Hackintosh for everyday use?

[redpill]

So, maybe I should have asked this before I built my hackintosh. But, now that I have experienced actually trying to install OSX and its updates from 10.5.6 to 10.5.8, I find myself unsure of whether to use the system on a regular basis.

 

Thanks to members on this board, I have been able to build a mostly functional system. But, it seems to take more time to make it run (like a real Mac) than I would like. You know, certain things we take for granted on a Mac like holding down the Option key to present a startup drive menu and other Open Firmware options just aren't available or as easily used.

 

I built the hack to eventually run Aperture, since my current Mac is a PowerPC G4 (can't run Aperture). Among the other applications used are Photoshop and the regular everyday stuff like Safari, Firefox, and Mail.

 

So, to keep this subject short, I'll just ask this:

 

Have you been as productive and satisfied using your hackintosh as you are/have been on a Mac?

 

I'd like to know what you've experience before I really start using my hackintosh for real work.

 

Thanks for your input!

[Zaap]

I use my main machine every day. I have used it as my main machine since I set it up back in 2008. It works better than a 'real' Mac in my opinion, because I'd have had to spend 5x as much to get a real Mac that met the same performance criteria and offered all the options I need.

 

Compared to the Xeon MacPro (quad 775 Xeon) I use at work , my system is much faster. Also oddly enough, I experience more odd little errors on that machine than I do my home Hackintosh- which isn't to say I see errors all that often with either, but the 'real' Mac moreso than the 'fake' Mac.

 

It mainly depends on your hardware though. It irks me a little when people select crappy hardware, try to Hackintosh it, run into a boatload of trouble, then declare that Hackintoshes don't work well. The warnings are everywhere, especially around here: DIY using hardware that's known to work and you can build a great machine that's perfectly reliable for everyday use. Insist on forging ahead with {censored} hardware/mystery boxes/ some random Dell model that you have no idea what's inside/ and barely/not-supported hardware, and you're likely to run into problems.

 

Keep things as 'vanilla/retail as possible too. The more the OS is a 'hack' the more off into computing never-never land you go, and the more problems that can crop up, and the less support there may be.

 

Also, if people can't leave well enough alone, or follow common sense precautions, they'll run into trouble. I do system updates on a backup partition before I mess with my main partition. Also, read what if any side-effects of a new system update are. IE: 10.5.8 so far is causing a lot of sleep issues on Hackintoshes. I've seen virtually no compelling reason to mess with it on all my systems, vs. just keep 10.5.7 which I have working flawlessly, and just wait for Snow Leopard. I haven't run into anything personally that requires me to be running 10.5.8, so why {censored} with it if it's not adding anything of real value?

 

As for backups, set aside a measly 10-15GB of space for a backup install partition. This will save you LOADS of time and effort vs. leaving a single main install of OSX hanging out in the wind. I kind of shake my head every time I see someone come on here or elsewhere and lament "I borked my machine! Help!" Why is it so hard to figure out? The 'machine' can run multiple installs of the same OS no problem- why the hell not make it easy for yourself and {censored} around with a COPY of the OS, rather than risk the main install that you're depending on?

 

That said, since I've been using a Hack, I haven't even borked a backup install- but it's great to know I've got one any time I need it. If I did bork it, I'd merely boot the main install, and fix it, or reinstall it. Ditto, if my main install ever were to run into trouble, I can always boot the backup and service the main install. Always give yourself an easy out- the 'cost' like I said is a measly couple gigs of drive space.

 

 

Anyway, that's my rant. Mainly, just observe a few common sense precautions. Realize you're using a platform (OSx86) that's a bit seat of the pants- you get no support from Apple, so you have to rely on your own common sense. To expect the update process to always work perfectly for systems Apple doesn't support is folly- so one just learns the 'new rules' unique to this platform, and goes by those instead of Apple's. If you have a motherboard and vid card that a lot of other people are using, and that's known to work, then you can almost always find support for just about anything that may crop up, in which case you can relax a lot more and read up on what others are doing, how they apply updates, etc. If you're blazing a trail with mystery hardware, then obviously you're more on your own and will have to figure out things for yourself if problems crop up.

[TomCom]

Having a hackintosh usually means wasting some time in order to save money.

If you are a busy man with a decent income, most time it won't be worth the hassle because you'll be refund the premium of owning a Mac when you sell it back for a decent price after 3 years.

 

Though, if you're wise enough to clone your system, not to run Apple updates as soon as they're released and try like a geek every single new piece of software supposed to improve what is working already, you may be very happy with your PC hardware.

