The interim solution to buying a Mac

This is a republished post - post content has not changed, just changed it to a much more appropriate title.

I've been wanting to get into Mac OSX for a while, but with Leopard and rumoured new Macs coming out in the coming months, it simply isn't worth getting one now. So given I've got time to burn now, I delved into the nerdy world of getting Mac OSX to run on a typical PC. Because of Apple's business model, you cannot simply install Mac OSX on typical PCs - they've used technology that makes it only run if a certain security chip with a preprogrammed code is detected on your computer's hardware (TPM).

There's two ways of getting Mac OSX running on a typical PC:

• The Mac OSX86 Project
  This involves hacking around the protection technology, creating a Mac OSX installation disc that bypasses the check. To use this method, you'll need to find one of the many hacked disc images out there on bit-torrent. The advantage of this method, is that you can dual-boot or run it inside a virtual machine with full performance. The downside however, is that hardware support is patchy because Mac OSX was only designed with a specific set of hardware in mind, namely the ones used in Macs.
• PearPC
  PearPC is a PowerPC emulator. PowerPC was the architecture that Macs used before they switched to Intel. Because the PowerPC architecture was only rarely used outside of Macs for computers, no TPM was necessary. Therefore for this method, all you need are the original Mac OSX install discs. As an emulator though, it needs to run within Windows (or Linux) and right now, it doesn't support sound and most non-essential hardware. Performance is also fairly slow, due to the fact it needs to emulate a completely different computer architecture. Fast enough to play around, try things, but not for daily usage, well for me anyway.

I used the PearPC method, because although it was slower, it was simpler. Here's what I did:

1. Get your hands on a set of Mac OSX Tiger CDs/DVDs (You could use another version, but that's the one I used for these instructions). The restore CDs that come with the Intel Macs do not work.
2. Download the PearPC.net package, the 6GB Mac OSX bootable image (don't worry, it's only 6MB big when compressed), a CD/DVD Image creator like IsoBuster or Magic ISO Maker and OpenVPN (pick the Windows Installer one).
3. Extract the PearPC.net package to c:\. Feel free to place this somewhere else, but you'll have to adjust the instructions accordingly.
4. Rename c:\PearPC.net package to c:\PearPC to make things easier.
5. Create a folder inside c:\PearPC called Images.
6. Install the CD/DVD image creator if you haven't already, then extract the Tiger DVD or the 4 CDs into ISO file(s), and save them in the c:\PearPC\Images folder. Give them meaningful names so you know what's what later. This will take an hour or more. If you're using the CDs, just extract discs 1 and 2; you won't get a chance to use the rest.
7. Extract the 6GB Mac OSX bootable image you downloaded earlier into the c:\PearPC\Images folder. This will take around 15 minutes. 6GB is plenty for this purpose - you'll be unlikely to do anything intensive in Mac OSX anyway using this method.
8. Create a new text file in the c:\PearPC\PearPC\Windows folder called ppc.txt, copy and paste the following into it and save:

   ppc_start_resolution = "1024x768x32"
   ppc_start_full_screen = 0
   redraw_interval_msec = 40
   
   key_compose_dialog = "F11"
   key_change_cd_0 = "none"
   key_toggle_mouse_grab = "F12"
   key_toggle_full_screen = "Alt+Return"
   
   prom_bootmethod = "select"
   #prom_bootmethod = "force"
   #prom_loadfile = "test/yaboot"
   #prom_env_bootpath = "disk"
   #prom_env_bootargs = ""
   #prom_env_machargs = "-v"
   prom_driver_graphic = "video.x"
   
   #page_table_pa = 104857600
   cpu_pvr = 0x00088302 #must uncomment to use use cdrom type in IDE
   #cpu_pvr = 0x000c0201
   
   memory_size=0x20000000 
   
   pci_ide0_master_installed = 1
   pci_ide0_master_image = "c:\PearPC\Images\MacOSX6GB.img"
   pci_ide0_master_type = "hd"
   
   pci_ide0_slave_installed = 1
   #pci_ide0_slave_image = "i:\"
   #pci_ide0_slave_image = "2,0,0"
   #pci_ide0_slave_image = "/dev/cdrom"
   #pci_ide0_slave_type = "nativecdrom"
   pci_ide0_slave_image = "c:\PearPC\Images\MacOSXCD1.iso"
   pci_ide0_slave_type = "cdrom"
   
   pci_3c90x_installed = 0
   pci_3c90x_mac = "de:ad:ca:fe:12:34"
   
   pci_rtl8139_installed = 1
   pci_rtl8139_mac = "de:ad:ca:fe:12:35"
   
   pci_usb_installed = 1
   nvram_file = "nvram"

