Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

WinXP on a Mac, Hoax?

Posted by Zonk on Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:09 AM
from the could-be dept.
Operating Systems Software Windows Businesses Apple
Brill writes "Ars Technica is reporting that a member of the 'WinXP on Mac' forums called narf2006 may have succeeded at the impossible. He's submitted his solution to get XP on an Intel Mac, for the $12,000 prize, but for now the only proof available is a blurry Flickr collection of photos that could be faked with virtual PC. His reputation on the forums however is strong, and he's already calling for testers." We've had people write in to say this has been announced a hoax on the contest page. The contest page is, of course, down due to bandwidth reasons. Engadget's conversation about this announcement has several theories on how this may have been faked. What's the verdict? Real or Fake?
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Slashback: Real-ID, PriceRitePhoto, RIM 75 comments
Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including a possible iBill framejob, the first steps towards defying the Real ID act, Peter Quinn continues his support for Open Source, Judge flunks lawsuit against spammers, WinXP on a Mac, round 2, Juniper drops message board suit, Vint Cerf answers questions on TLDs, PriceRitePhoto gets relisted, and RIM goes on the offensive for patent reform -- Read on for details.
[+] Apple: Windows XP on Intel Mac Confirmed 627 comments
niemassacre writes "According to winxponmac.com, the contest has been won - nearly $14k to narf2006 for submitting a working solution to dual-booting Windows XP and Mac OS X on an Intel-Powered mac. A thread on osx86project.org has confirmations from several testers that the procedure works on the 17" iMac, the Mac mini, and the MacBook Pro. Many sets of pictures and videos (such as this installation video) are floating around (and mentioned in the thread). The solution itself should be posted soon." Poit! Congratulations to narf.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

WinXP on a Mac, Hoax? 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Explain how? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by srw (38421) * on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:10AM (#14915733) Homepage
    Doesn't he have to explain how he did it to collect the prize? Am I missing something?

    • Re:Explain how? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Kjuib (584451) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:14AM (#14915770) Homepage Journal
      You are missing out on a GREAT OS running on some AWESOME HARDWARE... get with the program... everyone runs Windows XP on their Mac... come on!

    • Re:Explain how? (Score:5, Informative)

      by SonicBV (644848) * <sonicdude.mac@com> on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:14AM (#14915772) Homepage
      It works like any scientific discovery (which it essentially is). It has to be confirmed by a group of his peers, then he gets the money.

      Or such is my understanding, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

      • No single person or organization put up $12K. A lot of people chipped in a few bucks at a time to get to that level.
      • Is it THAT important to buy Mac hardware to put Windows on?

        But of course... As soon as the number of Macs running Windows to do real work outnumbers the number of Macs running Mac OS, can you imagine the reaction of the die hard Mac fanboys? Just that alone is worth $12,000 x 100. ;P (JOKE ALERT!!! JOKE ALERT!!! JOKE ALERT!!!)

      • Who would put up 12,000 bucks for something that's not really needed? I mean, sure, hacking the hardware to get it to run is kinda cool and all...but 12 grand?!?! Is it THAT important to buy Mac hardware to put Windows on?

        It's not about buying mac hardware specifically to run windows, it's about the ability to dual boot mac osx and windows on the same laptop. Honestly, I'm at the point in my life where I need fewer computers, not more of them. Having a whole closet full of junky old PC's isn't worth the time and energy anymore, so I just have 2 laptops now, a powerbook and an old gateway. I'd gladly sell them both if I could buy one laptop that could run both OS's.

        For what I do (audio programming and music production), emulation is not an acceptable solution due to obvious performance and hardware issues. Plus, there is so much good software available for both platforms, why limit yourself to just one?
      • "Who would put up 12,000 bucks?"

        Microsoft

        • Re:Explain the fricken 12,000 bucks for this... (Score:5, Informative)

          by tdemark (512406) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @11:04AM (#14916252) Homepage
          They have stated over and over again that it would be impossible for someone to boot XP on a Intel Mac. Now we have claims by someone that it can be done.

          I think you have that backwards.

          Apple has said they don't care if you want to by their hardware and boot XP on it, feel free. They're not doing anything to stop it, but they are also not doing anything to enable it.

          What they are against is Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware.

