Hackintosh in the future

[Jamesbond007]

The only thing we can say for sure is that any new build today won't run macOS as long as your Sandy Bridge system from 2011 has. Our best guess is three to four years but Apple may not even give Intel systems that much more support. It seems the M chip Mac Pro is taking longer than expected as it's been pushed back till 2023 now by most estimates I've read. https://wccftech.com/mac-pro-and-imac-pro-with-apple-silicon-not-expected-until-2023/?

So that might give us an extra year. On the positive side anything you build today will definitely have Windows 11 and Linux support till 2030 or later so at least you can keep using the hardware after macOS support is dropped.

If the Apple Siilcon Mac Pro is going to be delayed into 2023, then I agree with your prediction that there may be an extra year for Intel MacOS. In that case my own prediction is that there may be one more Intel MacOS in 2023, and then no more Intel MacOS, which gives us 4 more years of Intel MacOS support including security updates.

 

[Jamesbond007]

FWIW: I still run G4 and G5 Macs with clearly outdated security systems, so the potential risks are really hypothetical, in the end... As long as you're happy with what you can do with your machine, you can keep it for years. Most of us don't need the ultimate version of anything, so it's just a matter of being reasonable. ;-)

Exactly. I certainly don't need the "latest and greatest" MacOS, especially not if it prevents me from running my preferred version (11) of VMware Fusion.

I am also of the opinion that the impacts of most of the so-called security vulnerabilities are blown out of proportion regarding normal consumers. I do not agree with those people who claim that you are doomed if you do not run a "supported" OS, be it Windows or MacOS.

 

[Nodarkthings]

I also see no point in running the "latest and greatest" MacOS, and by the look of Ventura I am skipping it as well. I have already skipped Big Sur and probably Monterey also.

I am currently running MacOS Sierra / High Sierra / Mojave / Catalina on my system, and my primary reason for sticking with Sierra and High Sierra is that VMware Fusion 11 (11.0.3 on Sierra 10.12.6 and 11.5.3 on High Sierra 10.13.6) work very well for me. If I want to switch to Mojave as my main OS I can also use Fusion 11.5.7.

Big Sur and Monterey require Fusion 12, which due to inadequacies in Apple's hypervisor framework, has serious performance problems when using nested virtualization (VM inside VM). Apple has not been interested in fixing this problem, nor do I think it will due to the Apple Silicon transition. I find that unacceptable as I need this feature. Fusion 11 uses VMware's own framework which has no such problems.

Of course, I hate the fact that there are no more standalone updates for Big Sur and Monterey. And I am certainly not going to get an Apple Silicon Mac until there is a way to run my Intel Windows virtual machines with acceptable performance. So staying with Sierra / High Sierra / Mojave I am for the foreseeable future.

By the way, if you so hate APFS, I believe I can assume you are running Mojave from a HFS partition on your Samsung SSD?

Being myself a "multiple OSes on one drive" guy, I'm curious about how you organized yours — I guess not all OSes on the same drive, but maybe?
I'm currently running 10.14 on my SSD's first partition (APFS) + 10.9 on the second, and I keep clones and old OSes backups on my HFS HD (Mojo, El Cap, Mav).
I'm globally satisfied with 10.14, even if it has its flaws (mainly due to Apple's excessive security model: https://eclecticlight.co/2019/05/03...arantine-can-stop-you-from-opening-documents/, for instance), but Dark Mode is a blessing.

Here's another interesting article from the same source — though not really alarming, in the end, as many devs have already dropped old OSes anyway: https://eclecticlight.co/2022/06/26...e-to-kill-all-support-for-sierra-and-earlier/

 

[zipb]

Exactly. I certainly don't need the "latest and greatest" MacOS, especially not if it prevents me from running my preferred version (11) of VMware Fusion.

I am also of the opinion that the impacts of most of the so-called security vulnerabilities are blown out of proportion regarding normal consumers. I do not agree with those people who claim that you are doomed if you do not run a "supported" OS, be it Windows or MacOS.

Unfortunately, the latest versions of some software(eg Logic Pro) I use on a daily basis just work on the current version of macos, or the version before that. Made me upgrade to Big Sur a couple of months ago. Otherwise, I would still be on Mojave.

