The Hackintosh Thread.

[ElfinHilon10]

As you read this, this message was typed from a Hackintosh.


Hey guys! So I just built and installed my first successful hackintosh (that is installing mac OS X on non-apple hardware) and I have to say, I've fallen love in love with a hunk of metal. It does just about everything I want it to do, when I want it to do it (besides the DVD player.. but I never watch DVD's anyway so I'm all good..) and it's SUPER fast!

My specs are as follows:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H67M-D2-B3.
CPU: Intel i5-2400 Sandy bridge (3.2GHz)
GPU: Gigabyte Radeon HD 6850.
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaw series 8GB running at 1333MHz
Hard drive: Seagate 1TB
PSU: Corsair Gaming Series GS600 600W
CD-DVD Drive- Sony Optiarc


And that's my build. After shipping and handling it came to a total of 850 bucks, and everything else added in after (including the monitor, apple keyboard, Bose speakers, and Snow Leopard CD) came to around 1,000. For comparison, my computer would be matched more properly with a high end iMac or Mac Pro. Having bought this from apple would be well over 2-3 grand. Two weeks later of fiddling around, I got it to work perfectly.


Anyone else have any experience with hackintosh's?

[Zethras]

It's actually illegal to do this, if you read the ToS.

Hope you don't get caught, lol.

[ElfinHilon10]

No it isn't against the ToS to do this. As long as you use a legit copy of snow leopard, you're fine.

[Morningbuns]

It's actually illegal to do this, if you read the ToS.

Hope you don't get caught, lol.

What's "illegal? about it? I don't see anything law breaking about doing with his machine what he wants.

[Meleti]

t

What's "illegal? about it? I don't see anything law breaking about doing with his machine what he wants.

It's very illegal to sell a Hackintosh computer. It should follow that it's also an enforceable violation of Apple's licensing agreement to build a Hackintosh on third party hardware in the first place; although it's true that Apple has no realistic way of enforcing that licensing agreement. There hasn't been a court ruling on Apple attempting to enforce their licensing agreement on individuals, however, so all of this is untested.

[ElfinHilon10]

What's "illegal? about it? I don't see anything law breaking about doing with his machine what he wants.

This exactly. It's a misconception that people think it's illegal. The "hack" part of hackintosh gives it a bad connotation to it and I guess people associate hacking with illegal. Regardless, there isn't any real hacking done.

ANYWAY. This thread isn't to discuss the legality of a hackintosh. I want to see if any other users on this board have done a hackintosh or are looking in to doing one. If they are looking to do one, I'll glad help them out best I can!

[Deleted]

What's "illegal? about it? I don't see anything law breaking about doing with his machine what he wants.

Under the EULA of Apple's Mac OS you are not allowed to install their OS on anything other than an apple brand PC.

At least that's what i've read on other sites.

[Morningbuns]

t
It's very illegal to sell a Hackintosh computer. It should follow that it's also an enforceable violation of Apple's licensing agreement to build a Hackintosh on third party hardware in the first place; although it's true that Apple has no realistic way of enforcing that licensing agreement. There hasn't been a court ruling on Apple attempting to enforce their licensing agreement on individuals, however, so all of this is untested.

He never said he was going to sell it. It's for his (presumably) own use and nothing at all about his actions are "illegal".

Under the EULA of Apple's Mac OS you are not allowed to install their OS on anything other than an apple brand PC.

At least that's what i've read on other sites.

So, against the ToS, but not illegal.

[Meleti]

He never said he was going to sell it. It's for his (presumably) own use and nothing at all about his actions are "illegal".

You seem to have skirted past the "legally untested" portion of my post and only read the first sentence. If you've got a court ruling showing that Apple's license agreement is enforceable for individuals building for personal use, I'd be interested in seeing it.

[OhpUldum]

Technically under Mac's EULA they have the right to only allow the Mac OSX on their hardware. Due to this legal reason I am going to close this thread before it gets out of hand.

Legal issues and Apple objections
Apple–Intel transition

Architecture
Universal binary
Boot Camp
Rosetta

This box: view · talk · edit

Apple does not authorize the use of the Mac OS on any x86 PC other than the ones it has developed itself. The company used a Trusted Platform Module, or TPM, to tie Mac OS to the systems it distributed to developers after announcing its switch to Intel's chips.[11]

The Mac OS X EULA forbids installations of Mac OS X on a "non-Apple-branded computer".[2] On July 3, 2008, Apple filed a lawsuit against Psystar Corporation[12] for violating this restriction, among other claims.[13] Apple claimed Psystar "violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by dodging copy-protection technologies Apple uses to protect Mac OS X. "Apple employs technological protection measures that effectively control access to Apple's copyrighted works [...] Defendant has illegally circumvented Apple's technological copyright-protection measures." Specifically, Apple charged Psystar with acquiring or creating code that "avoids, bypasses, removes, descrambles, decrypts, deactivates or impairs a technological protection measure without Apple's authority for the purpose of gaining unauthorized access to Apple's copyrighted works."[14] This brief revealed that Apple considers the methods that it uses to prevent Mac OS X from being installed on non-Apple hardware to be protected by the DMCA.

On November 13, 2009, the court granted Apple's motion for summary judgment and found Apple's copyrights were violated as well as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) when Psystar installed Apple's operating system on non-Apple computers. A hearing on remedies was set for December 14.[3][15]

On January 14, 2009, the Gadget Lab site of Wired Magazine posted a video tutorial for installing Mac OS X on an MSI Wind netbook, but removed it following a complaint from Apple.[16] Textual instructions remain, but include an EULA violation disclaimer.[17]

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