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Comments: 304 +-   Psystar Open Computer Notes, Benchmarks and Video on Wednesday April 30 2008, @08:17PM

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday April 30 2008, @08:17PM
from the fighting-against-the-too-good-to-be-true-adage dept.
software
hardware
Engadget has had a chance to play around with Psystar's Open Computer and has a few things to say about the controversial machine. "Okay, so we've been playing with the Psystar Open Computer for a few hours now, and we've formed some early impressions and put together a short video of it in action. We haven't really tried to stress the system yet, but based on our other experiences with OSx86 machines, we're expecting things to generally go smoothly. That said, there are some definite rough patches and issues, all mostly having to do with the fact that OS X isn't really built for this hardware."
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Feed: Psystar Open Computer notes, benchmarks and video by engfeed (1083227)
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  • Seems it's not a fraud box after all. Who'da thunk?

    • Seems it's not a fraud box after all.
      I guess it depends on your definition of "fraud". Selling a computer that is "crazy loud" and has several things that don't work is pretty close to fraud as far as I'm concerned. It's obvious that they didn't put a lot of effort into this. They're just trying to get them out the door as fast as possible so they can make some money before Apple shuts them down.

    • Seems it's not a fraud box

      No, just a piece of shit.

      • If I were apple I'd like this (Score:4, Insightful)

        by goombah99 (560566) on Wednesday April 30 2008, @09:46PM (#23259400)
        This thing is such a turd that If I were apple I'd be overjoyed someone made it. A mac mmin actually costs less, delivered! You lose less than a factor of 2 on graphics speeds and smidge on disk writes on the mac mini.

        In return the mac mini has wifi and blue tooth, temperature control, software updates, you can re-install the operating system, optical audio, ilife, ...

        oh and it doesn't sound like a supersonic jet landing. The mini has lower power bills too.

        it's difficult to think of the niche where anyone could possibly want a turn like this.

        SO apple should be please that no one can make a cheaper computer, since it sort of puts it to all the whiners who complain about the "apple tax".

        • * Having a Mac without supporting Apple.

          * Having a Mac on the cheap where you can upgrade your video card.
        • you can make your own, in a box of your choice. And costs cheaper....

        • it's difficult to think of the niche where anyone could possibly want a tur[d] like this.

          Sure, but I think that misses the point.

          This is a first-generation product. It's not polished at all. But, if Apple doesn't sue Psystar out of existence - or, better, if Apple tries and fails - then Psystar can put together a good version later on. So, I would look at this as a proof of concept, a testing-the-waters type of thing. I would say it's succeeding in that it's generating lots of noise (both in the press and the fan...), we have to wait and see if it passes the legal test. But if so, Psystar -

          • This is a first-generation product. It's not polished at all.

            So a buggy and flawed first generation system? They're not just cloning the hardware, they're cloning Apple's development model too!

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by HuguesT (84078)
              Re: between fink and macport, the choice is easy: neither.

              Fink is essentially not being maintained actively. I'm on the developer mailing list, I receive maybe 10 mails a day. The software in the repository is very much out of date. I also have terrible experience with missing packages.

              MacPort is for those who have a spare Mac to do their compiling on. I don't have that. Ever tried compiling the Gnome or KDE libraries? I've done my share of 24h compiling stretches when X11 was young, I thought we had moved

  • Fan Noise (Score:3, Funny)

    by rampant mac (561036) on Wednesday April 30 2008, @08:38PM (#23258954)
    "It's LOUD. Crazy loud. OS X doesn't seem to interface with the fan controller, so it runs at full tilt all the time. It doesn't really come across on the video, but it's loud enough so that it's hard to talk on the phone when the machine is running. There's no way we could deal with this thing on a daily basis."

    I watched the video, and he's completely wrong. The fan's so loud that at about 2 minutes into the video it drowns out a passing fire truck.

    If you looking for a similar experience, hold a hair dryer (on low heat) about 3 inches from your ear. :)
    • Yep, not a Steve Jobs product.

      The products he's been involved in have been either truly silent or blessedly quiet.

      There's a difference, by the way, and truly silent is better.

      They may overheat, of course... but until they do, they're a pleasure to use. You don't realize how fatiguing fan noise is until you work with a machine that doesn't have any.

      It was a sad day when I had to clip a Kensington fan to my Apple ][+
  • pystar, any relation I wonder to starmax ? (the last Mac clone)
  • In performance and price it's a 2-3 year old Mac, I guess. The fan problem though could probably be eliminated with a cheap PCI slot blower fan.

  • Anything novel here? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lachryma (949694) on Wednesday April 30 2008, @09:01PM (#23259122)
    How is Psystar's Mac install any different from what someone would get from, say, the Kalyway Install Disc?

