For those running a Hackintosh (a PC built to unofficially run Mac OS X) who haven’t upgraded to or installed Mac OS X Lion yet, your excuses to delay the 10.7 update are dwindling. The newly released Unibeast tool from the ever-resourceful TonyMacX86 makes the entire process easier than ever. The requirements for using Unibeast are simple:

• 8GB+ USB drive
• Mac OS X Lion Installer (download from the App Store) or an OS X Lion USB drive – Tip: from a Mac running 10.7 Lion, you can re-download OS X Lion from the App Store without having to buy it again by simply holding down the option key when clicking on the “Purchases” tab.
• Compatible Hackintosh PC hardware build

Follow the full Unibeast installation guide on TonyMacX86

The walkthrough covers setup of the installer drive to BIOS adjustments and post-install fixes with MultiBeast to enable ethernet, sound, GPU, everything. If you’ve made an OS X Lion USB installer drive before you can use that for the drive requirement and you’ll find some of the walkthrough familiar, but even without any such experience it’s easy to follow.

Remember the Hackintosh? Mostly consisting of modified netbooks running Mac OS X, the movement became fairly popular until Apple stepped in with the iPad and then MacBook Air to effectively redirect everyones attention back to official Apple hardware. But the hackintosh community isn’t dead – far from it – in fact you can still build a really powerful hackintosh for just about $600. If you want to build your own unofficial Mac, here’s what you’ll get:

$600 Hackintosh Build Hardware Specs

• Core i3 3.06GHz
• 4GB RAM
• 1TB 7200 RPM hard drive
• nVidia GeForce GT240 with 512MB VRAM
• DVD burner

Not a bad machine at all, especially when you consider the current Mac Mini costs $699 and is stuck on a boring old Core 2 Duo CPU with 2GB of RAM and a 320GB drive.

Lifehacker borrowed the infamous TonyMacX86 walkthroughs and updated it slightly into a single page of easy to follow instructions, they even included a video (embedded below) showing exactly what to do in the BIOS which makes it even simpler.

Oddly enough the guide was published just weeks before Mac OS X Lion arrives, so you’ll probably have to tweak a few things in the near future if you want to run Lion on the machine. Nonetheless, TonyMacX86 is usually on top of all this stuff pretty quick, so you can almost certainly bet that Lion will run on the machines.

If you’re going to be building a PC in the near future anyway, why not build one that is Hackintosh compatible? Add it onto your list of geeky Apple things to do this next weekend.

Check out LifeHacker’s easy to follow guide and make one yourself

A friend of mine just got a free HP Mini 1000 from his job and was bored stiff with Windows XP, he couldn’t really think of a use for the netbook so I suggested installing Mac OS X on it. The little machine is an excellent candidate for a hackintosh, and the setup is just a matter of patience and following some good instructions like the one at MyMacNetbook: Guide to Snow Leopard on a HP Mini 1000. A few hours later and he’s running Snow Leopard on a tiny Hackintosh Netbook!

Did you know that with DolphinProjects, you can run Mac OS X Leopard on a Sony PSP? Me neither, I think I’ll stick with my hackintosh. Anyway, this might not be the most useful hack in the world, but it is pretty cool. Here are some screen shots, as you can see it is remarkably squished with the PSP’s screen resolution of 480×272, but somehow the DolphinProjects folks managed to make it work (sort of).

[ screenshots via QJ Forums ]

All good things must come to an end, and the favored Hackintosh netbook, the Mini 10v, has been discontinued. TUAW reports that they spoke with a Dell representative who told them the Dell Mini 10v reached the end of its product life and a replacement model will be out soon.

The Dell Mini 10v has long been a favorite in the Hackintosh community for it’s ease of installation, full compatibility, solid performance, and it’s vaguely MacBook Pro-ish appearance.

So the Hackintosh communities question is, will the new model be as Hackintosh friendly? Let’s hope so.

If you have a Hackintosh desktop or Netbook, you may want to do a bit of research before jumping into the Mac OS X 10.6.3 system update. Users around the web are reporting everything from easy success to catastrophic failure, which isn’t too surprising considering the hardware diversity of Hackintosh systems.

Simplest advice: Follow the path of someone who has done the update on a machine that is either identical or closely mimics your own build. For anyone that uses sleep, if you want to minimize the likelihood of troubles when updating to 10.6.3 it’s a good idea to move the old SleepEnabler.kext since it will almost certainly cause a kernel panic on reboot when it butts heads with the new kernel.

It is absolutely essential that you backup your existing Hackintosh Mac OS X 10.6.2 install before attempting to 10.6.3 update!

