5 ms·

I am tempted to give my 2019 MBP to my partner and switch to a Framework laptop. I'm cautiously optimistic it'll become a perfect hackintosh target (though I kn

I am tempted to give my 2019 MBP to my partner and switch to a Framework laptop. I'm cautiously optimistic it'll become a perfect hackintosh target (though I know the Framework folks would never go out of their way to condone that).

RistrettoMike 4y ago
I'd wish you the best of luck, but at this point investing into a hackintosh setup seems a bit like booking a ticket on a sinking ship -- what with support for Intel-Macs ending in the coming years. I definitely understand prioritizing repairability and supporting a small company doing cool things as well... but maybe not well enough to pay the same money for what feels like a much worse CPU architecture for MacOS and mobile devices at this point. shrug.
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  Would it be possible, in theory, to use an arm laptop to run arm macOS natively? Or does it rely on custom instructions/extensions?
  - init2null 4y ago
    Apple ARM is heavily customized beyond the original design. Secure Enclave alone rules out third-party ARM, but there's also custom neural-network, video encoding, and Metal acceleration that just isn't found on any other chip. We probably won't see another generation of Hackintosh.
yrgulation 4y ago
My only issue with that is i would miss the os. The hardware on apple laptops is rubbish, but the os is great and makes then appear fast and slick.
- samatman 4y ago
  Is there some detail of the hardware in current MacBooks where you can justify calling them rubbish? I'm happy calling the butterfly keys rubbish: they were. But now? What?
  - Kozmik1 4y ago
    Try one of the following on your Macbook: - replace a battery - upgrade the memory or SSD/NVME - get your data off a Macbook whose motherboard has died In other words, do any of the common repairs. To spend top dollar for a laptop and not be able to do repairs is rubbish: intentional planned obsolescence and vendor lock-in IMO.
    - idontpost 4y ago
      That has nothing to do with hardware quality. Can you answer without moving the goal posts?
      - samatman 4y ago
        Of course they can't. The narcissistic tendency to conflate consumer preference with quality (or moral weight) is drearily common on HN these days. We get it, you have a fetish for replacing RAM (but seem to have forgotten that CPUs can also be replaced, oops your computer can't do that? soldered it to the mainboard? rubbish).
  - yrgulation 4y ago
    slow ram and low quality graphics. also i dont trust build quality considering apple’s recent history. had issues with my macbook pros, and mac mini. keyboard is decent but bluetooth seems to stutter for whatever reason every now and then when wifi 5g is on, same for the mouse. the mac mini 2018 encryption chip just failed out of the blue one day. i did consider buying a brand new maxed our macbook pro but i am seeing more and more reasons for not pissing 3600 gbp in the wind…for a one tb laptop with lame graphics. better quality builds out there for a better price. but i really really like the os.
- asadlionpk 4y ago
  > hardware on apple laptops is rubbish that def is an unpopular opinion.
  - yrgulation 4y ago
    thats ok, we dont have to agree on everything and popularity doesnt mean being right. it usually means being average.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  What's wrong with Apple hardware? I hated the 2016-2020 era of butterfly keyboards, limited ports, overheating processors, and touchbars as much as anyone, but I'm really happy with my 16" M1 Max these days. I wish it had a USB-A port instead of an HDMI port, but it's otherwise brilliant. Meanwhile, macOS frustrates me more and more each update. Back in 2015, I would never have considered switching to Linux. At my last job, I spent an entire year on Manjaro and only switched back to macOS to do iOS dev.
