13 ms·

What is current state of Hackintosh this days? Is it stable?

zamalek 6y ago
Linus Tech Tips does one every few years, the last one was pretty recent I think. As far as I remember, almost everything worked really well. Notably, Facetime was really hit-and-miss.
- austinheap 6y ago
  Do you recall the issue? Was it FaceTime specifically or all-things-iCloud? The latter is one of the most common last-mile issues since you need to present Apple servers with hardware identifiers that iCloud agrees are real (i.e.: from your old MacBook gathering dust).
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    Just to add to this: it's not strictly necessary to pull an MLB from a real Mac, although that can certainly be a shortcut. If you present Apple with computer information that makes sense, and you do it right the first time, they'll usually accept it as real. I've done this around five times now and it has always worked. I can actually enter my made-up serial numbers on Apple's website, and they show up in the system as real computers[1]! The serial, MLB, hardware model, etc all need to match, and you need to get it right on the first try! Apple seems to get suspicious once you've fed them weird data. [1] When I tell people this, they always ask if I'm sure I didn't collide with a real serial. The possibility that this happened--especially every time I've done it--is incredibly small, so I'm quite sure that isn't what's happening.
    - ghostpepper 6y ago
      This is fascinating to me. Surely Apple has a databases somewhere of all the S/Ns of all the computers they've ever sold. Why would they accept a made up one and insert it into their database?
      - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
        I've long wondered that too! I have to assume that, for some kind of manufacturing reason, Apple either doesn't have such a database or doesn't trust its accuracy. If anyone with more knowledge of supply chain dynamics knows why this might be, please feel free to chime to chime in!
  - zamalek 6y ago
    I think it was all things iCloud, and your explanation for the issue does ring a bell.
lukevp 6y ago
I think this is a difficult question to answer because MacOS is built for specific hardware configurations, and Hackintosh has to build unofficial support for all sorts of non-standard configurations. Your experience with a hackintosh really depends what hardware you're trying to install it on.
- austinheap 6y ago
  There are people who publish hardware ‘QVL’ lists for Hackintosh builds — stick to the list and it’s smooth sailing. Venture off the list and you end up on page 16 of some forum convinced you need to dump your DSDT tables to edit some voodoo magic. I’ve been on developing on Hackintoshs for work full-time (both desktop and laptops) for many many years now with minimal hiccups. 4K HDR touchscreen laptop in 2018, yes please!
  - jamesholden 6y ago
    Where can I find something like this? I have been trying to get my new system working and it's a bit frustrating.
    - austinheap 6y ago
      There are two routes I’d recommend: 1) Many of the reliable community sites post buying guides; without wading into which I find reliable just search for “hackintosh buyers guide 2020”, “hackintosh compatibility list”, etc. 2) My now-preferred route is following developers on Github who post their hardware and EFI folder. It’ll be obvious which repos are from engineers who depend on it for their day-to-day based on stars/forks. My current laptop I found out about from a blog (#1) then stumbled into a flawless and well-maintained repo (#2) — best of both worlds!
      - forgingahead 6y ago
        Mind sharing what laptop and setup guide you used? I'm still on a MBP 2012 for work which I like, and I'm thinking ahead to my next work laptop -- looking for similar ports/etc as my MBP 2012 (doesn't need to be latest specs, and I'm a creature of habit).
stevievee 6y ago
They are more stable than ever right now - probably because the development community has grown in numbers. I've been using a hackintosh as my main productivity desktop since about 2014. Details on my latest build here: http://stephenvescio.com/blog/building-a-2019-mac-pro-hackintosh/ http://stephenvescio.com/blog/building-a-2019-mac-pro-hackin...
- DenseComet 6y ago
  Nice article, however, you may want to think about changing the color scheme of your website, the gray text on a gray background makes it a bit hard to read.
  - stevievee 6y ago
    Thanks for reading and the recommendation. You should see a white background! I am still tweaking the style for all browsers/devices.
    - ghostpepper 6y ago
      FWIW I run firefox with javascript disabled (actually uMatrix) and I see grey on grey as well.
      - stevievee 6y ago
        Thank you!
    - DenseComet 6y ago
      Oh it seems as if your theme is using prefers-color-scheme to detect if the user is using dark theme and setting the background based on that. If I change from dark to light theme in system preferences, the background of your website also changes.
- acomjean 6y ago
  This really sinks the value proposition or a mac tower. You are getting comparable performance for 1/4 the price... I had the old mac pro, and I did love the quality of the build and ease of drive installation.. But still. "Single-core score: 1,121 Multi-core score: 11,769 The scores for my Hackintosh with an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz are: Single-core score: 1,259 Multi-core score: 10,515" I switched to linux for the most part at this point (My work machine is still a 2015 MacBook though..) I had a hacintosh tower 8 year ago but I was always nervous about upgrading it.
snazz 6y ago
It works very well. I have a Clover Hackintosh (not OpenCore) on my [edit: cheap pre-built generic] desktop (i5-7400, iGPU, macOS has its own SSD). It works great, even allowing me to upgrade from Mojave to Catalina and forget that it's not a real Mac. My monitor always looked pink, but if I change my monitor's input color format to YPbPr it works fine. The patch that I used to fix that in Mojave is broken in Catalina, but I don't really care. Aside from that, it works just like a real Mac in basically every way.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
I set up my first Hackintosh in 2011 while on Spring Break in High School. It was the most difficult computing project I'd ever done up until that point--partly because it was legitimately more difficult back then, partly because I was using a pre-built Dell instead of a custom machine with parts targeting Hackintosh, and also probably because I was a stupid teenager who didn't know what he was doing. But once I was done, it was absolutely stable. Everything worked[1]. I installed every point release update[2] through the normal software updater without problems. This was actually my first experience with OS X, and I completely fell in love with the platform. Many people who haven't used Hackintosh seem to assume it's an unstable mess, and it certainly can be a mess if you don't set it up correctly, or attempt to use not-quite-compatible hardware. But my experience has been that if and when you set it up properly, Hackintosh can be every bit as stable as a real Mac. --- [1] Except for sleep. Getting sleep working on Hackintosh is very doable but usually annoying, and it's not needed on desktops. [2] Ie 10.6.5 ==> 10.6.8. Upgrading Snow Leopard ==> Lion almost certainly would have failed had I tried it, although such upgrades are sometimes possible nowadays with Clover, and I assume OpenCore.
- 1MachineElf 6y ago
  Thank you for this comment. I was looking for anything here that might be relevant to me, and it looks like we both had hackintosh builds at the same time / version of OS X. In fact, it was the Snow Leopard->Lion upgrade which turned me off from the whole scene. Great to know things have evolved beyond that in a positive way.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    To be clear, whole version upgrades have still always been a crap-shoot for me (with Clover, haven't used OpenCore). Total aside, I can't remember for sure if I ever upgraded my High School Hackintosh to Lion. I think what happened is I got it working, but decided I didn't like Lion as much, and restored an image of my SL install.
- throwlaplace 6y ago
  >on desktops. how about on laptops? not sleep itself but hackintoshing a laptop? i really want workspaces on whatever laptop i use but i don't want to pay through the nose for a macbook - i have a loner 2013 mbp right now and even those are still selling for like $800.
mikkelam 6y ago
It's good, just make sure to get a GPU vendor that Apple is currently maintaining a good relationship with.
Hamuko 6y ago
I've had my Hackintosh for six years now and it's been fairly stable. It's sometimes done a bit of freezing up after a boot and I'm used to something failing after I've had the system running for a while. Like after 30-60 days of uptime, the audio stack might just stop working and I need to reboot the computer to get audio back. Not really a big deal and I'm really happy with how much computer I got for a thousand euro back in 2014.