Resources for updating your Hackintosh to 10.6.3:

Prasys: Straight Forward 10.6.3 Upgrade Guide – a nice and easy to follow step-by-step walkthrough with screenshots on updating to 10.6.3

TonyMacX86: Mac OS X 10.6.3 update – Great general advice and information on the 10.6.3 update, what has been problematic, what works, and more importantly: SOLUTIONS to known problems. Highly recommended resource.

Google Spreadsheet: 10.6.3 update and hardware – this is a great spreadsheet maintained by TonyMacX86 that shows hardware and known problems. Definitely worth a look.

LifeHacker: Update a charm to 10.6.3 – for Desktop Hackintosh users who followed the LifeHacker guide in particular. Not particularly informative other than a ‘it worked for me!’ so a strong YMMV, read the comments for a slew of user problems (and successes too).

TonyMacX86 Forums – if you’re banging your head into the wall to figure out what went wrong on your desktop Hackintosh update, this is a great forum to check out.

InsanelyMac Forums – another good resource for questions and answers to various Hackintosh install problems, less personal than TonyMacX86 though.

MyDellMini: Official Mac OS X 10.6.3 update thread for Dell Mini 9 and Dell Mini 10v – if you have a Dell Mini, go to the experts. An excellent guide on updating your Mini to 10.6.3, don’t miss it.

NetKas: Advice on updating to 10.6.3 with ATI cards

Meklort – a leader in the Hackintosh world, most relevant to Netbook users.

If you happened to have followed the LifeHacker guide to build a Hackintosh Desktop you may have the easiest update as a desktop user, although some users in their comments are reporting update troubles with identical systems. Various Hackintosh Netbook reports vary widely, but the Dell Mini 9 and 10v is fairing well thanks to the folks at MyDellMini forums.

If you’re a bit squeamish or don’t want a hassle, waiting a few weeks to update to 10.6.3 may well work in your favor as the Hackintosh community continues to refine and update their techniques.

Here’s a unique Mac setup, a Hackintosh Dell Mini 10v hooked up to a 42″ LCD flat screen, and the same Mini with an external 22″ Dell display doing iPhone development! Ok ok, so it’s not really a Mac setup, but it’s running Mac OS X and it’s also our favorite Hackintosh netbook, so I had to include it.

If you want to get a Dell Mini 10v running Mac OS X yourself (How does about $215 for a Mac sound?) check out our guide to getting a cheap Hackintosh Mini. Don’t expect it to replace your main Mac in terms of power, but they make pretty great road warriors for writing, blogging, email, etc.

[ via Flickr ]

Mac OS X 10.6.2 has been released, for most Mac users this is great news because it fixes over 40 problems and bugs, including the rare but very problematic user account deletion bug. If you have an official Apple Mac then go right ahead and update to Mac OS X 10.6.2, but if you have a Hackintosh Mac Netbook… well you will want to hold off. It has been confirmed that the final release of 10.6.2 kills Intel Atom support officially. Hackintosh Guru StellaRolla reports:

The netbook forums are now blowing up with problems of 10.6.2 instant rebooting their Atom based netbooks.

A quick glance at the Hackintosh forums on MyDellMini.com confirms this:

So, I can tell you 10.6.2 DOES NOT WORK with the Mini10v.

OSX tries to start, but it hangs before you can see the apple and system ist trying to boot again … you are in a loop…

StellaRola goes on to note that the OSx86 community is pretty crafty and a modded kernel will likely surface in the near future. In any event, if you have a Hackintosh, hold off on the official 10.6.2 until more information is available.

You can read more about the Mac OS X 10.6.2 Update from Apple.com

[ Sources: Gizmodo: 10.6.2 bug fixes and StellaRola: Official: Atom Not Supported in 10.6.2 and MyDellMini.com Forums ]

Not to sound like a flip-flopping broken record or anything, but it is now confirmed that the latest 10.6.2 build 10C540 does not support the Intel Atom chip, the processor that is so common in Hackintosh Netbooks. Popular Hackintosher StellaRola has confirmed this with his sources, and he even includes a video of a MSI Wind U100 trying to boot 10.6.2 but it is stuck in a continuous reboot (shown below). With how fast things are changing (supported, unsupported), it’s a mystery as to whether the final release will include support for the Atom chip, but as we said before, if you’re a Hackintosh user you should probably avoid the update until it has been confirmed one way or another.

