OSx86
Encyclopedia : O : OS : OSX : OSx86
OSx86 is the name given to the community effort to patch Apple's Mac OS X operating system to run 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. Patches were released to circumvent this.
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. Within hours, however, Apple released the 10.4.5 update, which was patched again by Maxxuss in less than two weeks. On April 3 2006 Apple released their 10.4.6 update 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. On June, once again JaS realeased the 10.4.7 Mac OS X update for non-Apple computers, although it still uses the 10.4.5 kernel.
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