5 ms·

I gotta say, 10 or 15 years ago, Mac OS X would have been worth the effort and it was basically what justified buying Apple hardware for me. Nowadays, if anyth

by steve1977 3y ago

I gotta say, 10 or 15 years ago, Mac OS X would have been worth the effort and it was basically what justified buying Apple hardware for me. Nowadays, if anything, it's the hardware that justifies buying Apple, and the operating systems are something I can live with. I don't see any compelling reason to use macOS on non-Apple hardware today (except hacking for hackings sake)

bee_rider 3y ago
It is a bit funny, the hacker energy once was there for running OSX on anything, now it is there for running anything else on M1, haha.
- kirykl 3y ago
  Apple's whole strategy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25476266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25476266
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  amusing but that hasn’t been my experience just in case anyone is on the fence. Apple’s developer network effects are real and impressive, people updated… nearly everything… so quickly! plus with Rosetta under the hood translations to x86 binaries expand everything runnable to seamlessly I thought I would miss bootcamo but I dont. I have yet to install ARM Windows but I’m hearing praises about that now from relatively casual users
  - steve1977 3y ago
    How is this related to network effects?
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      because it means enough people were spurred into action because they already use this ecosystem
      - steve1977 3y ago
        Ah you mean end users have already updated their devices? I first understood it in the sense of developers have already updated their software.
        yieldcrv 3y ago
        developers have already updated their software. by early 2021 a few months after the first M1 came out
sf_rob 3y ago
I’m fairly unaware of the current state of Linux on Apple M hardware, but I’d want a Linux partition on Apple hardware more than a Mac partition on x86. These days I have two devices though.
- trenchgun 3y ago
  Its pretty good!
- flkiwi 3y ago
  Writing to you from NixOS on an M2 Air. Aside from a handful of missing packages that aren't available for the architecture, it's shockingly good. My battery is reporting 19 hours remaining, and "setup" took about 20 minutes (not counting the brief time writing a new machine definition in my NixOS config). I don't have any fundamental issues with macos, but it's nice to have a consistent environment across machines, and this hardware is glorious.
  - sneak 3y ago
    Could you please share a writeup of your installation process?
    - flkiwi 3y ago
      I just used this: https://github.com/tpwrules/nixos-apple-silicon/blob/main/docs/uefi-standalone.md https://github.com/tpwrules/nixos-apple-silicon/blob/main/do... I used one of their releases rather than building my own image. It’s a guide that merits careful reading, as some key steps are not specifically bulleted. Oh, and it’s not the NixOS graphical installer. But it was dead simple, and 99% of the heavy lifting is from the Asahi team. The biggest downside is that updating the support files is a manual process, but NixOS of course makes it a breeze to rebuild into a new environment—and back out if it doesn’t work.
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
For me it's always been about repairability and expandability and Apple has gotten worse in that respect over time. It's essentially impossible to repair Apple hardware yourself, but Hackintosh is very easy to maintain in that regard. I have endless expansion options compared to Apple hardware. Hackintoshes are just a better choice.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  Macs do keep their resale value more though. Personally I run Linux on my own machines but I do enjoy the build quality of the MBP I get from work. It’s a whole another universe from my pretty good laptop that creaks and is made of plastic and the screen bends when I move it.. and the screen quality is not even comparable
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Spivak 3y ago
    Yep, Linux will make mid hardware punch well above its weight class so for the right person the value/$ ratio is unbeatable. But if the highest value at any price within reason is your goal then Apple is the go-to. Which is typically why your employer who could not give a shit about a $4k expense every five years for an employee costing them a quarter mil annually in total comp opts for them.
- dmix 3y ago
  > For me it's always been about repairability and expandability and Apple has gotten worse in that respect over time. Apple Plus is amazing, I broke my macbook and they gave me a loner on the spot and I got it back in full working order later. I wouldn't buy any Apple product without it. Had a similar experience with an iPhone where they just gave me a new one straight up.
  - joshspankit 3y ago
    AppleCare+ has a hard cap and runs out at 3 years. No matter how great it is, that’s a very short amount of time.
gscott 3y ago
Apple profitability by lock-in is all that matters in the Apple C-Suite now. Juice that stock price, get free stock options, buy new yacht to show off to your friends.
golergka 3y ago
It’s about the only viable option for professionally working with audio, in either studio or live setting. That's the biggest group of hakintosh users I'm personally familiar with anyway.
- steve1977 3y ago
  You can work professionally with audio in Windows, you’ll probably even get better performance out of the same hardware you’d be using for a Hackintosh.
  - golergka 3y ago
    You can, theoretically. In practice, a lot of tools like Logic and specific VSTs are macos-only, and CoreAudio actually "just works" out of the box without having to manually install and setup all kinds of alternative low-latency drivers.
    - steve1977 3y ago
      > CoreAudio actually "just works" out of the box If Apple is not messing up their USB subsystem like they did with Ventura, where people basically had to wait a whole major release until they got stable performance again with Sonoma. Or if they don’t break iLok copy protection, like they just did with 14.4 And for professional hardware, you don’t have to install “all kinds of alternative drivers”. You just install the one official driver from the hardware vendor and that’s it.
      - phatskat 3y ago
        Having used all three major OS’s for music at different times, MacOS is still my go-to. There just isn’t the futzing I had to do on windows. Linux was actually a contender for me back in the day - I feel like MIDI routing on Linux is just easier[1] although older OSX touting was also very good imo. I kept my G4 tower going for a looooong time because I had just the right setup of tools and hacks to do everything I needed to where windows wouldn’t cut it and no one wrote the drivers I used for Linux. These days I don’t tinker like I used to and mostly just need simple MIDI routing and something that can copy renders from my mixer, so anything will work. I still prefer the ease of MacOS though I can do everything I need to on any OS [1] the main drawback for Linux was really a lack of good docs for things like PD, and not having access to Live. If I’d had Reaper back then it might have been my daily driver.
jillesvangurp 3y ago
Same here. Of course, now that we have the M1 and the likely eventual deprecation of x86 for new versions of Mac OS, things like Hackintosh are a bit doomed. If you have an M1, you'd be runnig MacOS (or Linux) and would have no need for it. If you don't, MacOS is not going to run great on it and very soon not at all. So, it's one of those things that you wouldn't use unless you really needed to. And finally, support for running mac os in virtual machines is kind of getting there. It's still made hard by Apple and only supported on their own hardware. But it's not impossible and there are some legitimate use cases (e.g. building IOS apps in the cloud). Maybe eventually somebody will figure out emulation on non Apple hardware. I think there are some efforts on QEMU. Of course the issue will be emulating enough of Apple Silicon properly.

