Now what?
- Thread starter Feek
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How else is one supposed to experiment with such things as a new OS without spending out thousands on new hardware?
I've heard a lot of good things about Macs recently and figured that it would be good to see what the OS is like for myself and have a play.
This seemed an ideal way to do it and if it's a stepping stone to buying a Mac then what's so bad?
I'll edit my original post to remove the screenshot, but apart from doing this, how is one supposed to evaluate and try out OS X?
I've heard a lot of good things about Macs recently and figured that it would be good to see what the OS is like for myself and have a play.
This seemed an ideal way to do it and if it's a stepping stone to buying a Mac then what's so bad?
I'll edit my original post to remove the screenshot, but apart from doing this, how is one supposed to evaluate and try out OS X?
Laughable attempt at justification, at best.
I beg your pardon?
For your info I've spent a large chunk of time looking for second hand Mac Minis. I'm still not sure whether I want one yet because I've barely touched the surface of the OS. I hoped that by doing what I've done I'd be able to have a proper try out first.
I've already said, I don't know anyone within an hours drive who has a Mac I can play with. The nearest Apple shop is about the same distance away.
Sorry if you don't believe me, and sorry for bothering you all.
I guess I know where I won't be welcome if/when I get a Mac for any hints, tips or advice.
/exits
To be fair, it's actually working incredibly well in a VM and as far as I know, I've had no real problems with it. The experience is not a bad one.
I'm now looking to find a second hand Intel C2D Mini for around the £400 mark - I'd like the 2GHz version but I think I'll struggle to get one for that price.
I'm now looking to find a second hand Intel C2D Mini for around the £400 mark - I'd like the 2GHz version but I think I'll struggle to get one for that price.
Right then. This is a major bump.
After the above, I kinda forgot about Macs and OS X for a few months because I had no real use for it and I ended up spending the cash that I'd got together to buy something Mac related on a much needed kitchen appliance of some kind that had broken and Mrs. Feek would have never forgiven me if I'd not replaced it.
So nothing happened. I didn't buy a Mac.
It never completely slipped my mind though, there are two people at work who have Macs (one I don't think I knew about and the other lives too far away) and there had been various comments about them. One day back in March the boss who owns three Macs (Mac Pro, iMac and Mac Mini) mentioned that he'd been looking at Hackintoshes and that we should have a play because one of the laptops we use at work is a good model for it.
Now I know that talking about hacks isn't generally done on here and I'm not going to go into any details about how to do it etc so bear with me.
We're both old school in that we'll do stuff basically because we can. Making a laptop into a Mac was a challenge which couldn't be ignored.
It took me three days to do it, and at the end of those three days I had a system running Leopard 10.5.2 which was fully patched and everything worked. I had to use a USB wireless network card to get it onto the network, but it worked.
Over those three days I probably installed OS X more times than most real Apple hardware owners! I learned a huge amount about the workings of the operating system itself and the back end but not much about actually using it.
So I went home on the Friday of that week with the plan of doing the same thing on my home PC to see if I could make it work and actually play with the OS itself to see what I thought of it.
I've put other operating systems on my PC in the past but none have survived longer than a week or so before they've frustrated me and I've gone back to Windows.
So, I got home on the Friday evening and started installing OS X using the skills I'd learned during the week (at work!!). An hour and a half later it was on, patched and all working. It so happened that the hardware I have is perfectly suited for it.
Please don't shout at me again just yet. I know full well what I was doing was against the licence conditions but I still had the urge to try OS X and see what's so great about it. I fully expected to be back with Windows within a couple of weeks.
I wasn't.
I had to put the Windows drive back into the PC a few times to copy data off and just to grab stuff that I needed but since that day back in March, I've been an OS X user. I've upgraded to 10.5.3 and then onto 10.5.4. It's great, and I really like it. Using OS X on PC hardware is indistinguishable from the real thing. Totally. I would challenge anyone who says differently to sit in front of this PC and not know that it wasn't Apple hardware under the desk.
So to repeat the original title from this thread.
"Now what" is simple. "Now what" is me buying a second hand 2008 model Mac Pro tomorrow, driving straight to an Apple Store and buying an 8800 video card to install along with a copy of X-Plane and then when I get home, going online and ordering an extra 16Gb of memory to load it up with
My PC is sold. Although I'll still be running a copy of XP in VMWare for various legacy apps that I need, I will no longer have a PC under my desk.
All this from originally playing around loading OS X onto a VM under Windows. And I bet you all thought that I'd never do it
After the above, I kinda forgot about Macs and OS X for a few months because I had no real use for it and I ended up spending the cash that I'd got together to buy something Mac related on a much needed kitchen appliance of some kind that had broken and Mrs. Feek would have never forgiven me if I'd not replaced it.
So nothing happened. I didn't buy a Mac.
It never completely slipped my mind though, there are two people at work who have Macs (one I don't think I knew about and the other lives too far away) and there had been various comments about them. One day back in March the boss who owns three Macs (Mac Pro, iMac and Mac Mini) mentioned that he'd been looking at Hackintoshes and that we should have a play because one of the laptops we use at work is a good model for it.
Now I know that talking about hacks isn't generally done on here and I'm not going to go into any details about how to do it etc so bear with me.
We're both old school in that we'll do stuff basically because we can. Making a laptop into a Mac was a challenge which couldn't be ignored.
It took me three days to do it, and at the end of those three days I had a system running Leopard 10.5.2 which was fully patched and everything worked. I had to use a USB wireless network card to get it onto the network, but it worked.
Over those three days I probably installed OS X more times than most real Apple hardware owners! I learned a huge amount about the workings of the operating system itself and the back end but not much about actually using it.
So I went home on the Friday of that week with the plan of doing the same thing on my home PC to see if I could make it work and actually play with the OS itself to see what I thought of it.
I've put other operating systems on my PC in the past but none have survived longer than a week or so before they've frustrated me and I've gone back to Windows.
So, I got home on the Friday evening and started installing OS X using the skills I'd learned during the week (at work!!). An hour and a half later it was on, patched and all working. It so happened that the hardware I have is perfectly suited for it.
Please don't shout at me again just yet. I know full well what I was doing was against the licence conditions but I still had the urge to try OS X and see what's so great about it. I fully expected to be back with Windows within a couple of weeks.
I wasn't.
I had to put the Windows drive back into the PC a few times to copy data off and just to grab stuff that I needed but since that day back in March, I've been an OS X user. I've upgraded to 10.5.3 and then onto 10.5.4. It's great, and I really like it. Using OS X on PC hardware is indistinguishable from the real thing. Totally. I would challenge anyone who says differently to sit in front of this PC and not know that it wasn't Apple hardware under the desk.
So to repeat the original title from this thread.
"Now what" is simple. "Now what" is me buying a second hand 2008 model Mac Pro tomorrow, driving straight to an Apple Store and buying an 8800 video card to install along with a copy of X-Plane and then when I get home, going online and ordering an extra 16Gb of memory to load it up with
My PC is sold. Although I'll still be running a copy of XP in VMWare for various legacy apps that I need, I will no longer have a PC under my desk.
All this from originally playing around loading OS X onto a VM under Windows. And I bet you all thought that I'd never do it
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