Apple Mac OS X on x86: a first test

Introduction	Performance and power consumption	Conclusion
Installation	The Mac OS advantage	Image gallery

Installation
Installation from a bootable DVD takes about two hours, and the operating system requires 5.9GB of hard disk space. It's possible to set up a dual boot system with Windows and Mac OS X thanks to a boot manager that's installed along with the Apple OS.

For 3D graphics effects, you need a suitable driver, but these are not available for ATI or nVIDIA cards. In June, Apple delivered the developer platform on an Intel motherboard with integrated graphics (the 915G chipset). If this platform is used, 3D effects work fine, and you can also adjust the screen resolution. All drivers, including audio and network, are installed automatically on the Intel 915G platform. We installed version 10.4.1 of Mac OS X on a Toshiba Portégé M300 notebook equipped with a 1.2GHz Pentium M processor and 512MB of RAM.

Mac OS X x86 setup on the Toshiba Portégé M300. See the image gallery for more pictures.

GUI-driven setup and disk partitioning
The setup process is driven by a graphical user interface, which simplifies things compared to a Windows PC. There is generally less user intervention required, and where interaction is needed, the procedures are intuitive. For instance, when setting the time zone in Windows, you must select it from a list; with Mac OS X you simply click your region on a map of the world.

Partitioning the hard disk is also straightforward thanks to the efficient Disk Utility program. Unlike in Windows, this requires no data entry, but lets you use the mouse to create and resize a partition easily. Windows users will also be surprised by Mac OS X's disk imaging and backup capabilities. All this is possible simply by starting the setup CD; a Windows setup is light-years away from the user-friendliness of a Mac installation.

Mac OS X x86 also runs on the AMD platform.