Linus Tech Tips does one every few years, the last one was pretty recent I think. As far as I remember, almost everything worked really well. Notably, Facetime was really hit-and-miss.

austinheap 6y ago
Do you recall the issue? Was it FaceTime specifically or all-things-iCloud? The latter is one of the most common last-mile issues since you need to present Apple servers with hardware identifiers that iCloud agrees are real (i.e.: from your old MacBook gathering dust).
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  Just to add to this: it's not strictly necessary to pull an MLB from a real Mac, although that can certainly be a shortcut. If you present Apple with computer information that makes sense, and you do it right the first time, they'll usually accept it as real. I've done this around five times now and it has always worked. I can actually enter my made-up serial numbers on Apple's website, and they show up in the system as real computers[1]! The serial, MLB, hardware model, etc all need to match, and you need to get it right on the first try! Apple seems to get suspicious once you've fed them weird data. [1] When I tell people this, they always ask if I'm sure I didn't collide with a real serial. The possibility that this happened--especially every time I've done it--is incredibly small, so I'm quite sure that isn't what's happening.
  - ghostpepper 6y ago
    This is fascinating to me. Surely Apple has a databases somewhere of all the S/Ns of all the computers they've ever sold. Why would they accept a made up one and insert it into their database?
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      I've long wondered that too! I have to assume that, for some kind of manufacturing reason, Apple either doesn't have such a database or doesn't trust its accuracy. If anyone with more knowledge of supply chain dynamics knows why this might be, please feel free to chime to chime in!
- zamalek 6y ago
  I think it was all things iCloud, and your explanation for the issue does ring a bell.

lukevp 6y ago

I think this is a difficult question to answer because MacOS is built for specific hardware configurations, and Hackintosh has to build unofficial support for all sorts of non-standard configurations. Your experience with a hackintosh really depends what hardware you're trying to install it on.

