6 ms·

Are Hackintosh a practical reality? (genuine question)

PedroBatista 7y ago
In the last couple years, yes. But Apple has been playing the long game and tightening the noose in order to pull the rug on all Hackintoshs one day.
- mantap 7y ago
  People forget that the original hackintoshes had to work around the hardware security module. Where there's a will there's a way.
mstolpm 7y ago
They are, but I would only use one as a second device besides a real Mac. Setup and updates are relatively painless if you choose the right hardware and store additional kexts not on the system OS partition but the EFI boot partition. Biggest troubles are WIFI and Bluetooth (and therefore continuity, needs one of a few selected cards), graphics (no nVidia) and keyboard and trackpad (for desktops, use used Apple peripherals) as well as sound in some configurations (might use a Bluetooth speaker if BT works). It always can happen that you mess up (or need access to a real Mac for downloading the OS in the first place), so have a Backup and wait a few days after system updates appear, read forums about possible showstoppers and necessary precautions. That said, Catalina is still not perfect and troubles may not be caused by the hackintosh but the OS.
- _red 7y ago
  >Setup and updates are relatively painless if you choose the right hardware Agreed. But this is where "I'll pay an extra $200 to not have to worry about that" comes into the equation
  - Hamuko 7y ago
    I wish I could've bought my desktop tower from Apple for mere $200 extra.
toyg 7y ago
Define "practical". I have used and installed Linux and BSDs for a long time, and yet I had a look at the suggested procedures and I went "nope". There is basically a 50/50 chance that it will work, some features will likely not work at all (particularly cloud-related services), and every little update might doom your machine. Fun project for the hardcore Apple hacker, but imho it would be foolish to base your day-to-day production needs on such a build.
H1Supreme 7y ago
Depends on your goals, I think. I run mine for audio production, exclusively. And in that context, it's been great. I have an older firewire audio interface, multiple midi controllers, and a Nvidia GTX-1060 graphics card (I game on a different W10 drive). I run ethernet, so I can't comment on WIFI. But, the rest works flawlessly. The caveat here is: I'm still on 10.12.6. Updating, especially in regards to audio apps, is generally done very slowly. So, I'm in no hurry to run the latest and greatest. But, upgrading to this point was pretty painless.
djsumdog 7y ago
I ran a hackintosh for years. It used the retail OS plus some custom kexts. My last OS was Snow Leopard before I sold it. I got a real MacBook Pro with Lion and hated hated hated it. Hated it so much I started running Linux in a VM again and eventually switched to a Linux desktop again. I don't know how well the modern macOS versions as Hackintoshes, but I suspect the community is still strong. The current challenge is probably around all the specialized hardware security and encryption chips on modern Macs, as well as the newer restrictions on signed/unsigned kexts and all the recent kernel/system API lock downs.
KMnO4 7y ago
I built a Hackintosh since my old Mini died before the refresh. Glad I did, since the $440 (tax in) components I bought trump every one of the $799+tax base model Mini specs
zaphoyd 7y ago
Depends on what you mean by practical. The software and hardware works (for now, until T2s become required). It allows you to build configurations that Apple does not (and probably will not) ever sell. They are not cost effective if you have a way to turn time into money though. I would not recommend it unless you have lax security & availability requirements and genuinely enjoy low level tinkering with the basic functions of your computer.
kitsunesoba 7y ago
YMMV, but for my tower, after getting over the initial hump of getting macOS installed, it’s less trouble than Linux is. No matter the distro, under Linux it feels like I’m always fighting weirdness with X11/Wayland/GPU drivers and there’s more rough edges than I can count. It’s death by a thousand cuts. It has massive potential to be great, but it’s just not. By contrast once your hackintosh is working properly, that’s pretty much it… the fight is over and you can just use your machine. If you set it up right, minor updates are uneventful and the only real maintenance that’s required comes with major OS releases every year or so, but that can be delayed for a long time if you’re not the type to keep pace with OS updates. That said it is a bit of a technical endeavor, so be prepared for that.
Hamuko 7y ago
If you don't mind painful updates, then yes. I've had mine for six years now.
askafriend 7y ago
They're not worth the money they save.