          - Tony

            • Re: they never said it would be impossible (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Thrudheim (910314) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @04:12PM (#14919140)
              If you are so sure they said it would be impossible, then tell us where did they said it.

              The parent message is referring to well-reported statements by Apple's Jobs and Schiller, who both said Apple would do nothing to prevent people from running Windows on Intel-based Macs. See this link: http://news.com.com/2100-1014_3-5733756-2.html [com.com]

              As the article states, Schiller's words were, "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will. We won't do anything to preclude that."

          • Name one reason why Apple would not want WinXP booting on a Mac?

            Because WinXP boots just as nicely on a Walmart laptop. If people who own Mac hardware find themselves booting to Windows as often or more often than OSX, their next purchase may rationalize that the premium is just not worth it to run OSX.

            The debate goes two ways - way one, I get to run both OSes, how wonderful is that? Way two, I run XP more and more, why buy Mac hardware?

            It's only time that will tell us which is which...

  • Even if this one isn't real... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by daveschroeder (516195) * on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:11AM (#14915738)
    ...Amit Singh from IBM and kernelthread.com (slashdotted 16 times for excellent technical articles on various bits of internals of Apple hardware and Mac OS X) has his own legacy boot solution as well. From a rejected submission:

    It appears that Amit Singh of IBM Almaden Research Center [ibm.com], of kernelthread.com [kernelthread.com] and author of Mac OS X Internals [osxbook.com], has devised a method to allow legacy, or BIOS-based, booting on Intel-based Macs [osxbook.com], which they're calling "BAMBIOS". This means operating systems that currently only support legacy booting, such as many Linux distributions that don't yet support EFI, or things like Windows XP and the forthcoming Windows Vista (the 32-bit version of which will lack EFI support [apcmag.com]), will now be able to run on Intel-based Macs without modification (and completely legally). There is also another solution from "narf2006", described here [arstechnica.com] and shown in this flickr set of photos [flickr.com]. narf2006's solution is awaiting verification by Colin for the $12,000 pot [onmac.net]. Time to get that MacBook Pro [apple.com] you've been waiting on for the best of both worlds, everyone...

    So even if narf2006's solution isn't real, Amit's solution most certainly is, since he has a great deal of credibility. One way or another, we'll all be able to boot Windows directly on our Intel-based Macs.

    This will be great news for people interested in Windows gaming on an Intel-based Mac (who really need the direct video access) and/or people who just want to do it NOW; however, a virtualization solution running under Mac OS X, such as VMware [vmware.com] or Parallels [parallels.com], will be the real holy grail for most users. Most people don't want/need/care about the highest graphics and I/O performance; just the ability to run Windows side-by-side with Mac OS X at a speed that is more than usable, and to also have some capability to seamlessly share things like clipboards and files between the environments (as a nice VM environment would most certainly do). Not to mention not having to reboot.

    In any case, even dual booting will be a welcome capability. It remains to be seen how convoluted the process is...

    Also, I just spoke with Colin Nederkoorn (the guy running the contest) moments ago, and narf2006's solution has NOT been submitted to him yet. He said that narf2006 said he's "cleaning it up" and will be submitting it "later this week". So, no one, including Colin, has actually seen this solution working yet. Also, he apparently hasn't been in communication with Amit on the BAMBIOS solution as yet...

    • Re:Even if this one isn't real... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by XMilkProject (935232) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @11:29AM (#14916525) Homepage
      Just wanted to say that you had a rock solid submission there, if only submissions of that quality and depth could actually be accepted on slashdot then we'd all be alot more informed of current IT events.

      • Re:Even if this one isn't real... (Score:4, Informative)

        by everphilski (877346) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @11:13AM (#14916333) Journal
        the 1,000 applications that can't (or haven't) been replicated on a mac.

      • Re:Even if this one isn't real... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Weedlekin (836313) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @11:15AM (#14916363)
        "Why would you want to run WindowsXP on an Intel based Mac?"

        I'm an example of somebody who would want precisely that capability. I have a Mac and various Wintel PCs, and use the Mac for everything except my work (which currently revolves around Windows programming) and some occasional gaming. Being a programming contractor means that I need to travel a fair bit, and my old Windows laptop is showing signs of age, so I'll be in the market for a new one during the next few months. Practicality would appear to dictate another Windows-based machine, but I'd prefer an Apple with OS X otherwise, and could actually justify buying one if I could do my Windows development work on it.

