- You buy the right hardware. Intel CPU and AMD GPU. Choose Ryzen if you like those and like tinkering and hacking on your OS a lot. And no, it's very unlikely your Nvidia GPU will ever work with a recent macOS.
- You use the vanilla method of macOS install. The dortania guides along with /r/hackintosh are all you need. Avoid tonymacx86, insanelymac, and any software with the word "beast" in the name. Run screaming from them. Do not mess with the OS install, do not put any kexts into the OS install. Put everything into EFI.
- You set aside the occasional day for OS updates (and possibly updating OpenCore). You do not want to update willy-nilly and you definitely want to wait a day or few for the more brave to guinea pig any issues.
I've been using a 8700K/RX580 hackintosh for years now, and in many ways, it's been more stable than my actual Macs -- and certainly more modular and expandable.
Dont use Ryzen, virtualization does not work, including Docker and some other apps like Adobe ones are buggy. Other than that I agree. I made a hackintosh a month ago for half the price of what I would need to pay Apple and it is rock solid. Everything works including all wireless features like sidecar, airdrop, etc. Sleep, thunderbold, rx5700xt, everything is working well.
I'd sort of do it the sort of reverse way... Run KVM with pass-through to a VM MacOS instance and then run all your docker shit on the Linux host. Best of both worlds right there:
1. You get MacOS with GPU acceleration (which is like the primary feature for making it usable).
2. You get a legit environment to run docker containers... That doesn't have to boot a VM and rob you of all your ram. If you haven't ever used containers on a metal Linux environment, you're missing out... it's much better experience than doing it on a Mac (as far as development goes).
I joke in jest, but even official apple hardware has serious virtualization issues these days. Crazy kernel panics and vmware indicated they're not sure they can fix it (all in the hands of Apple).
I do agree that Intel HW is better for the hackintoshes though, even more so if you need thunderbolt!
I've been tempted before but am super wary of the fact I may suddenly become stuck on a certain version of macOS because updating it breaks everything.
I imagine you're knowledgeable as you've built one - is that a genuine risk? Or do all versions become hackable eventually?
This is only if you use a vanilla kernel, right? (Which of course has its own advantages, since with a custom kernel updating is guaranteed to be a pain.)
>The dortania guides along with /r/hackintosh are all you need
>Avoid ..., insanelymac,
Where did the tools mentioned in those guides come from then? Hackintosh scene became what it is due to countless hours poured into development by developers from insanelymac, olarila & couple of other Russian sites; almost every other major hackintosh site started as guides using the information from the aforementioned sites.
In fact the development discussion of OpenCore, happens at insanelymac[1].
The tools largely come from a Russian guy who goes by vit9696, along with some of his developer friends.
He may (loosely) use InsanelyMac for OpenCore discussion, but the rest of the site is generally full of questionable and often outright wrong advice and to keep things short for the noobs I was speaking to, it's easier to steer people away from it.
Pretty much everything can be done just using the Dortania guide and /r/hackintosh and maybe the "official" Discord, if something goes wrong.
Can't agree more on Intel CPU and AMD GPU combination. Ideally it'll be cousins of what Apple has used in their actual products, e.g. 8th gen processors and RX 580 or Vega 56 GPUs.
I've done it a couple of times and only takes an hour, with plenty of guides available on YouTube too. Especially if you need a high performance system, putting one together yourself can save thousands than purchasing from Apple.
My 2015 MBP is showing its age and I would love to build a powerful desktop as I spend 85% of my time working at the same desk. But I'm very accustomed to the Mac workflow and tooling. Years ago when I tried the Hackintosh thing I could never get iMessage to work and that made it a no-go for me.
Tonymacx86's useful information is smothered in a quagmire of utterly useless garbage, outdated, invalid information, and in general a user interface from 2001 where somewhere 65 pages of a single forum thread is the information you seek.
As a learning resource, it is a complete waste of time for trying to build a hackintosh.
> Avoid tonymacx86, insanelymac, and any software with the word "beast" in the name.
Huh. When did avoiding tonymacx86 become a thing? I built my first Hackintosh in 2010 and relied on tonymacx86 but I haven't paid attention to the community since 2014-onwards.
