Socket 775 MSI Hackintosh build

Want to install the latest version of Mac OSX on your Intel PC. Well you are in luck. Thanks to tonymacx86 and the x86 project there are variety of installation tools out there to help you accomplish this. Normally if you purchased a copy of Mac OSX you would only be able to install that on an Apple system. Great for Apple, bad for you! You may be wondering, what do I need to do this? Well not that much really. First you will need to download the latest version of Mac OSX, currently OSX Lion 10.7.3 or you could purchase the installation disc. You will also need a computer running Mac OSX to create the installation package and a usb thumb drive with at least 8 GB of free space. The usb drive will be used as the installer. In addition you will need UniBeast and MultiBeast. These are available from tonymacx86's blog. You may also want to check here to see if the hardware you intend to install on has been tried before with success. There are step by step instructions available tonymacx86's blog and there are also a handful of videos on youtube that explain the process of creating the installation flash drive and then booting your machine from it. The most recent system I have built as a hobby project is outlined below. Surprisingly you really don't need that great of system for it to perform extremely well. However you will need to have a processor that is at least Intel Core 2 Duo and up. Processors released prior to this will most likely not be compatible with Mac OSX architecture. Before buying hardware to complete this build you may want to check out the DSDT database on the tonymacx86 blog. Some motherboards may not be supported by the universal MultiBeast and if you choose a motherboard that has a DSDT working file already created the post installation setup will go much quicker. Fortunately my build was supported. Prior to installing Mac OSX I had not checked the DSDT database, nor had I looked at the wiki for hardware that had been tried and tested already. There is also a buyers guide produced by tonymacx86 which will outline specific hardware to buy in order to have a smooth clean install that will work most times without any DSDT modification or enabling via kext.

Budget socket 775 Build

Motherboard: MSI G31TM-P21 LGA 775 Micro ATX
Processor/CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66GHZ w/ 1066Mhz FSB
Memory/Ram: Corsair XMSII 2GB (2x1) PC2-6400 800Mhz
Hard Drive: Western Digital 500GB Sata 6.0 Gb-s 16MB cache
Video Card/Graphics Card: Sparkle Nvidia Geforce 8400GS
Keyboard/Mouse: Logitec Wireless

Result: Everything with this setup works flawlessly except for the sleep. When the computer is put to sleep it simply turns the monitor off and leaves all of the hardware components running as they were. Sleep enabler was installed to no avail. This simple build is cable of running Final Cut Pro, Adobe CS5, Logic 9, and many other great apple software products. Building your own mac is a much cheaper option than purchasing one from Apple!

Wow! Only a few months after the release of the first beta version of Ubuntu Linux 'Quantal Quetzal,' a third beta version is now available for download. What's new with the the newest version of Ubuntu? With the release of Ubuntu 12.10 beta 2 many new features have been integrated into the operating system not previously seen.

(1) For starters there is now one consolidated installation image file. Gone are the days of needing to choose the appropriate download file. With the download of one image file all builds of Ubuntu will be available to install.

(2) With this latest release we also see the integration of the Logical Volume Manager (LVM) and support for complete disk encryption. Surely this will prove critical for users who require this level of security and privacy like financial institutions and government agencies.

(3) 2D no more. Ubuntu 12.10 beta 2 will only run the Unity GUI in 3D mode however, users with out the hardware necessary for hardware acceleration will not be left out. By default Unity now runs in 3D but, if the gpu is not capable Unity will force the CPU to perform the necessary processes.

(4) Update Manager. The update manager has been changed and renamed to Software Manager. It will now check for updates on start up.

For a complete official list of the new features in 12.10 seehttps://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/quantal/+specs" target="_blank">Blueprints: Quantal Quetzal 12.10.

Quantal Quetzal 12.10 Beta 2 Download

Boot multiple operating systems on a Hackintosh

Virtualize.

If you are like me, wanting to be able to boot Windows 7 and Mac OSX on a Hackintosh, then you will probably want to look into virtualization software. Virtualization software allows users to install an operating system on a virtual drive and run the both the native operating system and the virtualized one simultaneously. For a relativley small fee VMWare Fusion is available for purchase and download. This is one of the most popular software applications for virtualizing operating systems. I have VMware extremely usefull, however there are some draw backs to virtualizing a new machine. If your computer has 2gb of ram or less and only a dual-core processor you will probably experience slow performance on both the Mac OSX and Windows virtualization when running them both simultaneously. The virtualized operating system/machine requires dedicated system resources just like any operating system whould. The propblem with this is that there are only so many resources to go around. In order to run most applications in Windows at a reasonable speed you will need at least 2gb of ram and two processor cores just for the virtualized Windows operating system. You would also problably want to have 2 gb of ram and two processor cores for the Mac OSX side of things, if not more horsepower. While virtualizing using VMware, or similar software applications, is quick, easy and does not require you to restart your computer to switch operatings systems, it lacks the performance of actually booting up with Windows 7 or whatever operating system you would like to virtualize. If your computer is a hackintosh you can simply install Windows 7 on a separate driver or drive parititon using the Chimera Bootloader you probably already have to boot up Mac OSX. Installing a separate operating system using Chimera will be explored in a later post.