Running Mac OS X on x86 PC!

[S.MULLA]

a new emulator called PearPC seems to be able to run OS X on x86 machines:

http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/index.html

Check out the screenshots:

http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html

source:aqua-soft.org [forum]

[Another_Paul]

The latest regarding CherryOS from http://www.wired.com/...

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,65368...tw=wn_tophead_2

[Autumnmist]

Between this expose on Arben K and his history of stealing the code of others and selling it illegally (Arben is the "developer" of CherryOS though he has changed his story and now claims that he was merely the "visionary" behind it, not the programmer -- rather unbelievable since there are records of him posting about elementary PHP questions on various newgroups)... to today's article in Wired News which includes these choice quotations (see below)... there's very little room to doubt:

- CherryOS *does* exist in the sense that you can download a program called CherryOS that attempts to make it possible to run OS X on an x86 machine

- However CherryOS is a rip/copy of PearPC, straight from its GPL source. This is a very illegal violoation of PearPC's GPL license because CherryOS is neither crediting PearPC nor "giving back" to PearPC the code that they may have changed or added. Since CherryOS is a rip of PearPC, it will NOT deliver on the 80% performance promised, and in fact, it even lacks some of the features that newer builds of PearPC have (native CD-ROM on Windows, sound, etc).

Dave Schroeder, senior systems engineer at the University of Wisconsin, examined a pre-release copy of CherryOS downloaded from Maui X-Stream by Wired News. Schroeder concluded CherryOS is likely PearPC wrapped in a different package.

Schroeder said he compared the names of various functions and variables in CherryOS and PearPC, and found they all matched.

"This is pretty clear-cut," he said. "They are, in fact, using significant amounts of code from PearPC."

The software does include functions of starting and stopping the emulator, and support for multiple profiles, but the implementation is rough and incomplete, he said.

Sebastian Ballas, PearPC's lead developer, said a screenshot of CherryOS shows a variable named "SPIRO MULTIMAX 3000," a nonsensical term Ballas claims to have invented for use in PearPC.

"It is absolutely unlikely that someone uses exactly this name for the same purpose," he said. "The way he (Kryeziu) is lying is making me angry."

Story over.

[cultavix]

what about cherryos.com

[furious_stylez]

Hehe... take your pick of OS... running on my dual monitors.

[lizarazou]

Ok guys, i need some help here. I am new to running Pearpc so I used the program PearPC Control Panel to create a config file and to get PearPC up and running. It seems to be working alright untill a gray screen with the apple logo appears with a spinning circle and this one line keeps repeating in the log window. Any ideas?

584737010[/snapback]

Hi Guys,

I have exatly the same problem here.

Can you suggest anything?

Lizarazou

[Dean W]

Welcome To Neowin Guys

[planter008]

there is this web software feturing the design of a praying mantis i dont know anythinig more on how to identify it. but its reall popular and does some amazing things. can anyone help me find out more info. I am like a baby drooling on my clothes when it comes to that stuff

[Devil Tiger]

C:\pearpc>ppc ppccfg.darwin
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as published by
the Free Software Foundation.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111 USA

[CPU/MMU] new pagetable: sdr1 = 0x00300003
[CPU/MMU] new pagetable: sdr1 accepted
[CPU/MMU] number of pages: 2^15 pagetable_start: 0x00300000 size: 2^18
HFS+ has no backup volume header. skipping...
HFS+ has no backup volume header. skipping...

C:\pearpc>

Opens a window then closes...damnit!

Edited October 26, 2004 by Devil Tiger

[Salluas]

Hehe... take your pick of OS... running on my dual monitors.

<images removed for bandwidth conservation>

584773044[/snapback]

Show off! I guess this means OSX is really runnable in an x86 environment.. Now the next question, is it usable?

[Salluas]

Show off! I guess this means OSX is really runnable in an x86 environment.. Now the next question, is it usable?

584825649[/snapback]

Well I must say.. Despite it reporting 9XXmhz and 256megs of ram it was still more than I expected.. I suppose some day people won't need different boxes for Mac and Windows dual booting, the way this is going. Especially since I can see how, with the proper high-end wallet spanking hardware, you could use it somewhat effectively as it stands. Just my two cents.. And here's your change.

[Rob2687]

You just responded to your own post :blink:

[Salluas]

You just responded to your own post :blink:

584838823[/snapback]

I know, I figured somebody might want to know if it was useful or not before going down the path to emulation. That and I talk to myself.. :wacko:

[agra]

heh, i've created 4 gigs image, run pearpc 0.3.1, booted up from jaguar cd, partitioned disk, but it tells me i can't install macosx on this disk. tried erase/first aid/repartition/dance around with shaman tamburines, but all w/o result.. can you, please, help?

[OxideNOS]

I am using PearPC for a long time and i just saw this thread. I want to know how do i get the internet working in pearpc's Macosx(its Macaos panther 10.3) Internet doesn't work I tried a lot but..........no. Any suggestions

[MitchA]

I heard that this guide is really really good.

