
XPS9350-macOS – macOS patches for Dell XPS 13 9350 - vletal
https://github.com/syscl/XPS9350-macOS
======
shaki-dora
I run a hackintosh desktop with a i7-6700K, 32GB RAM, GTX960, Samsung 950PRO.
It's quite the beast in terms of performance and I've had less trouble with
drivers than I had with Linux.

That being said, I have a MacBook Pro as well, and it wouldn't feel right to
install macOS on a Dell notebook. Considering the value macOS has for me, and
other benefits of MacBooks (build quality, trackpad, possibly screen although
I haven't seen the DELL), I feel the price is fair and I don't want to
undermine those creating these excellent products – you may even want to
consider what today's DELLs would be without Apple. I doubt that we'd have
seen retina screens without their lead.

On the Desktop, where I do a lot of work in tensorflow, Apple just doesn't
give me a choice. The graphics and CPU options aren't available, and if they
were, it'd be almost a 5-digit sticker price. It's probably a net positive for
them because it lowers the chances of me leaving Apple to run an illegal copy
of macOS.

Note that setting up a hackintosh will probably cost you at least a day the
first time, and anything from "it just worked" to another day every time you
want to install an update. For a professional with opportunity costs, it's a
losing proposition for notebooks. The hackintosh community is also extremely
unprofessional, with many tools still on sourceforge, some doing strange
things that appeared to me to be attempts to get paid for work incorporating
GPL code, documentation being almost exclusively of the walkthrough-type (i.
e.: "set uia_exclude=HS12" with no explanation to be found anywhere as to what
"uia" or "HS12" are), and the worst user interfaces ever invented by anyone
not working for a printer manufacturer.

~~~
AsyncAwait
> I've had less trouble with drivers than I had with Linux.

I'd be interested to hear what kind of problems you had with Linux drivers on
a desktop, that isn't something most of us, Linux users, had major problems
with for almost a decade.

Even Pascal GPUs are supported, unlike on a Hackintosh.

~~~
kkielhofner
It would be really nice if there was a stable, maintained, and officially
supported virtual machine implementation for OS X. I have an insane desktop
running Linux that can do anything and everything I need. However, if my needs
suddenly expanded to include occasional Photoshop use (for example) I'd have
to pull out my Macbook Pro. Yes, in my case I also have a Windows 10 VM for
occasional use (probably Photoshop, don't know) but I'd much prefer OS X.

I understand why a Mac OS X virtual machine might not be completely compatible
with Apple's overall business model but perhaps something available through
the Apple developer program? Something, anything, would be nice.

~~~
thatcat
This [0] tracks issues for a vagrant macOS setup. Not official, but its
technically allowed if you already own a mac that runs the version you want.

[0][https://github.com/AndrewDryga/vagrant-box-
osx](https://github.com/AndrewDryga/vagrant-box-osx)

~~~
bostand
I can confirm this works reasonably well and includes xcode and some other
stuff IIRC.

------
dcdevito
As a Mac user of 9 years, I sold my 2015 rMBP and eventually built my own rig
and went the hackintosh route. But it wasn't worth it, sound would drop after
each update, I had some weird visual glitch near the Apple menu logo, there
still isn't any driver support for GTX 1070/1080 cards, and I had major
sleep/wake issues. In the end it wasn't a Mac experience, it was almost as
much work as Desktop Linux but far less work than Windows 10.

So I stuck with Windows 10

~~~
e40
I lasted a couple of years with my hackintosh. Every dot dot release was a
nail biting 2-4 hours. Unlike you, though, I can't handle Windows. I used
every version of Windows from 3.1 except Vista, and Windows 8 was the last
straw for me. I still use Windows in VMs (for supporting my customers). For me
macOS (on Apple hardware) is still worth it and better than the alternative. I
suspect my next move will be to Linux.

~~~
dcdevito
Win8 was a disaster. Win10 is what 8 should have been. It's fast, stable and
reliable.

~~~
neovive
I use Windows 10 at work and Mac at home and find my web development work
transfers pretty well across platforms. VirtualBox/Vagrant keeps the
environments pretty consistent and the tooling is mainly the same for the work
I do (PHP/Laravel, Python, JS/VueJS, MySQL/SQLite). My primary IDE's are VS
Code and WebStorm and I use Adobe Creative Cloud for design and asset
creation. Git-Bash is a big help on Windows.

~~~
rtkwe
Even better there's now the full Ubuntu subsystem on Windows 10. I've not
really pushed much at the edges on it but it seems pretty complete.

~~~
sp0ck
Yes - that was my assumption too, after reading how they did it. I've
installed it, launch first command (tcpdump) to sniff traffic and got error
message. Second command "ip", another error. Got back to Linux :)

------
Etheryte
What's awesome in my opinion, it seems this is a side-project of a student.
From the project readme todo list:

    
    
      Next week I have 3 final exams, so I will be back in next Wednesday

~~~
lanius
He certainly looks very young, judging from his Github profile picture. Wish I
was that smart at that age!

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tambourine_man
From big things, like being able to run photoshop on a unix machine, to small
things, like the command key not competing with control, beautiful text
rendering, OS X is almost perfect, and it's been for so many year.

Why oh why can't they freaking update the damn hardware.

This is one of those situations where Apple secretive culture really hurts the
entire industry.

