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▲ FLeXMurphy 2 days ago

There used to be a use-case for Hackintoshes maybe a decade +/- 5 years ago, especially when macOS started working with x86 and x86-64 Intel-based CPUs. But it always felt subversive and it seemed like one update away from breaking due to some unforeseen, artificial limitation.

Is there a use-case now? I don't know. Linux has made serious strides in part thanks to very user-friendly distros like Ubuntu. People may have individual grievances and I don't want to downplay those, but we're not dealing with oddball Shrike issues anymore.

Apple should seriously consider allowing their OS to be used independently of the hardware, especially the build tools, the server stuff (whatever is left of it, not a market they had a big part to play in anyway). But, it is unlikely of them to do this.

Well done nonetheless. I think it is more likely that the old PowerPC-MacOS-on-Wii will be more stable long term than any of these new releases.

Edit: I'll also add: I am questioning what value MacOS itself has, the raw OS and kernel stuff. Linux, BSD and Windows each have their own -isms which are curiosities that one can, and should, consider as pros and cons. People might say "Windows is bad", and I agree, Win 11 experience as a daily driver is god awful. But the kernel and OS itself is something else. I don't know if MacOS has any of that "meat" that we can look at and say it's worth looking deeper into.

▲jogu a day ago | parent | next [-]

About a decade or so ago I actually had a dual-boot hackintosh build. In practice the one update away from breaking rings so true and really cemented that vertical integration is Apple's most powerful offering. Running OS X in a fragile unsupported environment really wasn't worth it looking back.

Given Apple's recent trajectory and custom silicon, I can only imagine that the stability of these AI-assisted ports be even worse than it was back in the x86 days. These are neat demos, but nothing I would want to seriously run in any capacity.

▲Analemma_ 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I never really saw the appeal of Hackintoshes. MacOS is fine, but it's not so head and shoulders above the rest that I want to run a buggy unsupported version of it on commodity hardware. It's just a nice-ish Unix-ish system.

Really the hardware is most of the point of buying a Mac, since Apple somehow continues to be the only people making laptops which aren't dogshit. A Hackintosh gives you the worst of both worlds, I don't get it except as a technical curiosity like running Doom on your toaster.

▲cosmic_cheese a day ago | parent | next [-]

Back in the 2010s much of the appeal of hackintoshing was getting the niceness of macOS on hardware that was much more powerful and better cooled than anything Apple sold.

They were also quite stable if one selected their hardware for it and adhered to best practices. My custom built i6700k hackintosh tower was solid and quiet and expandable.

Yes there’s also Linux but if one enjoys macOS as a desktop, there’s precious little in the Linux world for you. Most DEs are windows-like, and though GNOME and Pantheon share a few qualities with macOS the resemblance is skin deep at best.

▲ris 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I never really saw the appeal of Hackintoshes.

CI and build farms

▲FLeXMurphy 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It used to be that MacOS was so slick and user friendly, and had the kind of software that Windows did not have, that it was worth botching around with to get it to work.

But that hasn't -really- held up. MacOS burned a lot of the "Creative" class that Steve Jobs used to market to early on. While there are still plenty of designers that use MacOS, the market is more fragmented now since the design tools are more Web-based and less Desktop-based. Audio tools have become more cross platform as well.