    In fact, is there anything to suggest that Psystar isn't just making a quick buck from someone else's hacked Mac OS X installer?

  • Presumably a better version will follow. There's no reason it has to be a full tower case with noisy fans. And if they get some volume, they can revise the BIOS to work better with the MacOS.

    It would be amusing to see Dell or HP in talks with Apple. They both need something better than Vista. It would actually make sense for Apple to sell off the desktop market to another vendor, and concentrate on portable devices. "Never trust a computer you can't lift", remember.

    • It would be amusing to see Dell or HP in talks with Apple. They both need something better than Vista. It would actually make sense for Apple to sell off the desktop market to another vendor, and concentrate on portable devices. "Never trust a computer you can't lift", remember.

      They do have things better than Vista. They're still selling XP, and they're also offering various Linux distributions.
    • You are assuming that they did any real work in developing this setup. Instead they put together pieces of work that the OSx86 community had been working on, and put together some hardware that could run it and started selling the combination. They don't seem like the type of company that is going to be putting many development dollars into much of anything.

    • It would be amusing to see Dell or HP in talks with Apple. They both need something better than Vista. It would actually make sense for Apple to sell off the desktop market to another vendor

      It would be a mistake for Apple to sell off their desktop market. Apple seel hardware as much as software. Actually Apple is a systems integrator, they design whole systems so they "just work".

      Falcon

  • One small problem... (Score:5, Informative)

    by sessamoid (165542) on Wednesday April 30 2008, @09:39PM (#23259356)
    "The DHCP lease drops every fifteen minutes or so and you have to manually renew it in prefs."

    So you have to go into preferences and renew your dhcp lease every 15 minutes or you have no internet? Yeah, these'll sell well.

  • How easy is it to build your own machine with specs closely matching Apple's and install OSX on it?
    • It's actually not that easy. First you have to get a hacked iso, and do an install. Then you have to go and hunt around for patches for audio and your graphics chipset. I have an ATI 3870 Radeon HD and setting that up wasn't a picnic.

      Then, since I have a wireless connection - I had to find a suitable wireless controller that would work with Mac OS X 10.5 -- and there was only ONE I could find, and the driver was for 10.4 .Still I got it working in 10.5, but sometimes, the system failed to recognize it and I

  • I figure Apple is not going to bother to sue Pystar. After all, when people see what a load of crap the computer is and how it does not integrate with Apple's wonderful software, people on the fence will realize what a really great *system* Apple has to offer in the Macintosh. People need to realize that Apple is a hardware company and a software company and a service company. The Macintosh is a combination of great hardware, software and support all working together. When you have a problem with Mac OS X o

  • The Importance of OpenMac (Score:4, Insightful)

    by saterdaies (842986) on Wednesday April 30 2008, @10:44PM (#23259698)
    The machine doesn't look that impressive. The thing that's really important is that they've forced the ball into Apple's court. At this point, Apple can respond to the violation of the EULA and see if a court says that the provision is legal or they can ignore it.

    If they ignore it, others are likely to follow Psystar (after a long enough time to see that Apple doesn't go after them). Of course, in this case, there's still some threat, but I don't think it's outrageous to argue that if Apple ignores it for over a year that the provision looses some weight.

    Personally, I hope they get sued. If they win their suit, it will be a new era for the Macintosh. If they loose their suit, they've lost, but at least we know.

    • Although, the aesthetics of the mini can't be denied
      odd, i would have said that aesthetics is the one area where you will always have someone denying its value.
    • The Psystar systems can take a real video card the mini can't also the open pro has a bigger case and likely less fan noise.
      • What part of "it's not cute" don't you get? Leave your techno mumbo jumbo out of this.

        • The Psystar systems can take a real video card the mini can't also the open pro has a bigger case and likely less fan noise.

          The previous psystar video had horrible fain noise.

          The Psystar in that video with the horrible fan noise was not the OpenPro [psystar.com], which uses the famously quiet Antec P182 [antec.com] case. That video, and the current article, featured the cheaper Open Computer [psystar.com], which uses the much cheaper Asus TM-211 [newegg.com] case.

          However, the current article [engadget.com] says the loud fan problem seems to be caused by incompatibilies between the motherboard/case fan controller and OS X (and maybe the hacked EFI). If the same motherboard/case was used with Windows, it would surely be much quieter.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by MBGMorden (803437)
          Um, no. This computer runs a hacked copy of OS X using PC_EFI (by netkas) just like virtually every other OSx86 system. Those do NOT require a "Mac Edition" video card to run. I'm running a similar home-built Mac system and I'm using a regular old MSI Geforce 7600GT on mine. I had it in my Windows machine before it got donated to the Mac. It works just fine.
    • Look at the specs though, you cant compare the two. Where the clone is faster and has more memory, it lacks firewire, wireless (while you could get away with no wireless unless your using it for a media PC, firewire I find essential no matter what until Apple adds external SATA), and the options to select it bump it up to the same price as the only slightly slower Apple Mini.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by MojoStan (776183)

        Look at the specs though, you cant compare the two.

        and the options to select it bump it up to the same price as the only slightly slower Apple Mini.

