The rebels have been defeated: long live the empire

By: JP Smith | Published: January 9, 2010

Categories: Software, Apple, Open Source

A little while back, I was singing the praises of Psystar's Rebel EFI product.  Psystar is a company (well, sort of now) that, up until very recently, sold Mac clones.  Their Rebel EFI product made it easier to put Mac on an ordinary PC (aka, "hackintosh"), provided that your computer had the right specs.  I had read about other open-source projects that provided the same funcitonality but was put off by them because I didn't really understand them that weil.  So, I happily put down my $50 and was able to have my very own hackintosh.

Later, I read about how Psystar...erm..."borrowed heavily" from these open-source offerings. But, I was thinking that the advantage of this over other offerings was how it was all packaged together so well.

Fast-forward to last week.  

I was wanting to re-install OS X on my computer to give the installation more disk space.  Furthermore, after losing in court to Apple, Pystar had halted sale of Rebel EFI so, I wasn't going to be able to install this again because I could not re-activate or update the product (access to these features was no longer available).

For the heck of it I began looking around and struck gold.  

Apparently, there was a free offering that provides the same functionality (actually, better) than Rebel EFI.  

Enter Empire EFI.

The name is a jab at Rebel EFI.  What I found is that the creator of Empire EFi, only known as Prasys, has taken to time to put together a collection of various offerings that, to me, exceed those offered by Rebel EFI. Unlike Psystar, Prasys makes it clear who should get credit for the work they've done.

So, what do you get?  First, you burn the appropriate disk image (.iso file) to a CD.  In my case, the Legacy CD worked for me.  I then booted my PC with this disk.  All I had to do then was hit F5, put in my retail OS X disk and hit enter.  I was then able to install OS X on my PC.  

After I finished my installation, there were more goodies. In OS X, I opened a folder called "Post-Installation" and there I was able to use a utility called the MyHack installer.  This allowed me to install the Chamelon Boot loader, which would allow me to boot OS X from now on without the Empire EFI disk. Also, it provided quite a few "kext" files (drivers) to handle some of the basic functions of my computer such as shutdowns/halts, graphics acceleration, etc., in case these might not be working out of the box on my setup.

Additionally, it provided my with quick access to sites where I could search for more kexts (drivers) for my Nividia card and my sound card.

The best part: I don't have to worry about being able to activate my product any more so, if Psystar never relaunches Rebel EFI, I'm set!

So, again, long live Empire EFI!