[a_witko]

I have OSX panther

I have just downloaded the win32 pearpc 0.3.1

Now what the hell do i do?

[a_witko]

OKAYZ! I successfully converted my .dmg files to .iso files. Done and Done! PM me if you wanna know how.

I made a copy of the ppccfg.example file, edited it (directed it to a hd image (downloaded 3gib image from pearpc): replaced "test/imgs/linux.img" from the example with "pearpc-3gib.img" [it is in the pearpc directory], and directed it to a cd image: replaced "/dev/cdrom" in the example with "osxcd1.iso").

When i ran cmd, directed it to the pearpc directory and typed in " ppc macosx.pearpccfg" <- (my newly saved config file), i got some action - the ppc window opened up. but now it says that there are no images... refer to ss. now what do i do?

[a_witko]

Errgh... ignore above posts. I got it all running smoothly. Apple OSX Panther on my PC :woot: .

If you need to convert dmg to iso :shifty: (BT) :ninja: , then google for "dmg2iso" and you'll find a nice and easy command line program which does it quickly.

BTW, I used Darwin to get mine running. How can I do it without Darwin?

[trantor]

Please help!

I'm unable to boot MAC OS X 10.3.4 with pearpc.....

I've tried with a NERO iso as well as with a ALCOHOL iso image....

MAC OS X 10.3.4 DVD is from my MAC G5... do you think my problems has to do with this OS version?

If I try to boot with pearpc 0.2.0 I see no boot partition from CD, instead with pearpc 0.3.1 i see the partition 3 from CD as bootable, but as soon as I boot, i receive a

[iO CUDA] Keyb reg1

and the installation hangs with apple logo on grey screen with no progress.

Trying to boot (pearpc 0.3.1) with prom_env_machargs = "-v" , I see that MACOS waits for boot device and then launch CRASHREPORTER.

Hier my configuration:

## PearPC Configuration File

##

## Resolution

##

## 0: 640x480x15

## 1: 640x480x32

## 2: 800x600x15

## 3: 800x600x32

## 4: 1024x768x15

## 5: 1024x768x32

##

## default: 2

#ppc_start_resolution = 2

##

## Redraw interval (in ms)

## must be between 1 and 999

##

## If you set this higher, PearPC will spend less time doing redraws (and so run faster)

## but feel less responsive. You should adjust this to your computer speed and personal

## preference.

##

## Setting this to a value less than 10 is silly.

##

redraw_interval_msec = 40

##

## Loader

##

##

## Boot method

## this can be

## 1. "auto", prom will boot the first bootable partition found (default)

## 2. "select", prom will show you a list of bootable partitions

## 3. "force", prom will load and boot the local file prom_loadfile

##

prom_bootmethod = "select"

## Example of how to use "force":

#prom_bootmethod = "force"

#prom_loadfile = "test/yaboot"

#prom_env_bootpath = "disk"

##

## bootargs: don't change unless you know what you are doing

## machargs: set to "-v" to get a verbose startup

##

#prom_env_bootargs = ""

prom_env_machargs = "-v"

##

## This is needed if you want to boot Mac OS X

##

prom_driver_graphic = "c:\ppc\video.x"

## This will adjust the position of the initial page table (don't change)

#page_table_pa = 104857600

##

## CPU Config

##

## Processor Version Register

## Defaults to 0x00088302

## Only change if you know want you are doing

##

#cpu_pvr = 0x00088302

##

## Main memory (default 128 MiB)

## must be >= 64 MiB

##

memory_size=0x10000000

##

## IO Devices

##

##

## PCI IDE Config

##

## Drive type will be set according to file extension:

## .img: Harddisk (filesize must be multiple of 516096)

## .iso: CD-Rom

## Or you can override this by specifying the type via

## pci_ide0_master_type / pci_ide0_slave_type

pci_ide0_master_installed = 1

pci_ide0_master_image = "c:\ppc\macosx_3gb.img"

pci_ide0_master_type = "hd"

pci_ide0_slave_installed = 1

pci_ide0_slave_image = "osx.iso"

pci_ide0_slave_type = "cdrom"

##

## Network

##

## Choose one of the cards

pci_3c90x_installed = 0

pci_3c90x_mac = "de:ad:ca:fe:12:34"

pci_rtl8139_installed = 0

pci_rtl8139_mac = "de:ad:ca:fe:12:35"

##

## USB

##

pci_usb_installed = 1

##

## NVRAM

##

nvram_file = "nvram"

Please, please, please (three times, ehm........)

Could someone help me?

Thanks in advance

[furby]

Welcome to Neowin :)

You should be able to install 10.3.4, worked okay for me at least. Can't see anything obviously wrong with your config. I'll send you mine to compare when I get back to that PC

[Nickhamm]

Some people on this board have been curious about performance, so I will post my findings. I am running PearPC .4pre with Native CD/DVD-ROM support in Windows. My specs are a 2.0GHz Celeron Processor with 256MB DDR RAM, 55 GB Total HDD space, Intel Integrated Graphics, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

My Times:

Time to boot to usable desktop: 4 min. 18 sec.