bee_rider 3y ago

It is a bit funny, the hacker energy once was there for running OSX on anything, now it is there for running anything else on M1, haha.

kirykl 3y ago
Apple's whole strategy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25476266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25476266
yieldcrv 3y ago
amusing but that hasn’t been my experience just in case anyone is on the fence. Apple’s developer network effects are real and impressive, people updated… nearly everything… so quickly! plus with Rosetta under the hood translations to x86 binaries expand everything runnable to seamlessly I thought I would miss bootcamo but I dont. I have yet to install ARM Windows but I’m hearing praises about that now from relatively casual users
- steve1977 3y ago
  How is this related to network effects?
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    because it means enough people were spurred into action because they already use this ecosystem
    - steve1977 3y ago
      Ah you mean end users have already updated their devices? I first understood it in the sense of developers have already updated their software.
      - yieldcrv 3y ago
        developers have already updated their software. by early 2021 a few months after the first M1 came out

sf_rob 3y ago

I’m fairly unaware of the current state of Linux on Apple M hardware, but I’d want a Linux partition on Apple hardware more than a Mac partition on x86. These days I have two devices though.

trenchgun 3y ago
Its pretty good!
flkiwi 3y ago
Writing to you from NixOS on an M2 Air. Aside from a handful of missing packages that aren't available for the architecture, it's shockingly good. My battery is reporting 19 hours remaining, and "setup" took about 20 minutes (not counting the brief time writing a new machine definition in my NixOS config). I don't have any fundamental issues with macos, but it's nice to have a consistent environment across machines, and this hardware is glorious.
- sneak 3y ago
  Could you please share a writeup of your installation process?
  - flkiwi 3y ago
    I just used this: https://github.com/tpwrules/nixos-apple-silicon/blob/main/docs/uefi-standalone.md https://github.com/tpwrules/nixos-apple-silicon/blob/main/do... I used one of their releases rather than building my own image. It’s a guide that merits careful reading, as some key steps are not specifically bulleted. Oh, and it’s not the NixOS graphical installer. But it was dead simple, and 99% of the heavy lifting is from the Asahi team. The biggest downside is that updating the support files is a manual process, but NixOS of course makes it a breeze to rebuild into a new environment—and back out if it doesn’t work.

