XP to Mac

[Zamphire]

I have a question that I've never really found the answer to, maybe someone here can help me. I have a computer currently running windows xp. Now, can I reformat my hard drive and put Mac OS on it? Will that work?

[neighbortaru]

Re: XP to Mac

no

[Zamphire]

Re: XP to Mac

Hmm, so Mac OS only works on a apple computer? Sorry fuckers.

[Zamphire]

Re: XP to Mac

I'm tired of XP, ready for something new. My computer is mainly used for gaming and I know most of my games wont play on Linux, so I'm probably just stuck with xp huh?

[kuu]

Re: XP to Mac

No v2.0

You can use macosx 10.4 hacked as long as you meet the requirements of the new Intel mac's specs(and they're some pretty tough specs to match).

It's a very small list so not much luck.

Even then it's a lot os hacking, and crippled to certain extent.

[Zamphire]

Re: XP to Mac

No v2.0

You can use macosx 10.4 hacked as long as you meet the requirements of the new Intel mac's specs(and they're some pretty tough specs to match).

It's a very small list so not much luck.

Even then it's a lot os hacking, and crippled to certain extent.

I'm not much worried about specs

2.8ghz Processor
1gig ddr 400
256 mb nvidia card
250gig hdd

But thanks for the info, I'll probably just stick with XP for now.

[Raitox]

Re: XP to Mac

just get a macbook or mac book pro or any mac on intel. It'll be worth it on the long run, both Mac OS, Windows, and linux. Thats what I did, sold my PC got a macbook pro. I use windows to play FFXI, Mac OS X for general usage.

[Zamphire]

Re: XP to Mac

just get a macbook or mac book pro or any mac on intel. It'll be worth it on the long run, both Mac OS, Windows, and linux. Thats what I did, sold my PC got a macbook pro. I use windows to play FFXI, Mac OS X for general usage.

I would, but I love building my own computers, and the power I can put behind one for alot less then what a company would charge me.

[raidenn]

Re: XP to Mac

Macs are kinda expensive. If you got the resources, hey go for a Mac. Get one of those special pads you need to put under the laptop because they have a problem with air circulation.

[Gentoo]

Re: XP to Mac

Hmm, so Mac OS only works on a apple computer?

That's the Mac experience. Don't like it, there's a bunch of other choices.

It's rumored that if you have a nearly identical setup to the Intel Duo-core Macs, you can get MacOS X.4 to boot. Haven't really seen anything conclusive though, and frankly, since I have a couple Macs, it hasn't intringued me enough to pursue it.

But you can dual boot. I spend most of my time in Linux, and only go to Windows for FFXI. Ubuntu, Mandrake, CentOS, and Suse are nice end-user style distros.

If you don't like Linux theres the BSD's, Solaris, Zeta (BeOS), Hurd, Plan 9, and QNX just to name a few.

Macs are kinda expensive. If you got the resources, hey go for a Mac. Get one of those special pads you need to put under the laptop because they have a problem with air circulation.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33576

[neighbortaru]

Re: XP to Mac

I'm not much worried about specs
2.8ghz Processor
1gig ddr 400
256 mb nvidia card
250gig hdd
But thanks for the info, I'll probably just stick with XP for now.

specs aren't really the problem, it's hardware compatibility. if you don't have the exact hardware that drivers are available for, good luck running anything.

[kuu]

Re: XP to Mac

specs aren't really the problem, it's hardware compatibility. if you don't have the exact hardware that drivers are available for, good luck running anything.

Sorta. HW compatiblity is important, but spec just as important.

Intel MacOSX makes heavy use of certain things, due to it's late and limited HW introduction.

Ex:
You *must* have at least SSE2, and good(maybe required later) SSE3.

AMD didn't get SSE2 till 64 series.

There are also quite a few of them that are *required*.

Basically you can sort of hack certain parts or add your own drivers(and there are projects to do that).

But you can't really undermine apple on specs. They intergrated them into their system.

[bungiefan]

Re: XP to Mac

specs aren't really the problem, it's hardware compatibility. if you don't have the exact hardware that drivers are available for, good luck running anything.

The biggest issue that's hard to match is that Apple motherboards use EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) instead of BIOS, that most PC motherboards still use. Mac OS X won't like to work properly without EFI, and 32-bit Windows XP is only made to work with BIOS.

Apple always wants thier hardware to be proprietary, and their OS to only run on their hardware. They learned their lesson for the short time in the mid-90s that they had Mac clones being made under their approval. If you can't build your own, they don't have to spend a lot of time on tech support for custom and oddball hardware configurations. Sure, you don't get to save money building your own, but you don't have to spend time dealing with hardware conflicts from such a situation. PCs are so hard to deal with because there's so many different combinations of internal hardware, and they don't always work together well when they should.

