EFI-X my experience

[SuperMegatron]

I decided to build a quad core OSX compatible machine with this dongle. So far I am rather impressed with how well it works. All the updates from apple have gone through with out issue. The machine cost me about 400-500 to build plus $200 for the dongle. I would say I get roughly 2/3 the performance of a first gen Mac Pro. The big advantage of efi-x is that you can constantly update your hardware. That to me justifies the cost vs a mac mini.

[Polymira]

EFI-X is based on homebrew solutions that you could have performed for free.

Really, that's like buying an emulator.

[Stormwatch]

But with EFIX, I think you can use plain OSX, rather than one of those hacked releases. (correct me if I'm mistaken)

[|darc|]

But with EFIX, I think you can use plain OSX, rather than one of those hacked releases. (correct me if I'm mistaken)

That's true, but I think you still have to get all hacky with drivers and stuff if you didn't use hardware that OS X supports by default.

[Ex-Cyber]

What exactly is EFI-X? I understand more or less what it's supposed to accomplish, but I get the feeling that there's a 20000% markup in there somewhere. From the installation instructions it seems like it's little more than a USB mass storage device, probably with a not-strictly-necessary companion microcontroller for copy protection).

[|darc|]

From what I remember, your computer boots to the EFI-X via USB, and the EFI-X emulates EFI and whatever else OS X needs to run. So yeah, it's basically EFI for standard BIOS boxes. At least, from what I remember when I read up on the technical details months ago.

[MulletMan13]

There are methods now that do essentially the same thing-- you install a similar EFI emulator (except on your hard drive), and you can install via an official Apple disk, and updates work just fine too.

EFI-X would have been the only way to do this about 6 months ago, but this new booting method emerged in September (AFAIK). Having built 3 osx86 machines, and having 2 laptops running it, I'm quite familiar with the various methods-- but this one is by far the easiest.

Anyways, glad to hear that it works as described.

[SuperMegatron]

So, my efix died lol. I discovered it was nothing but a damn flash drive that cost 200 bucks anyway.

[Stryfe]

What's the point in using something like EFIX again? Or even one of the illegal OSX hacks?

A PC with Windows is where it's at...

[Zealous zerotype]

As already mentioned you could of already done this with homebrew alternatives and updates/everything else would of worked exactly the same.

[Stormwatch]

What's the point in using something like EFIX again? Or even one of the illegal OSX hacks?

A PC with Windows is where it's at...

Not using Windows is the point.

Anyway, I've heard good things about Empire EFI, which works like a boot disc to install OSX.