Psystar Releases Mac Clone Software

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Microsoft isn’t the only company releasing new software today. These guys will never learn. :rolleyes:

Psystar, the clone company Apple is suing for selling generic hardware with the Mac OS pre-installed, is expanding its business to include selling software that will allow anyone to install Apple's operating system.
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Damn! These dude's are glutton's for punishment. I just don't see how this can end well for them.
 
lol, the link to the software isn't working, anyone got a working link? Since I'm tethering through my iPhone I almost feel like that Psystar's website is blocked :p
 
i just tried to go on both my MBP and asus LT, neither work. but i agree, i think apple programmed to have safari autoblock the site. because there isn't even a moment for it to connect it just automatically says safari cannot connect. another reason to be glad to no longer be under their employment. Best and Worst year of work away from home i ever did.
 
LOL, brilliant. If they can't win against Apple then they can make Apple lose. What can Apple do? Sue them? Ha, too late and it still hasn't stopped them (they have declared bankruptcy at least once already)
 
ElGuapo242 said:
Damn! These dude's are glutton's for punishment. I just don't see how this can end well for them.
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I wasn't so sure before, but after this news I'm pretty sure that there is serious money behind this company that is looking to set a legal precedent in courts for selling OS X clones. Its basically a front that if successful would allow for any larger company to sell OS X on their own hardware.

Think of it as venture capital, except through the US Justice System. :)
 
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I wonder if apple for saw this company doing this as a sour tactic just to get back at apple?
 
I don't understand how this can just work on any hardware when all the folks in the osx86 scene have been struggling for drivers for so long.
 
I dont know either, all I know is I downloaded this before the website gets "hacked".

Hell for all we know it could be a reverse marketing tactic from Apple. They get you to try their product on your terms at a price you like (but they still make money from at least the OSX disc sell) and then hope you like it enough to buy the real deal. I mean I dont see how Apple couldn't get a cease and desist order with as influental as they are.
 
Oh just to be clear, does this require a recent Intel CPU and Chipset? Like say a Core or newer processor and chipset? Since OSX was never designed to run on AMD's.
 
You'll still need hardware support in the OS, but other than that, this has been doable for a while now. I did it on my girlfriend's PC a few months ago. Just download or create the correct boot CD, swap in the retail OSX DVD and you're ready to go. Getting everything working smoothly in OSX itself was a bit of work, but getting it installed and the basics working was pretty simple.

Just a shiny package (and fee) on what the community has been working on for years.

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=114834
 
The utility supports generic Intel hardware based on Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, i7 or Xeon Nehalem CPUs.
 
There has to be some overhead with this, since this is some type of EFI emulation. I can't imagine OSX on this would run as well as OSX on mac hardware.

Otherwise, if you have the full version, does this allow full 3d graphic support in OSX? I may be interested in this over buying an actual mac.
 
bigdogchris said:
There has to be some overhead with this, since this is some type of EFI emulation. I can't imagine OSX on this would run as well as OSX on mac hardware.
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EFI is equivalent to the BIOS. It's only relevant until the hardware is handed off to the OS and its native drivers. Maybe it slows your boot down a bit, but not much, hardware is one of the first things that comes up in the boot sequence.

Otherwise, if you have the full version, does this allow full 3d graphic support in OSX? I may be interested in this over buying an actual mac.
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As I mentioned, I set something very similar (but free and community built) up for my girlfriend (she 'needs' FCP for school). Getting all the drivers sorted and working was a bit of a trick, 32-bit mode won't boot (and thus some hardware doesn't work at all like her wireless card), but 3D works great. If you're careful about the hardware you buy you'll probably have a fairly easy time of it.
 
keenan said:
EFI is equivalent to the BIOS. It's only relevant until the hardware is handed off to the OS and its native drivers. Maybe it slows your boot down a bit, but not much, hardware is one of the first things that comes up in the boot sequence.
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Yes I understand that but in a PC, the system communicates with the bios even while it's in Windows. Am I mistake that EFI does the same thing?[/quote]As I mentioned, I set something very similar (but free and community built) up for my girlfriend (she 'needs' FCP for school). Getting all the drivers sorted and working was a bit of a trick, 32-bit mode won't boot (and thus some hardware doesn't work at all like her wireless card), but 3D works great. If you're careful about the hardware you buy you'll probably have a fairly easy time of it.[/QUOTE]Yeah I have a GTX 260 and I can't find any drivers for it. People say they will work but without 3d acceleration.
 
All Nvidia GPU's work fine when going the iDeneb route, not sure about this way though.
 
bigdogchris said:
Yes I understand that but in a PC, the system
communicates with the bios even while it's in Windows.
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Got an example? About all I can think of is setting the hardware RTC which is hardly performance critical and doesn't happen all that often. I could be wrong.

Yeah I have a GTX 260 and I can't find any drivers for it. People say they will work but without 3d acceleration.
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All I needed to get her 8600GT going was a DSDT string. Added basically automatically by OSX86 Tools or something similar (can't remember what it was called). Easy stuff.
 