[geiman]

yeah I feel the same way; I've been using Hackintoshes at home for a long time now, and I use real Mac's at work and I've got to say both are fantastic; its just the great OS that does it for me. I just bought my first MacBook Pro, and since I've been using a real Mac now 24/7, I've got to say the experience is much nicer since everything is the way an actual mac is supposed to be, but with that said, my "Hack Pro" desktop and my HackBook also work very nicely, and I can't really say which one I use the most.

 

Anyways, it basically boils down to this: if its a production machine you rely on, either break down and buy genuine Mac, or do your homework, and buy decent parts that are you know will work together well without a great deal of hassle. If you do your research good enough, you can end up with a very nice Hackintosh that would be synonymous with anything you buy directly from Apple.

 

.. Just my 2 cents

[pirloui]

My Hackintosh is my main work machine, and I have never had any stability problems with it.

[Mac_Dude]

My 2cents

 

If you build your Hack to run OSX its fine , use Hardware that is close to a "Real Mac "

So I did , and I have a very smooth - stable OSX . More Smooth and Stable as my.. ME , Vista ..... ever was !

 

I dont need a dualboot with Windows , dont need boot camp - as I dont miss anything from MS World.

 

 

If you dont care about hardware ,

and try to Fix , and Fix and Fix and Patch and tweak to get OSX running anyhow on any fancy system - I say stay with Windows.

 

Mixing OSX versions and add thousend of fixes , Patches and fancy kernels will end in an unstable "test" OS = Windows

[LoneWaffle]

I also use mine everyday extensively as my primary machine. It's extremely stable and reliable, but I guess it depends on how well your system works out.

[vlad1966]

I use my Hack as my main machine @ home and feel more comfortable with it than any version of it running Winblows. It actually runs hacked OS X better/more reliably than any version of Winblows.

I also keep a backup copy of my install on external drives in case I bork my main install so all I do is boot from a backup drive, use Super Duper! to re-install my image, and I'm ready to go again.

 

Can't wait for Snow Leo :-)

[redpill]

 

Wow! Thank you, everyone, for the informative replies. Believe me, I studied this site intensively for weeks before deciding to plunge into the unknown world of the hackintosh.

 

Consequently, my component selections have apparently been successful, since my build has mostly worked without too much frustration. My hardware consists of a Lian-Li midtower case; Gigabyte P35-DS3P motherboard; Gigabyte nVidia 8600GT with 256 MB VRAM; Intel E8400 3GHz Dual Core CPU; 4GB Crucial DDR2.

 

The weirdest problem was when I switched screen resolutions and got a blue screen. The system was responsive to mouse/keyboard input, but only a blue screen showed. I was about ready to say "FSCK IT," when I found a really simple solution: I plugged the monitor into the video port closest to the motherboard. That was a major hurdle solved with information from this site.

 

Regarding backups: I use Superduper, and it occurred to me that the Sandbox functionality would be especially useful for testing system updates. I have also found Time Machine useful to backup/restore configuration files like com.apple.Boot.plist and others while experimenting with settings.

 

Of course, this has been a challenging experience. But, I love a challenge like this, and I wasn't about to let this experiment beat me! So, I think I will forge ahead and migrate from my prehistoric G4 to the 21st century.

 

Oh, and top priority seems to be Hands Off if the system is stable!

 

Special thanks goes to the voodoo projects team for Chameleon 2.0 and voodooHDA. Thanks, also, to netkas for ATY_Init. And thanks to all of the contributors from this really cool community!

[Zaap]

The weirdest problem was when I switched screen resolutions and got a blue screen. The system was responsive to mouse/keyboard input, but only a blue screen showed. I was about ready to say "FSCK IT," when I found a really simple solution: I plugged the monitor into the video port closest to the motherboard. That was a major hurdle solved with information from this site.

I had trouble with an eVGA 8600GT/256 with dual DVI ports. I couldn't get video to work with DVI connected to the 'top' port. When connected to the lower port, all was fine. Likewise with dual monitors- no go with dual-DVI, but the 2nd port worked fine with a VGA adapter. It's probably some specific issue with certain 8600GT cards, as other cards don't have this problem.

 

Glad things are working out for you with your system!

[noNix]

I have two hacks, and two Macs, and have networking problems with all the machines.

 

The Hacks are worse however in that sometimes they appear on the network, but I cant use TelePort to control them, sometimes I can, and sometimes they drop a connection while in use. All machines are on a GigE wired network connected to the same Airport Extreme. I have also never been able to file share too the hacks, although I can use screen sharing to access the same machines and then file share back to the mac that I wanted to copy files to.

 

One of my hacks is an Intel Atom 330 based board that I use strictly as an iTunes jukebox connected to a high end USB audio system. Despite doing a bunch of research and applying all the recommended fixes I still get screen glitches with this machine.

