The Great Intel Mac XP Driver Hunt
Posted by Danny Allen | Thursday, March 16, 2006 9:42 PM PT
Now that Intel Mac users have the choice of dual booting between OS X and Windows XP (which we've also replicated here at PC World), the search for drivers compatible with Apple's Intel-based machines has begun with gusto.
This driver hunt thread over at over at the OSx86 Project forum seems to be where most scouting is taking place, while confirmed drivers are being listed
here, at the Windows XP on Intel Mac project's Wiki.
As I write this, Ethernet and Wi-Fi networking is good to go, but most other compatible third-party drivers have yet to be found, particularly video. ATI's catalyst video driver has been tried as have several other ATI drivers from a variety of vendors. For a range of technical reason best explained in the forums, it looks like video will be tough one to crack. At present, the test 17-inch iMac I installed Windows XP on earlier today runs at a resolution of 1440 by 900.
Because of the driver problems, I found performance right now to be clunky but better than any emulation methods I've used in the past. However, when working video and audio drivers are found, we'll definitely be running our World Bench 5 benchmark, so watch this space.
See our
previous post for more detail on how you can try this yourself.
That's so awesome that you guys have done this! Some others on the net have tried to claim this, but they can fake their own "proof".
It's nice to have someone you trust
My question is when can you expect to be able to run the mac os on a pc?
Apple's license for Mac OS X does not grant privilege to install Mac OS X on other hardware. So, in short, it would be illegal, and unethical, to go against Apple's (or anybody's) permission of use.
you can already run MAC OS on a PC... Google "OSx86" ;).
I'd be more interested to see Windows Vista running on a mac.
"Apple's license for Mac OS X does not grant privilege to install Mac OS X on other hardware. So, in short, it would be illegal, and unethical, to go against Apple's (or anybody's) permission of use."
Actually, this post refers to XP running on an Intel Mac, not OS X running on a PC.
Read and understand before you post.
to Suman-- I believe "Thom" did read and understand. They read and understood the post directly before them, which they were replying to. Perhaps we should take our own advice before dishing out rude comments.
It seems there is is quite a bit of interest in running Mac OS X on a pc. The good folks over at OSx86 did get OSX to boot fron a pc (they were shut down for a bit). Thanks Nick for the info. OSX can't be booted from a partition, so if you want a dual boot pc you'll need a seperate physical drive for OSX. Ah the march of progress. I can hardly wait until we're able to create stable & robust OSX boot partitions on our Vista machines. Either Mr. Jobs will charge us for the privilege to do so, or the hacker community will provide it for free.
Apple has created an interesting quandry for itself. By charging for OSX separately (note the spelling Mike) from the hardware the implication is that it can be used separately from the hardware.
If they have learnt from previous mistakes (a debatable point) they will set a fair price for OSX and compete with Windows head on. I am sure they will get a lot of takers who want the OS but stick to their own hardware.
Suman, you're dumb. Thom was responding to James's post.
In your own words, "Read and understand before you post."
I seriously, seriously doubt that Apple (who take so much pride in their own elegant computers) will sell OS X to run on PCs. That would go against their core philosophy.
Next thing you PC people will be expecting is iPhoto, iDVD, etc to work flawlessly with any 'ol Korean built piece of junk. If people want OS X so bad, go out and get the real thing. That's what Apple wants people to do.
Steve Id Love to agree with you, but with the choices that Steve Jobs has made within the last months, I could see it happening. and your completely right, if they want os x so bad go get the real thing.
Steve: I'd love to see some of that stuff......but i'm not paying rediculous Apple prices to get them, and i'm certaintly not switching to an alien OS. I tried Linux breifly.....and it reaffirmed my need for Windows.
I'd like to get my own hardware, not have to get all proprietary Apple stuff, as well. I don't need Apple for their hardware, but i'd like to try some of their software apps.
Wow! You mean someone got an Intel chip to reliably run Windows? THAT's a first. . .
"rediculous Apple prices"
I suppose you mean:
Mac mini, $599 Intel core single, $799 Intel core duo, includes full OSX and iLife '06 at no extra charge, just add your own keyboard, mouse, and display.
iMac 17" Intel core duo, $1299, includes full OSX and iLife '06, keyboard, Mighty Mouse, very high quality LCD, built-in video cam, wireless, bluetooth, 8X dual layer DVD, 512M RAM, 160GB drive, not a thing needs to be added.
Neither system requires purchase of antivirus software or yearly subscriptions, or additional cost to bump up from "home" to "pro" features in the OS. Both systems have a heritage of being totally virus and malware free.
If you think these prices are ridiculous, you're right. They're ridiculously -inexpensive- for what you get.
