PsyStar Rebel EFI not ready for primetime [a familiar pattern]
When the Miami, Florida-based hackintosh maker hit the scene back April 2008, the company made quite a splash, becoming the first company to openly advertise and sell Apple’s OS X on generic PC hardware. However, like their first computers, the Rebel EFI might charitably be called a work in progress with little in the way of documentation or help available.
Computerworld laid hands on a PsyStar Rebel EFI, a $50 disk image that the claims “allows for the easy installation of multiple operating systems on a single system.” What’s the bottom line?
Well, the fundamental issues are two: the world is awash in generic PC hardware, little of which is supported by Apple let alone PsyStar, and the company’s support documentation is virtually non-existant. Moreover, unless you’re quite skilled and knowledgeable about computer hardware, both PC and Mac, your chances of successfully creating a hackintosh with either an off-the-shelf computer or from individually purchased components are slim to none.
For example, Computerworld “successfully” installed OS X Snow Leopard on a Fujitsu T5010 notebook using Rebel EFI. However, the integrated Wi-Fi, tablet input, touch pad, integrated audio system and the fingerprint scanner didn’t work, and only one display resolution was supported.
Likewise, whereas Computerworld put together a desktop machine from “common” components — an Intel DX58S0 motherboard, Nehalem i7-965 CPU, Intel 80G solid state drive (SSD), 4GB DDR3 RAM and an Nvidia Quadro FX1700 — which produced a largely functional hacintosh (no audio, one display resolution), how many of the rest of us would know which components to use, let alone have the knowledge and confidence to put them together? Thereupon, given the huge array of stuff out there and PsyStar’s lack of a compatible hardware list, the chances of creating a hackintosh quickly and easily are pretty low.
“As it stands right now, you can use Rebel EFI to build a Mac clone, but unless you stick to relatively generic hardware, you will be disappointed,” concludes Computerworld.
So, word to the wise, unless you’ve got lots of time, money, patience and know of a PC shop with an extremely liberal return policy, PsyStar’s Rebel EFI is just a bag of hurt…
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October 27th, 2009
Why does anyone give these shysters the time of day?
Their product is junk – and appears to be stolen from the open source community without attribution. On top of that, of course, is the entire basis of their business – stealing Apple’s intellectual property.
Just ignore them until they disappear back into oblivion where they belong.
October 27th, 2009
But OSX86 is a different matter. Not that I’m advocating breaking the law but:
http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Linux Grub has an EFI that works well and is free. Everything works well on my old Dell Inspiron running OSX86 10.5.2 with the vanilla kernel including updates straight from the “mothership”. Of course Apple could kill it but I suspect it would cause issues with some of the mature Apple Macs.
My Dell? CoreDuo, Intel craptastic 950GMA, 160Gig Sata, 2 Gig of RAM and a Ralink N wireless. Laptop is almost 5 years old and I mostly run Linux, but have 7 on it as well.
Obviously if you want the “Mac experience” you’d be better off with a real Apple rig but it’s hardly magic or highly complex to build a Hackintosh with some simple prior research.