OSx86

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OSx86 is the name given by hacking communities online Apple's Mac OS X operating system to pirate OS X and run it on personal computers not released by Apple. A portmanteau of OS X and x86, the effort started soon after the June 2005 Worldwide Developers Conference announcement that Apple would be transitioning their personal computers from PowerPC to Intel microprocessors.

Initial efforts revolved around leaked copies of the Development DVD that was released by Apple as part of the Developer Transition Kit that Apple made available to developers for $999. The first patches centered around circumventing the Trusted platform module (TPM) that was included on the motherboard of the Developer Transition Kits. The TPM was required by the Rosetta technology that allowed software compiled for the PowerPC architecture to run on Intel-based architecture. Removing this requirement allowed Mac OS X to be installed on non-Apple computers. Rosetta also required microprocessors that included SSE3 instructions. Patches were released to the community that emulated these instructions with SSE2 equivalents and allowed the installation on machines without SSE3 support.

In October 2005 Apple released a 10.4.3 update to developers that required NX bit microprocessor support.[1] Patches were released to circumvent this. [2]

On January 10, 2006, Apple released Mac OS X 10.4.4 with the first Intel-based Macintoshes. These machines used an Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) chip instead of the traditional BIOS chip found in most current x86 platforms. On February 14, 2006 an initial "crack" of OS X 10.4.4 was released on the Internet by someone using the name Maxxuss. [3] Within hours, however, Apple released the 10.4.5 update[4], which was patched again by Maxxuss in less than two weeks. [5] On April 3, 2006 Apple released their 10.4.6 update[6] and again patches were released within two weeks that allowed users to install most of this update on non-Apple computers, although not the updated kernel included with 10.4.6. These patches were released by a person using the name SemjaZa and compiled by a person using the name JaS. In June, once again JaS released the 10.4.7 Mac OS X update for non-Apple computers, although it still uses the 10.4.4 kernel.

Up to the release of 10.4.8 update, kernel from 10.4.4 was still being used with all updates that have been released. However as more updates were released more and more frameworks are relying on updated kernels which has lead to 10.4.8 having the most problems encountered by users so far due to the huge gap between 10.4.8 frameworks and 10.4.4 kernel. Apple has also started making more use of SSE3 instructions on their hardware making it even more difficult for users on SSE2 platforms to get a full system running.

Currently one of the most important breakthroughs was the release of updated kernels from 10.4.8 release. This was achieved by two independent skilled programmers, calling themselves Mifki/Vitaliy and Semthex. Both have started with opensource XNU tree, applying necessary patches to run the kernel on non-apple hardware. Mifki's goal was to release the kernel with as few patches as possible, that will be able to run on close-to-apple hardware. On the other hand, Semthex dedicated his work to wider community, making his kernel more compatible with legacy hardware, missing some of the crucial features. Both kernels allowed most of the updated kexts/frameworks to work, making properly configured white-box PCs operate more like genuine Apple computers. An install DVD was released by JaS, which includes Vitaliy's and Semthex's kernel.


[edit] References

  1. ^ sHARD (October 16, 2005). Apple Seeds 10.4.3 Intel to Developers. OSx86 Project. Retrieved on 2006-05-28.
  2. ^ Jonathan Black (October 30, 2005). Hacked OSx86 Updated to 10.4.3. OSx86 Project. Retrieved on 2006-05-28.
  3. ^ Jonathan Black (February 14, 2006). OSx86 10.4.4 Security Broken. (Guess Who Done It?). OSx86 Project. Retrieved on 2006-05-28.
  4. ^ Apple Computer (February 14, 2006). Mac OS X Update 10.4.5. Apple Computer. Retrieved on 2006-05-28.
  5. ^ sHARD (February 23, 2006). Apple Releases 10.4.5. OSx86 Project. Retrieved on 2006-05-28.
  6. ^ Apple Computer (April 3, 2006). Mac OS X 10.4.6 for Intel. Apple Computer. Retrieved on 2006-05-28.

[edit] External links

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