 

The other thing that concerns me with hacks are the little things that come into play when things go wrong, like being able to press the C key on a mac to get it to start up from a DVD / CD instead of the hard drive, open firmware for hardware diagnostics, and target disk mode. Also just knowing that things are 99.99% going to work after a software update, particularly troubling with the upcoming 10.6

 

If your machines are not networked together / you only have the one machine things would be a lot easier and it would be easier to recommend as a sole / work machine, as it is I am still hesitant to use a hack in place of my three year old iMac 2.16 C2D for design work (CAD) even though I could have a much higher spec machine for the same money. When it comes to laptops, the Macs are in a league of their own. Nothing comes close in terms of build quality. Every time I open my MacBook I am impressed with how solid and well designed / put together the thing is, and that is worth the extra cost to me over a hacked Dell or some other lump of shiny plastic.

[Zaap]

I have two hacks, and two Macs, and have networking problems with all the machines.

 

The Hacks are worse however in that sometimes they appear on the network, but I cant use TelePort to control them, sometimes I can, and sometimes they drop a connection while in use. All machines are on a GigE wired network connected to the same Airport Extreme. I have also never been able to file share too the hacks, although I can use screen sharing to access the same machines and then file share back to the mac that I wanted to copy files to.

Weird. I've got all my machines networked, and never experienced much problem with filesharing. In fact, most of my files are accessed via a NAS, not stored locally. Mostly, I use supported gigabit PCI cards for networking though. Onboard networking on some boards can certainly be troublesome though.

 

One of my hacks is an Intel Atom 330 based board that I use strictly as an iTunes jukebox connected to a high end USB audio system. Despite doing a bunch of research and applying all the recommended fixes I still get screen glitches with this machine.

Onboard GMA950 on the Atoms does suck pretty bad, no doubt. Once again though, with systems with decent graphic cards, I haven't had any real problems. (For a brief time there was some trouble with 10.5.6, nVidia cards, and mouse-sticking, but that seemed to be cured pretty quick.)

 

The other thing that concerns me with hacks are the little things that come into play when things go wrong, like being able to press the C key on a mac to get it to start up from a DVD / CD instead of the hard drive,

I honestly don't see this as a PC negative, since actually (IMHO) the PC solution is even easier. Just keep the optical drive always set as the boot default. If a boot CD is inserted at startup, it boots. You can even press C! (Since generally, it'll say press any key to boot from the CD) Otherwise, the machine bypasses default and boots from the hard drive. Having to hold down a specific key to do the same thing doesn't seem to me to automatically be the better solution.

 

Very true about target disk mode though- a really cool feature that only real Macs have.

[FKA]

I spent quite sometime researching on the forums before deciding what to buy and now use my hack every day - the problem is I can't stop f^cking around with it - but that's half the fun/ education for me.

If you didn't mess around with it all the time/ update in haste - you can have a perfectly stable system.

 

I keep 3 installs of OS X

 

1 - that I mess around with and regulary bugger up.

 

1 - that I keep working for day to day use ... I only update this one when I know it will be OK. This also stops me being ridiculed for being an 'annoying b@stard that can't leave something that works perfectly well alone'!

 

1 - clone of the working install, just in case, that I regulary back-up.

 

All my precious things; photos, video etc are kept on a sperate HDD and backed-up to external. (I've lost a lot in my time and may be a bit over cautious now.)

 

My Mrs has a MacBookPro which is a thing of beauty - and so is she of course - I need a desktop and couldn't justify the expence of a MacPro so here I am.

 

I love it!

 

D.

[noNix]

Weird. I've got all my machines networked, and never experienced much problem with filesharing. In fact, most of my files are accessed via a NAS, not stored locally. Mostly, I use supported gigabit PCI cards for networking though. Onboard networking on some boards can certainly be troublesome though.

 

File sharing to a network drive - an 8GB USB stick permanently attached to the Airport works perfectly on all machines always. Its machine to machine transfers that I sometimes have problems with. I tried an supported external USB ethernet adaptor and it made no difference regarding my ability to file share from the hacks.

 

Overall though I am very happy with both machines.

 

My iTunes jukebox was around $400 with a 1440 X 900 pixel monitor and 500 GB hard drive that all sits in a silent case that bolts onto the back of the monitor to create a one piece unit. I could have done the same with a Mac Mini, but it would have cost more than twice as much, so despite the {censored} graphics I am happy.

[projekt k]

my hack runs like a champ. i havn't restarted it in 62 days now. And anytime the speed acts up i just reset it and everything is fine. my hack kills against a imac and could run decently close to a mac pro. I'm sure the mac pro could handle more since my processor isn't an i7 or a xeon. anyways hackintosh's are great for everyday use. i put 1200 into my investment though and I stopped updated at 10.5.6 mainly because if it isn't broke don't fix it.

[TomCom]

If it isn't broke don't fix it.

 

You said it all.