DabblingMacer Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 Hi everyone! I'm a software architect who is looking to get an OSX machine in order to learn Swift and Objective-C. I've successfully set up a Mac VM on my desktop rig, and it works well. However, my family is a bit upset with all the time I've been spending away from them I'm looking to get a budget netbook that I can either install OSx86 onto, or use a virtual machine. BUT, I don't think this forum is the right place to ask questions if version X will work on device Y. Where would be the appropriate place to post? I see that there are a lot of forums based on device type and manufacturer, but is it frowned upon to create threads that ask "Will this laptop work"? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nawcom Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 I would never recommend a netbook. Anything classified as a netbook that's being released these days usually lack graphics support in OS X since they use entry-level CPUs, or they're using Atom CPUs and the modern models don't have graphics support in OS X either. Back when netbooks were new it was different, but that's back when 10.6 was the current version and that's considered outdated these days as many programs have a higher OS X requirement to run. Also, they were pretty slow-performing. If you're looking for a cheap laptop, you can get a refurbished sandy bridge model with hd3000 graphics and that'll run the latest version of OS X just fine. You can do a search and you'll find some that are well-understood for running OS X on. I use a Dell Latitude E6420 myself. You can of course go for something even older but be aware of what version of OS X dropped either graphics support or support for the CPU for that laptop. Laptops with first gen i series CPUs have graphics fixes all the way up to 10.11 according to this thread but I'm not sure about 10.12. As for running OS X from a VM on the laptop, you can do that with any laptop which I recommend using one with a supported Intel CPU just to make it a ton easier on your part. Running a VM on a netbook would also be a terrible idea as the CPU isn't really designed to perform that well. If you have a question about a specific model + version of OS X then feel free to ask here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DabblingMacer Posted January 9, 2017 Author Share Posted January 9, 2017 Thanks nawcom! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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