        Slightly slower? Did you read TFA [engadget.com]? The MacBook (which is comparable to the Mac mini) got pwned by the cheap Psystar. This shouldn't be surprising, since the MacBook (and the Mac mini) has a slower notebook hard drive, a slower CPU (with slower frontside bus), and the slower notebook version of Intel's integrated graphics (lower GPU clock speed and less allocated memory).

        Where the clone is faster and has more memory, it lacks firewire, wireless (while you could get away with no wireless unless your using it for a media PC, firewire I find essential no matter what until Apple adds external SATA),

        The $600 Mac mini only has a DVD/CD-RW combo drive and 80GB hard drive, while the entry-level Open Computer comes with a DVD writer an

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by goombah99 (560566)

          Look at the specs though, you cant compare the two.

          and the options to select it bump it up to the same price as the only slightly slower Apple Mini.

          Slightly slower? Did you read TFA [engadget.com]? The MacBook (which is comparable to the Mac mini) got pwned by the cheap Psystar.

          no it didn't. The cpu performance was comparable. THe disk perfromance was not bad. Yes, the video card performance lagged but by less than a factor of 2. who cares? what niche buys the cheapest piece of crap so loud you can't stand to be in the same room with then cares about graphics speed within a factor of 2?

          if you want faster disk or a dvd burner s on a mac mini you can put one in with a screwdriver or even smarter add a firewire drive.

          besides which this argument is about TCO not chest beating pe

        • This is a desktop if your using wireless on a desktop you sir are an idiot!
          Uh, why?

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Martin Blank (154261)
          What's wrong with wireless on a desktop? I've done several installations for people who wanted a primary computer hooked up to the router, but had their kids' systems (and I think TiVo, in one case) hooked up via wireless because they didn't want the hassle of running cables to other rooms. It's not a good case for transferring large files all the time, but it works perfectly fine for them for the Internet browsing, e-mail, and gaming that they were doing.

        • if your (sic) using wireless on a desktop you sir are an idiot!

          It's a lot easier than running cables through concrete.

    • The psystar sound like the deck of an aircraft carrier. Even on the relatively crappy video I've seen so far, the first thing that jumped out was how damn loud the thing is.

    • Wrong price (Score:4, Insightful)

      by goombah99 (560566) on Wednesday April 30 2008, @09:54PM (#23259450)
      A mac mini delivered costs 599. Go over to mac mall and you get 2Gb memory, parallels, ilife, a printer, and free shipping for $599

      Conversely, the a Pystar running mac OS costs
      399$ + 155$ (OS) + $50 shipping. = $604

      if you want firewire add $50 , the mini comes with it. (note you need pystar to install the firewire for you).

      if you want wifi, blue tooth, optical audio, etc.. you'll have to buy them. Maybe they will even work with the OS too. who knows.

      then of course the annual power bill is a lot less for the mac mini since not only is it lower power, the operating system power management actually functions.
      • More to add to this.

        First it's really dumb to be comparing things spec for spec when were talking about what's the cheapest way to get into mac osx computing. the ground floor is a batter value from apple.

        But let's suppose you want to trick out the apple with larger faster drives or a dvd burner.

        Now it's not a big deal just to crack the case on the apple and put in a bigger drive and the dvd burner.

        But an even smarter solution , for just a little more cash is to buy external HD and external DVD and plug th
    • Don't forget the Psystar system doesn't include iLife either, so that's one more thing you'd have to buy separately to get the equivalent of something from Apple.
      • How is the mini a good value compared to an XPC? You can put together a 3Ghz E8400 XPC with an 8800GTS etc. for a pretty decent price. Hell use a 65nm quad and you're still not doing too bad. I'd like a mini and all but 2Ghz for HOW much?! I must admit that building a Hackintosh is VERY tempting when looking at the prices critically. $800 with 1Gig of RAM and THAT video card?

        • The mini is a great value compared to other small windows PCs like the shuttles (for size it can't be beat at the price) or the ITX boards (mini is much more powerful for the price).

