Hackintoshing as a sustainable environmental practice • Hacker News Board

Re: Hackintoshing as a sustainable environmental practice

#61

Post by genewitch » Tue, Mar 11, 2025, 5:39 PM UTC

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #60

rvz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who care about their life and getting things done just install WSL. You still get to run Windows as normal and have Linux running without messing around or playing with display servers, drivers and the like.

There’s a big asterisk that should be added, though. Windows is not a productive desktop environment for me, primarily due to its poor implementation of virtual desktops and handling of multiple monitors that feels like a bad hack (to set different wallpapers per-display, you still need to combine the picture for each display into a single gigantic image which is ridiculous). I’m sure I’m not alone in these feelings.

I use an HDTV and an HDR 2k165hz monitor. I set the desktop background to black, anything else messes with my peripheral vision if some window decoration isn't aligned with the background.

I also use a 720p60 projector as a screen sometimes on that machine, too.

It all just works. My largest complaint with Windows seems to have been fixed with the 24h2 patch - read on if you care.

I use "@" prefixes on folder names to have them sort first when sorting by name descending. Somehow for a couple years, some applications would crash if trying to stat these folders, for example, launching VLC would usually crash it if the last thing I played was something from V:\@TV\Columbo

I was keeping a list of things that crashed like this; or while opening or saving files in "@" folders. Notepad, notepad++, vlc, mplayer, windows photo viewer (any and all), and so on

I was able to guess it had something to do with internal variables in the windows API, you can see them on my system in pwsh by going to V: \ and typing @ and pressing tab key. They're even a different color than the quoted folder name that eventually appears.

I could never figure out how to report this bug in a way that would be helpful, as I barely use powershell or the windows API.

Re: Hackintoshing as a sustainable environmental practice

#62

Post by hot_gril » Tue, Mar 11, 2025, 5:42 PM UTC

mikae1 wrote: post #52

baq wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough I hope for an exact opposite: the Apple hardware is IMHO the best and the most irreplaceable part of the whole Apple experience and I’d be a very happy man if there was a simple way of running not-macOS on e.g. the M3 MacBook Pro with full driver support.

Not saying it isn't good, it is. I still use Silicon Macs at work. Just depends on your priorities and what you value I guess. I'm not on board with the iOSification of macOS either. IMO, it's has gotten progressively worse with every version since Snow Leopard. Atomic Fedora distros and KDE Plasma has made me look forward to upgrades again (and yeah, they happen automatically in the background). With macOS I just st…

I haven't noticed much, but they did ruin iTunes and Sysprefs.

Re: Hackintoshing as a sustainable environmental practice

#63

Post by hot_gril » Tue, Mar 11, 2025, 5:45 PM UTC

opengears wrote: post #37

rock_artist wrote: post #24

I've also had a very "sustainable" 6800k machine with 32GB ram that was designated later for many other tasks. But the title is more of a click bait rather than backing that claim. The power source I guess is also a factor, since newer Macs are much more power efficient than Intel days. Since 2016, Apple made their machines less "sustainable" in the sense of upgradability (my MacBook Air 2013 was borderline with 8GB…

The power savings of new computers are not relevant if compared with the energy that is needed to build them. University of Edinburgh (2016) found that by extending the lifetime of a single computer and monitor from four years to six years, approximately 190 kgCO2e of carbon emissions are avoided (I doubt anyone is using their devices even 4 years nowadays). Report is here: https://edwebcontent.ed.ac.uk/sites/default…

The nice thing is that all those new x86 laptops are going to keep being slower than my 2020 M1 mini unless they're high spec, so software/websites are still built with that in mind.

Re: Hackintoshing as a sustainable environmental practice

#64

Post by hot_gril » Tue, Mar 11, 2025, 5:49 PM UTC

salviati wrote: post #39

rock_artist wrote: post #24

I've also had a very "sustainable" 6800k machine with 32GB ram that was designated later for many other tasks. But the title is more of a click bait rather than backing that claim. The power source I guess is also a factor, since newer Macs are much more power efficient than Intel days. Since 2016, Apple made their machines less "sustainable" in the sense of upgradability (my MacBook Air 2013 was borderline with 8GB…

[Edit] Ok, I should have read better. i7-6800k is from intel and not from the stone age. --- Are you sure your 68000 machine had 32Gb of ram? If memory serves me well it was most likely 32 Mb. 68020 has a 32 bit address space, so the maximum RAM it can handle is 4Gb

Honestly I saw 6800k and thought it was the Motorola 6800.

Re: Hackintoshing as a sustainable environmental practice

#65

Post by genewitch » Tue, Mar 11, 2025, 5:49 PM UTC

realusername wrote: post #25

throwaway314155 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluetooth support is still a shit show if you don't buy a laptop that has been in some way developed for linux (if not for your current model, then for a model using similar components). Alternatively, buying a custom bluetooth usb adapter may work but only on a supported distro and only ever with an older bluetooth protocol. Same goes for WiFi. Good luck trying to get WiFi6 to work properly, ignoring the fact that y…

I don't think I've ever seen a device where Bluetooth works 100% of the time. I had issues on Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS.

