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A practical guide to Hackintosh

August 14, 2013 in Software

Here’s how you install OS X on your PC:

You don’t.

But I want it so much because (reasons)!

Let me explain this thing about Hackintosh. If you come from a Windows or Linux background, you’re used to software and hardware being loosely coupled: all you need is some drivers, and it works. Drivers are usually available for most hardware. You can install Windows and Linux on practically any computer, because they are designed to be that way.

Well, in the Apple world, hardware and software are Siamese twins. They are a unified, tightly coupled, product.

Even though modern Apple computers use PC-compatible parts such as CPUs and graphics cards and hard drives, their choice is strictly limited to a subset that Apple uses in its products. Those parts are the only parts that have official drivers. You don’t upgrade a Mac with random PC parts, so PC part manufacturers don’t make OS X drivers.

So to get OS X without an Apple computer, you have to build one from Apple-compatible parts, and then it’ll function properly - thanks to the efforts of the OSx86 community. There are even OSX-compatible laptops you can buy.

But, If you already have a PC, and you want to make it into a Mac, chances are some parts are not compatible and you’re just going to waste a day of your life, read a lot of jumbled tutorials and error reports and pleas for help, needlessly mess with your hardware, do a lot of reboots, and - in the very optimistic best case scenario - get an OS X that’s almost working, except, for instance, it won’t have sound. Or Wi-Fi. So, it’s like Linux was - ten years ago.

Please. Just don’t.

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