Apple desktop

Loading MAC

Note: Doing this is illegal and this is for education purpose only. Do it at your own risk!  :D

Up to now we have dealt only with UBUNTU and Windows operating systems. But today I’m going to introduce you with a new OS. That’s right “APPLE” and I’m going to show you how to install it on your PC. But beware although apple OS were built upon Unix they are incredible different from any Ubuntu or Linux versions. So I don’t recommend to test this installation for novice, you can pretty easily kill your hard disk by accident.

Before getting started let me tell you why it is different from Linux or windows. Reason is processor instruction set. Although Linux and windows are two competitive OS they were built to run on the same system architecture. They can share the same processor. But on the other hand Apple is a totally different story they have their own Motorola processor ( Not an Intel, AMD or a Cyrix) So this processor cant execute instructions written for windows processors, And an Intel or AMD processors ( Commonly categorize as X86, remember 386,486..etc)  can’t understand the instructions in an apple OS. I think now you know why apple had to be run on an apple computer and window or Linux had to be run on an IBM type computer.  To make the matter worse apple included a special hardware chip that identified it’s as an apple computer! Without this chip apple OS won’t run. So the situation seemed impossible …. Up to now!

For the great surprise of everyone apple had recently released a x86 compatible version of their OS (I’m using “tiger” for this demonstration). But don’t get high yet. You still can’t buy an “apple OS” DVD and install it on an everyday PC. Reason is Apple Company is keen enough to keep their market price. So what they planning is to broaden the market by selling IBM type machines while keeping the selling price of the OS high. How do they do it ? Simple. Remember the chip I told you.. Even the x86 versions won’t run without the chip! So if you want an apple Os you still have to buy it with an apple (Or apple supported IBM ) computer. It might have an X86 processor, But it had to be specialized for the apple.  Enough with the details and let’s get to the real thing.

Fortunate for us some  guys out there did some hacking and removed the code for the “chip” now you can run it on a normal computer (I mean x86 architecture). But it contains lot of risks. For example you can’t install it on a Partition!! You have to give it a separate disk! (Good thing I have two HDD ) And it will erase ALL the data in Hard disk before installing (Lately there had been some fuzz about how to do it in a single HDD but I haven’t tried it yet, Details on how to do it is given at the end) . So if you are not sure don’t try this.

A better approach would be to use a virtual machine. Remember last time we used Microsoft virtual PC to cheat some games?  Now I’m going to introduce another software to do the same. It’s called VMware -server. You can find it from here (http://register.vmware.com/content/download.html) and most of all its free. Just create and account and they will provide you with a serial number. J

Then search for an Apple X-86 image. I used a torrent named “tiger-x86 image.tar.bz” Don’t worry about the weird file extension. It had been compressed using Linux that’s all. You can still uncompress it using Winrar. File is about 1.35GB. Just down load it and uncompress it. It might take up to 20 minutes to uncompress it! (After all uncompressed folder is over 7GB!) Then you will find several files inside the folder. One is named “tiger-x86-flat.img” This file can be burned to a DVD and can be used to install the apple OS directly. BUT file is 6.2 GB and in SL most common DVD format is 4.7GB.  So you probably won’t be able to do this. Get around method for this is to use an USB drive! Yes that’s right. use a USB drive and “dd program” to install apple on an IBM machine. If your machine can’t be boot from a USB I will show you how to mount it from an Ubuntu live CD and mount it for the installation. But for now let’s stick with VM ware.

Once you have the VMware server installed use open virtual machine button to open the tiger virtual machine.  Just browse to tiger-x86.vmx and select it. You might be prompt to create a new ID. Select the create option if do. Now in the left hand frame you should have a virtual machine name tiger-x86. Just run it. And now you have apple running on your PC! (Oh almost forgot! Username for the OS is deadmoo and no password )

For the guys who want to install it directly bad news. It seems to unable to have Win7, Ubuntu 9.10 and Apple at the same HDD. At least for now.  Here is one way to install windows and apple. (It may overwrite your Linux boot sector if you are using grub 2 for dual boot)

1.       Create a 6GB primary partition

2.       Download “dd” for windows.  (http://www.chrysocome.net/dd) and install.

3.       In command prompt type “dd”

4.       Use ”dd -list’ to list hard disk partitions

5.       C:\tiger-x86>dd if=tiger-x86-flat.img of=\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition2 bs=512 skip=63 –progress

” Replace \Harddisk0\Partition2 with the disk and partition you want to install OS-X

6.       Be patient

7.       Copy  /usr/standalone/i386/chain0 from the OSX folder

8.       Add “C:\chain0=”Mac OS x86″ to C:\boot.ini as a new line.

Do this at your OWN RISk!