tinkr.net

So if you have been following me on Twitter you would know that I just created a Hackintosh. What’s a Hackintosh? It’s a regular PC that is running Apple’s OS X. I love OS X, but wish Apple made a desktop PC that is powerful enough, without a monitor, and affordable. The Mac Mini is a little underpowered, the iMac has a monitor built in, and the Mac Pro is way to spendy. For years I have been wanting a headless Mac that is priced between the Mini and the Pro. My Mac Mini was in desperate need of an upgrade, so I built my own.

There are many ways to do it, but many of them are unreliable and break when Apple puts out an update. The way I did it, and think it’s the best, is to purchase an EFi-X dongle. It’s a little device the plugs into the internal USB header on your motherboard. You set your BIOS to boot from it, and bingo, OS X thinks it’s running on a Mac. All the updates work just like it’s a real Mac. The EVi-X dongle actually works as a really good boot manager too. I could add Windows and Linux drives to my system, and the EFi-X dongle will act like a boot manager. The only place you can currently get an EFi-X dongle as is ExpressHD.com.

To run OS X though, you are limited to certain hardware. Thankfully it’s all pretty good hardware, and they have nice a compatibility list. There is just a handful of Gigabyte motherboards, nVidia Geforce video cards, and you have to use SATA hard & DVD drives, and USB mouse and Keyboard, and you are set.

For my system I used:

• Motherboard: Gigabyte EP45-UD39
• CPU: Intel Core2 Duo E7500
• Video Card: PNY GeForce 9800GT
• RAM: 4GB
• Hard Drive: 1TB Western Digital Blue
• DVD Burner: Cheap Lite-On SATA burner
• Case: Antec Three Hundred

I love the Antec case that I put everything it. It has a nice clean look just like a real Mac would have.

I am not sure on the legality of this, but if you purchase a full copy of Apple’s OS X, I don’t see anything wrong with it, but I am no lawyer. If you plan on doing this though, I would recommending getting the EFi-X dongle while you still can. On episode 97 of Tekzilla, Colleen from TWiT goes through the process step by step. It’s really a simple process.