Hackintosh? Anyone use one???

[JoshuaMB]

I am getting set to get a new Mac as mine is nearing the end of its useful life.

I am rolling the idea of a Hackintosh over in my head, wondering if there are any major drawbacks to getting a built Mac rather than a legit Apple Mac.

I found one with Quad core 2.4 Ghz with 8 gigs of ram for like $1300 with software and a one year warrenty.

Does anyone have any experience with a Hackintosh and have any useful insight? Its not worth it if its bound to have major issues like a PC would, only if its relatively the same as a regular Apple made Mac at a deeply discounted price...
Anyone???

 

[Dan Richardson]

I've got one. You have to choose the Motherboard carefully, the graphics card carefully, each with the right BIOS, version, revision, etc. It's just not worth it, though Apple is making it harder and harder for me to use one of their machines (no reasonably priced mid-range upgradable tower).

• I don't want a tower (had a Dual G5 - too big, too much energy, new ones use 200+ watts at idle (!)),
• the iMac's have inferior displays (except the 24" - too big) and have inferior graphics cards.
• Mini's have inferior++ graphics, can't hold 3+ gigs ram

That said, mine works pretty well now, but it took hours, and hours, and hours of my time to get it up and running and stable, and any new update could bring the whole house of cards crashing down.

If you want to use Mac OS, get a Mac, you'll have a better experience. You can get pretty close with XP + Themes + Utilities, but it's just not the same. If I had no other choice, I'd get a mini with external HD.

-Dan

 

[gaussian blur]

• the iMac's have inferior displays (except the 24" - too big) and

have inferior graphics cards.

ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 256 meg of VRAM is inferior??

• Mini's have inferior++ graphics, can't hold 3+ gigs ram

A Core 2 Duo Mac mini can hold 3 gig of memory. Also, for a lot of applications, such as Photoshop, the video card doesn't matter that much.

 

[JoshuaMB]

I am not intending to build one, but buy one. Someone builds and sells them, and I suppose has dialed it in pretty well. According to the guy who makes them, they work great as work horse computers and are very fast (as in the quad 2.4's and 8 gigs of ram). I like the way it sounds but the fact that OS updates have to be patched (I'm not even sure what that really means) leads me to believe that yeah, there could be unforseen problems down the road. But there is a warranty and I do keep all files on external HDs. Also, the seller has a website with patches and updates as they become necessary, and tech support....

I am really on the fence about it.... thats why I'm turning to this forum to see if anyone can give me concrete answers as to what to expect or good reasons not to buy a built Mac....

 

[gaussian blur]

I am really on the fence about it.... thats why I'm turning to this
forum to see if anyone can give me concrete answers as to what to
expect or good reasons not to buy a built Mac....

Is it really that much cheaper than buying a real Mac with an equivalent configuration? And how much is your time worth, considering you might need to get a patch in the event something goes wrong?

 

[mballent]

He has to reverse engineer parts of OS X and the license from Apple expressly forbids the hack. This guy had better watch out for Apple legal going out to get him. As much as I love my MBP and I would love to install OS X on my Alienware PC, I would not want to deal the legal implications.

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[JoshuaMB]

In regards to the cost benefit, it seems like the hacked Mac comes in about half of what an equally spec'd Apple Mac would cost.

In regards to the legality: I have done a bit of googling of the subject and there is an interesting article if you google Hackintosh about how to build one for under $800 (one of the first few to come up on the google page). Down below there is someone who discusses the legal aspects and states that the OS X license agreement states that the software can be installed on Apple- labeled computers, not Apple- Manufactured or Branded, just Labeled... which means ???? that if you slap an apple sticker on the case its okay???

I'm not sure, it may be a real grey area and it may be outright illegal, I am not sure....

 

[gaussian blur]

In regards to the cost benefit, it seems like the hacked Mac comes in
about half of what an equally spec'd Apple Mac would cost.

Generally, the price difference is very small. Are you sure it's exactly the same specs?

