Pondering hackintosh install for a friend

[Fallingwater]

A friend I have has gotten it in her mind that she wants a Mac, because she's seen the OS and she likes it. I'd very much like to spare her the expense, but she doesn't want to use Windows or any flavour of Linux, so the obvious solution is a hackintosh.

 

As a complete newbie, my question is: once the technical part is done (installation and configuration, which I'd do myself), can the result be used just as a normal Mac, or are there technical hurdles to consider (I dunno, system getting screwed up by updates, stuff like that)? She's not a very technical person, and I'd very much like to avoid doing maintenance on her system for the foreseeable future (though I no longer do it for free, I still don't like it).

 

If the answer to the previous question turns out to be "yes", is MacOS a suitable system for the programs an architect would want to run on it? I'm assuming this means something 3D and Photoshop, and probably others I've no idea about.

 

Thanks

[geiman]

Not sure about the architecture related software as I am not one, but..

 

As its been stated before, a Hackintosh can be a very stable machine. With the right hardware, it can be something that runs with little to no hiccups. However, that is not to say that the next 10.x.x update will not muck something up; its just not something that is predictable. If you never want to touch her computer again and she has no technical skill whatsoever, then a Hackintosh might not be the best solution.

 

On the other hand, if you wouldn't mind putting in a little bit of time when updates come out it could be a very nice machine for her.