        • Re:Even if this one isn't real... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by guet (525509) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @11:18AM (#14916384)
          You missed out one very big reason on your list. Anyone who designs web pages or programs web applications will need to check their work under IE - currently this means switching over to a PC to check the page.

          Running Windows in a VM would be perfect for checking out websites during development.

  • Is it Real or fake?? (Score:5, Funny)

    by roe-roe (930889) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:12AM (#14915745) Homepage
    simple answer.... YES
  • If I sorted out the bits of magic to get WinXP up and running on a Mac, I don't think I would post how to the outside world until *after* I collected my bounty. No shock at the lack of details here.

  • Verification? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JUSTONEMORELATTE (584508) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:12AM (#14915752) Homepage
    For US$12,000, I'd take a day off and fly out to the contest judge's place to show them in person.

    Why is this so difficult?

    • Re:Verification? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Durandal64 (658649) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:30AM (#14915918)
      Even if this is real, he hasn't won the contest yet. The rules require not only that XP boot, but it must also dual-boot with Mac OS X. The user must be presented with the option of which OS to run at boot-time, and narf2006 hasn't done that yet.

  • Maybe interesting as an exercise... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Noer (85363) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:15AM (#14915782)
    but I'd much rather see darWINE working well, or VMWare/VirtualPC running Windows at nearly native speed, or even some significant speedups that make QEMU nearly native speed. A Virtual Windows without the slowdown of emulation would be really nice; on the other hand, I have no desire whatsoever to actually boot Windows on a Mac. That's like putting 87 octane gas in a formula 1 car! ;-)
    • Yes, but if we could get WinXP loaded on the Mac hardware we could do some sweet benchmarked comparisons. It would really settle the debate about which OS is faster. Wouldn't it?

      • Re:Maybe interesting as an exercise... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by larkost (79011) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @11:24AM (#14916452)
        No, because which is faster is a very complicated answer. It is like asking which is faster: a tank or a Porche. On a racetrack the Porche is going to be faster. On a field with mud a foot deep the tank is going to be (a lot) faster. This is a rather stark example, but the principal holds just as well for the Windows-MacOS comparisons.

        The best way of comparing has always been to benchmark the particular job you have in mind, an then to remember that generalizations are not really valid.

        Anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you a bridge.

        • Re:Maybe interesting as an exercise... (Score:5, Funny)

          by PIBM (588930) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @12:13PM (#14917008) Homepage
          Rest assured that the tank would win on the racetrack. No way is he gonna miss the porshe ;)

            • Re:Benchmarking isn't rocket science (Score:4, Insightful)

              by jmorris42 (1458) * <jmorris.beau@org> on Tuesday March 14 2006, @06:59PM (#14920560) Homepage
              > All you'll really prove if Photoshop is faster on the PC vs Mac is that
              > the PC version used a better compiler. What are you trying to show exactly?

              Exactly. The only differences should depend on the OS and it's supporting infrastructure. Compiler, libraries, memory management, disk throughput, etc. And those differences are likely to be highly variable. OS X might have UNIXy goodness (not sure how Darwin stands compared to a modern Linux or Solaris though) in it's favor while Microsoft probably has the advantage on compilier tech vs GCC. Some good benchmarks should be interesting to read through.
      • Not so secretely.

        Q [kberg.ch], an emulator based on QEMU [qemu.org] is already working on MacIntels. From their News [kberg.ch] page :
        This is just a very first test on universal binaries for Q. Expect flaws! No virtualization yet, but it's way faster than on PPC never the less.
        As I understand it, virtualization IS planned in Q, and is already a reality in QEMU, albeit it is a closed-source add-on.

  • It's not hard to hoax (Score:4, Insightful)

    by earthbound kid (859282) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:44AM (#14916032) Homepage
    It's not as though it's a hard hoax to do.

    1. Go to a Windows box. Take a screen shot.

    2. Open the screenshot on your iMac. Display it full screen.

    3. Take a picture.

    I mean, he hasn't posted a video of him using the computer and his mousing syncing up with the screen, right? Just a blurry photo. So, that proves basically nothing. I'm not saying he absolutely didn't do it, just that a photo doesn't count for much.