 

[wstrohm]

By the way, if you so hate APFS, I believe I can assume you are running Mojave from a HFS partition on your Samsung SSD?

Correct. Thanks to Carbon Copy Cloner and my backup strategy of having an identical pair of storage devices, I fresh-installed Mojave 10.14.6 on storage "A" (APFS, no choice there), migrated all data from storage "B" (which uses HFS+) to it, then used CCC to copy all files back to storage "B" (including System files). Then re-formatted storage "A" as HFS+ and re-copied all files back to it from "B." Now both Samsung 970 PRO SSDs contain bootable copies of one another on the HFS+ filesystem. Mojave boots in 19 seconds with no "TRIM" problem.

I also did the same for my High Sierra (10.13.6) installations.

 

[Nodarkthings]

Correct. Thanks to Carbon Copy Cloner and my backup strategy of having an identical pair of storage devices, I fresh-installed Mojave 10.14.6 on storage "A" (APFS, no choice there), migrated all data from storage "B" (which uses HFS+) to it, then used CCC to copy all files back to storage "B" (including System files). Then re-formatted storage "A" as HFS+ and re-copied all files back to it from "B." Now both Samsung 970 PRO SSDs contain bootable copies of one another on the HFS+ filesystem. Mojave boots in 19 seconds with no "TRIM" problem.

I also did the same for my High Sierra (10.13.6) installations.

Except for your specific SSD issue, APFS is far from being a bad filesystem — indeed, I wish I could use it in 10.9 too... It brought some advantage from ZFS (which I still use, by the way).
Where I don't agree with Apple is their shambles of current OS structure (Preboot, Recovery, SSV, etc.) It partly makes sense (separate volume for the VM) but what a waste of usable space!
(I've read somewhere that it's not necessarily a bad idea to format external backups as APFS...*)
If we think of the early days of Operating Systems, it was just a minimal interface meant to run programs, now it's a mastodon full of useless stuff (well, if you don't own all the outfit of iThings...) and apps like Safari that are no longer updated after a few years (if you stick to a given version of the OS).
All this to say that I'd be happy to stay up to date, but every time I read the specs of the latest MacOS, I just think "What for?"

*EDIT: one of the many interesting articles from ELC

How to make more use of your backup disk

APFS backup disks offer different possibilities for adding volumes for your own use, alongside the backup volume. How do you decide what’s best?

eclecticlight.co

 

[greenfrog5]

Thanks for the interesting discussion. I am in the position of trying to get my non-supported Sandy Bridge hardware working on Catalina (experiencing random freezes that I have been unable to resolve), and have been planning to upgrade something in the near future (assuming - worst case, I cannot fix these freezes). I was expecting to get a M2 Mac Mini and a NAS, but was just wondering what a new MoBo+CPU+RAM might do for me with an updated Hackintosh (that is easier to get running).

I don't care about running the latest OS, but I am interested in being able to stay current enough that I am not limited on what software I can run (several of my standard softwares are only available for Catalina+ now). 3-4 years of ongoing support isn't very long, so I expect I'll still be buying a real Mac at some point here and not a new Hackintosh... I will also probably be partly migrating to PC, as I assume my Sandy Bridge can probably run Windows without an issue still.

 

[etorix]

I was expecting to get a M2 Mac Mini and a NAS, but was just wondering what a new MoBo+CPU+RAM might do for me with an updated Hackintosh (that is easier to get running).

Well, unless I missed something nothing should be easier to setup with macOS than a real Mac…

 

[scottkendall]

Well, unless I missed something nothing should be easier to setup with macOS than a real Mac…

Right because you just have to plug them in!

 

[Jamesbond007]

Being myself a "multiple OSes on one drive" guy, I'm curious about how you organized yours — I guess not all OSes on the same drive, but maybe?

I'm currently running 10.14 on my SSD's first partition (APFS) + 10.9 on the second, and I keep clones and old OSes backups on my HFS HD (Mojo, El Cap, Mav).

I'm globally satisfied with 10.14, even if it has its flaws (mainly due to Apple's excessive security model: https://eclecticlight.co/2019/05/03...arantine-can-stop-you-from-opening-documents/, for instance), but Dark Mode is a blessing.

I run Sierra / High Sierra on one disk and Mojave / Catalina on another.