Time to Open "About this Mac..." on Apple Menu: 7 sec.

Time to open MacOS Hard Drive: 11 sec.

Time to open Calculator: 20 sec.

Time to switch calculator to advanced mode: 3 sec.

Time to open Text Edit: 14 sec.

Time to open Quicktime: 15 sec

Time to open Safari: 51 sec.

Time to open System Preferences: 34 sec.

Time to open Microsoft Word 2004: 4 min. 7 sec.

Time to shut down: 23 sec.

I didn't even bother to install Photoshop or iTunes, iDVD, GarageBand. or Premiere. About this Mac... claimed I had a 775 MHz PowerPC G3 processor with 128 MB RAM. Hope this helps some realize how slow PearPC is. However, I will say that it is improving. the first version, it took me 5 hours to install MacOS X Minimal. With this version it took me 2 1/2 hours, making it twice as fast. Right now I am getting about 8.8x slower than a real Mac G3. If the doubling of speed keeps up, around version 1.0 should be close to full speed for the lowest end of G3 processors, but realistically, it may never happen. It's still fun to dream.....

[imation2458]

Some people on this board have been curious about performance, so I will post my findings. I am running PearPC .4pre with Native CD/DVD-ROM support in Windows. My specs are a 2.0GHz Celeron Processor with 256MB DDR RAM, 55 GB Total HDD space, Intel Integrated Graphics, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

My Times:

Time to boot to usable desktop: 4 min. 18 sec.

Time to Open "About this Mac..." on Apple Menu: 7 sec.

Time to open MacOS Hard Drive: 11 sec.

Time to open Calculator: 20 sec.

Time to switch calculator to advanced mode: 3 sec.

Time to open Text Edit: 14 sec.

Time to open Quicktime: 15 sec

Time to open Safari: 51 sec.

Time to open System Preferences: 34 sec.

Time to open Microsoft Word 2004: 4 min. 7 sec.

Time to shut down: 23 sec.

I didn't even bother to install Photoshop or iTunes, iDVD, GarageBand. or Premiere. About this Mac... claimed I had a 775 MHz PowerPC G3 processor with 128 MB RAM. Hope this helps some realize how slow PearPC is. However, I will say that it is improving. the first version, it took me 5 hours to install MacOS X Minimal. With this version it took me 2 1/2 hours, making it twice as fast. Right now I am getting about 8.8x slower than a real Mac G3. If the doubling of speed keeps up, around version 1.0 should be close to full speed for the lowest end of G3 processors, but realistically, it may never happen. It's still fun to dream.....

584916772[/snapback]

Hmm.. im also using .4pre with 10.3 Panther.. I am running it on dual RAID raptors with an AMD 64-bit 3800+, 1024 RAM, let pearpc have 800 megs to use.

My Times:

Time to boot to usable desktop: 2mins

Time to Open "About this Mac..." on Apple Menu: 2 sec.

Time to open MacOS Hard Drive: 5 sec.

Time to open Text Edit: 5 sec.

Time to open Safari: 10 sec.

Time to open System Preferences: 5 sec.

I don't know what it is but it runs very resposive on my system, almost as good as the real thing and is 90% usable! Also, in "about this Mac" it reports me having a 1.3 GHZ g3

[Malisk]

Yeah, it's important to increase it's memory from default 128 to at least 256, maybe even 512 if you have some to spare. It can increase performance by around 5 - 20% depending on what you do.

Personally, I installed it yesterday, reporting my P4 2.6 GHz as a 1 GHz G3. :)

They're working quite rapidly with this software, keep in mind it was just one year ago since they got Mac OS X to start-up at all. I can't wait until they start fixing the performance -- hopefully there's some work to do here and they have mostly focused on features and stability so far.

They're also starting to work on sound support now. Yay :)

Show off! I guess this means OSX is really runnable in an x86 environment.. Now the next question, is it usable?

For me it's about as usable as being logged in to a terminal server, via VNC, or something like that. A little "laggy" but certainly fast enough to play around and "try a Mac". Actual Mac users has said OS X 10.3 takes around 30-60 minutes to install and that's what it took for me too, so it's not like it's ultra slow, taking hours to install, assuming you have a 2+ GHz computer at least.

[Eli]

HMmm....my laptop is coming in and it's goign to be a 3.2Ghz with 1024Mb of Ram. If this project gets just a little bit better, I would probably install OSX on my system so I can have Linux, Windows AND OSX.

Also, would it be possible to create a script or edit the boot.ini so that you can have an option to BOOT into PearPC + OSX?

[Menge]

no, Cryptic_Night. PearPC runs on TOP of Windows/Linux