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Comment by op00to | Hacker News Reader

I experimented with Hackkntoshes years ago. It was a fun toy, but overall not the best use of my time. Upgrades required effort even if they didn't outright break my system.

More importantly, Hackintosh requires custom kexts, at a minimum FakeSMC.kext. That kext is used to bypass Apple's hardware locks. Has it been audited? If so, can you trust that the installer you use to wedge the kext in actually uses the clean kext and not a rooted version that puts you at risk? What happens when you load that kext? Even if it isn't overtly trying to compromise your system, does it open security holes? Does it silently corrupt your disk due to a bug somewhere?

Let's say you're ok with all that. What happens when you make it big, and Apple decides to sue you for breaking the EULA of MacOS? I wouldn't base my business on it.

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Base your business on it? No.

However I did put a Hackintosh into mission critical use for a bit. The machine was a ~$300 Dell Mini 9 which remains one of the all time easiest and most stable Hackintosh builds. To be fair it was a puny computer, but I upgraded mine with a larger SSD which made it pretty quick, and it was rock-solid stable. TBH I don't think it ever crashed or hang. And it was tiny.

I used this as my onstage computer for about a year running Reaktor and Sampletank. It took many falls. I never once had a problem with it. Its teensy size meant it could perch in a blank area on top of my keyboard.

However you're right about updates. They could be fatal and had to be well-researched and planned.

Why not get a refurbished MacBook Air 11"[1] which is guaranteed to work?

[1]: http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbo...

Not the OP but I am a musician. You'd fill up an Air drive in minutes with audio files and samples, presumably.

OP here, the thing I was working on was only 64GB, so that wasn't it. The real reason was price and size. This was even smaller than an Air at less than 1/2 the price.

Guaranteed to work, really? I guess no Macs are in for service, ever? My rMBPs, 13" and 15", have been in for service numerous times.

I’m looking forward to see how many times my new pre-ordered MBP 2016 will need to be serviced.

Meanwhile, I would bet good money that my two hackintosh systems will keep running.

I ran a Dell Mini 9 too. An excellent little machine with OSX, wish mine still worked.

The non-audited code is a concern for people I speak with about building a custoMac. I have built a Hackintosh using the forum on tonymacx86 that I only use as video workstation. I do not use it for personal computing. I use my MacBook Pro for that. I also keep it air gapped, and I use sneakernet USB sticks for any updates that were downloaded from my laptop. Adobe Creative Cloud doesn't like this, and does require extra steps to keep it working.

The only reason I chose Hackintosh over actual hardware is that Apple seems to have given up on the desktop market. When their current top of the line machine costs $9400 for 3+ year old tech, of course people are going to look for alternatives. In the life of GPU tech, the Dual D700s are as useful and relevant as T-Rex arms. CPU tech hasn't changed, but preventing me from keeping up to date with GPUS is unforgivable in a desktop.

I've been using my Hackintosh PC for 5 years now and every update/new OS upgrade was hassle free. With custom builds that is the norm.

As long as EULAs are concerned, in the EU they are unenforceable.

>As long as EULAs are concerned, in the EU they are unenforceable.

No, that's a myth. It's only that certain clauses in RULAs are unenforceable

Myth or no, has any business or user come under fire for just using hackintosh systems? Not to my knowledge.

However, making hackintosh a commercial business (Psystar), actually selling pre-configured, ready-to-go systems, yes, that is a law suit.

I did the Hackintosh thing for a couple of years. It was painful, but even more so since I wanted a RAID 1 on my main boot disk. That, it turns out, is not supported that well. If someone claims it is, then I'd say it definitely adds extra steps, and it can sometimes be tricky and tense.

I never dual booted Windows, but I read about lots of problems people had in the forums.

It was like removing a large pebble from my shoe when I got my Mac Pro.

Did you run your business on the Hackintosh? I'm curious of people who do this - what's the calculus that makes this decision (time, security risk, etc) a viable choice?

I could see it in the Mac Pro sort of setup, say if rendering is part of your flow, so that you can shove OSX onto Xeons with 64GB RAM or whatever. I personally wouldn't take that risk, but I can see why someone would.

> I wouldn't base my business on it.

Who even said anything about business?

But if you're worried about security you can run OS X well enough in a VM (optionally with real hardware) doesn't need any 3rd party kexts AFAIK.

> OS X well enough in a VM

At least in VirtualBox, OS X dev tools short circuit on illegal instructions pretty quickly

Everything works fine in QEMU for me.

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