StellaRolla via 10.6.2 kills support for Atom processor

It’s baaaaaack! Like a relentless zombie in a bad horror flick that just can’t be killed, the Intel Atom chip is now supported again in the latest developer build of 10.6.2, 10C53. This doesn’t mean much since it’s just a developer build, but for now Hackintosh Netbook users can feel a bit better about their uncertain future. StellaRolla reports:

…the latest development build Atom appears to have resurrected itself zombie style in 10C535. The Atom lives another day, but nothing is concrete until the final version of 10.6.2 is out.

So that’s all fine and dandy, but will the Atom truly survive? Time will tell.

Thank you to OS X Daily reader Tony for notifying us of this change!

[ StellaRolla via ArsTechnica ]

It’s not out in the wild yet, but Mac OS X 10.6.2 is released and has been confirmed to kill support for the Intel Atom processor, this is especially important for Hackintosh users who have hacked various Atom based netbooks to run Snow Leopard. So what should you do if you have an Atom based Hackintosh Netbook? StellaRolla recommends staying with 10.6.1 (or 10.5.8 if you’re running Leopard on your Hackintosh, sine 10.5.9 will likely have the same Atom problems) for the time being, otherwise you can try upgrading to 10.6.2 but run an older or modified kernel. I think I’ll just stick to 10.6.1 when the update rolls around, I have a lot of confidence in the Hackintosh community so I imagine there will be a workaround rather quickly.

You can’t help but suspect this move is Apple’s attempt at shutting down the growing and popular Hackintosh Netbook community, since Apple has no product line that runs the Atom itself. Mac OS X runs absolutely flawlessly on much of the PC Netbook hardware, once it’s configured you wouldn’t know you’re not on a Mac. Maybe it’s in effort to kill the Atom Hackintoh Netbooks in anticipation of the rumored Tablet? Or maybe it’s something totally unrelated? Who knows, but for now, just take note that when the 10.6.2 upgrade comes out and you use a Hackintosh, you might want to avoid it for now.

StellaRolla: 10.6.2 kills Atom

Update: the most recent 10.6.2 build supports the Atom chip again, whether or not the final version of 10.6.2 will kill the Atom or not remains to be seen.

Update 2: The most recent 10.6.2 build does NOT SUPPORT the Intel Atom chip and this has been confirmed. See link for details.

We’ve long been fans of the Dell Mini 10v for Hackintosh purposes, it’s small, quick, attractive, and can be obtained for surprisingly cheap in the $200 range. It looks like the rest of the blogworld is catching on to this little beast of a MacHack Netbook, Gizmodo has an excellent write up on installing Snow Leopard on the Dell Mini 10v, it’s definitely worth checking out. I’d highly recommend buying a refurbished unit from the Dell outlet to save yourself some serious cash (a friend got one for $189!), so check out our guide to a cheap Mac Netbook with the Dell Mini 10v, and then follow the Gizmodo guide to get it all up and running with Snow Leopard. For $200 you can’t go wrong!

Gizmodo: How to Hackintosh a Dell Mini 10v into the Ultimate Snow Leopard Netbook

The Lenovo S10 may just be the easiest hackintosh netbook option to run Mac OS X, according to a guide on the site Tech-Chimp. The guide is so short and so simple, it’s almost hard to believe, this is basically what it says:

* Upgrade the Lenovo s10 firmware
* Using this tool, prepare an 8gb USB key to be the install device
* Boot the Lenovo off of the aforementioned USB key
* Install Mac OS X Snow Leopard, as if on a Mac, but on the Lenovo
* Boot Mac OS X on your Lenovo S10

What?? That’s it? I don’t have a Lenovo S10 to test this on, but if this is true, that is a truly amazingly easy install. They even say that sleep works on some of the models. Here at OS X Daily we usually opt for the turning the Dell Mini 10v into a Hackintosh Netbook because it’s so cheap ($199 refurbed on the Dell Outlet just last week) and it also is pretty easy to install on… but the downside to the Dell Mini 10v hackintosh is that Ram is very obnoxious to install. If we had the ability to test the Lenovo S10 guide from Tech-Chimp for Hackintoshing, it very well may get our hackintosh recommendation, even though it comes at a heftier price tag ($300 according to Tech-Chimp). Read more at Tech-Chimp.com:

Tech-Chimp: $300 Turns a Lenovo S10 into a Mac NetBook Running Snow Leopard

If you have a Hackintosh PC, you may have noticed that in “About this Mac” you’ll most often see ‘Unknown’ as the CPU type. Yes you can dig around in system files and set it, but wouldn’t you like the CPU to be recognized on it’s own? Now you can! Check out this thread at InsanelyMac Forums where a forum user built a version of PC_EFI with CPU recognition built in. Sweet!

