Why we do hackintosh?

[MacMan]

Wow! Did you build all 12 Hackintoshes?

You don't want to know how many hacintosh I've built.

 

[phunguss]

Wow! Did you build all 12 Hackintoshes?

Yes. The mods definitely have me beat by miles. So I went and looked to be sure... here is what I found:



Currently in the office workshop:
1) HP EliteBook 8470p laptop (upgraded screen and quad core CPU)
2) Intel DH61DL in Macintosh Classic II
3) Lenovo M72e Tiny in G4 Cube
4) Gigabyte H87N (non-wifi) in G4 Cube
5) Gigabyte H97N-wifi in G4 Cube
6) ASRock X99e/ITC-AC in Mac Pro Jr
7) Gigabyte Z170N-wifi in G4 Cube
8) Asus P9X79-WS/IPMI in PC case, destined to G5 mac pro someday
9) Gigabyte H110MSTX-HD3 in Apple ][ Floppy drive
10) Gigabyte H110MSTX-HD3 in Mac Mini 2006 case
11) Gigabyte H110MSTX-HD3 waiting for a case (maybe G4 iMac Lamp)
12) Gigabyte H110MSTX-HD3 waiting for a case (maybe 2nd mini)
13) Sony VAIO SVF14215CXB laptop with touchscreen
14) HP Envy 15 laptop

Dell Mini10v (2011 sold)
Intel DH61DL in G4 Cube (sold)
Jetway Mini-ITX in G4 Cube [Franken Mac] (sold)

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Yes. The mods definitely have me beat by miles. So I went and looked to be sure... here is what I found:

View attachment 470414

Currently in the office workshop:
1) HP EliteBook 8470p laptop (upgraded screen and quad core CPU)
2) Intel DH61DL in Macintosh Classic II
3) Lenovo M72e Tiny in G4 Cube
4) Gigabyte H87N (non-wifi) in G4 Cube
5) Gigabyte H97N-wifi in G4 Cube
6) ASRock X99e/ITC-AC in Mac Pro Jr
7) Gigabyte Z170N-wifi in G4 Cube
8) Asus P9X79-WS/IPMI in PC case, destined to G5 mac pro someday
9) Gigabyte H110MSTX-HD3 in Apple ][ Floppy drive
10) Gigabyte H110MSTX-HD3 in Mac Mini 2006 case
11) Gigabyte H110MSTX-HD3 waiting for a case (maybe G4 iMac Lamp)
12) Gigabyte H110MSTX-HD3 waiting for a case (maybe 2nd mini)
13) Sony VAIO SVF14215CXB laptop with touchscreen
14) HP Envy 15 laptop

Dell Mini10v (2011 sold)
Intel DH61DL in G4 Cube (sold)
Jetway Mini-ITX in G4 Cube [Franken Mac] (sold)

Those are some very unusual builds in strange cases. Well done!

 

[macs_forever]

I'm currently thinking if I should upgrade a 2014 Mac Mini to an SSD (which is a documented procedure, but a complete pain in the neck, requires custom screwdrivers, and easy to end up with a broken Mac if you make a mistake) or just go full time over to Hackintoshes and get a decent I7 box with compatible AMD graphics and a bootload of RAM running Catalina and sell the Mac.

A hard drive swap should never take more than 5 minutes. I think the quickest I've got it down to is on a Dell Optiplex 5060 which I can do in 30 seconds.

put a 2tb hp ssd into my macbook air 11" -- thou dost protest too much. not hard or too risky.

 

[CeeeWeee]

I love the MacOS - but I am not really in love with Apple prices ...

...that is the primary reason. On top of that it is just really fun (mostly) and give a lot of satisfaction!

 

[Ritchie333]

I love the MacOS - but I am not really in love with Apple prices ...

I wouldn't mind Apple prices if they reflected the appropriate value for money. For example, I've got a Nord Electro keyboard that I bought in 2002 for £1,200 (all of which I have effectively got back through money from gigs and recording using it) and is still perfectly usable today. So if I bought a 13" MacBook Pro for about the same (which AFAIK is a typical asking price) I would be okay with it if I could expect it to still be usable after 20 years. Which obviously isn't the case.