There's a ton of great advice on Tonymacx86 and InsanelyMac if you keep your tongue straight in the mouth, but also a ton of mediocre and even bad advice (like using their "helpful software"). Not to mention the petty conflict between the two sites.
In general you're much better off following advice from the Github guides, /r/hackintosh and Discord channels.
I haven't run a Hackintosh in over 5 years but there was this transition, it used to be necessary to install custom kexts and do some pretty weird stuff. Then came these uefi bootloaders that did some magic that let you install just fully vanilla MacOS. Pretty great but it basically made all the old guides and advice obsolete. I bet avoiding the old names can keep you out of trouble, even if they're probably still pumping out good stuff.
I've stopped playing with these around 10.5 - I had some unsolvable issues with my Radeon x1600 back then; OS updating was also somehow broken; the one of most popular "distributions" of 10.4 was most reliable on my hardware. I haven't touched Hackintosh world since then.
I know it's obviously impossible that Apple would ever enter PC market with MacOS but damn, that would be great.
It has gotten better in recent years. No one uses "distributions" anymore (or at least, if they do, its very misguided). Point-release updates almost always work fine if you set up the machine right—in fact, I've never had a problem from a point release update during a decade of Hackintosh use.
Damn, this is a buzzkill for me. I just built a new computer a month ago and was hoping to get a Hackintosh setup working but didn't do much research into it beforehand. Why will Nvidia GPUs never work? Because they won't publish open source drivers to work off of?
Because Apple computers don't use nVidia cards, and nVidia no longer makes their own Mac drivers (as they did until recently). Porting the Linux driver would be a massive amount of effort, even if nVidia was more open.
If you have a slightly older nVidia GPU (1000 series or older), it will work in High Sierra via nVidia's in-house drivers. But you will never be able to upgrade past High Sierra.
> - You set aside the occasional day for OS updates (and possibly updating OpenCore). You do not want to update willy-nilly and you definitely want to wait a day or few for the more brave to guinea pig any issues.
This is good general advice for updating even apple-built MacOS machines.
I use OpenCore, on my 2010 27" iMac of all things. Needed to enable target display mode and native brightness control on the new K610m GPU. So in essence, my actual Macintosh is now a Hackintosh in Apple's eyes.
I did something similar.. I had an original Mac Pro, which didn't support 64-bit MacOS because Apple's UEFI ran in 32-bit mode and Apple's boot loader / kernel never supported switching into 64-bit mode from 32-bit mode. So to use that machine for 64-bit driver development, I had to make it into a "hackintosh", where they had a UEFI that would run in 64-bit mode..
I bought an EGPU 1.5 years ago with the idea of replacing my gaming computer with my MacBook Pro running Windows. But due to the limitations of Thunderbolt 3 and the throughput from my enclosure, I cannot get consistent frame rates which is critical for playing fast-paced competitive games like Apex legends. It really sucks and this point, my $1000 EGPU is currently acting as a fancy adapter + charger + enabling smooth scrolling when surfing the webz.
But I have been exploring the idea of converting my gaming computer to a Hackintosh instead. This looks very promising since I require stability and security.
I just wished there was a combination of above solutions; no need to compromise between stability and performance.
Finally, some might say; just buy a Mac Pro! Well, I cannot motivate $6000 Just because I want to game every now and then.. :)
Why bother with Mac? I've just built a Xeon E5-2640 using a Chinese X79 motherboard. NMVe, proper Radeon RX580 GPU - in an open build test bench frame. All in all, something like $250 on eBay for everything. Runs the games I like well and looks great on the table, especially with two big red LED fans in front. :-)
Some people just greatly prefer using macOS over windows or linux and don't want their entire computer experience to be windows just because they play games now and then.
For me, the reason for a hackintosh is just that I am tired of all the cables and having to swap between the two setups (like having one monitor for working, and one for gaming) while utilizing the performance when working.
I also want to utilize my iCloud Drive symlinking hacks to sync files / dotfiles between systems.
My gaming rig is currently running i4790k with a fairly decent motherboard (Asus Maximus VII) that I bought used for $200 a two years ago. It still performs like butter as long as you have a decent gpu connected to it. I seriously recommend this setup if you want to save some dough (or maybe the new Ryzen CPUs are better now tbh).