austinheap 6y ago
There are people who publish hardware ‘QVL’ lists for Hackintosh builds — stick to the list and it’s smooth sailing. Venture off the list and you end up on page 16 of some forum convinced you need to dump your DSDT tables to edit some voodoo magic. I’ve been on developing on Hackintoshs for work full-time (both desktop and laptops) for many many years now with minimal hiccups. 4K HDR touchscreen laptop in 2018, yes please!
- jamesholden 6y ago
  Where can I find something like this? I have been trying to get my new system working and it's a bit frustrating.
  - austinheap 6y ago
    There are two routes I’d recommend: 1) Many of the reliable community sites post buying guides; without wading into which I find reliable just search for “hackintosh buyers guide 2020”, “hackintosh compatibility list”, etc. 2) My now-preferred route is following developers on Github who post their hardware and EFI folder. It’ll be obvious which repos are from engineers who depend on it for their day-to-day based on stars/forks. My current laptop I found out about from a blog (#1) then stumbled into a flawless and well-maintained repo (#2) — best of both worlds!
    - forgingahead 6y ago
      Mind sharing what laptop and setup guide you used? I'm still on a MBP 2012 for work which I like, and I'm thinking ahead to my next work laptop -- looking for similar ports/etc as my MBP 2012 (doesn't need to be latest specs, and I'm a creature of habit).

stevievee 6y ago

They are more stable than ever right now - probably because the development community has grown in numbers. I've been using a hackintosh as my main productivity desktop since about 2014. Details on my latest build here: http://stephenvescio.com/blog/building-a-2019-mac-pro-hackintosh/ http://stephenvescio.com/blog/building-a-2019-mac-pro-hackin...

DenseComet 6y ago
Nice article, however, you may want to think about changing the color scheme of your website, the gray text on a gray background makes it a bit hard to read.
- stevievee 6y ago
  Thanks for reading and the recommendation. You should see a white background! I am still tweaking the style for all browsers/devices.
  - ghostpepper 6y ago
    FWIW I run firefox with javascript disabled (actually uMatrix) and I see grey on grey as well.
    - stevievee 6y ago
      Thank you!
  - DenseComet 6y ago
    Oh it seems as if your theme is using prefers-color-scheme to detect if the user is using dark theme and setting the background based on that. If I change from dark to light theme in system preferences, the background of your website also changes.
acomjean 6y ago
This really sinks the value proposition or a mac tower. You are getting comparable performance for 1/4 the price... I had the old mac pro, and I did love the quality of the build and ease of drive installation.. But still. "Single-core score: 1,121 Multi-core score: 11,769 The scores for my Hackintosh with an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz are: Single-core score: 1,259 Multi-core score: 10,515" I switched to linux for the most part at this point (My work machine is still a 2015 MacBook though..) I had a hacintosh tower 8 year ago but I was always nervous about upgrading it.

snazz 6y ago

It works very well. I have a Clover Hackintosh (not OpenCore) on my [edit: cheap pre-built generic] desktop (i5-7400, iGPU, macOS has its own SSD). It works great, even allowing me to upgrade from Mojave to Catalina and forget that it's not a real Mac. My monitor always looked pink, but if I change my monitor's input color format to YPbPr it works fine. The patch that I used to fix that in Mojave is broken in Catalina, but I don't really care. Aside from that, it works just like a real Mac in basically every way.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

I set up my first Hackintosh in 2011 while on Spring Break in High School. It was the most difficult computing project I'd ever done up until that point--partly because it was legitimately more difficult back then, partly because I was using a pre-built Dell instead of a custom machine with parts targeting Hackintosh, and also probably because I was a stupid teenager who didn't know what he was doing. But once I was done, it was absolutely stable. Everything worked[1]. I installed every point release update[2] through the normal software updater without problems. This was actually my first experience with OS X, and I completely fell in love with the platform. Many people who haven't used Hackintosh seem to assume it's an unstable mess, and it certainly can be a mess if you don't set it up correctly, or attempt to use not-quite-compatible hardware. But my experience has been that if and when you set it up properly, Hackintosh can be every bit as stable as a real Mac. --- [1] Except for sleep. Getting sleep working on Hackintosh is very doable but usually annoying, and it's not needed on desktops. [2] Ie 10.6.5 ==> 10.6.8. Upgrading Snow Leopard ==> Lion almost certainly would have failed had I tried it, although such upgrades are sometimes possible nowadays with Clover, and I assume OpenCore.

1MachineElf 6y ago
Thank you for this comment. I was looking for anything here that might be relevant to me, and it looks like we both had hackintosh builds at the same time / version of OS X. In fact, it was the Snow Leopard->Lion upgrade which turned me off from the whole scene. Great to know things have evolved beyond that in a positive way.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  To be clear, whole version upgrades have still always been a crap-shoot for me (with Clover, haven't used OpenCore). Total aside, I can't remember for sure if I ever upgraded my High School Hackintosh to Lion. I think what happened is I got it working, but decided I didn't like Lion as much, and restored an image of my SL install.
throwlaplace 6y ago
>on desktops. how about on laptops? not sleep itself but hackintoshing a laptop? i really want workspaces on whatever laptop i use but i don't want to pay through the nose for a macbook - i have a loner 2013 mbp right now and even those are still selling for like $800.

mikkelam 6y ago

It's good, just make sure to get a GPU vendor that Apple is currently maintaining a good relationship with.

Hamuko 6y ago

I've had my Hackintosh for six years now and it's been fairly stable. It's sometimes done a bit of freezing up after a boot and I'm used to something failing after I've had the system running for a while. Like after 30-60 days of uptime, the audio stack might just stop working and I need to reboot the computer to get audio back. Not really a big deal and I'm really happy with how much computer I got for a thousand euro back in 2014.