          Mac mini + 2gig of ram + Superdrive + 160GB HD = $949.00 Shuttle SG31G2 + 2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 + Western Dig 320GB HD + Pioneer DVD/RW + Asus GeForce 8400GS passive vid card + a Wolfdale 3.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo CPU = 608.94 So.. now you can either add OEM windows for around a hundred or linux/*bsd for zero. Either way it makes the mini look like a real piece of shit and you like an idiot.

          Mac mini: 6.5" x 6.5" x 2"
          Shuttle SG31G2: 11.8" x 7.9" x 7.3"

          Geez louise. You don't know how to read, do you?

    • I think the biggest issue with the Mini is that its outdated (its not meant to be powerful at all) but that its 600 bucks for something you could build for 300.
      • Fit that $300 in the same case as the mini. BTW I paid $300 for my mini, new.
        • The Mini is still a good deal for an ultra-small system, take a look at the PC equilivents of the Mini and you'll see most of them are underpowered too. The problem is that most people would be willing to accept something the size of, say, a Shuttle if it meant a massive improvement in performance for the same price.
    • and they stick a DVD / CDRW in there they should have DVDRW in all systems now days.
    • If something "just works", your not trying to do anything cool enough on it
      e.g install MacOS on non apple hardware
      convert a 5 y/o box into a PVR
      mount your HDD through a loop over a coat-hanger.

    • Re:"it just works" (Score:4, Interesting)

      by shadwstalkr (111149) on Wednesday April 30 2008, @11:17PM (#23259868) Homepage
      Except that it doesn't. I use Linux mostly, but I work in a physics research lab that uses exclusively* macs. We still use several G4s with OS X 10.3.9. I can't install network printers on half of them, for no apparent reason. I can't mount them using firewire on newer macs. No error messages, it just stalls.

      We got two new iMacs last month. One of them turns off randomly. Both of them crash randomly when we use our analysis software (a two-year old powerpc program). The OS is so slow it's nearly unresponsive (to me, the people that only use macs don't have a problem with it). On a related note, the iMac makes no hard drive noise, so I can never tell if it is just slow in responding, or if I didn't double click fast enough. File sharing is a pain to figure out. I can't easily change my icon theme without buying third party software. Don't get me started on the usability of the single menu bar. I can't find any easy way to uninstall Garage Band, et al, so that the automatic updater stops bothering me about them. I can't find a way to move windows between desktops ("spaces"), and all new windows seem to open on the same desktop that the program originally opened on, making multiple desktops virtually useless. I need third party software to have an automatically changing desktop wallpaper. Our IT guy told me that to take apart the iMac you have to buy suction cups from Apple to pull the glass off before you can unscrew the case. The "mighty mouse" can fake a right button, but you have to lift your index finger off the left side for it to work. My advisor was so used to this that he didn't even realize he was doing it. I can't drag windows around by alt-clicking on the window. I can't close a window that is minimized without showing it.

      These are just the bad things that I can think of off the top of my head. There are a lot of great things that I haven't mentioned. Maybe coming from Windows I would be blown away, but in Linux all this stuff actually just works, plus all the stuff that does work on the mac. If macs work for you, great. Just realize that you're paying a 100% tax for a pretty box, and stop telling me that it just works.

      Note that I'm not claiming in any way that macs can't do something. All that I am saying is that if I, a power user of several decades, couldn't figure out how to do it over the last year it didn't "just work." I welcome any solutions to problems that I mentioned, except solutions that include spending money.

      * The computers that run our expensive research equipment are windows. It's cheaper for them to give you a computer with windows than it is to develop a cross-platform solution.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by UnknowingFool (672806)

        We got two new iMacs last month. One of them turns off randomly. Both of them crash randomly when we use our analysis software (a two-year old powerpc program)

        Well if you got new iMacs, they are Intel iMacs. PowerPCs programs would not necessarily work unless they were compiled for Universal.

        File sharing is a pain to figure out.

        I acutally have the opposite experience. I have Windows and Linux machines at home. It takes only a few clicks to turn on Windows Sharing and share files. Windows unfortunatel

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Hackeron (704093)

        One of them turns off randomly.

        Hardware problems likely.

        Both of them crash randomly when we use our analysis software (a two-year old powerpc program).

        I've only used rosetta briefly and it was stable for me, but running analysis software under hardware emulation? - not the best idea.

        The OS is so slow it's nearly unresponsive (to me, the people that only use macs don't have a problem with it). On a related note, the iMac makes no hard drive noise, so I can never tell if it is just slow in responding, or if I didn't double click fast enough.

        So your complaint is the iMac is too quiet? -- install the OS onto a loud external USB drive then go into System Preferences -> Startup Disk and let it boot from USB by default.

        File sharing is a pain to figure out.

        Click on System Preferences -> Sharing and tick File Sharing -- from there your public folder is shared onto the local network, to add anything else just right click -

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