The Art Of
The Hackintosh
A Dive Into The Mystical World
That Apple Doesn't Want You To See
What is a Hackintosh?
OS X running on non-Apple
sanctioned hardware
Basically, a PC aspiring to be a Mac
Community
- TonyMacx86 - 907,634 members
- OSx86Project - 582,639 members
- iAtkos - 13,903 members
Thousands of people. Don't believe me?
TonyMac Forums
- The Build
- The Installation
- Post Installation
Golden & User Builds
But... Why not buy a Mac?
1. Cost effective
3. Fun!
2. Learning/Experience
You could do that... but building a hackintosh is:
Before
After
PCPartPicker Build
PCPartPicker Build 2nd Edition
Apple Build
Same Processor Clock Speed!
Same RAM capacity!
Same SSD capacity!
Apple Build
Over $1000 more!!!
This is all very cool but...
Getting Started
GuideBeast
Intro to UniBeast + MultiBeast
Prerequisites
Some prerequisites to getting started are:
- A hunger for learning/knowledge of hardware
- You can read and follow instructions well (very key!)
- Have some money to burn
MBR or EFI Bootloader
There are two main bootloaders to get your Hack running:
Chameleon/Chimera
or
Clover
Chameleon/Chimera
Chimera is essentially Chameleon under the hood with some internal changes for compatibility
It's the easiest to get up and running at first, but you'll understand over time why it's not recommended for future-proofing
Master Boot Record-based (legacy)
Clover
Clover is the future of bootloaders for EFI-based operating systems, can be used for more than OS X too (Linux, etc)
Configuration is a little harder than Chameleon/Chimera, but well worth the struggle
EFI-based (current)
Upgrading from Chimera to Clover
Fortunately, there is a way to upgrade from Chimera to Clover!
UEFI-based motherboards can boot Chimera AND Clover for interoperability which is a plus
Hardware
Gigabyte motherboards have the highest compatibility rating for your Hack and for OS X
Intel CPUs are the best for compatibility, iAtkos has methods for AMD but you're on your own
Hardware cont.
AMD and Nvidia video cards are fine, though you check the model no. against a compatibility table from TonyMacx86 or OSX86project
RAM, power supply, CPU cooler are all fine so long as they are compatible with the mobo, CPU and case
iMessage
There is a way to fix it
Broken for Chimera/Chameleon bootloaders... sort of
100% working for Clover
Fixing iMessage
- Build your Hackintosh
- Install OS X Yosemite
- Run Clover Configurator
- Create System Definition
- Generate smUUID, MLB & ROM
- Reboot
- Login to iMessage
- Rejoice!
Community
Good News
@brandonb927
on Twitter
Happy Hacking!
The Art Of The Hackintosh
By Brandon Brown