My media center is compatible with it. Installing Snow Leopard as we speak. :D


OSXinstall.jpg
 
it's based on darwin. if you don't know what darwin is, i'll explain. basically darwin is the "open source" version of the unix os that apple uses and only distributes to developers. if you somehow manage to find a copy of darwin legally, it is supposed to install on virtually any platform. think of it like as fedora is to redhat. when i worked at apple up until a few months ago, i got my ass handed to me for talking about darwin to the "genius"es because contractually while working for them they have a stick in their ass about being a developer and a retail employee at the same time. back when BEos was still under development Apple attempted to purchase the root os, but because of funding and legal issues they were unable to outright purchase BEos. In turn they were able to buy the source code (i think) that was the kernal for BEos that would become the current Mac OS, and the version they sent to developers to test and come up with new internal software was/is called darwin.
 
xjmtx said:
it's based on darwin. if you don't know what darwin is, i'll explain. basically darwin is the "open source" version of the unix os that apple uses and only distributes to developers. if you somehow manage to find a copy of darwin legally, it is supposed to install on virtually any platform. think of it like as fedora is to redhat. when i worked at apple up until a few months ago, i got my ass handed to me for talking about darwin to the "genius"es because contractually while working for them they have a stick in their ass about being a developer and a retail employee at the same time. back when BEos was still under development Apple attempted to purchase the root os, but because of funding and legal issues they were unable to outright purchase BEos. In turn they were able to buy the source code (i think) that was the kernal for BEos that would become the current Mac OS, and the version they sent to developers to test and come up with new internal software was/is called darwin.
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What? Your post is almost entirely wrong. Darwin is what Apple calls the UNIX core of their OS. It's the kernel, most drivers and a bunch of backend system tools. You can 'manage to find a copy' here: http://www.opensource.apple.com/

BeOS was a contender when Apple was in dire need of a new OS, but they chose to base OSX off of NeXT instead for a number of reasons. Palm ended up with Be. As far as I understand Apple took a BSD userland largely from FreeBSD, wrote a new kernel (Mach), and took much of the NeXT libraries to build their GUI and developer libraries around.
 
i was under the impression that a lot of BeOS's ideas were translated into what the NeXT/darwin distro. BeOS and the NeXT os are similar aren't they?

regardless. this psystar Rebel EFI is based on the darwin bootloader and that is why it allows you to install OS X on your generic intel platform
 
DarkStar02 said:
I don't understand how this can just work on any hardware when all the folks in the osx86 scene have been struggling for drivers for so long.
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All this is, is a bootloader that emulates EFI and lets MacOSX setup start. It doesn't help with drivers or anything like that.

And yea, these guys are gluttons. It's like they're just daring Apple to sue them again!
 
xjmtx said:
i was under the impression that a lot of BeOS's ideas were translated into what the NeXT/darwin distro. BeOS and the NeXT os are similar aren't they?
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They're similar in that they were both alternative OS's around the same time, and both had good underlying, though different, engineering pinciples, but other than that not really. The UIs were quite different, the development philosophy quite different, and as far as I know they never mingled their code. Both companies had fairly close ties to Apple; they were both started by ex Apple executives.

If you want something to fool around with, Haiku is a modern, open source, very close copy of BeOS (it aims for both binary and source-level compatibility) that recently released an alpha. GNUstep is a FOSS implementation of OpenStep which you can install inside most Linux/BSD distributions. They're quite different ;).

regardless. this psystar Rebel EFI is based on the darwin bootloader and that is why it allows you to install OS X on your generic intel platform
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True, but I'm not really too sure how much that matters. My understanding is that people have used other bootloaders with success as well. The key component is the EFI emulation which isn't part of Darwin, since Apple has a 'real' implementation of EFI on their hardware.

Some standard PCs have hardware EFI implementations too now. I can't remember what happens on those :p
 
keenan said:
True, but I'm not really too sure how much that matters. My understanding is that people have used other bootloaders with success as well. The key component is the EFI emulation which isn't part of Darwin, since Apple has a 'real' implementation of EFI on their hardware.

Some standard PCs have hardware EFI implementations too now. I can't remember what happens on those :p
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i think this bootloader takes some of the guesswork out of the other bootloaders and i am thinking that since a "company" put it together it was designed (and i say this with teeth gritted) "better". now we both know that open source projects can turn out to be even better than corporate designed. but nevertheless the this based on darwin allows it to work better.

as far as efi implementations on other pc hardware....what happens is das boners.
 
if they are simply using open source software to allow some emulation, what is there to sue for, the fact that is lets people install OSX doesnt mean they are responsible for people installing OSX.

as long as they are not hacking or modifying OSX directly, they have no grounds to be sued on.
 
MrGuvernment said:
if they are simply using open source software to allow some emulation, what is there to sue for, the fact that is lets people install OSX doesnt mean they are responsible for people installing OSX.

as long as they are not hacking or modifying OSX directly, they have no grounds to be sued on.
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what you just said sounds a whole lot like napster arguement, cassette tapes, and DVDxCOPY. 'just because we made the means of doing this nasty shit, doesn't mean they will....'
they are the head shop, OSX is the weed.

and....apple is full of assholes. they'll sue anyone just for being. to best put apple's intent to people (and i remembered this after seeing a new apple commercial about apple and win 7 and they say they have #1 customer satisfaction...which we know is bullshit) a buddy of mine worked the genius bar and applecare is sold not as a accidental replacement but a warranty on parts that most of the time are never covered because it's always accidental...."sir unfortunately, there is no i dropped my computer on clothes on my floor clause in the applecare agreement".
 
what would be sweet is if this bootloader would work on the fatty ps3s
 
It's yet to be seen if installing OSX on non-Apple hardware is illegal to begin with. I'm not sure how it would be, it's certainly not copyright infringement. Since the only 'law' that can make companies liable for making 'enabling' tools is the DMCA, and that relies on copyright infringment being the act enabled, I'm wondering too.
 
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