5 ms·

I've used a Hackintosh as a main development machine for a few years. I spent ~ $800 on parts, and an equivalent (top of the line) Mac would've cost about $4K,

by zavulon 10y ago

I've used a Hackintosh as a main development machine for a few years. I spent ~ $800 on parts, and an equivalent (top of the line) Mac would've cost about $4K, so the money savings were great. However, it was a gigantic pain in the ass to maintain and I wouldn't recommend it. Updating the OS is a nightmare, resulting in me staying with 10.7 while everyone was on 10.9. Things that you would expect to work out of the box with a normal Mac do anything but - there's effort required to make anything perform as expected. And there are some things that just never work as intended - like the sleep mode that I was never able to figure out. Troubleshooting issues is a nightmare - there's no support, and you have to spend tons of time browsing through threads looking for someone with a similar problem. Then if you get to a situation when you have to ask a question, you sit and pray for someone to answer, because if they don't you're stuck. Eventually, I bought an iMac, and couldn't be happier. In general, if you're the kind of a person that enjoys tinkering and troubleshooting, and have plenty of free time, then go for it. But if you want to spend your time on other things, and want your computer to just work, I would definitely not recommend it.

quantum_state 10y ago
I would second zavulon ... the uncertainty n the time required to make it work again n again drove me to use Linux .. which is sufficient for some of the thing I m doing ...
arviewer 10y ago
Isn't the Mini a much better alternative? You can replace the disc, and don't have to spend money on an expensive screen.
- zavulon 10y ago
  It depends on what you need it for. For me, 5K screen and a very fast graphics card are important. Top of the line iMac is the only Mac that works with Oculus Rift. But if you're only looking to do web development, for example, Mini should be fine.
- creshal 10y ago
  The Mini hasn't been updated in 2 years, and was already slow on release. For normal users it's the better option, but if you're a developer and need to actually get something done, a hackintosh is a very attractive alternative to $4k or more for a similarly beefy iMac / Mac Pro.
  - tostitos1979 10y ago
    Sad that this is what Mac users have to resort to now.
    - 56k 10y ago
      So true.
  - baron816 10y ago
    I have a mini and after upgrading to an SSD (the HDD was a terrible terrible mistake) I'm happy with it. For just coding, torrenting, and movies, it's great. Picking my own monitor was a huge plus. I went with a 34" ultra wide screen, which is perfect for coding and movies look amazing since they fill the whole screen without any letter boxing. No problems with my current setup.
    - creshal 10y ago
      It always depends on what you do. If you do graphic/GPGPU intensive processing, the Mini just won't cut it, and my own Go projects would need over a minute for every compile pass.
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    A docked rMBP was the best compromise for me as of two years ago. Personally I'm going to hold out for the new rMBP with the touch bar function keys.
- blacksmith_tb 10y ago
  For less than the price of a mini I got an old aluminum-tower 2010 Mac Pro on craigslist, swapped in a used hex core Xeon, 32GB of ECC, raided SSDs, and a GTX 750Ti. It does use kind of a lot of power, but watching node compile in a minute or two (about 4X faster than my iMac at work, sigh) is nice. It Geekbenches just below a 'bottom end' new Pro.
nik736 10y ago
While I agree with you that years ago (>3) a Hackintosh wouldn't be a wise choice to go for a productive environment, a LOT has changed. I am running mine since 2 years now and am on the newest Mac OS version, most of the time the App Store updates work flawlessly (even though it's not recommended), alternatively you could just go for a small SSD, put everything else on another SSD and/or HDD and you can reinstall the SSD with the newest version which shouldn't take longer than 15-30 minutes. I am not doing that, I am just saying it would be a choice. I completely reinstalled my Hackintosh only once in those 2 years and that was from Yosemite to El Cap. Sleep isn't a problem anymore if you buy the correct hardware, the question is also why you even would want to use sleep when it's booting within some seconds anyways... In the beginning, like with the first setup, it probably takes some hours, you should probably even calculate a day to set it up like you want it. But in the end I probably saved 2k EUR going the Hackintosh route and don't regret it at all. I don't even notice it's a Hackintosh anymore...
- creshal 10y ago
  > Sleep isn't a problem anymore if you buy the correct hardware, the question is also why you even would want to use sleep when it's booting within some seconds anyways... To keep your open programs?
  - nik736 10y ago
    Well, isn't there an option to just do that also on reboot?
    - creshal 10y ago
      Sure, if you don't mind diligently saving all documents on shutdown, or your browser loading every single tab anew after starting, … Applications are stateful. Sleeping keeps all that state.
      - RotsiserMho 10y ago
        Have you ever used OS X? Application state can be preserved and restored across reboots. Most apps do this automatically. Actually I haven't encountered one that doesn't.
SloopJon 10y ago
Totally agree. It's nice when things work, but a total pain to troubleshoot. I built my home desktop with recommended parts almost four years ago and installed 10.8. Since upgrading to 10.9 about a year ago, the built-in audio stopped working. Researching fixes takes me to multiple baffling threads that span dozens of pages. I recently installed Windows 10 as a dual boot on the system, largely to try the Windows subsystem for Linux. That wasn't a trouble-free process either, but in the end it recognizes all the hardware, including a card reader that I thought was broken. Although I use an iMac at work, and will continue to look first at Mac laptops, I'll probably transition to Windows once 10.9 gets too old.
hackerboos 10y ago
IDK. I had a Hackintosh and a OS patch or update would kill my sound. I had to run the driver installer (thanks TonyMacOSX) and restart to get it working. Kernel panics are a bigger issue. They happened to me once every 3 months. Buy parts recommended on Tony Mac OSX parts guide. Don't deviate and your maintenance should be less than 30 mins per OS update. Should you choose to update. I'm building another soon. Apple have taken the piss with a lack of update to their Macbook Pro line.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

by zavulon 10y ago

quantum_state 10y ago

I would second zavulon ... the uncertainty n the time required to make it work again n again drove me to use Linux .. which is sufficient for some of the thing I m doing ...