  • And here's the picture confirming ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dr.Sweety (917213) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:49AM (#14916078)
    ... that this is not a hoax! Windows XP boots on a Mac! http://www.mathcaddy.com/windowsxpbootsonamac!!!!1 / [mathcaddy.com]

    SCNR :)

  • A real fix, emulate BIOS to run XP an non-EFI unix (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Masq666 (861213) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:57AM (#14916186) Homepage
    This article [bitsofnews.com] talks about a project called BAMBIOS, BAMBIOS emulates a bios on the intel-based Mac's. This enables non-EFI OS's to run.

  • What about Solaris x86 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CottonEyedJoe (177704) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @11:13AM (#14916339) Journal
    I know this is a bit off topic, but has anyone tried Solaris x86? It would probably be more interesting to me to be able to dual boot Solaris/OSX than Windows XP.

  • This is all well and good... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JaXx-StoRm (936638) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @11:38AM (#14916636)
    ...but I wish they'd concentrate more on getting Mac OS working on a PC. That to me is much more interesting that getting Windows working on a mac

  • I installed XP on my mac... (Score:4, Funny)

    by utexaspunk (527541) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @11:48AM (#14916737)
    ...and then I installed FlyAKiteOSX [portraitofakite.com]. Now I'm really confused :(

  • What a sad state of affairs (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 14 2006, @12:18PM (#14917060)
    WTF? Someone potentially shows a really sick hack and all people can do is bitch about how it's "obviously" photoshopped and man, who'd be stupid enough to try this?! Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, where has the hacker ethos gone? How about withholding judgment until we get solid confirmation one way or another. Since the forums got pwned, we'll have to wait and see if step-by-step instructions are forthcoming so it can be reproduced. If they don't show up in a week, or they constantly "delayed" then we can collectively denounce him as a fraud.

    And as for why do this to begin with? How about because we can! Sheesh. Getting things that aren't supposed to work to work is part and parcel of being a true hacker. It's breaking the pigopolists' rules and doing things with hardware/software you bought that they never intended. Lighten up, guys. It's cool. If this is real, it's definitely a sick hack and we should salute him.

    • Re:obivous! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Jesus_666 (702802) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:16AM (#14915790)
      It was not obvious that something like this would happen.

      • Re:obivous! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by bynary (827120) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @11:46AM (#14916715) Homepage
        Welcome to the real world where Apple no longer uses proprietary hardware (or very little). ATI makes the video card for the iMac. Intel makes the processor. Micron makes the RAM (and possibly ROM) chips. Some obscure, Korean, third-party, hardware manufacturer makes everything else (just like in your PC). So, unless ATI hasn't released the drivers for their Radeon X1600 then it should be fairly easy to get WinXP to work with "Apple's" hardware. The only big difference is the TPM chip. Shoot, with all the people booting Mac OS X natively on random PC hardware, it shouldn't be a big logical leap to grasping the concept that booting WinXP (or any Windows for that matter) on a Macintel is only a matter of time.

        OSX boots on PC. Win boots on PC. OSX boots on Mac. Should not Win boot on Mac?

        • Re:obivous! (Score:5, Interesting)

          by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @03:34PM (#14918822)

          The only big difference is the TPM chip. Shoot, with all the people booting Mac OS X natively on random PC hardware, it shouldn't be a big logical leap to grasping the concept that booting WinXP (or any Windows for that matter) on a Macintel is only a matter of time.

          You seem a little confused. The "TPM chip" as you put it has nothing to do with stopping other OS's from booting on macs, it is just a way to harder to make OS X boot on a machine without the right one. The reason it is hard to get WinXP booting on an Intel mac is because Windows utilizes BIOS to boot on all 32 bit systems. Apple did not include BIOS, opting for the more advanced EFI. Windows does support EFI, but only on 64 bit chips. Apple is using 32 bit chips. Hence, the Apple machines are hardware Windows does not support.

          You are likely right that Windows will eventually boot on Macs, just because eventually Apple will move to 64 bit Intel chips, which Windows does support, or MS may implement the ability to boot from 32 bit EFI systems. Yes Apple uses mostly commodity hardware, but it is usually newer hardware and they often don't bother implementing 20 year old legacy features like PS/2 ports, floppy drives, BIOS, etc. As a result, it is entirely possible that Apple machines may stay ahead of the curve of Windows support and thus Windows users will have a hard time using Apple hardware. This is mostly because Apple has such a limited hardware set it needs to support, it can adapt much more quickly to new hardware.