In regards to the legality: I have done a bit of googling of the
subject and there is an interesting article if you google Hackintosh
about how to build one for under $800 (one of the first few to come
up on the google page). Down below there is someone who discusses the
legal aspects and states that the OS X license agreement states that
the software can be installed on Apple- labeled computers, not Apple-
Manufactured or Branded, just Labeled... which means ???? that if you
slap an apple sticker on the case its okay???

I take it he's not a lawyer. It's fairly obvious what they mean, and a home built PC with a sticker on the front is not going to pass the criteria.

I'm not sure, it may be a real grey area and it may be outright
illegal, I am not sure....

It's a end user license violation at a minimum. Hacking OS X to work on a non-Mac is possibly a DMCA violation, depending on where the person doing the hacking lives. Selling it may also be illegal. And prior to Leopard, the only way to legally get OS X for Intel was by buying a Mac (the retail copy of Tiger was PowerPC only).

 

[Scott Weierich86292]

Here is how the license agreement states it:

"This License allows you to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time. You agree not to install, use

or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to do so."

Unless this Hackintosh joker has properly licensed use of the Apple logo/label and puts it on each Hackintosh he sells, he is simply not legal.

In regards to the cost benefit, it seems like the hacked Mac comes in
about half of what an equally spec'd Apple Mac would cost.

Generally, the price difference is very small. Are you sure it's
exactly the same specs?

In regards to the legality: I have done a bit of googling of the
subject and there is an interesting article if you google Hackintosh
about how to build one for under $800 (one of the first few to come
up on the google page). Down below there is someone who discusses the
legal aspects and states that the OS X license agreement states that
the software can be installed on Apple- labeled computers, not Apple-
Manufactured or Branded, just Labeled... which means ???? that if you
slap an apple sticker on the case its okay???

I take it he's not a lawyer. It's fairly obvious what they mean, and
a home built PC with a sticker on the front is not going to pass the
criteria.

I'm not sure, it may be a real grey area and it may be outright
illegal, I am not sure....

It's a end user license violation at a minimum. Hacking OS X to work
on a non-Mac is possibly a DMCA violation, depending on where the
person doing the hacking lives. Selling it may also be illegal. And
prior to Leopard, the only way to legally get OS X for Intel was by
buying a Mac (the retail copy of Tiger was PowerPC only).

--
Scott

 

[Ian Eisenberg]

I built one to see what the experience was like.

No, in general the spec for spec price difference is not that much. If you use the parts list you will find on the internet you see that they are significantly less expensive parts, but from my own experience I will say that they are not of the same quality.

It took about 2 hours to build and install the hacked OS and afterwards there were a number of glaring stability problems... not the machine for me.

I use a Mac for stability and because in general I know I rarely have to worry about the computer/OS slowing me down. Not so with a hack.

 

[shotgunRed]

I DONT SEE WHAT THE BIG DEAL IS.

I CAN BUY THE SAME MOTHERBOARD AND VIDEO CARDS THAR MAC USES FOR A WHOLE LOT LESS.

installed and runs fine. even updates from apple. oh yea it cost 1/3 the price of a mac and also has xp installed.

its no big deal for me but i don't mind ripping apart a computers guts and playing with it.

 

[NoJive]

If you want an unstable system you could save a lot of money and just buy a Dell with Windows. (I used Windows from v3.0 to XP and I'm now a very happy Mac user.) With a Hackintosh, every time Apple updates the OS you will have to re-patch the OS or download a patched version. Plus, there is no telling if an update will make your system inoperative. Macs are stable because they are a restricted environment. The only way to recreate that is to use the same motherboard and chose from Apple-offered parts. I don't believe it's possible to buy those other than from Apple.
--
-Rich

 

[erichK]

It is ironic to read this thread on the possible illegality of Mac clones, when I am at the point of considering suing Apple over the overpriced and defective MacBook Pro I made the mistake of buying.

So far, the machine has been in for repair four times, and had three motherboard and a hard disk replacement. The motherboards were because Apple negligently, even criminally continued to cynically deny the fact that the 8600 GPU,s they were using and continued to use were defective, for months after companies like DELL had alerted their costumers to this.