Wow a 1.5gHz naked machine for $599?! Hm, lets see, Dell offers a 2.2gHz, plus a monitor, big HD and more for $349. Wake up Mac people!
That is so funny. I have been building PCs for 10 years now. I have owned 3 mac minis and they absolutely smoke my 2.4 ghz machine at handling video. It's not just about the Proc speed even when comparing PC to PC. Its about total hardware performance and OS performance. Try editing video (if you can find stable software) on a PC then a Mac and you will now exactly what I am talking about.
Indeed it isn't only about what you read in the promotional specs. For example, my iBook WHOOPS my $749 promotional Dell Inspiron 6000, although the Dell has double the ram, a 2.0Chgz Centrino processor, an 80GB dirve, etc. But they are all CHEAP parts. On average, my Inspiron has double the features than my iBook, and while its a good machine, the iBook wins in nearly any category because although the quantities aren't as large, the quality is much better.
HOWEVER, at my office I recently replaced my Mac Mini with a Dell Dimension 9200 with 667mhz rates, a dual SATA RAID at 10RPM, P4 HT, Nvidea 256MB video card, etc etc. Its loaded, and the price represents that. A $1700 Dell will favorably compete with a similarly priced Mac, but a $349 Dell like some WHACK ASS poster noted will get crushed by a $600 Mac Mini.
David Miller: "Just add your own keyboard, mouse, and display?!" So a nice 19" digital flat panel, add $300. Keyboard and mouse a cheap enough, but how the hell does somebody sell a computer without that?! So for the core duo, i'm looking at $1,100 really. For a basic computer. That's terrible. Especially when you get the PC without the Windows office stuff, and stick with Open Office and AVG Free for anti-virus.
My Dell was $1,300.....Pentium D 3.0, 1gb Ram, 160gb HD, 19" digital flat panel, Geforce 6800, DVD-Rom, dual-layer DVD burner, 13-in-1 media card reader, Windows XP Media Center. And then I simply use open source apps, which are better than the commercial ones anyway.
Really I think you are indirectly making the same point that we are. The Mac Mini sounds comparable to entry level PCs on paper. It is not.
BTW...Episodes IV through VI Star Wars were done on what YOU would probable consider to be entry level machines at maybe 500 ghz Proc, 4mb Video card, but you could not do that on the highest consumer caliber PCs at the time.
Both PCs and Macs are cool and effective, but don't get it twisted. The entry level Mac is not an entry level computer.
2 cents
This is like buying a dog and making it wear a cat costume. Let the poor mac be a mac!
:-) Coop
Bill Gates didn't become the worlds richest by selling hardware. Copyright law means its easier to monopolise the software market than the hardware market; thats where the big bucks are.
Apple makes great hardware, but they only have 2% market share. OSX is capable of going toe-to-toe with Windows, and no doubt Apple wants to do this. My guess is this is why Microsoft dropped 32-bit EFI support: to keep OSX compatable hardware out of the market, and delay the showdown.
what.. you mean only 2% of the market is happy with their computers???
THE DRIVER HUNT IS OVER!!!!! Mac has released "Boot Camp" in a BETA version. This software burns the drivers for you from OSX onto a blank CD, partitions your drive(s) and allows XP to run natively on the Mac.
Looks like Jobs didn't dissapoint on the 30th anniversary after all.
This software is only a trial beta version and will expire but will be available in Apple's next OS named Leopard.
It "will expire means" what for machines that have xp setup?
Can Anyone Out There Tell Me What It Takes To Get Mac OSX to Work Correctly , I want To Put Windows On Here , But Every Time I Try To Download Anything It Wont Open Or I Get A Blank Page At Setup , I.m Using My Hotmail On Here And When I Go To E-mail Something Ive Worked On For Hours , If I Try To Attach More Than Three Pictures It Erases That E-mail Never To Be Found ? Why? is There Anything Being Done To Fix These Type Of Issues , Has Anyone Else Ran Into This , Let Me Know , I Have Dowloaded , all The Adobe Beta and All The Platform Stuff , Seem To Have Everything In Mac System Portal Required To Run Windows , But It Will Not Accept My Software ? Can Anyone Help ? Let Me Know (rcvoight@msn.com)
I Tried Bootcamp and It Jumped It's Partition and Wiped Out My OSX System Leaving Me With Only XP and The Driver Issues You Talk About , It Was Pretty Cool Having Xp On Here . But It Was Not What I Wanted , I Found Out About Parallels But There Are No Free Downloads , and If There Is Sharewear , I'd Like To Know Where To Get It ?Can Anyone Tell Me Or Send Me A Fnucional Copy ? No Viruses Please , We Need To Trust Each Other In These Forums ! (rcvoight@msn)