          As a final point, with the new virtualization features in the newest Intel chips, I don't see many people dual booting macs anyway. When you can run multiple OS's hosted on top of OS X, at nearly the same speed as a fresh boot (RAM notwithstanding) I suspect most users will prefer that route. I know I will.

    • Re:In Soviet Russia... (Score:4, Informative)

      by GekkePrutser (548776) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:23AM (#14915862)
      Wel... Games, for one, like you already said :) This is something that REALLY requires dual-booting. I mean, you're not going to run a game in VMWare or Virtual PC even if it did support OpenGL or DirectX. Just too slow.

      I know a Mac is not for hardcore gamers but someone like me who wants to play the occasional game and not be tied into the pathetically small line-up for Mac games, dual-booting into Windows is a perfect solution.

      But there's lots of other uses (most of which would work fine within a virtual machine), like company-supported apps that are not available for Windows.

    • Re:In Soviet Russia... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tpgp (48001) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:24AM (#14915866) Homepage
      What's the point here, anyhow? Besides games, and maybe some MS development stuff, why run Windows on a PC??

      You do realise you answered your own question don't you?

      Anyway, whilst I don't like or run windows at home, I keep a spare 1GB partition with my old legal copy of win2k on it.

      Why? Because I think two operating systems are better then one - and its not exactly like its hard work (or much overhead) to set up a dual boot these days.

    • Re:In Soviet Russia... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tool462 (677306) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:24AM (#14915869)
      Besides games, and maybe some MS development stuff

      For many people, those two things are reason enough to dual boot. It allows you to keep using your existing software, which makes the switch to Mac that much easier for people who have large libraries of Windows-only software.

    • Re:This looks to be...... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by catwh0re (540371) on Tuesday March 14 2006, @10:31AM (#14915928)
      Here is the thing: you don't need to photoshop anything to get images of windows on an "Intel" iMac

      The iMac G5 with built-in iSight camera is visually identical to the new Intel based iMacs.

      Virtual PC 7 runs on the iMac G5 without a hitch (and allows full screen mode.)

      You then need only take photos of your iMac G5 running windows-xp under virtual PC in full screen mode.

      Better proof is images of this method on a MacBook Pro, because intel-based macs are unable to run virtual PC.

      Additionally, faking images of a MacBook Pro running XP is also trivial, as you can simply get screen shots (from virtual pc on a G4 or G5 system.. or even off the web.) and display them full screen on your new Intel Mac.

      In fact I can fake pictures of my powerbook running vista via a similar method, I can fake images of my powerbook running nintendo DS games with the same method.

      The truth of this will come out once the method is tested to work or not work. Only then will the prize money be rewarded.

    • You can install OSX on your PC already. I've got it on my laptop. No wireless (yet) but it's fun to play with. It's also why I'm getting a Macbook Pro (when the Rev B comes out). I love OSX from my limited use of it. And if I could put Windows on there too? That would be great.
    • It's pretty much inevitable that someone will call them wanting support for the Apple machine they screwed up by trying to install Windows. Just answering the phone probably costs them $20-$30, so even if the users are forthcoming that they tried to install Windows and Apple tells them they can't be helped until they reinstall OSX off the restore DVDs, those calls will eat into Apple's profit margin. If a lot of people start doing that, Apple might have to hire another support person. That would double the
    • I'm a level 60 Warrior on WoW. I battle those nasty night elves and live the high life in Orgrimmar.

      Oh, you mean real life?

      But seriously, and related to the first part of my post...

      I would love to have a Mac for browsing, mail and multimedia editing, and to also dual-boot into XP for gaming. (Yes, I know WoW comes on Mac, but many games do not).

    • Re:OK, I just don't get it.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by forkazoo (138186) <wrosecrans@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday March 14 2006, @01:10PM (#14917618) Homepage
      Unfortunately, this would kill a lot of their developer base.

      If almost all PC's have Windows, and almost all Macs run Windows apps, then you can just write a program for Windows, and there is no need to make a Mac specific port.

      If there is no native Mac OS software, why get a Mac?

      Sure, lots of developers would develop for the Mac out of love for the platform or whatever, but a lot of other devs would declare that just supporting Windows is sufficient for a very large percentage of their user base.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.