A sidenote regarding monitors: These are some exciting times to be working from home combined with having an interest for gaming due to the new monitors coming out, working for both.
I am currently thinking about the LG 38WN95C-W. Really expensive, but if you use it 8 hours a day for 5 years, I think I calculated it to be like 50 cent a day. :)
edit: Oh, and yes, as someone below mentioned, I love macOS and a lot of the things I work on require me to work on it.
I was going to ask if that wasn't as loud as hell.
But it looks like the 2640 is a 65W part, so not excessive. Huh, not a bad buy for a few bucks, looks like you could get a 6C/12T board and cpu for about £60 from ebay.
(I don't need more computers, I don't need more computers...)
I was going to go that route for my 3D work, but at the time eGPU chassis and card was almost as much as an entire PC anyway. Decided to just go for the PC with the intention to hackintosh it but in the end Windows worked well enough for what I was planning to use it for, good thing I did too because now Nvidia doesn't work at all on modern MacOS so would have all been a waste of money if I'd gone the eGPU route.
I'm done investing workstation level costs into Apple platforms, I just can't risk them dropping support down the line anymore. Zero guarantee that another GPU will ever be released/supported for that Mac Pro.
Some might say "Surely they are not just going to develop that whole computer then discontinue it", why not? They did exactly that for the computer it was created to replace.
Similar thing here. I actually ended up finding that I downright preferred Windows, and I honestly find it a lot more stable and reliable in day to day use.
I ran the same route as you, and bought a eGPU enclosure and a GTX 1060 some years ago but then gave up after it frustrated me enough. Well it didn't work that bad but I had the feeling that OSX wasn't as stable as in the past and I was mostly using Windows 10 at work anyway (Visual Studio for SharePoint development) so I switched back after 6 years of using a Mac to a PC and haven't regretted it.
Windows 10 works great, there is WSL or I can run ubuntu on a Hyper-V or VBox.
The only thing I directly missed are Final Cut Pro X - but I now use DaVinci Resolve and Garage Band (I now use LMMS).
> Finally, some might say; just buy a Mac Pro! Well, I cannot motivate $6000 Just because I want to game every now and then.. :)
Depending on how much gaming computer you need for the games you want to play, it sounds like the better solution is to just build a gaming computer that runs Windows. That's my setup - a Linux desktop machine (small form factor, running on a machine from two generations ago, it's sufficient for the things that I need to do locally, and if I need to spin off a big compile I have cloud resources to do that) and a six month old gaming rig that runs Windows.
Why wouldn't you dual boot with the more powerful computer? Or alternatively just use Linux, with Proton the number of games available is already quite impressive.
Which is why I am finally going to make a switch to PS5 as my first dedicated game console after 2 decades of Gaming PC's. 500$ for a high performance box that will game for atleast 5 years that I can connect to my existing 4k monitors or my 4k tv is an insane deal.
I'm looking at doing the same thing. I've been struggling with my PC all week. Second time this year, usually the only good avenue for a fix is to format and re-install Windows... I've had enough. My Macbook Pro 2015 has been doing just fine for 5 years and is currently doing great with a new battery. So I'm almost officially a console guy now QQ, guess I'm getting too old for this sh!t.
I've been very happy with GeForce Now on my MBP (I run Apex regularly). Wired connection, stable upstream connection, etc are a must, but other than that, there's not much downside.
The bootloader development in Hackintosh scene never cease to amaze me. I remember the lead developer of Clover bootloader[1] Slice, still developing it on his old Dell with 32 bit Snowleopard when it was being used for Mountain Lion and later.
But the interest in Hackintosh seems to be slowing down[2]? , it's not like Macs have become affordable, if anything Mac Pro is prohibitively expensive and hackintosh generally made more sense to those struck with underpowered Mac Pro.
Most of all, what will happen to the Hackintosh scene due to Apple Silicon? Will the community take up the challenge and make macOS work on Raspberry Pi 10(I understand that Apple Silicon is not vanilla ARM spec) or fizzle out?
