Haiku on an Intel MacBook Pro (early 2008)

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Here’s an interesting experiment I’m looking to try out when I get a moment’s time: a friend of mine handed me a 17" MacBook Pro, early 2008 model (identifies as MacBook4,1; not a Unibody model!) Rather than keep OS X on it, I’ve decided to install some alternative OSes on it, since it’s not even a production machine to begin with (it’s just for experiments), and because I love the diversity of new OSes on hardware that the manufacturer doesn’t want you toying around with like that to begin with!

(Okay, okay, I also like ruffling Apple’s feathers a lot, too! :stuck_out_tongue: )

For whatever reason, Linux refuses to boot on this Mac. So instead of Linux, I went more hobbyist: Icaros Desktop (a distro of AROS) and of course, Haiku. Both boot without complaint on the Mac.

I haven’t delved way too far in with Haiku on this MacBook, but has anyone else experimented with or installed Haiku on an Intel Mac? How is hardware compatibility? Are there any caveats I should be aware of? Will installing Haiku cause Steve Jobs to spin at an extreme velocity in his grave and make Jony Ive break out in a cold sweat? :wink:

Any advice or support would be much appreciated. I’m also going to post some pics of my Haiku escapades on this MacBook Pro when I get a chance to!

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I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post! Very thankful to see someone else excited about Haiku and the Mac. :smiley: Although, you might want to know there are things (depending on the model) that don’t always work well on Haiku. On one MacBook, for example, I do not get any sound, but that may have been fixed by now, as it was a while since I tried Haiku on it.

And on that tangent, to be completely honest, while I do play with Haiku on my Mac(s) at times, I mainly use macOS on them and usually run Haiku (and Gnu+Hurd/Linux) on HP machines as they are generally easier to setup and use with free software with legacy mode turned on. But, there is something uniquely very special about running Haiku on Apple hardware. In my small opinion, as for whether Jobs or Ive would react to running Haiku on it: no, I would speculate they wouldn’t mind it, considering how BeOS really is a cousin of the Mac OS in spirit… and that BeOS was once a candidate for becoming Mac OS X. And that Gassee worked for Apple and introduced the Portable, the father of the PowerBook (and imho, the modern notebook). I guess it’s a shared love of sorts Apple and Be share that unites them both in terms of having elegance and soul. Now… if you were to run ReactOS on a Mac, that would be a different scenario! But then again, Apple has Boot Camp for the lost captives of Redmond, so I suppose anything is possible. :wink:

Have fun! :sunglasses:

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I would speculate Jobs, at least, will be rolling in his grave for eternity at the very idea. His company, NeXT, was Be’s competitor in that bid. And he had quite the reputation for snarkiness. Just my guess.

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One could only hope.:innocent::smiling_imp:

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