I have a Lenovo laptop where Bluetooth works perfect. I even had a Bluetooth mouse by Logitech that could switch between BT and the logi reciever, so I was able to use it on two computers back and forth with a button press. It instant connected to laptop, took ~1 second to connect to the proprietary receiver.

Maybe a fluke, because the keyboard died on that laptop. Just like every other Lenovo I've owned.

Never buying another one even if it has the exact specs I need when I am shopping for a great price, which is how they've gotten me 3 times now.

Re: Hackintoshing as a sustainable environmental practice

#66

Post by genewitch » Tue, Mar 11, 2025, 5:51 PM UTC

danw1979 wrote: post #45

I thought it would be interesting to run the numbers for the question “how far can I drive my Prius if I didn’t buy this ?” for a new Macbook Pro M4 (14 inch). The answer is a pleasing 1337 miles (198kg lifetime CO2 of the macbook / 148g mile CO2 average for the 2011 Prius). This is pretty surprising. I’d always thought laptop purchases had a much higher impact than an average couple of months of driving.

148 grams per mile? Do you use a water wheel made of magic to charge your Prius?

Re: Hackintoshing as a sustainable environmental practice

#67

Post by genewitch » Tue, Mar 11, 2025, 5:55 PM UTC

MonkeyClub wrote: post #54

exitb wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

…which is about as much as commuting to work that’s 5km away for 6 months. Given a ~3 year lifespan of such device, it isn’t such a low amount. And when you decide to get a new, more efficient car, it will have a its own carbon footprint too.

> that’s 5km away Which is about an hour's walk, or about twenty minutes cycling.

I'm sure someone can remark, given an average of 125W of power in the human, and the CO2 released, which is really just our food post processed into fat and being attached to poisonous oxygen to get it out of our bodies, how much, exactly, carbon is exhaled walking 40 minutes a day.

Re: Hackintoshing as a sustainable environmental practice

#68

Post by wilg » Tue, Mar 11, 2025, 7:06 PM UTC

wilg wrote: post #10

For calibrating your understanding of greenhouse gas emissions producing, packaging, shipping, using, and recovering materials from a 14-inch MacBook Pro in 2023 emits about 243 kg of carbon [1], which is equivalent to using 27 gallons of gasoline. [2] For some people, this may math out. But it's probably easier to worry less about buying a new laptop every once in a while, and more about driving a bit less or gettin…

I should add that this represents 6% of the 443 gallons the average car uses per year. https://afdc.energy.gov/data/mobile/10308

And 20% of the cost is the electricity to use the product, so that should be discounted if you’re comparing buying new to reusing an older computer, and you should compare the power efficiency.

Assuming an average four year replacement cycle (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1021171/united-states-el...) and excluding use phase power use, we can napkin math annualize it to 243 * 0.8 / 4 = 48.6 kg co2E ~= 5.5 gallons of gas per year ~= 1.2% of average annual passenger car gas consumption.

Re: Hackintoshing as a sustainable environmental practice

#69

Post by wilg » Tue, Mar 11, 2025, 7:09 PM UTC

hot_gril wrote: post #19

wilg wrote: post #10

For calibrating your understanding of greenhouse gas emissions producing, packaging, shipping, using, and recovering materials from a 14-inch MacBook Pro in 2023 emits about 243 kg of carbon [1], which is equivalent to using 27 gallons of gasoline. [2] For some people, this may math out. But it's probably easier to worry less about buying a new laptop every once in a while, and more about driving a bit less or gettin…

We really need rules of thumb like this physically posted in more places. I grew up seeing "be green" signs in school that didn't really tell you how.

Something I would like to see is well regulated “Carbon Facts” on products like nutrition facts.

Re: Hackintoshing as a sustainable environmental practice

#70

Post by wilg » Tue, Mar 11, 2025, 7:22 PM UTC

exitb wrote: post #35

wilg wrote: post #10

For calibrating your understanding of greenhouse gas emissions producing, packaging, shipping, using, and recovering materials from a 14-inch MacBook Pro in 2023 emits about 243 kg of carbon [1], which is equivalent to using 27 gallons of gasoline. [2] For some people, this may math out. But it's probably easier to worry less about buying a new laptop every once in a while, and more about driving a bit less or gettin…

…which is about as much as commuting to work that’s 5km away for 6 months. Given a ~3 year lifespan of such device, it isn’t such a low amount. And when you decide to get a new, more efficient car, it will have a its own carbon footprint too.

Yes, but getting a more efficient electric car for example typically will “pay for itself” in carbon emission reduction over a couple years. Plus it pushes older less efficient cars out of the bottom of the used market and supports growth of clean technology.