I can't explain those Google Trends and I won't blame you for trusting them over the feelings of some guy on the internet, but it doesn't match my own experience at all. On the contrary, Hackintosh feels like it has become bigger and more mainstream, relatively speaking.
(Mind, I still think the scene's days are numbered due to Apple Silicon.)
I think the answer is simply that Ubuntu has become good enough.
The whole point of running MacOS was to get POSIX compliance with a polished GUI. No Windows, pretty terminals smooth fonts good UX.
Now MacOS has no edge over Ubuntu in any sense. Ubuntu runs Docker natively and Cuda. It has an insanely user friendly installer, it runs on a wide range of hardware with no issues and its default GUI is great.
Yeah, linux now actually works with wifi, sleep mode, decent fonts, native docker, a good package manager and a variety of games, all at the same time!
For my own personal reason: I lost interest due to countless problems, the hours of endless tinkering and simply that macOS is not that far ahead anymore. It has some nice things, but ubuntu is very stable now a days. Sleep works, wifi works, and even games are decent on a powerful linux box. Apple dropped the ball on macOS and the hardware remained very expensive.
I'll give a big vote of thanks to the OpenCore developers.
Clover had constant stability problems during boot on my hardware (Coffee Lake, Z390), but OC has been stable since day one (v0.5.6 IIRC). I've not had a single issue since switching.
As someone who used to do this myself, I don't quite understand why people still go through all the effort to run macOS. In the past I've built Hackintoshes on desktops and laptops, and it was fun to accomplish (audio through HDMI was especially tricky!), but in the end it was slower, less stable, and not nearly as useful as running Linux on the same hardware. I run Linux on everything these days.
What's the draw? Better off buying a mac if you want the "Apple Experience" anyway. If you don't, I don't imagine why you'd want anything to do with this.
I switched away from a hackintosh tower to a real Mac recently because things lined up for that to make sense, but previously I hackintoshed because nothing came as close to checking all of my boxes for a desktop environment as even just out of the box macOS.
No amount of effort spent on customizing Windows does the trick because of things about it that are unchangeable (like its terrible text rendering), and while a Linux setup can get close (especially if eschewing a monolithic DE), it requires pouring countless hours into it to get it there, and even then many details are wrong and random things are flaky.
It's largely (if not entirely) due to the cost-to-performance ratio.
Apple's cheapest Mac configuration, the Mac Mini, starts at $799 for a measly i3 4-core processor and 8GB of RAM with no dedicated GPU. For the same price, I can put together something of at least 2X the performance: i5 6-core, 16GB RAM, and an RX 570/580 GPU.
Granted for Hackintoshes you're on your own for debugging but as others below have said and on r/hackintosh, the end product is oftentimes very stable. So tradeoff can be worth it, especially as you go up the product stack.
Price, flexibility, control are some of the top things that come to mind. Yes there can definitely be stability issues but if you are in some country where you want to develop iOS apps but can't really afford a high end Mac this makes sense. Also as a stepping stone into their ecosystem.
Also it is hard to underestimate the amount of polish that Apple puts into their UI. Overall it is a pretty good experience especially compared to some of the windowing systems on various flavors of linux. Polish is something that does not come easily in the open source world.
It's probably 2030 before Intel Mac are no longer usable, which is forever in tech time. ARM seems to be spreading its wings when it comes to high end CPUs at the moment (for example, the 96 core 4 thread ThunderX3) and it's not a big stretch to think that they will become commodity parts for desktops and servers in the near future, especially if Microsoft follow Apple's lead. Given brisk competition and open ARM licencing is quite likely to give x86 a run for its money and takes substantial market share.
Some people suggest that Apple will do some special custom hardware in the CPU that will mean Hackintoshes are impossible, but any hardware can be emulated in software, so it then becomes a performance issue. Maybe your ML workloads will suck compared to Apple hardware, for instance.
I think the biggest danger is that Apple ARM hardware doesn't support non-Apple GPUs, but even then some enterprising hacker will probably accept the challenge and enable a Linux driver bridge or the like.
macOS arm64 can run on non-Apple hardware using a relatively lightly changed KVM (and the Qemu-side changes are even less intensive than the iOS on Qemu project). However, it doesn't come without compromises on most hardware.
