The first step is not software or hardware relative, it’s the question you have to ask yourself: Is it worth it???
This is not to discourage you, but you will face many problems, difficulties, shortcomings and worse, it may not work at all. Even if it works, you wont have the full experience of Mac OS X running on a Mac computer, that is for me invaluable.
Instead of constructing a MacPro-alike for an iMac price, why not just buy an iMac that have really good performances and horse-power? Instead of installing a distro on a PC laptop, why not buying an entry-level MacBook, refurbished or used MacBook Pro? Instead of using an underpowered plastic netbook, why not buy an used 12″ iBook or gorgeous 12″ PowerBook that is faster???
You will have problem to find compatible motherboard, graphic card, lan card, wifi card, and if you actually own the PC hardware you may have to add another lan-card (compatible with some distros) or wou may be blocked due to lack of drivers, as many people encountered for wifi, bluetooth or graphic cards.
Anyway, if all else works (statistically unlikely), you won’t be able to update your distro usually and may need to do a full reinstall to upgrade from version to version. Some drivers may crash unexpectedly. Network may not work all the time perfectly, battery autonomy may be real short, fans may start at full speed and stays that way with a noisy PC instead of a quiet Mac …
So what’s your goal? Did you plan the time to find hardware, drivers, to install distros, to reinstall, to retry? Are you ready to use a Mhackintosh that is not fully functional? Is your part time and leisure so worthless that your are ready to spend it to build and re-build instead to enjoy and use?
I know the answer for me, I needed a MacPro-alike, with Quad-Core CPU (HD re-encoding and VMs), 8GB RAM (for Lightroom and Ubuntu VMs), 2 or 3 hard-drive in RAID-0 (Media storage), GeForce 8xxx or 9xxx (Games and CUDA Development). All that may cost me 2000$ on an used first generation MacPro without any upgrade path (new motherboard and Core i7/Nehalem CPU), and it cost me around $1000.
As I am hired and my computer budget is not expandable, it is less a matter of balance between working more (and buying an used MacPro) or building a Mhackintosh, but mainly a budget limitation that have me choose this way. I knew that an iMac won’t store enough data for me, and will be twice as slow for HD video encoding, without external eSATA, the 8 USB ports, the photo media card reader, the internal Blu-Ray I add to the installed DVD-rewriter. And with a GT120 far slower than my GeForce 8800, an iMac will cost me more than 2000$ w/ taxes. So it was a no-brainer for me.
But it took me weeks to have it running, and I experiment occasional networking problems that I have to solve. It works, but…
So I would you to think about it, count your money and budget (think it doesn’t resell as high as an used Mac!), think about the time you will pass and all the shortcoming and even the risk to end-up loosing time and money just to have a PC without OS X working on it!
Next week I will talk about your needs…