 

[Ritchie333]

Well I've now got a Hackintosh and a Hackbook! If nobody's done a guide to High Sierra on a Dell Latitude E6500, I'll try and crack on with it this weekend.

 

[TanisMajere]

Two reasons for me

1) The COVID-19 lockdown has given me a lot of spare time for projects, and I wanted to see if I could get an old bit of junk I would have normally thrown in the skip working with MacOS. It takes me back to the days of early Linux hacking, and the scenarios are similar - you needed to watch your hardware, understand what the kernel did and how to write config files and read logs. Back then you needed to avoid Diamond video cards like the plague because they had no open source drivers, and to get any sort of GUI, you needed to manually configure an XF86config file with the horizontal and vertical modes from your monitor's manual.

2) I have a love-hate relationship with Apple. I like their software; specifically no audio app can touch Logic Pro X and the Hammond organ sound is better than my Nord Stage 2 keyboard that cost £2,500 (and you think Macs are expensive!), and I just feel more comfortable working on Macs than PCs. However, I utterly detest the proprietary lock-in technology that makes something simple like putting an SSD in a Mac Mini such an arduous process, and think their AppleCare policy of "throw the old equipment in the bin and charge the customer for a new unit" is draconian. Have a look at Louis Rossman's YouTube channel; he basically makes all the points I would, but better, and has scared me away from ever wanting anything to do with MacBooks. (One of my laptops runs Linux, the other runs FreeBSD).

I'm with you...

A) I'm old school. I remember sitting at my "Trash 80" and typing in "look left" and the T80 tells me "you looked left"! LOL!!

B) Apple is just awesome for music production. One major problem. I don't have $52K burning a hole in my pocket to buy the best and the baddest beast on the planet. That's a maxed our MacPro. I'm willing to bet I can get in the same ball park for LESS than 5% of that cost and in a SMALLER footprint. That IS the mission.

I do have to walk before I crawl, though. I have to build something cheaply to see how difficult it is, work through pitfalls of my own making and "learn" the process. Doesn't mean I can't start collecting pieces!

There I go rambling again. THAT's why I'm here. Tinkering and to build a MONSTER for my own use.

 

[chmedly]

I have become far too "familiar" with MacOS and can't yet make the leap to something else. Linux has come a long way and I would be cool with it but it's missing some important apps. Windows; I have very little interest. I just can't see myself going there.

My reason for hackintosh is that Apple doesn't make any hardware [anymore] that I'm interested in.

I have some 2013 rMBP machines that are serving me well but the newer ones just feel like a poke in the eye. I want ports. The kinds of ports that my outboard gear uses. I don't want to carry a dock or a bag of dongles. I don't need and don't want the machine to be paper thin. Give me old fashioned USB (because as a PROFESSIONAL I have LOTS of equipment that uses even USB1.1!). Give me RJ45 ethernet. Give me HDMI. Give me an audio out & in. Do I want a usb-C? Yes! But I want the other ones too.

And the desktop machines are a real confusion:

The Macmini is sleek. I like the design but for most of my purposes, I don't need it to be sleek and tiny. From a performance standpoint, it's rather weak and unexpandable.

The iMac might be ok except, I already have a monitor. And I'm quite fond of the 21:9 aspect ratio. The iMac also seems rather weak for the price. I think they're using mostly mobile processors in them too?

The "pro" machines like the trash can and the newer one are completely unrealistic in price for my needs. The newer cheese grater model has an awesome design both for style and functionality. But I have no need for that kind of horsepower or the required cost to produce that performance.

Where is the middle ground?!?

If they could make a "macbook Pro Pro" that had ports and a little bit of girth to support some decent cooling then I might very well be an apple customer again. If they could make a desktop computer for under $1500 that could hold a few drives and had ports and, again, capacity for some decent cooling without making a bunch of white noise (fan noise) then I would probably buy it.

I have a love/hate relationship with Apple. My stock has been doing fairly well. But my needs as a user have not...

 

[ThisWillTakeAWhile]

The reason why I wanted to hackintosh is because I wanted to experiment and I liked macOS but I didn't want to shell out thousands on a new desktop computer. My current PC wasn't built with hackintoshing in mind, so I wanted to see what was possible.