steve szmidt wrote:
>On Sunday 14 August 2005 14:53, Ken Elliott wrote:
>
>
>>>>Does anyone know where could a person obtain a copy of OSX 10.4 for x86?
>>>>
>>>>
>>Sure. But you have to get a Intel-based Mac with it. Plus, you have to
>>give the computer back at the end of the year. Join the Mac developers
>>program, pony up $1000 and they will "loan" you an Intel-based Mac with
>>OS/X.
>>
>>I'm told x86 OS/X will NOT run on a x86 PC.
>>
>>
>
>There's a hack out which allows you to use a standard PC. But they are pushing
>to stop you from being able to.
>
>
You can run Darwin on x86, of course, though the drivers are sorely
lacking (when compared to the corpus of drivers for Linux). You won't
get the Quartz desktop, or anything outside of OpenSource applications,
but some of us wouldn't mind so much ;)
The 10.4.1 OS/X Tiger for x86 development stations use Intel hardware
(915 chipset) with a built-in TPM module (trusted platform module) to
"lock down" OS/X.
From what I've read, Rosetta (the PPC G3 emulation software) uses the
TPM module to "lock down" any use. Unfortunately, some of the OS/X
desktop requires the Rosetta module to function. There is a hack to the
Rosetta module that leaked out last week that works around the need for
the TPM chip, and allows the desktop to run.
If you have an Intel 915 chipset with GMA 900+ video and a
Hyperthreaded Pentium 4 core with SSE3 instructions, you effectively
have the exact same hardware that the developer stations use (save the
TPM chip). Some Pentium 4 cores (like the Pentium 4 M) do not have
hyperthreading or SSE3. Only Athlon64 processors appear to have SSE3
instructions (32bit Sempron cores are basically AthlonXPs which do NOT,
though in theory a 64bit Sempron would).. gah, don't get me started on
the marketing for Intel or AMD, it hurts my brain when trying to explain
it to others.
If you don't have GMA 900+ video, you won't get Quartz native drivers
(also, no Quartz Extreme). In fact, you need at least a VESA 2.0 capable
video card for Darwin to work, which follows through for OS/X: a lowly
framebuffer with no accelleration.
Also, with Darwin 8.1.0, you _need_ SSE3, as it was built with those
optimizations enabled. There are reportedly "patches" floating about for
CoreGraphics and the like that permit operation with only SSE2
instruction support, at a _greatly_ decellerated rate. The SSE3
instruction set is functionally similar to the PowerPC's Altivec: with
out it, things go _very_ slowly.
In the end, is it really worth it? You taint yourself with a DCMA
workaround and illegally pirated software.
I'll stick with my PowerPC 12" powerbook running a _licensed_ version of
OS/X Tiger, and my Intel-free 100% OpenSource home network with NO
TCPA-DRM copy protection - pure AMD all the way (though no 64 bit yet,
grr). Heck, even I couldn't run the developer OS/X x86 stuff if I wanted
to (my Athlons don't even have SSE2) - without upgrading hardware to
run it.
- Ian C. Blenke <icblenke@nks.net>
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