  - horsawlarway 4y ago
    This matches my experience. I actually like Apple's hardware a good bit - but I absolutely despise the OS. It's a bloated hog of a thing. I still wouldn't ever buy an Apple product, but the work issued macbooks are generally decent hardware, just avoid the 16 inch intels they put out, those are rubbish. The software is annoying as all get out though, and they're only becoming more and more tight with control around it. Kexts going away is painful documentation is bad scripting is much harder than it should be FS is... obnoxious at best, utterly bug ridden at worst The apps they put out are fine I guess (I really don't use basically any of them) but the base system feels like a tire fire right now.
- r00fus 4y ago
  Thus the hackintosh [0] approach. [0] https://hackintosh.com https://hackintosh.com
  - yrgulation 4y ago
    i tried it but i am genuinely against piracy. plus i wouldnt be able to use it in a professional environment. i appreciate the effort behind hackintosh but i think we should make linux more user friendly and good looking. i am considering sponsoring a nice little theme for ubuntu. may be cheaper to do so and buy a high end laptop than buying a new macbook pro.
- nvrspyx 4y ago
  > The hardware on apple laptops is rubbish Out of curiosity, what parts of the hardware do you find rubbish? The hardware seems fantastic to me. The M1/M2 chips, trackpad, keyboard, fingerprint reader, Liquid Retina screens, audio, etc. are all great compared to other laptops I've had. Wifi and Bluetooth are also more reliable on my MBP than any other laptop I've owned. The only thing I can think of is that it's not upgradable like a Framework laptop or the old butterfly keyboards.
  - yrgulation 4y ago
    see my reply to a different person in this thread: slow ram, low quality graphics, historic build issues, extreme pricing. apple’s selling an overpriced os on above average hardware - but still not superior. edit: plus there’s limited support for other os’.
    - nvrspyx 4y ago
      Really? I thought the recent MacBooks use LPDDR5 modules and have significantly higher bandwidth than e.g. Framework laptops. Although I'm not super familiar with the graphics side, I also thought the Apple silicon graphics were comparable to AMD and Nvidia laptop GPUs while also being especially more power efficient. I can't disagree with the historical build issues, the pricing, or limited OS support, although the latter two doesn't seem to make the hardware rubbish.
      - yrgulation 4y ago
        from what i read LPDDR5 ram is planned for upcoming versions of macbook pros and is not yet there. but i am certain once it comes out it will be the slower version compared to what you could get for the money on a custom laptop. if your expectation is to use the macbook pro as a text editor (ide) and video chat then yes its powerful. but if you want games and the ability to install other os’ then its not really that cool, for the money.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yourapostasy 4y ago
When I make Linux my daily driver once the Linux sleep issues are straightened out on the Framework laptops, I will try out running macOS in a VM with sosumi to help with the transition for anything that simply cannot be done natively on Linux. Once I reduce that envelope of non-Linux applications to just the Microsoft Office suite, I plan on switching to a VM running Windows when untethered.

