My Hackintosh Experience

I have been a windows user for as long as I can remember, occasionally testing various flavor of linux (ubuntu, redhat, suse, fedora, knoppix) over the years but never really sticks with it. Although linux distros are getting more mature with more company willing to supply their hardware with a distribution of linux, I think it's still not ready for the mass market. I found that whenever I use ubuntu, I still need to boot onto my windows system just to use some software. I'm not saying that the software is not available in linux, but it is just easier to things in windows. But then I heard about hackintosh. The idea of installing Mac OS X on PC hardware just thrilled me.

In the past, I've always heard about windows power user switching over to Mac OS X for various reason but I never had a chance to play with one. So I stick with windows, until NOW. It's been a while now since the hackintosh communities start installing OS X on PC hardware but I never really had the time to look into it. But then a friend gave me some computer parts that is a surplus to him. That's what started this project. After extensive research on the hackintosh(my biggest resource is of course insanelymac.com), I've decided on hardware that will give less problem during installation. Choosing the right motherboard is really important if you don't want to run into a lot of hiccups. Of course, going down the Intel Core Duo route is always better than AMD since real MAC uses Intel. Here are the lists of my hardware.

-Gigabyte GA-945GCM-S2L
-Intel E6600 Core2 Duo 2.4GHz
-2GB (2x 1GB) DDR2 RAM
-250GB 7200rpm SATA hard drives
-256mb 6800GT video card
-20x DVD burner with Lightscribe
-Bluetooth Microsoft USB
-PCI Network Card(I install this after 10.5.4 upgrade which render my internal NIC unusable)

I manage to squeezed (need to break some plastic holder of the CPU fan to fit it in) everything on an Antec Aria Micro ATX Cube PC Casing. Now the fun parts begin, installation. I've read a lot about the advantages of installing retail Leopard using PC EFI but since I'm new at this, I chose to go down the easier road, Kalyway DVD Leopard 10.5.2. Burned the dvd, put it in my USB DVD-RW and after setting up the BIOS(I think this part is mostly to fix the boot/reboot problem), then start the installation. After formatting my harddisk to MAC OS Extended (Journaled) with Disk Utility, i started with installation. Before installation, there is an option to chose which kernel and driver to install, but I forgot to press the customized button, so I missed that. I should have select NVInject during the customization but since I didn't do that, I have to install the graphic driver, NVInject manually which isn't too hard. Luckily for me, the installation went on without any problem. After restarting the PC, it boots straight into Leopard and start asking me to fill in some details. I've heard many people complain about problems during installation but my installation went as smooth as a baby's bottom. The only driver I need to install was the NVInject driver in which after installation, I manage to set the resolution up to 1280 x 1024 pixels. Everything else was working fine except for Time Machine. After some research I found out that I need a different kext for the networking in order to make it work. After replacing the original AppleIONetworking.kext with Netkas version and giving it permission, Time Machine works wonderfully well.

The best thing about a Vanilla install (retail Leopard DVD) is the ability to update straight from Apple Software Update. But since I use a patch version of Leopard, I need to do all the updates to 10.5.4 the hard way. I manage to destroy my first ever installation of Leopard on Hackintosh by using Apple Software Update to upgrade to 10.5.4. Then again, completely destroy the second attempt when I try to upgrade to 10.5.3 using Kalyway Combo Update Package. Then after installing it back all over again, I try with JAS 10.5.3 Combo Update which works really well. After the update, I then use Apple software update to update to 10.5.4. Luckily this time it works since 10.5.4 is not a major update with less than 100MB update files. I have yet to take the plunge to upgrade to 10.5.5. Like everybody else, I'm waiting for a sure works method of doing this before giving it a go.

Now I am a proud owner of a Hackintosh. After using it for a few weeks, I have to say, sorry all windows fan, 'I'm not a PC anymore'. 'I'M A MAC'. All I can say is that 'it just works', with MAC. Program installation was a breeze, a simple drag and drop and you're done. With MAC, 'drag and drop' is your friend, you can do everything by dragging and dropping, even uninstalling program. There are a few things that make me likes Leopard so much, but most of the credit goes to expose and spaces (combine with my Microsoft bluetooh mouse). It makes it so much easier to use the desktop, middle click to expose all windows, 4^th button to minimize to desktop, 5^th button to turn on spaces. I'd like to share more of my experience with Leopard , especially essential program that I absolutely love using, but that's gonna be another day I'm afraid. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go hunt for a Mac Book Pro on ebay.