In the last couple years, yes. But Apple has been playing the long game and tightening the noose in order to pull the rug on all Hackintoshs one day.

mantap 7y ago
People forget that the original hackintoshes had to work around the hardware security module. Where there's a will there's a way.

mstolpm 7y ago

They are, but I would only use one as a second device besides a real Mac. Setup and updates are relatively painless if you choose the right hardware and store additional kexts not on the system OS partition but the EFI boot partition. Biggest troubles are WIFI and Bluetooth (and therefore continuity, needs one of a few selected cards), graphics (no nVidia) and keyboard and trackpad (for desktops, use used Apple peripherals) as well as sound in some configurations (might use a Bluetooth speaker if BT works). It always can happen that you mess up (or need access to a real Mac for downloading the OS in the first place), so have a Backup and wait a few days after system updates appear, read forums about possible showstoppers and necessary precautions. That said, Catalina is still not perfect and troubles may not be caused by the hackintosh but the OS.

_red 7y ago
>Setup and updates are relatively painless if you choose the right hardware Agreed. But this is where "I'll pay an extra $200 to not have to worry about that" comes into the equation
- Hamuko 7y ago
  I wish I could've bought my desktop tower from Apple for mere $200 extra.

toyg 7y ago

Define "practical". I have used and installed Linux and BSDs for a long time, and yet I had a look at the suggested procedures and I went "nope". There is basically a 50/50 chance that it will work, some features will likely not work at all (particularly cloud-related services), and every little update might doom your machine. Fun project for the hardcore Apple hacker, but imho it would be foolish to base your day-to-day production needs on such a build.

H1Supreme 7y ago

Depends on your goals, I think. I run mine for audio production, exclusively. And in that context, it's been great. I have an older firewire audio interface, multiple midi controllers, and a Nvidia GTX-1060 graphics card (I game on a different W10 drive). I run ethernet, so I can't comment on WIFI. But, the rest works flawlessly. The caveat here is: I'm still on 10.12.6. Updating, especially in regards to audio apps, is generally done very slowly. So, I'm in no hurry to run the latest and greatest. But, upgrading to this point was pretty painless.

djsumdog 7y ago

I ran a hackintosh for years. It used the retail OS plus some custom kexts. My last OS was Snow Leopard before I sold it. I got a real MacBook Pro with Lion and hated hated hated it. Hated it so much I started running Linux in a VM again and eventually switched to a Linux desktop again. I don't know how well the modern macOS versions as Hackintoshes, but I suspect the community is still strong. The current challenge is probably around all the specialized hardware security and encryption chips on modern Macs, as well as the newer restrictions on signed/unsigned kexts and all the recent kernel/system API lock downs.

KMnO4 7y ago

I built a Hackintosh since my old Mini died before the refresh. Glad I did, since the $440 (tax in) components I bought trump every one of the $799+tax base model Mini specs

zaphoyd 7y ago

Depends on what you mean by practical. The software and hardware works (for now, until T2s become required). It allows you to build configurations that Apple does not (and probably will not) ever sell. They are not cost effective if you have a way to turn time into money though. I would not recommend it unless you have lax security & availability requirements and genuinely enjoy low level tinkering with the basic functions of your computer.

kitsunesoba 7y ago

YMMV, but for my tower, after getting over the initial hump of getting macOS installed, it’s less trouble than Linux is. No matter the distro, under Linux it feels like I’m always fighting weirdness with X11/Wayland/GPU drivers and there’s more rough edges than I can count. It’s death by a thousand cuts. It has massive potential to be great, but it’s just not. By contrast once your hackintosh is working properly, that’s pretty much it… the fight is over and you can just use your machine. If you set it up right, minor updates are uneventful and the only real maintenance that’s required comes with major OS releases every year or so, but that can be delayed for a long time if you’re not the type to keep pace with OS updates. That said it is a bit of a technical endeavor, so be prepared for that.

Hamuko 7y ago

If you don't mind painful updates, then yes. I've had mine for six years now.

askafriend 7y ago

They're not worth the money they save.