14 DAY TRIAL // When Apple first released the Intel versions of OS X, there was a big wave of hackers and crackers doing their best to get the operating system running as smoothly as possible on non-Apple hardware. Since then, this movement has cooled down considerably, and today very few people actually bother. Despite this, it didn't take long for hackers to get Leopard running on generic Intel hardware.
The method for getting Leopard to run on generic PC hardware took only days to surface after Apple released the operating system. One would be inclined to think that either the procedure was overly simplistic, or that hackers had been frantically working around the clock, but the apparent short time frame is misleading. While it only took days after Leopard was officially released, the final version of the operating system had been making rounds on file sharing networks for days before it actually hit the shelves.
The hack itself is still in the early stages, and not everything works as it should, mostly because of various driver issues, but it is functional. The process itself is quite simple, requiring very little technical knowledge. By creating a specially formatted flash USB drive, one can patch the Leopard installation, making it less fussy about the hardware it will run on. Apart from the actual patching process, which is handled through easy Terminal commands, the rest of the procedure makes use of Leopards own install methods and is nearly identical to installing the operating system of Apple approved hardware.
While this may sound like big news, history has shown that custom hacking of OS X to run on generic hardware is a non-issue for Apple both in terms of software and hardware. Unlike with the iPhone, the actual number of people who will go through all this and still have a less than perfectly functional version of Leopard is very small. Undoubtedly, after the novelty fades from Leopard, such hacking will fade back into obscurity in spite of the much easier to use procedure for actually hacking the system.