9. You can leave the majority of the settings above as it is, but there are a few things you may need to change.
   • I set it on 1024 x 768, 32 bits, but if you don't want your Mac OSX setup to run at that resolution, change it, e.g. for 800x600, 32 bits, change that line to:
     ppc_start_resolution = "800x600x32"
   • I have around 1.7 GB of RAM, so I've allocated 512 MB to Mac OSX, but if you have less, you might want to change this to a lower value. Note that it is in hex, so if you want to change it to 128 MB, change the line to:
     memory_size=0x20000000
   • I named my 6GB Mac OSX bootable image MacOSX6GB.img, change the line below if needed:
     pci_ide0_master_image = "c:\PearPC\Images\MacOSX6GB.img"
   • I named the Mac OSX Disc 1 image MacOSXCD1.iso, so change the line below if needed. If you have the Mac OSX DVD, put the path to that image here:
     pci_ide0_slave_image = "c:\PearPC\Images\MacOSXCD1.iso"
10. Install OpenVPN, but unselect everything except the TAP-Win32 Virtual Ethernet Adapter.
11. Now you should be all set to start the Mac OSX installation process. Go to Start > Run, type in cmd and press ENTER. Then enter the following commands, pressing ENTER after each one:
    cd\pearpc\pearpc\windows
    ppc ppc.txt
12. PearPC will now start up, and and you'll be prompted with a boot menu. Press 1 and then press ENTER (don't use the ENTER key in the numpad), this will boot up the CD/DVD image. Follow through with the setup process; it'll take around an hour to complete the initial process on a decent system. It will say it'll restart at the end, but PearPC will shut down instead - this is normal.
    
    CD only instructions:
    If you're using Mac OSX Tiger CD Images, you have to unselect the Printer Drivers, Additional Fonts, Languages options because currently there's no way to give it the CDs 3 and 4.
    
    Around a hour in, the installation process will say it's complete and restart. PearPC will shut down instead. You'll need to open up ppc.txt again, and edit the following line to point to the Mac OSX Disc 2 image:
    pci_ide0_slave_image = "c:\PearPC\Images\MacOSXCD1.iso"
13. In the command prompt, type in ppc ppc.txt followed by the ENTER key again to start up PearPC again. This time however, type in 2 in the boot menu, and press ENTER - you're booting from your hard drive image now, not the CD/DVD. The setup process will continue. If after 10 minutes or so, it is still stuck at the grey Apple screen, close PearPC as you normally close a window, and try the above command again. It should work the second time round.
14. Once setup has completed, the initial OS loading process will start for you to configure the initial settings and user accounts.
15. After that, it should boot into Mac OSX, ready for you to play around. To make it easier to start up next time, you might want to create a shortcut on your desktop or start menu to load PearPC - select C:\PearPC\PearPC\Windows\ppc.exe as the executable, ppc.txt as the argument, and c:\PearPC\PearPC\Windows as the working directory. You may also want to unmount the Mac OSX Tiger CD/DVD image so it doesn't keep popping up each time you load - just comment out the following lines by adding a # in front of the following lines in your ppc.txt file:
    pci_ide0_slave_installed = 1
    pci_ide0_slave_image = "c:\PearPC\Images\MacOSXCD1.iso"
    pci_ide0_slave_type = "cdrom"

That should get you off to a fairly good start. You'll see why I said it's not the best performance, but it's usable in the meantime.

Right now though, your setup is stuck in its own little sandbox - networking does not work yet. There are 3 ways of doing this, bridging, ICS and proxy. For bridging instructions, try this (PDF link); for ICS instructions, try here. The bridging ones were too tempermental for me, and I didn't want to fiddle with ICS, so I chose the proxy method. I'll briefly go through the proxy method here.

1. Open up Network Connections in your Control Panel and locate the Local Network Connection associated with TAP-Win32 Adapter V8. Right-click that and open up Properties.
2. Select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) in the Protocols list and click Properties.
3. Enter in 10.0.0.1 for the IP Address, 255.0.0.0 for the subnet, 192.168.0.1 for default gateway and preferred DNS server. Press OK, then OK again.
4. Download AnalogX Proxy, install and run. You can use an alternative proxy server, but you'll have to change the instructions below accordingly.
5. Boot up PearPC, and once Mac OSX has booted, click on the Apple logo, then System Preferences. Select Network, then in the list of network adapters select the one and only adapter, Built-in Ethernet, then click Configure.
6. Change Configure IPv4 from DHCP to Manually, then type in 10.0.0.2 for IP address, 255.0.0.0 for the subnet mask, 10.0.0.1 for the router and DNS servers. Click the Proxies tab, tick Web Proxy (HTTP) and enter in 10.0.0.1 for the web proxy server and 6588 for the port. Repeat for Secure Web Proxy (HTTPS). Click Apply Now.
7. Fire up Safari and you should be able to access the net. Fire up Finder and you should be able to access the host OS's network shares as well (but not any network shares on other computers - you'll have to use the bridging method to get that).

Credit should be given to these pages as well - The Moron's Guide to Tiger on PearPC, PearPC running on Mac OSX 10.3 and G3sNetRamblings.