RistrettoMike 4y ago

I'd wish you the best of luck, but at this point investing into a hackintosh setup seems a bit like booking a ticket on a sinking ship -- what with support for Intel-Macs ending in the coming years. I definitely understand prioritizing repairability and supporting a small company doing cool things as well... but maybe not well enough to pay the same money for what feels like a much worse CPU architecture for MacOS and mobile devices at this point. shrug.

mardifoufs 4y ago
Would it be possible, in theory, to use an arm laptop to run arm macOS natively? Or does it rely on custom instructions/extensions?
- init2null 4y ago
  Apple ARM is heavily customized beyond the original design. Secure Enclave alone rules out third-party ARM, but there's also custom neural-network, video encoding, and Metal acceleration that just isn't found on any other chip. We probably won't see another generation of Hackintosh.

yrgulation 4y ago

My only issue with that is i would miss the os. The hardware on apple laptops is rubbish, but the os is great and makes then appear fast and slick.

samatman 4y ago
Is there some detail of the hardware in current MacBooks where you can justify calling them rubbish? I'm happy calling the butterfly keys rubbish: they were. But now? What?
- Kozmik1 4y ago
  Try one of the following on your Macbook: - replace a battery - upgrade the memory or SSD/NVME - get your data off a Macbook whose motherboard has died In other words, do any of the common repairs. To spend top dollar for a laptop and not be able to do repairs is rubbish: intentional planned obsolescence and vendor lock-in IMO.
  - idontpost 4y ago
    That has nothing to do with hardware quality. Can you answer without moving the goal posts?
    - samatman 4y ago
      Of course they can't. The narcissistic tendency to conflate consumer preference with quality (or moral weight) is drearily common on HN these days. We get it, you have a fetish for replacing RAM (but seem to have forgotten that CPUs can also be replaced, oops your computer can't do that? soldered it to the mainboard? rubbish).
- yrgulation 4y ago
  slow ram and low quality graphics. also i dont trust build quality considering apple’s recent history. had issues with my macbook pros, and mac mini. keyboard is decent but bluetooth seems to stutter for whatever reason every now and then when wifi 5g is on, same for the mouse. the mac mini 2018 encryption chip just failed out of the blue one day. i did consider buying a brand new maxed our macbook pro but i am seeing more and more reasons for not pissing 3600 gbp in the wind…for a one tb laptop with lame graphics. better quality builds out there for a better price. but i really really like the os.
asadlionpk 4y ago
> hardware on apple laptops is rubbish that def is an unpopular opinion.
- yrgulation 4y ago
  thats ok, we dont have to agree on everything and popularity doesnt mean being right. it usually means being average.
dont__panic 4y ago
What's wrong with Apple hardware? I hated the 2016-2020 era of butterfly keyboards, limited ports, overheating processors, and touchbars as much as anyone, but I'm really happy with my 16" M1 Max these days. I wish it had a USB-A port instead of an HDMI port, but it's otherwise brilliant. Meanwhile, macOS frustrates me more and more each update. Back in 2015, I would never have considered switching to Linux. At my last job, I spent an entire year on Manjaro and only switched back to macOS to do iOS dev.
- horsawlarway 4y ago
  This matches my experience. I actually like Apple's hardware a good bit - but I absolutely despise the OS. It's a bloated hog of a thing. I still wouldn't ever buy an Apple product, but the work issued macbooks are generally decent hardware, just avoid the 16 inch intels they put out, those are rubbish. The software is annoying as all get out though, and they're only becoming more and more tight with control around it. Kexts going away is painful documentation is bad scripting is much harder than it should be FS is... obnoxious at best, utterly bug ridden at worst The apps they put out are fine I guess (I really don't use basically any of them) but the base system feels like a tire fire right now.
r00fus 4y ago
Thus the hackintosh [0] approach. [0] https://hackintosh.com https://hackintosh.com
- yrgulation 4y ago
  i tried it but i am genuinely against piracy. plus i wouldnt be able to use it in a professional environment. i appreciate the effort behind hackintosh but i think we should make linux more user friendly and good looking. i am considering sponsoring a nice little theme for ubuntu. may be cheaper to do so and buy a high end laptop than buying a new macbook pro.
nvrspyx 4y ago
> The hardware on apple laptops is rubbish Out of curiosity, what parts of the hardware do you find rubbish? The hardware seems fantastic to me. The M1/M2 chips, trackpad, keyboard, fingerprint reader, Liquid Retina screens, audio, etc. are all great compared to other laptops I've had. Wifi and Bluetooth are also more reliable on my MBP than any other laptop I've owned. The only thing I can think of is that it's not upgradable like a Framework laptop or the old butterfly keyboards.
- yrgulation 4y ago
  see my reply to a different person in this thread: slow ram, low quality graphics, historic build issues, extreme pricing. apple’s selling an overpriced os on above average hardware - but still not superior. edit: plus there’s limited support for other os’.
  - nvrspyx 4y ago
    Really? I thought the recent MacBooks use LPDDR5 modules and have significantly higher bandwidth than e.g. Framework laptops. Although I'm not super familiar with the graphics side, I also thought the Apple silicon graphics were comparable to AMD and Nvidia laptop GPUs while also being especially more power efficient. I can't disagree with the historical build issues, the pricing, or limited OS support, although the latter two doesn't seem to make the hardware rubbish.
    - yrgulation 4y ago
      from what i read LPDDR5 ram is planned for upcoming versions of macbook pros and is not yet there. but i am certain once it comes out it will be the slower version compared to what you could get for the money on a custom laptop. if your expectation is to use the macbook pro as a text editor (ide) and video chat then yes its powerful. but if you want games and the ability to install other os’ then its not really that cool, for the money.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

yourapostasy 4y ago

When I make Linux my daily driver once the Linux sleep issues are straightened out on the Framework laptops, I will try out running macOS in a VM with sosumi to help with the transition for anything that simply cannot be done natively on Linux. Once I reduce that envelope of non-Linux applications to just the Microsoft Office suite, I plan on switching to a VM running Windows when untethered.