It's truly absurd to talk about ethics and Apple in the same breath. In recent years they've essentially made their fortune with a combination of slick designs and marketing to guliible and trendy technophobes and the integration of industry-standard OEM memory, processors and drives and other components in proprietory packages protected by phalanxes of patents and lawyers.

Tomorrow, this patheti piece of cr*p will likely have to go in for repair yet again; it has blue-screened half a dozen times in a single weekend of use! The PC's I also use are MUCH more reliable and stable. But then they mostly seem to put functionality before style.

I really would suggest that the OP look at a well-put-together PC, and perhaps learn to run Linux on it, if he wants real stability.
--
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saskatoon, canada

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[NoJive]

Sounds like you got a lemon. Needless to say, that is not the general experience. My Macbook Pro and Mac Pro are worth every cent I paid, as far as I'm concerned. I've had nothing but good experiences in all my dealings with Apple. I'm sorry that your experience was so negative.
--
-Rich

 

[Ian Eisenberg]

You have a defective machine. If it has been in for repairs three times for the same problem you are eligible for a brand new laptop.

Just talk to Apple service and you will probably find them very amenable. I have only had one system from Apple that was a problem and they replaced it in 2 days with no problems.

 

[richfavinger]

If your smart enough to setup a Mac hacked system... Why not just get a pre-built or, make a self built Linux system? You'd have the same stability as Max OSX UNIX, but maybe not all the nifty GUI. But just as stable, legal, and... for download, FREE.

Otherwise, why bother, buy a mac, if that is what you want...
--
Rich
Nikon D3
NAPP Member and SportsShooter.com Member
http://www.sportsshooter.com/richfavinger/

 

[Scott Weierich86292]

You can NOT buy the same motherboard that Apple uses as they make it themselves and is not available to the market.

I DONT SEE WHAT THE BIG DEAL IS.
I CAN BUY THE SAME MOTHERBOARD AND VIDEO CARDS THAR MAC USES FOR A
WHOLE LOT LESS.

installed and runs fine. even updates from apple. oh yea it cost
1/3 the price of a mac and also has xp installed.

its no big deal for me but i don't mind ripping apart a computers
guts and playing with it.

--
Scott

 

[abolit]

I have a Hackintosh and it works great. Using the right parts is the point of the whole deal. Windows can work on any shitty hardware and it works bad even on a good hardware. My Hackintosh is solid stable and it costs less then a third of the real mac. I benchmarked it and the performance is up and even higher than Apple Mac Pro. It's not anybody's fault that the Apple fails to provide mid-size desktop computer to make it affordable. Maybe someone can afford $4500 Mac Pro with 8G memory and stuff , it's not me though. I'm not that rich and I'm pretty satisfied with my Hackintosh. I run CS3, LightRoom2, Aperture, a lot of CS plugins without any problems. My OSX 10.5.5

 

[LouCioccio]

So in affect you actually have a "headless" iMac with that hackintosh. A niche that is sorely needed in Apples lineup. You would think they would come up with one. Agreed it is not that difficult to make a hackintosh and have it work reliably but one has to have some knowledge in putting it together and some experience in command line instructions. From what I gather you can do all the Apple updates sans to OS's updated that has to be done manually. Removing one file and adding a line of text in another file at startup. Not at all difficult plus you can easily upgrade the box and as more drives. There is a community out there that gives you the knowledge and help.

Ciao,
Lou Cioccio

 

[Nikon133]

I am really on the fence about it.... thats why I'm turning to this
forum to see if anyone can give me concrete answers as to what to
expect or good reasons not to buy a built Mac....

Is it really that much cheaper than buying a real Mac with an
equivalent configuration? And how much is your time worth,
considering you might need to get a patch in the event something goes
wrong?

Budget limits aside, some people might have specific reason to choose specific hardware. Battery life, uncommon ports... Mac notebooks are just a few and there are options you can't get for them.

What are your options then, if you need PC hardware but want Mac OS? Get both machines, or play modern Robin Hood...

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