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Why You Should Build a Hackintosh

martinhering.me

221–230 of 248 posts

Re: Why You Should Build a Hackintosh

#221
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fud - buying the right parts means you'll have a working Hackintosh within about 30 to 60 minutes from start to finish. I'm typing this from a Hackintosh, my very first actually. All I did was follow the https://www.tonymacx86.com/ guides. No issues through all High Sierra updates, the nVidia drivers have been generally problem free too.

I'm glad you had a good experience! But it's also true that the most recent random macOS update thread on tonymac86.com (10.13.6, a minor update) has 44 pages of user comments ranging from the update worked perfectly to the computer completely won't boot and kernel panics - and all manner of issues in between. If you are using the computer to do paid work and can't gamble like on every update, I think you'd be crazy…

Using Hackintosh as my primary driver for 3 years. no Issues. For every 1 person having vocally shared their problems, there are 100s who keep quiet, because of its working fine.

Apple hardware also has problems, yet people use them as their primary computer all the time.

Of course, there is a slightly higher risk with Hackintosh than a proper apple computer. But if your computer uptime and data is very important, the solution is having a proper backup. Having apple hardware won't make things marginally better.

Re: Why You Should Build a Hackintosh

#222

I can tell you from experience that building a Hackintosh is a terrible idea for almost all people. I have no moral objection to it and I totally understand the motivation. Apple is completely failing to provide hardware that runs at a fraction of the performance you'd get from building a commodity $2500 AMD/Nvidia desktop even if you give Apple $7000 for a Pro model. Apple's platform especially sucks if you do anyth…

Define "your system is so far behind that you give up."

I haven't seen much reason to upgrade past Mavericks, or Lion, honestly.

Re: Why You Should Build a Hackintosh

#223
Three arguments for hackintosh on the desktop:

1. Apple desktop hardware 2. Windows OS software 3. Linux OS software

Laptops are another matter, I buy actual Apple hardware. But then I don't want a super powerful laptop, I have a desktop hackintosh for that ;)

Re: Why You Should Build a Hackintosh

#224

I really don't get it. The biggest appeal of Apple is their wonderful hardware. I dislike MacOS and it has been worse over the last years. It seems to me that a Hackintosh is the worst of both worlds. If you spend that much time hacking around the hardware anyways, why not use Linux ?

What wonderful hardware? Ah, you must be thinking of the laptops.

If you need desktop power, anything Apple sells right now is out. iMac Pro included, because of lack of storage (for my particular needs at least).

Re: Why You Should Build a Hackintosh

#225
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you had a good experience! But it's also true that the most recent random macOS update thread on tonymac86.com (10.13.6, a minor update) has 44 pages of user comments ranging from the update worked perfectly to the computer completely won't boot and kernel panics - and all manner of issues in between. If you are using the computer to do paid work and can't gamble like on every update, I think you'd be crazy…

Using Hackintosh as my primary driver for 3 years. no Issues. For every 1 person having vocally shared their problems, there are 100s who keep quiet, because of its working fine. Apple hardware also has problems, yet people use them as their primary computer all the time. Of course, there is a slightly higher risk with Hackintosh than a proper apple computer. But if your computer uptime and data is very important, th…

> Apple hardware also has problems, yet people use them as their primary computer all the time.

I will be willing to bet that the ratio of apple hardware problems to general hackintosh problems is heavily geared in favour of opting for Apple hardware.

When computer uptime is important, having backups is a non-issue in that conversation. It's the uptime that's important, and having non-genuine hardware will always raise a flag in this scenario.... The chance of your genuine mac not starting up after a scheduled update is far, far less likely than your hackintosh not starting up after the same update.

Granted, it's awesome that you've had good experiences. But I feel that you need to consider that your use-case is possibly not the same as the vast majority.

Re: Why You Should Build a Hackintosh

#226

I really don't get it. The biggest appeal of Apple is their wonderful hardware. I dislike MacOS and it has been worse over the last years. It seems to me that a Hackintosh is the worst of both worlds. If you spend that much time hacking around the hardware anyways, why not use Linux ?

What wonderful hardware? Ah, you must be thinking of the laptops. If you need desktop power, anything Apple sells right now is out. iMac Pro included, because of lack of storage (for my particular needs at least).

I'd think, that of all the components in a not-user-upgradable stationary desktop computer, storage is the one that's easily solved through external devices.

I obviously don't know your particularly needs, and gather there's something I'm missing here — are there e.g. throughput issues with external SSDs? — so I'm curious to learn why my assumption is wrong!

Re: Why You Should Build a Hackintosh

#227
post #11

I moved to a Mac after a decade of Linux on the desktop. After years of fiddling with drivers, crappy trackpad behaviours and so on, I wanted a computer that got out of my way and just worked. MacOS is far from perfect but it works perfectly with Apple hardware. If I wanted to go back to seeing my operating system as a hobby then Linux would be mostly a better option.

It works horribly with any other hardware. Try to connect to Synology NAS from you Mac. It will subtly fail you in many curious ways in following weeks, months years. You'll go back and forth between smb, afs and nfs protocols and discover many fun bugs and missing functionality in implementations of each one. You'll remember your Linux days fondly.

Also mac gui thing is bit more stable than linux windows managers but after a time it will manifest bugs that you will only be able to get rid of by fresh install of the whole system.

Also don't be surprised when you copy folder onto the folder of same name. If source folder has less files then target one, the files missing in source will get deleted from target. On Mac sometimes copy means delete.

Re: Why You Should Build a Hackintosh

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your jurisdiction's view of the legality of apple's terms of use

Not seriously, unless you believe Apple is going to start working with cops to kick in doors and inspect homess for non-Apple branded hardware for unsanctioned OS installs. Even if a judge agreed with Apple's EULA (unlikely, and unlikely to be tested), that's not really enforceable in any practical sense unless you're selling computers with MacOS preinstalled. Then it's a matter of commercial licensing and distributi…

So you're saying it's fine to break the law of you don't get found out?

Re: Why You Should Build a Hackintosh

#229
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I'm the opposite. I was tired of jumping through insane hoops for years to get Mac to have good window management, or make keybindings the same in all apps, or have my desktop look the way I wanted, so I switched to Ubuntu 18. I actually scheduled a PTO day for it because I thought it would take like 18 hours to get drivers config'd and all that (my last try was like Ubuntu 14 or something), but it literally w…

I think that's one of the key things about using Apple products. If you want to have a good time, you need to embrace the way Apple wants you to use the product. And then generally, you'll find that it really does "just work", most of their decisions were right and you can get on with just using the thing. For the more "power users" who prefer to customise things to a fine degree and make particular choices a typical…

Apple products are not the right fit for anyone who couldn't do with chromebook. Except perhaps people that just go straight to console after booting up.

Re: Why You Should Build a Hackintosh

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's one of the key things about using Apple products. If you want to have a good time, you need to embrace the way Apple wants you to use the product. And then generally, you'll find that it really does "just work", most of their decisions were right and you can get on with just using the thing. For the more "power users" who prefer to customise things to a fine degree and make particular choices a typical…

I like the euphemism "power user" to refer to people who like to spend their free-time on meta-work.

Yeah that's my thinking. Personally I'd rather just get on with my actual work and avoid having to mess around with changing how my computer works.
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