The benefit since the Intel changeover for the internal processors is that with Boot Camp you can run Windows XP SP2 natively, seperate from Mac OS, and you have a computer with fairly high specs as far as PCs go. For the price, it's hard to build a PC on your own with such specs, AND get a good warranty on that built PC. Apple does overcharge for RAM though, which is why you buy a Mac with the minimum amount and upgrade it yourself.

Using a Mac is like using a game console. You can't build your own game console, since all the hardware is standardized to a very few configurations, but everything is nice and stable, and you know what you get for it will work on it. The whole custom-built PC thing is hell on tech support workers, and sometimes it's even hard to find the right tech support to call for your problem because the cause may not be apparent.

[kuu]

Re: XP to Mac

The biggest issue that's hard to match is that Apple motherboards use EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) instead of BIOS, that most PC motherboards still use. Mac OS X won't like to work properly without EFI, and 32-bit Windows XP is only made to work with BIOS.
Apple always wants thier hardware to be proprietary, and their OS to only run on their hardware. They learned their lesson for the short time in the mid-90s that they had Mac clones being made under their approval. If you can't build your own, they don't have to spend a lot of time on tech support for custom and oddball hardware configurations. Sure, you don't get to save money building your own, but you don't have to spend time dealing with hardware conflicts from such a situation. PCs are so hard to deal with because there's so many different combinations of internal hardware, and they don't always work together well when they should.
The benefit since the Intel changeover for the internal processors is that with Boot Camp you can run Windows XP SP2 natively, seperate from Mac OS, and you have a computer with fairly high specs as far as PCs go. For the price, it's hard to build a PC on your own with such specs, AND get a good warranty on that built PC. Apple does overcharge for RAM though, which is why you buy a Mac with the minimum amount and upgrade it yourself.
Using a Mac is like using a game console. You can't build your own game console, since all the hardware is standardized to a very few configurations, but everything is nice and stable, and you know what you get for it will work on it. The whole custom-built PC thing is hell on tech support workers, and sometimes it's even hard to find the right tech support to call for your problem because the cause may not be apparent.

Not percisely. While Apple does use EFI (and in future eventually so will others), MacOSX runs fine on bios.

Developers 10.4 actually are bios compatible, just taken out when it's released. So the hacked intel OSX systems are really modified developer systems.

EFI is in almost every way better then BIOS, it was ment to replace bios after all.

Also I think Apple had to use EFI due to some options it wanted to keep alive in its PPC Open firmware, such as USB/firewire boot among other things.

Apples ram ovecharges as much as any OEM vendor. And sometimes goes above and beyond much to the frustration of ram vendors. For instance, MacPro's uses FB-DDR2, with extra large heatsinks(those are really hot) so it can slow it's fans down. Also using full ECC, requirements.

People that brought 3rd party ram, either got kernel panics from overheating, ecc errors, or memory speed slowdowns. And they couldn't even shave the price off much.

"OMG over charged ram" people, usually conviently forget that it's under warranty that way and tested to work. In HW techsupport the 3rd most common cause of failures is bad 3rd party ram.

The issue isn't usually black and white, it's grey.

That's why business almost never try to cut those corners. A system going down and not able to use tech support/warranty= one angry IT manager

IT people don't go mucking around, they're not paid to do that if they can avoid that. System breaks = call apple/hp/dell for an onsite

[nazlfrag]

Re: XP to Mac

Microsoft knows people are tired of XP and wanting something new, thats why Vista is just around the corner.

OSX is just a BSD Unix variant, you will get similar performance from a Linux distribution. You will need to keep XP for your games though.

Having an Intel Mac running XP and OSX is the easiest option, the other way around is mostly for bedroom hackers and will generally be buggy and unstable.

"Using a Mac is like using a game console." More like an Xbox, in that it uses industry standard off-the-shelf components in a slightly non-standard configuration. As mentioned, upgrading components such as RAM and hard drives is not too hard, but you need to keep in mind that Apple uses high-spec components in a specific configuration, such that paying a premium for their parts is often less hassle than trying (and often failing) to do a backyard job.

Conclusion: You have two options:

You can run both XP and OSX fairly smoothly on a modern Intel Mac, you will pay a premuim but you are backed up by quality and warranties for that price.

You can run BSD or Linux and XP on a PC, giving you an advanced *nix OS without the need for new hardware, and with the advantages of the high customisability and expansion capability of the PC. On the downside, you will have to do your own quality checks and configuration to make your system run smoothly.

Easiest solution - try a Linux variant that can boot from CD/DVD so you can see what you'll get without commiting yourself to a HDD repartition.