What I can enumerate as risk factors for running macOS arm64 in a VM:
- ARMv8.1 atomics are mandatory. This excludes Cortex-A72 devices, like the RPi4, and earlier generations.
- 16KB page support are mandatory, excludes the RPi4 and other devices too.
- Rosetta uses an MSR to switch the memory model, this makes x86 threads have to all run only at one core at once on Arm CPUs where there isn't a stronger memory model.
Notably, some Arm server CPUs provide TSO, making this a non-issue, and Nvidia's Tegra Xavier CPUs provide sequential consistency, making it a non-issue.
- PAC, not a big risk factor, trap once and then patch to the non-PAC variant at worst for instructions that aren't in the NOP space.
- FP16/dotproduct: provided in HW from quite some other manufacturers, and even when it isn't, you could feasibly emulate those fast enough.
On GPUs, Metal paravirtualization exists in macOS 11, maybe would be better to target that for reverse-engineering purposes.
I imagine it will continue to work as it does now while the macOS versions still support intel macs - what happens once we're past that is a huge unknown
I think it'll be a while (if ever) before the Mac Pro moves to an ARM CPU. It's not that I think Apple can't build a CPU to compete in that space, it's that I don't know that there's a large enough market to justify building that CPU. ECC memory, lots and lots of PCIe lanes, dual CPU capable, etc. etc.
You can take the iPhone CPU and make it into an ARM CPU for a laptop that can compete with Intel and AMD (somewhat) easily. That same architecture is in no way reflective of what people expect out of a workstation. Unless Apple is going to start running all of their own internal workloads ("Apple Cloud") on their own CPUs, I don't see it happening. And in order to do that, they're going to have to get mainline OS support for it, which again is a very different path to market than doing everything in-house with OSX.
Same architecture but this is all about the silicon and what extra hardware accelerated features can apple build into the OS by adding modules to their SoC. That will have little to do with the fact that it's using the ARM architecture in relation to getting those features to work on non Apple Silicon devices.
Readit News
- You buy the right hardware. Intel CPU and AMD GPU. Choose Ryzen if you like those and like tinkering and hacking on your OS a lot. And no, it's very unlikely your Nvidia GPU will ever work with a recent macOS.
- You use the vanilla method of macOS install. The dortania guides along with /r/hackintosh are all you need. Avoid tonymacx86, insanelymac, and any software with the word "beast" in the name. Run screaming from them. Do not mess with the OS install, do not put any kexts into the OS install. Put everything into EFI.
- You set aside the occasional day for OS updates (and possibly updating OpenCore). You do not want to update willy-nilly and you definitely want to wait a day or few for the more brave to guinea pig any issues.
I've been using a 8700K/RX580 hackintosh for years now, and in many ways, it's been more stable than my actual Macs -- and certainly more modular and expandable.
1. You get MacOS with GPU acceleration (which is like the primary feature for making it usable).
2. You get a legit environment to run docker containers... That doesn't have to boot a VM and rob you of all your ram. If you haven't ever used containers on a metal Linux environment, you're missing out... it's much better experience than doing it on a Mac (as far as development goes).
I do agree that Intel HW is better for the hackintoshes though, even more so if you need thunderbolt!
I was a bit light on my "try not to use Ryzen" fearing the hoards of responses from the "My Ryzen works fine, it's easy!" camp.
I imagine you're knowledgeable as you've built one - is that a genuine risk? Or do all versions become hackable eventually?
Deleted Comment
>Avoid ..., insanelymac,
Where did the tools mentioned in those guides come from then? Hackintosh scene became what it is due to countless hours poured into development by developers from insanelymac, olarila & couple of other Russian sites; almost every other major hackintosh site started as guides using the information from the aforementioned sites.
In fact the development discussion of OpenCore, happens at insanelymac[1].
[1]https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/338516-opencore-disc...
He may (loosely) use InsanelyMac for OpenCore discussion, but the rest of the site is generally full of questionable and often outright wrong advice and to keep things short for the noobs I was speaking to, it's easier to steer people away from it.
Pretty much everything can be done just using the Dortania guide and /r/hackintosh and maybe the "official" Discord, if something goes wrong.