[ InsanelyMac Forums via StellaRolla ]

First a quick note, we absolutely adore Apple and all it’s software and hardware offerings, but… Hackintosh machines offer an impressive alternative to the official Apple hardware that we all know and love, and in some cases even fill a niche where Apple has yet to dabble (eg: Netbooks). If you’re in the market for a new Mac and you don’t mind sacrificing Apple hardware’s good looks, and you either want to save some serious cash or just want to geek around a bit, building a Hackintosh is a great solution. The Hackintosh movement is growing strong and steady, so grab a Netbook or build a Desktop PC, follow these hackintosh guides, and join us!

Hackintosh Netbook

Here’s a whole slew of guides for creating a Hackintosh Netbook, and some other very helpful links. I’d personally recommend the Dell Mini 10v for ease of use and functionality, but my own hackintosh is actually an Acer Aspire One (which works great with 10.5.6 but wasn’t easy to get there, required a wifi card upgrade, etc).

Hackintosh Mini 10v – this is our guide on how to get a Hackintosh Dell Mini 10v that runs Mac OS X for just over $200. In my opinion, the Dell Mini 10v is the best option for a really awesome Hackintosh Netbook, it’s got good looks, a 10″ screen, and you can get one extraordinarily cheap by following these steps. Only downside is the RAM upgrade hassle.

Dell Mini 9 / Vostro 90 – if you can get over the awful keyboard on the Dell Mini 9/Vostro 90, it makes a great little hackintosh netbook

MyDellMini Forums – Snow Leopard – the most helpful forum group for the Hackintosh Netbook community is catered to Dell Mini owners, check out the Snow Leopard guides and if you have any questions or problems the MyDellMini forums should be your first line of defense

Asus EEE 1000h – a Hackintosh walkthrough for the Asus EEE PC 1000h

HP Mini 1000 – guide for hackintoshing the HP Mini 1000, just about everything works

Lenovo S10 – onboard ethernet does not work but otherwise following this guide you’ll get a fully functional Hackintosh S10

BoingBoing Netbook Compatibility Chart – a pretty solid chart to see which Netbooks can be turned into a Hackintosh and what works and what doesn’t, last updated in July 2009

Virtually Scale Window Size – very helpful hint for Hackintosh Netbook users with limited screen resolutions and real estate to virtually scale down window sizes

Desktop Hackintosh

Here’s the best information I know of for building a desktop Hackintosh machine, it’s all based around the infamous Lifehacker guide that shows you how to build a really sweet desktop Hackintosh PC for around $900. The process has gotten even easier thanks to a PKG from Stella and it requires no hacking, just a simple pkg install.

Lifehacker: How to build a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard from Start to Finish – a breakdown of all the hardware and procedures required to build a smoking desktop hackintosh machine, use their newer guide for installing Snow Leopard though

Lifehacker: Install Snow Leopard on your Hackintosh PC with no hacking required – after reading the “how to build” guide from Lifehacker, read this for a much easier method of installing Snow Leopard on your Hackintosh

InsanelyMac Discussion on the Lifehacker Guide – a helpful forum with other Hackintosh users that have followed the Lifehacker guide, and any issues they’ve encountered along the way

Stellarola: Snow Leopard Hardware Compatibility List – repeated below for convenience, Stella is the genius behind the Lifehacker “no hacking” guide

Snow Leopard Hackintosh Compatible Hardware List for a Desktop

Webcams:
* Dynex DX-WEB1C 1.3MP (Fixed Focus Cam and mic built-in)
* Xbox 360 Live Camera (Manually adjustable Cam only)
* Logitech Quickcam Vision Pro for Mac (Autofocus cam and mic built-in)
* HP KQ246AA (Autofocus cam and mic built-in)

Wired Ethernet Cards
* Netgear GA-311 (PCI)
* Trendnet Gigabit TEG-PCITXR (PCI)
* Rosewill RC-400 (PCI)
* Encore ENLGA-1320 (PCI)
* SMC9452TX-1 (PCI)
* Sonnet Presto Gigabit GE1000-E (PCI-e)

Wireless “Airport” Cards
* Asus WL-138G V2 (PCI)
* Dynex DX-BGDTC (PCI)
* Dell Wireless 1505 (PCI-e)

USB Audio
* SYBA SD-CM-UAUD
* SYBA SD-CM-UAUD71
* M-Audio Jamlab
* Griffin iMic

(above desktop hardware compatibility list courtesy of Stellarola):

Got anymore Hackintosh information or links? Share them with us!