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Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

tonymacx86.com

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Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#71

Post by obviouslygreen »

There are two fairly consistent benefits to running OS X:

1. It usually comes installed on great hardware.

2. It's less vulnerable to most things than Windows.

Beyond that, if you choose to build a Hackintosh, in my opinion you (for whatever reason) enjoy OS X enough to depend on it but don't like Apple enough to run their OS without paying their hardware premium (entirely understandable from the price perspective but a little illogical if you take it a bit further).

Frankly, I can't see any reason for the Hackintosh middle ground other than people who can't cope without the OS but can't afford the hardware. The software is little more than a neutered and compromised version of BSD that lets you part way into a walled garden (cue It's a trap! meme).

Granted: There's also the requirement of a Mac for iOS development... but guess what? You're still stuck with the developer program membership fee. Save $500 here, lose $100 a year there, along with probably being in violation of half a dozen usage limitations.

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#72

Post by bjackman »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #70
MatekCopatek wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't fall for that story. Building a Hackintosh is far from illegal, it's merely breaking Apple's EULA, and even that might be null in many places (especially EU).

They are both violating licenses authored by Apple to protect their copyright. In one case, the APSL, in the other, an EULA.

MatekCopatek's point is that just because you are breaking Apple's bullshit licenses agreement, doesn't mean you are breaking the law.

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#73

Post by obviouslygreen »

eropple wrote: post #39
jfroma wrote: post #31

I tried once but now I don't understand it. The main benefit for me using OSx is that is a nix desktop os that works well on a very specific hardware. Having used linux on the desktop before for years I always had some problem with drivers and alike. If I were willing to deal with these kind of issues I'd do it with some linux distribution not osx. I guess there are some cases like developing software for Apple os.

I can only speak for myself, but I Hackintosh because I need more computrons than I can get in a retina MBP or a Mac mini and I'm not paying $5K for a Mac Pro. My desktop (a Nehalem i7 with a Radeon HD6870) is still competitive with every Mac they field, aside from that Pro, and I paid about a grand for it three years ago. Even aside from the lack of basically essential applications like Photoshop and Illustrator, I'…

I can respect your aesthetic reasons for running OS X, but it's entirely subjective. I'm exactly the opposite: I run Mac hardware because, for my requirements, it's the only option. I run Debian on it because, for my requirements, looking pretty is the very last thing on my list and whatever doesn't run from the terminal is a few easy clicks away.

"Lukewarm" with respect to a "desktop experience" depends entirely on what you want from your desktop. I have the same "why does this software hate me" while attempting to use OS X. It doesn't make either of our experiences more or less valid; it simply means that different people have different tastes and requirements, and that any given mix of hardware and software might be great for you but will be totally inappropriate for someone else.

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#74

Post by SloopJon »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #37

It's worth noting that this site, TonyMacx86, isn't well-liked by some of the Hackintosh community, because they plagiarise and rebrand software and drivers helpful or necessary in Hackintosh setup. The guide may be useful, but please get your setup tools from the original sources. My main source for this is conversations I've had in IRC, but it's also been noted elsewhere.[0][1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Also, apparently…

I wasn't aware of that. The hackintosh I built using TonyMacx86-recommended parts is sitting at 10.8.5 until it absolutely needs something newer. When it does, I'll check out myHack.

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#75

Post by fulafel »

lmz wrote: post #28

While I'm not saying it's not fun to try and run OS X on PC hardware, can anyone explain to me how this is not morally equivalent to unauthorized copying / software piracy, given that they are both violations of the license agreement?

Most people don't feel morally bound to strictly follow software click through "agreements".

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#77

Post by fuzzix »

jfroma wrote: post #31

I tried once but now I don't understand it. The main benefit for me using OSx is that is a nix desktop os that works well on a very specific hardware. Having used linux on the desktop before for years I always had some problem with drivers and alike. If I were willing to deal with these kind of issues I'd do it with some linux distribution not osx. I guess there are some cases like developing software for Apple os.

I'm considering it as an option for running proprietary video conference applications which either don't work or are chronically bad on Linux.

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#78

Post by msh »

FireBeyond wrote: post #33
orbitur wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and for older hardware makes sure to let you know that your Mac/iOS device doesn't support this feature. Where is this case? In my experience, something I saw online simply wasn't available to me, like AirDrop, for instance. I upgraded my mid-09 MBP to 10.7, looked for AirDrop and couldn't find it. Same for Handoff and the Bluetooth-required new features in Yosemite. Apple doesn't go out of its way to inform me my…

Re Handoff in Yosemite... there are hacked kexts that make it work just fine in older (non BT LE/4) Macs (with regular BT) making it fairly clear that an artificial limitation was introduced.

Have you considered using non low energi BT might introduce a battery hit that apple dont like?

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#79

Post by oe »

obviouslygreen wrote: post #71

There are two fairly consistent benefits to running OS X: 1. It usually comes installed on great hardware. 2. It's less vulnerable to most things than Windows. Beyond that, if you choose to build a Hackintosh, in my opinion you (for whatever reason) enjoy OS X enough to depend on it but don't like Apple enough to run their OS without paying their hardware premium (entirely understandable from the price perspective bu…

First, I don't think Apple hardware is expensive when you compare it to other machines with similar specs.

The reason for building my own Hackintosh was mostly getting a machine that was good for gaming (a powerful GPU). It wasn't about saving money, as the same money would have bought a decent iMac, but using that money better.

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#80

Post by Zarel »

honopu wrote: post #15
presumeaway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once it's set up and working the way you want, how often do you find yourself dealing with small issues?

I ran one for about 6 months, then finally gave up and bought a Mac Pro. I had a board that wasn't necessarily supported but through trial and error I was able to get it to work. I wanted to go to 3 monitors and my video card wouldn't support it, so I just went ahead and bought the Mac Pro. If you needed to build some machines that you don't necessarily care about updating (like some networked "macs" for compressor o…

I ran one for around three years before getting the Mac Pro, and it did everything I needed it to without problems. The only problem I was having was a hard drive corruption issue in OS X 10.8 and newer, which turned out to be a problem on my Mac Pro, too, until I finally realized the problem was with Apple's exFAT drivers and not with my hackintosh setup.
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