I'd love to be able to try Mac OSX in a VM, preferable on something shiny and new like KVM for linux.
I'm a Linux and Windows person, but would like to try out OSX without investing in the expensive hardware or accumulating yet another box to fit somewhere under my desk. (Read: no I don't want to get a Mac Mini)
Is this possible? Legal? If so, what are the drawbacks and tricks
According to the EULA, you can only use OSX in a Mac machine.
Now, I don't know if you can run a OSX VM in a Mac machine.
I believe the EULA specifically prohibits running any OSX client version in a virtualised environment, although I do remember there were some changes to the rules not too long ago. Unfortunately, I can no longer find the original article I read, so it would be a question for Apple themselves...
Please, take a look at this page: http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/
You wil find SLA and EUlA for Mac OSX
@epatel
That was one of the pages I saw, yes, but I think I saw something a little more specific, too.
@Armadillo
That could have been the one I saw. Specifically, this section...
2 . Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.
A. Single Use. This License allows you to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time. You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to do so. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time, and you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time.
Is this possible? Legal? If so, what are the drawbacks and tricks
You can now legally (and very easily) virtualise OS X Server using VMWare Fusion v2.0 and above (Fusion being the Mac version of VMWare Workstation. The OS X Server support is stated quietly here, under the section "Broad Operating System Support").
To install regular OS X Tiger/Leopard in VMWare (or any other virtualisation tool): It is possible, but not legal. The biggest drawback of doing this (legal issues aside) is the performance is awful.
Drawbacks are the performance is awful.
I've found that as long as you throw enough RAM at it, it seems to perform ok. Many VMs will allocate 128-512, which is on the lower end of what I'd consider useful.
To me, a bigger drawback is that it is unsupported. Vendor supplied updates will kill the installation.
As for legality, it is Legal to run OS X Server (Leopard) in a virtualised form, but only on Apple hardware. You cannot even run OS X Client in VMWare Fusion or Parallels, legally. Nor can you run any version of OS X on VMWare Server, or similar on other machines.
Interestingly, you may be able to legally run OS X Server virtualised on Apple hardware, even if the guest OS is not OS X. However, it would likely be subject to the same caveats as above: it would require a "fixed" version of the OS. And by "fixed", I mean like my cat is "fixed".
It isn't possible to run Leopard (the desktop edition) in any VM at the moment, as far as I know. I've tried it in VirtualBox, Qemu and VMWare, and it doesn't work.
PearPC emulates a PowerPC machine and is able to run Mac OS X 10.3.9, and some people manage to get Tiger to run, but I hear it's a hassle. 10.3.9 should work without any hacks or tricks. The project community is active but noone is really working on the code anymore, so updates, like Leopard support or Intel versions, will probably never come. Note that this is illegal in most countries.
There's a rather well written guide here at the OS X 86's wiki: http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Vmware_how_to.
If it proves challenging, there are prepackaged virtual machines (with OS X already installed) floating around.
On the legal side however, I recall reading somewhere about the EULA stating that OS X can only be installed on an "Apple branded" computer.
For the matter of legality, please check on your locality's legislation. In many places in the world the OS X EULA is not legally binding or enforceable.
There are methods to emulate the EFI firmware on Macs which allow for retail versions of Leopard to run on PCs, however I am not sure whether they work within a VM environment.
The only version of OS X you can virtualize legally is OS X Leopard Server and only if the host OS is OS X.
http://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2008/06/virtual-leopard.html
It's definitely possible. This fellow did it:
http://blog.rectalogic.com/2008/08/virtualizing-mac-os-x-leopard-client.html
I can confirm that his technique does work. And it's actually usable.
Whether it's legal is for others to decide.
The other answers were not clear enough:
YOU MUST USE APPLE HARDWARE TO LEGALLY VIRTUALIZE APPLE OS's!
Just to put a fine point on it.
I still love the fact that in todays world of antitrust regulations, that Apple is still able to force users into a software hardware fubar for lack of a better word. Cant wait til their market share goes up just a little so the EU and US antitrust regulators can have a field day with them for anticompetitive practices.
On a Mac, yes, use VirtualBox (Fusion/Parallels only support OS X Server). The new virtual machine wizard has a Snow Leopard option--just put your Snow Leopard disk in the drive follow the steps. I picked the 64-bit OS X option, as Snow Leopard is 64-bit.
When you get to pick a disk for installation you won't see one because the disk image VirtualBox creates is unformatted. Open disk utility from the utilities menu inside the virtual machine, select the only drive you see on the left, click the partition tab, and format (called erase here) button.
You can then run the installer as you normally would.
This works on VirtualBox 3.2.0 running under OS X 10.6.3. It probably wouldn't work if your host PC was running Windows/Linux. The virtual machine responds rather, ahem, leisurely, though... I suspect it's something to do with a lack of direct GPU access.
I was experimenting with this over the weekend and I have it working in an HP i7 Processor. I used VMWare workstartion 7.1 with the Darwin .iso. More info can be found at this link. Please note the word experimental because this is not legal to do so and is not a substitute to a mac experience.
"Starting with version 3.2, VirtualBox has experimental support for Mac OS X Server guests." -- http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html#intro-macosxguests