I've done it a couple of times and only takes an hour, with plenty of guides available on YouTube too. Especially if you need a high performance system, putting one together yourself can save thousands than purchasing from Apple.
My 2015 MBP is showing its age and I would love to build a powerful desktop as I spend 85% of my time working at the same desk. But I'm very accustomed to the Mac workflow and tooling. Years ago when I tried the Hackintosh thing I could never get iMessage to work and that made it a no-go for me.
If yes, it's a good indicator you're going the right path.
If no, there be dragons.
(Tonymacx86 also has a lot of useful information, for better or worse, but you shouldn't start there.)
As a learning resource, it is a complete waste of time for trying to build a hackintosh.
Have you ever had to upgrade/change something hardware-wise to keep up to date with the latest MacOS versions?
Question is, can I buy some "optimal" Hackintosh hardware and expect it to work for upcoming MacOS versions for years to come (at least 3 years)?
Huh. When did avoiding tonymacx86 become a thing? I built my first Hackintosh in 2010 and relied on tonymacx86 but I haven't paid attention to the community since 2014-onwards.
In general you're much better off following advice from the Github guides, /r/hackintosh and Discord channels.
To a lesser extent good advice for non-hackintoshes
I know it's obviously impossible that Apple would ever enter PC market with MacOS but damn, that would be great.
If you have a slightly older nVidia GPU (1000 series or older), it will work in High Sierra via nVidia's in-house drivers. But you will never be able to upgrade past High Sierra.
For now, there are no Nvidia web drivers posted for anything after macOS 10.13.
This is good general advice for updating even apple-built MacOS machines.
So basically you short change yourself on both fronts. ;-)
If you have a 2010 or 2011 iMac with a dead GPU btw, check out this thread on the MacRumors forum: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card...
Dead Comment
But I have been exploring the idea of converting my gaming computer to a Hackintosh instead. This looks very promising since I require stability and security.
I just wished there was a combination of above solutions; no need to compromise between stability and performance.
Finally, some might say; just buy a Mac Pro! Well, I cannot motivate $6000 Just because I want to game every now and then.. :)
For me, the reason for a hackintosh is just that I am tired of all the cables and having to swap between the two setups (like having one monitor for working, and one for gaming) while utilizing the performance when working.
I also want to utilize my iCloud Drive symlinking hacks to sync files / dotfiles between systems.
My gaming rig is currently running i4790k with a fairly decent motherboard (Asus Maximus VII) that I bought used for $200 a two years ago. It still performs like butter as long as you have a decent gpu connected to it. I seriously recommend this setup if you want to save some dough (or maybe the new Ryzen CPUs are better now tbh).
A sidenote regarding monitors: These are some exciting times to be working from home combined with having an interest for gaming due to the new monitors coming out, working for both.
I am currently thinking about the LG 38WN95C-W. Really expensive, but if you use it 8 hours a day for 5 years, I think I calculated it to be like 50 cent a day. :)
edit: Oh, and yes, as someone below mentioned, I love macOS and a lot of the things I work on require me to work on it.
But it looks like the 2640 is a 65W part, so not excessive. Huh, not a bad buy for a few bucks, looks like you could get a 6C/12T board and cpu for about £60 from ebay.
(I don't need more computers, I don't need more computers...)
Dead Comment
I'm done investing workstation level costs into Apple platforms, I just can't risk them dropping support down the line anymore. Zero guarantee that another GPU will ever be released/supported for that Mac Pro.
Some might say "Surely they are not just going to develop that whole computer then discontinue it", why not? They did exactly that for the computer it was created to replace.
Depending on how much gaming computer you need for the games you want to play, it sounds like the better solution is to just build a gaming computer that runs Windows. That's my setup - a Linux desktop machine (small form factor, running on a machine from two generations ago, it's sufficient for the things that I need to do locally, and if I need to spin off a big compile I have cloud resources to do that) and a six month old gaming rig that runs Windows.
Source: I installed Catalina via OpenCore on a new machine last weekend. It's very similar to installing Arch Linux for the first time.
I've had enough of macos & its crappy software quality.
Windows 10 has been fine so far (though the control panel is a complete mess, they really need to start from scratch!).
