AMD users who are using bin patchers (which decrypt binaries) are in violation and the older dsmos.kext is as well. FakeSMC however is an emulator written from open source so it falls into a sort of grey area that does not technically violate the EULA from what we can tell since it is not bypassing any ‘protection’ or decrypting any binaries but is merely functioning the way a real SMC hardware device functions.
To state it simply just because the EULA says something doesn’t mean it’s enforceable … or not enforceable.
Additionally I would like to point out that an EULA violation is VERY DIFFERENT from piracy. Piracy (copyright violation) is a serious crime in most nations and usually carries a hefty fine and additional punishment depending on severity and local laws. An EULA violation is a completely different animal. Just because you have used software in a way that the author did not originally intend does not mean you have illegally copied and distributed their software or owe them ‘damages’. In cases of companies like psystar though that are violating the EULA and selling computer systems for profit I believe there is a genuine case for seeking damages and personally I feel this kind of profiting from the hard work of others (1 being Apple, 2 being the OSx86 community they steal the methods to run OS X on non-apple hardware from) is highly inappropriate. This kind of behavior hurts the entire open source movement. Developers are becoming increasingly reluctant to release their source code because people like psystar will take it and slap their own name on it (often violating the open source license) and then sell it for a profit with no royalties or even so much as a reference to the original author.
Additionally purchasing a copy of OS X is the LEAST you could do to support Apple for all the hard work they have put into this fine operating system. PS: I also own a real Mac.
Well regardless whether you pirate or buy a legit copy the license from Apple is violated by not installing it on an Apple branded machine. That $30 won’t protect you from Apple’s lawyers if they ever decided to follow the RIAA’s lead and start suing users who violate that license.
You have clearly misinterpreted my post. First let me say I have been using linux since circa 1994 when the very first versions of slackware came out. I still use linux today, in fact my primary business role over the last decade or so has been that of linux developer, linux network administrator and system builder (both linux and windows). I have also done PC repair, tutoring, web development and other odd jobs here and there over the years but I have used linux more extensively than any other OS and I still use it every single day. In fact this site itself is powered on my very own flavor of linux running on my own dedicated server.
So with that said I completely agree with your last statements about MacOS benefiting from real linux users and programmers coming over to the OS X platform. My personal reasons for switching to OS X as my workstation were actually a product of the linux development I was doing but a desire to be able to work with some of the graphic design and multimedia applications that MacOS had to offer in addition to the pure linux environment I was used to working with. It still had bash and the ability to xforward apps from my linux server here locally so it has fit in quite nicely with my current work and gave me a few additional features that were unavailable on any other OS.
I could never give up linux completely, I value OS X for the polished applications available for it and the stability it provides but it is still a bit too closed down and particularly when it comes to server usage I would never rely on anything but linux.
Try before you buy? Sure I support that absolutely. But do you need a distro to try before you buy? And what are you going to see with something that is patched together poorly? That is like saying a crippled live linux distro actually shows you what linux can do compared to your own finely tuned gentoo install. Hell even ubuntu can’t come close to showing you what linux is capable of and I would consider it a lot better than some of the OS X distros I’ve seen over the years. So if you want to try OS X and you have no access to a mac… You could always just “borrow” a dmg or dvd from a friend and still learn how it works and get a nice clean retail install to play with. Most of what I wrote on this page is targeted at the people who have no desire to understand how or why the OS X operating system works, they just want to show off to their friends that they can run OS X on non-apple hardware or are just too lazy to do anything themselves. Those people will most likely end up having more problems with a distro than had they simply done it right the first time, I have seen it happen time and time again.
So as to this site, it is not arrogance nor was I trying to suggest that everyone is a pirate who wants to try the OS before they buy it. Mac users with “huge ego’s” usually just buy macs and often condemn anyone who would run OS X on non apple hardware like we are lepers… What I want to achieve here is helping people to get OS X running on their PC’s as easily as possible but to understand what they are doing well enough in the process that they have a genuinely good experience with it and it works as close to a real Mac as possible. I could say the same for linux, I see so many people going to ubuntu but then they have all kinds of problems that they don’t know how to solve because they simply have not actually learned anything about how or why linux works or what to do when something goes wrong. That is what causes many people to think linux is ’so hard’ that they keep using windows.
I was in much the same mindset as you at one point in time, after learning more about OS X I decided to buy a legitimate copy & in fact I even purchased an apple laptop which has performed fantastic over the years. So no offense but you might try not to make such bold statements or accusations as to my ‘arrogance’ when you know little or nothing about me or my reasons for posting this article or working on this website.
Anyone hear of “Try before you buy?” I do not think this is such a outlandish concept. Where are the free trials from Apple? I’m a Linux user. Never used Mac. Suddenly I hear one day that MacOSX is Unix based. Would make sense from a guy who is used to having a totally free operating system to want to try it free for a bit before they decide to buy. $29 Is 29 more dollars than what I’m currently paying. One would think in the business world it would be smart to give out free trials to those users. After all, even Microsoft is giving out free trials of Windows 7 currently to hook linux users? Where’s the love Apple?
So as to this site, and it’s arrogance, quit assuming that everyone is a pirate as they may have a legitimate reason for wanting to try out the distro.
Let’s not forget the improvements the MacOS could benefit from having real Linux users and programmers coming over to the Mac. After all, they copied a lot of things from Unix already to make it what it is today. This kind of site is what makes anybody else wanting to try a Mac stay away from the community because we think that Mac users have such big ego’s.