April 28th, 2008
Is Psystar Mac clone using the Kalyway boot hack?
The video on Monday was posted to Gizmodo. A reader named Patrick (Whiskeyfrown) made a video showing the machine’s connections to the back to the monitor (somehow making the demo more legit?) and then a video of its boot process into Mac OS X.
However, this boot sequence isn’t a vanilla Mac boot. It first goes into a verbose EFI “BIOS” prompt and then waits for something. My ZDNet colleague Jason Perlow says this is the sequence one finds with the Kalyway installer DVD. He’s had experience.
And it sure looks like it. After installing Mac OS X on the PC, Kalyway users must still leave the (illegal) installer disc in the DVD-R drive. Here’s a bit from the LifeHacker guide on building a “Hackintosh.”
Let your computer reboot, but be sure to leave the install DVD in the drive. When the DVD prompts this time, just let the countdown time out. When it does, your installation of Leopard will automatically boot up. You’ve done it!
Perlow suggested that Psystar uses the Kalyway installer and then also buys a legitimate copy of Mac OS X, sending users the license. However, it still must use the illegal install DVD to boot.
From what I read there are two “major” hackintosh installers: Kalyway and iATKOS. Here’s an informative blog post by Andrew Grant comparing them. He prefers the Kalyway installer.
The quality of both packages is impressive and both offer a selection of compatibility options for the hardware in your PC. Kalyway has a few less options as some things are determined automatically, but you can also pre-test whether your machine will be able to run with an un-patched kernel prior to installing. On the otherhand iATKOS is a smaller download, quicker to boot from DVD, and installs faster.
iATKOS seemed easier to get working in a dual boot setup with Vista. Kalyway seemed to be a better experience once installed. Kalyway comes with some preinstalled apps and theme changes that most people seem to dislike, but then these are easy to revert and some of the apps are things you’d install anyway.
Quality is in the eye of the beholder, for sure.
Meanwhile, I must admit that I’am astounded by the results of an Apple Core poll earlier on Monday started by Jason O’Grady. He asks if readers might buy a Psystar “clone.”
The current results stand at 21 percent, yes; 51 percent, no because you can’t trust or update them as you would an Apple Mac; and 28 percent, no because they didn’t need one (which I guess means they might buy one if they needed one).
Yikes! Almost a quarter of readers would buy one of these hacked clones?
As I wrote a while ago, this hackintosh is a sucker’s bet. This isn’t the same as when the Mac market had real Mac clones, approved by Apple.
Perhaps enthusiasts may be interested in making a lower-cost Mac Pro-style machine to run games. But anyone who is doing actual work on a Mac should buy a Mac. And that means a kosher, Apple machine.
[Image credit: Gizmodo]
David Morgenstern has covered the Mac market and other technology segments for 20 years. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 04/29/08