But the interest in Hackintosh seems to be slowing down[2]? , it's not like Macs have become affordable, if anything Mac Pro is prohibitively expensive and hackintosh generally made more sense to those struck with underpowered Mac Pro.
Most of all, what will happen to the Hackintosh scene due to Apple Silicon? Will the community take up the challenge and make macOS work on Raspberry Pi 10(I understand that Apple Silicon is not vanilla ARM spec) or fizzle out?
[1]https://sourceforge.net/projects/cloverefiboot/
[2]https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Hackinto...
(Mind, I still think the scene's days are numbered due to Apple Silicon.)
The whole point of running MacOS was to get POSIX compliance with a polished GUI. No Windows, pretty terminals smooth fonts good UX.
Now MacOS has no edge over Ubuntu in any sense. Ubuntu runs Docker natively and Cuda. It has an insanely user friendly installer, it runs on a wide range of hardware with no issues and its default GUI is great.
Clover had constant stability problems during boot on my hardware (Coffee Lake, Z390), but OC has been stable since day one (v0.5.6 IIRC). I've not had a single issue since switching.
Also the documentation is second to none.
What's the draw? Better off buying a mac if you want the "Apple Experience" anyway. If you don't, I don't imagine why you'd want anything to do with this.
No amount of effort spent on customizing Windows does the trick because of things about it that are unchangeable (like its terrible text rendering), and while a Linux setup can get close (especially if eschewing a monolithic DE), it requires pouring countless hours into it to get it there, and even then many details are wrong and random things are flaky.
Apple's cheapest Mac configuration, the Mac Mini, starts at $799 for a measly i3 4-core processor and 8GB of RAM with no dedicated GPU. For the same price, I can put together something of at least 2X the performance: i5 6-core, 16GB RAM, and an RX 570/580 GPU.
Granted for Hackintoshes you're on your own for debugging but as others below have said and on r/hackintosh, the end product is oftentimes very stable. So tradeoff can be worth it, especially as you go up the product stack.
Also it is hard to underestimate the amount of polish that Apple puts into their UI. Overall it is a pretty good experience especially compared to some of the windowing systems on various flavors of linux. Polish is something that does not come easily in the open source world.
Some people suggest that Apple will do some special custom hardware in the CPU that will mean Hackintoshes are impossible, but any hardware can be emulated in software, so it then becomes a performance issue. Maybe your ML workloads will suck compared to Apple hardware, for instance.
I think the biggest danger is that Apple ARM hardware doesn't support non-Apple GPUs, but even then some enterprising hacker will probably accept the challenge and enable a Linux driver bridge or the like.
What I can enumerate as risk factors for running macOS arm64 in a VM:
- ARMv8.1 atomics are mandatory. This excludes Cortex-A72 devices, like the RPi4, and earlier generations.
- 16KB page support are mandatory, excludes the RPi4 and other devices too.
- Rosetta uses an MSR to switch the memory model, this makes x86 threads have to all run only at one core at once on Arm CPUs where there isn't a stronger memory model. Notably, some Arm server CPUs provide TSO, making this a non-issue, and Nvidia's Tegra Xavier CPUs provide sequential consistency, making it a non-issue.
- PAC, not a big risk factor, trap once and then patch to the non-PAC variant at worst for instructions that aren't in the NOP space.
- FP16/dotproduct: provided in HW from quite some other manufacturers, and even when it isn't, you could feasibly emulate those fast enough.
On GPUs, Metal paravirtualization exists in macOS 11, maybe would be better to target that for reverse-engineering purposes.
You can take the iPhone CPU and make it into an ARM CPU for a laptop that can compete with Intel and AMD (somewhat) easily. That same architecture is in no way reflective of what people expect out of a workstation. Unless Apple is going to start running all of their own internal workloads ("Apple Cloud") on their own CPUs, I don't see it happening. And in order to do that, they're going to have to get mainline OS support for it, which again is a very different path to market than doing everything in-house with OSX.
Same architecture but this is all about the silicon and what extra hardware accelerated features can apple build into the OS by adding modules to their SoC. That will have little to do with the fact that it's using the ARM architecture in relation to getting those features to work on non Apple Silicon devices.
Yet it cost less to build than the Apple charges for Mac Pro wheels.