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

For me it's always been about repairability and expandability and Apple has gotten worse in that respect over time. It's essentially impossible to repair Apple hardware yourself, but Hackintosh is very easy to maintain in that regard. I have endless expansion options compared to Apple hardware. Hackintoshes are just a better choice.

coffeebeqn 3y ago
Macs do keep their resale value more though. Personally I run Linux on my own machines but I do enjoy the build quality of the MBP I get from work. It’s a whole another universe from my pretty good laptop that creaks and is made of plastic and the screen bends when I move it.. and the screen quality is not even comparable
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Spivak 3y ago
  Yep, Linux will make mid hardware punch well above its weight class so for the right person the value/$ ratio is unbeatable. But if the highest value at any price within reason is your goal then Apple is the go-to. Which is typically why your employer who could not give a shit about a $4k expense every five years for an employee costing them a quarter mil annually in total comp opts for them.
dmix 3y ago
> For me it's always been about repairability and expandability and Apple has gotten worse in that respect over time. Apple Plus is amazing, I broke my macbook and they gave me a loner on the spot and I got it back in full working order later. I wouldn't buy any Apple product without it. Had a similar experience with an iPhone where they just gave me a new one straight up.
- joshspankit 3y ago
  AppleCare+ has a hard cap and runs out at 3 years. No matter how great it is, that’s a very short amount of time.

gscott 3y ago

Apple profitability by lock-in is all that matters in the Apple C-Suite now. Juice that stock price, get free stock options, buy new yacht to show off to your friends.

golergka 3y ago

It’s about the only viable option for professionally working with audio, in either studio or live setting. That's the biggest group of hakintosh users I'm personally familiar with anyway.

steve1977 3y ago
You can work professionally with audio in Windows, you’ll probably even get better performance out of the same hardware you’d be using for a Hackintosh.
- golergka 3y ago
  You can, theoretically. In practice, a lot of tools like Logic and specific VSTs are macos-only, and CoreAudio actually "just works" out of the box without having to manually install and setup all kinds of alternative low-latency drivers.
  - steve1977 3y ago
    > CoreAudio actually "just works" out of the box If Apple is not messing up their USB subsystem like they did with Ventura, where people basically had to wait a whole major release until they got stable performance again with Sonoma. Or if they don’t break iLok copy protection, like they just did with 14.4 And for professional hardware, you don’t have to install “all kinds of alternative drivers”. You just install the one official driver from the hardware vendor and that’s it.
    - phatskat 3y ago
      Having used all three major OS’s for music at different times, MacOS is still my go-to. There just isn’t the futzing I had to do on windows. Linux was actually a contender for me back in the day - I feel like MIDI routing on Linux is just easier[1] although older OSX touting was also very good imo. I kept my G4 tower going for a looooong time because I had just the right setup of tools and hacks to do everything I needed to where windows wouldn’t cut it and no one wrote the drivers I used for Linux. These days I don’t tinker like I used to and mostly just need simple MIDI routing and something that can copy renders from my mixer, so anything will work. I still prefer the ease of MacOS though I can do everything I need to on any OS [1] the main drawback for Linux was really a lack of good docs for things like PD, and not having access to Live. If I’d had Reaper back then it might have been my daily driver.

jillesvangurp 3y ago

Same here. Of course, now that we have the M1 and the likely eventual deprecation of x86 for new versions of Mac OS, things like Hackintosh are a bit doomed. If you have an M1, you'd be runnig MacOS (or Linux) and would have no need for it. If you don't, MacOS is not going to run great on it and very soon not at all. So, it's one of those things that you wouldn't use unless you really needed to. And finally, support for running mac os in virtual machines is kind of getting there. It's still made hard by Apple and only supported on their own hardware. But it's not impossible and there are some legitimate use cases (e.g. building IOS apps in the cloud). Maybe eventually somebody will figure out emulation on non Apple hardware. I think there are some efforts on QEMU. Of course the issue will be emulating enough of Apple Silicon properly.