is "hackintosh" a no no

AJXX

I've done it once or twice with old laptops and it's an absolute pig to find drivers (kexts?) to get everything working, on top of that performance is usually not great and often you'll be frustrated with crashes and kernal panics.

I'd say if you're just doing it to mess around with or for personal use then go for it, but if someone is actually paying you to do it then I'd stay well clear or at least tell them it'll likely be problematic so they have clear expectations that it won't simply work as well as a Mac, otherwise you'll find yourself playing tech support to them for hours on end.


Hackintosh forums are a great place to go and learn how to do things (there's a fair few of them about).

Basically if I was doing it then I'd research the best hardware on the forums in terms of compatibility and available drivers and go from there. Else if you're using existing hardware and trying to find drivers it can cause a headace and hours of endless frustration getting things working or finding the cause of random glitches/kernal panics.

Big_Graeme

You can build a decent Hack, http://www.tonymacx86.com/building-customac-buyers-guide-january-2016.html

If you want a high end machine the figures stack up and you can get something that works right out of the box with no hunting around for drivers (Called kexts on Mac) or with just one or two to get graphics cards running right.

If you just want a low end machine the a Mac Mini does the job and will certainly cope with anything a medium size operation can throw at it.

pappa_golf

thank you for that info , I have checked that I have a sutable m/board available (asrock z97) and other parts , I have a i3 4170 spare so can utilise that


snow leopard retail is about £20 on ebay , however I have not got a dvd writer sat here

londonTiger

ok, hackintosh is fine for your own use, but I would never ever do it for a customer or client.

Firstly you're breaking Apple's TOS. It's not so bad if you do it for personal use but if you supply it to another party then that other party has power over you, they can report you to Apple at any time.

Even if the buyer is understanding, tey might go bankrupt and the machine go into liquidation and administrators take charge of all assets and sell them on. They sell this on as a mac with "custom case", they see all the paperwork on their asset pool register indicating they purchased from you. Now you have a cheesed of buyer who knows you supplied them with a hackintosh who didnt want a fake mac

The liabilities are endless. add to that the kernal errors the basically "brick" the hackintosh which requires a time machine restore. If you supply b2b there will be some expectation for you to fix that.

There is a small pool of high end editors and designers who are happy with a hackintosh they just wanted a supercharged mac and apple has turned their back on them. They may be happy to buy with the full understanding that it may break at any time. But it's a very small market and still to risky for me.

Fightsback

pappa_golf wrote: »

checked that I have a suitable m/board available (asrock z97)

Get a Gigabyte for a Hackintosh, less grief.

pappa_golf wrote: »

, however I have not got a dvd writer sat here

Read the Tonymacx86 guides.

Yes I have a Hackintosh but the drive isn't in my machine (it's in a draw) as I don't have really any use or need for it (OSX), it was a fun experiment.

pappa_golf

londonTiger wrote: »

Firstly you're breaking Apple's TOS. It's not so bad if you do it for personal use but if you supply it to another party then that other party has power over you, they can report you to Apple at any time.

do they own the rights to say that the OS that you can buy from them HAS to be used on a machine manufactured and sold by them?

londonTiger

pappa_golf wrote: »

do they own the rights to say that the OS that you can buy from them HAS to be used on a machine manufactured and sold by them?

No I don't but you agree to that when you press the I agree button when you install the OS.

And yes the TOS says the OS can only be installed on Apple hardware.

fishybusiness

Agree with londonTiger, have done it a few times. There is a certain amount of satisfaction from getting it all working...

Then it breaks, could be anything, sleep kext, browser issue, anything, plus getting Flash and like running reliably can be a pain.

Get it set up and running, how do you take a system backup so that you can rebuild without all of the kext hassle, and getting sound, video and wireless going again.

You could buy a 2008/2009 macbook pro, SSD it and you've got a speedy reliable machine. IMO it's not worth the ongoing hassle.

almillar

I've done this, even the hardware - my PC is inside a G5 Powermac case. OSX on a PC isn't worth it in my opinion. A good bit of pain to set up, you CAN dual boot with Windows, but you can't stay up to date easily - every little update to OSX can break it and you have to poke around with kexts.
This isn't illegal of course, if you've got a legitimate copy of OSX, it's just against Apple's EULA. It actually says the software has to go onto Apple hardware - well, my PC has a big Apple logo on it!
Anyway - pappa golf - 10/10 for ambition, but I still think it's not worth it. If you've got some budget, buy at least a Core 2 Duo Mac Mini (bring your own monitor, USB keyboard and mouse), do whatever work it is you need to do, and sell it again.

londonTiger

almillar wrote: »

It actually says the software has to go onto Apple hardware - well, my PC has a big Apple logo on it!

If OP wants to test the extent of that EULA clause in court after setting up a business providing hackintosh's they are free to do that.

But I wouldn't fancy my chances against Apple lawyers.