arviewer 10y ago

Isn't the Mini a much better alternative? You can replace the disc, and don't have to spend money on an expensive screen.

zavulon 10y ago
It depends on what you need it for. For me, 5K screen and a very fast graphics card are important. Top of the line iMac is the only Mac that works with Oculus Rift. But if you're only looking to do web development, for example, Mini should be fine.
creshal 10y ago
The Mini hasn't been updated in 2 years, and was already slow on release. For normal users it's the better option, but if you're a developer and need to actually get something done, a hackintosh is a very attractive alternative to $4k or more for a similarly beefy iMac / Mac Pro.
- tostitos1979 10y ago
  Sad that this is what Mac users have to resort to now.
  - 56k 10y ago
    So true.
- baron816 10y ago
  I have a mini and after upgrading to an SSD (the HDD was a terrible terrible mistake) I'm happy with it. For just coding, torrenting, and movies, it's great. Picking my own monitor was a huge plus. I went with a 34" ultra wide screen, which is perfect for coding and movies look amazing since they fill the whole screen without any letter boxing. No problems with my current setup.
  - creshal 10y ago
    It always depends on what you do. If you do graphic/GPGPU intensive processing, the Mini just won't cut it, and my own Go projects would need over a minute for every compile pass.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  A docked rMBP was the best compromise for me as of two years ago. Personally I'm going to hold out for the new rMBP with the touch bar function keys.
blacksmith_tb 10y ago
For less than the price of a mini I got an old aluminum-tower 2010 Mac Pro on craigslist, swapped in a used hex core Xeon, 32GB of ECC, raided SSDs, and a GTX 750Ti. It does use kind of a lot of power, but watching node compile in a minute or two (about 4X faster than my iMac at work, sigh) is nice. It Geekbenches just below a 'bottom end' new Pro.

nik736 10y ago

While I agree with you that years ago (>3) a Hackintosh wouldn't be a wise choice to go for a productive environment, a LOT has changed. I am running mine since 2 years now and am on the newest Mac OS version, most of the time the App Store updates work flawlessly (even though it's not recommended), alternatively you could just go for a small SSD, put everything else on another SSD and/or HDD and you can reinstall the SSD with the newest version which shouldn't take longer than 15-30 minutes. I am not doing that, I am just saying it would be a choice. I completely reinstalled my Hackintosh only once in those 2 years and that was from Yosemite to El Cap. Sleep isn't a problem anymore if you buy the correct hardware, the question is also why you even would want to use sleep when it's booting within some seconds anyways... In the beginning, like with the first setup, it probably takes some hours, you should probably even calculate a day to set it up like you want it. But in the end I probably saved 2k EUR going the Hackintosh route and don't regret it at all. I don't even notice it's a Hackintosh anymore...

creshal 10y ago
> Sleep isn't a problem anymore if you buy the correct hardware, the question is also why you even would want to use sleep when it's booting within some seconds anyways... To keep your open programs?
- nik736 10y ago
  Well, isn't there an option to just do that also on reboot?
  - creshal 10y ago
    Sure, if you don't mind diligently saving all documents on shutdown, or your browser loading every single tab anew after starting, … Applications are stateful. Sleeping keeps all that state.
    - RotsiserMho 10y ago
      Have you ever used OS X? Application state can be preserved and restored across reboots. Most apps do this automatically. Actually I haven't encountered one that doesn't.

SloopJon 10y ago

Totally agree. It's nice when things work, but a total pain to troubleshoot. I built my home desktop with recommended parts almost four years ago and installed 10.8. Since upgrading to 10.9 about a year ago, the built-in audio stopped working. Researching fixes takes me to multiple baffling threads that span dozens of pages. I recently installed Windows 10 as a dual boot on the system, largely to try the Windows subsystem for Linux. That wasn't a trouble-free process either, but in the end it recognizes all the hardware, including a card reader that I thought was broken. Although I use an iMac at work, and will continue to look first at Mac laptops, I'll probably transition to Windows once 10.9 gets too old.

hackerboos 10y ago

IDK. I had a Hackintosh and a OS patch or update would kill my sound. I had to run the driver installer (thanks TonyMacOSX) and restart to get it working. Kernel panics are a bigger issue. They happened to me once every 3 months. Buy parts recommended on Tony Mac OSX parts guide. Don't deviate and your maintenance should be less than 30 mins per OS update. Should you choose to update. I'm building another soon. Apple have taken the piss with a lack of update to their Macbook Pro line.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]