A simple statement like, we screwed the Mac Pro redesign, but a new one is
coming in June, we had manufacturing problems, or we are not interested in
this market anymore, would be a lot better than simply selling a 3 year old
computer for the same price.

That doesn't do anyone any good

~~~
Johan-bjareholt
Be very careful with calling any software more than a few hundred lines
"almost perfect".

The case here is that you have gotten used to the workarounds of macOS,
because I'm pretty certain that most people that are not fanboys will agree
that all operating systems have a lot of really ugly parts and it's just a
matter of choosing the one that has the least downsides for your use case.
Operating systems are way too big to be able to be even close to perfection.

------
heydonovan
I'd love to ditch OSX, but I can't work on Windows. Last time I used Windows
was with Windows XP, but now that bash has been ported over, does that mean I
should be able to do all the things I can do on my Macbook? SSH to remote
machines, install rvm/mongo/postgres, update all my packages with something
similar to brew, etc.

~~~
joekrill
I'd argue that Windows has actually gotten worse. The Bash on Windows thing is
nice -- but Windows 10 has become such a huge pain. And obviously this is
anecdotal. But I just have so many random problems with it. Things crashing,
reboots whenever it wants to, constant slow downs for no apparent reason. I
finally just installed Ubuntu on my laptop and I've been much happier.

~~~
john_reel
I’ve had the opposite experience on my Surface Pro 4 and desktop. Everything
is much more stable than on Windows 7, where I would often find myself needing
to do manual maintenance after something like a power outage. On Windows 10, I
haven’t had any huge problems. My Surface Pro 4 (and many others) were
disasters on the first versions of Windows 10, but now it is stable.

~~~
joekrill
Things have definitely gotten _better_ for me (I still run Windows 10 on my
Desktop). But I had to basically reinstall everything at one point.

One tiny thing that drives me absolutely nuts: it used to be when the lock
screen was showing, I could immediately start typing my password to login. Now
there's this second or two delay, so the first few characters of my password
don't get entered and I almost always "mistype" my password the first time I
login. I don't know why, but this really bothers me.

~~~
freehunter
I thought I was the only one! Everyone I ever complained to has said they
didn't have that problem. That alone is enough to make me quit using your
software.

------
sgt
I noticed the DELL XPS13 is a touch screen laptop. As a person who generally
obsesses about having no finger marks on my computer screen (I feel
differently about my iPad), I find it interesting that people would want to do
this. Any other views?

~~~
josteink
> As a person who generally obsesses about having no finger marks on my
> computer screen

For me it's about screen glare. I absolutely refuse to buy a machine with a
non-matte screen.

~~~
robotresearcher
XPS 13 has matte screen option.

[http://www.mobilegeeks.com/dell-xps-13-matte-vs-
glossy/](http://www.mobilegeeks.com/dell-xps-13-matte-vs-glossy/)

------
Jonnax
If it's almost fully working, what isn't working?

Ah, there's a todo list, missed that on my first look through:

    
    
        Refine AppleHDA
    
        New FixUSB.sh to fix a bug that external devices will disappear when cold boot into macOS
    
        Import IOPowerManagement
    
        ACPI Keyboard

~~~
dizzy3gg
TODO List

Next week I have 3 final exams, so I will be back in next Wednesday! What I
will do next week are listed below

\- Remove patched ACPI tables directories(precomiple, raw, comiple) every time
before acpi compile - Add reboot fix ResetAddress = 0xB2 and ResetValue = 0x73
to script using auto detection from FACP table - Refine ACPI patches such that
all XPS 13 9350 users can enjoy(still in progress)

Refine AppleHDA New FixUSB.sh to fix a bug that external devices will
disappear when cold boot into macOS Import IOPowerManagement ACPI Keyboard

------
pilif
The README file doesn't reference iMessage and Facetime. Traditionally, these
are very picky about the machine they are running on and normally refuse to
sign in on Hackintoshes.

Has anybody tried the steps here and tried using iMessage?

~~~
sleepychu
Have you tried variations on this?[0]

[0] -
[https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/2wohwn/getting_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/2wohwn/getting_imessage_working_on_10102_generating/)

~~~
sounds
Very interesting post. In it, I learned that Apple automatically blacklists
Apple IDs who log into iMessage using a Hackintosh -- Apple is not "anti-
Hackintosh" but spammers apparently try to create lots of accounts, calling
customer support you can get yourself un-blacklisted by answering some
security questions.

The instructions basically avoid the blacklist.

------
mosselman
A video would be cool. This seems like a fun projects for hackers, but I
couldn't just install this and drop it off at my mom's for her to use it
seems.

~~~
thehnguy
Yeah. You don't want to setup your family member with a hackintosh.

However, for folks like me who are really disappointed with my MacBook Pro
options, and really impressed with the PC innovation we're seeing, I'm
interested.

~~~
op00to
Interested in running untrusted code not signed by Apple? k.

~~~
jmkni
The madman!

------
technofiend
I wonder if Apple could sell a developers edition of MacOS that supported a
vetted list of non-Apple hardware? Even if that was a short list and it was
$999 a seat, I'm thinking people would pay the price to stay with their
preferred OS and run the latest hardware.

~~~
vbezhenar
> I wonder if Apple could sell a developers edition of MacOS that supported a
> vetted list of non-Apple hardware? Even if that was a short list and it was
> $999 a seat, I'm thinking people would pay the price to stay with their
> preferred OS and run the latest hardware.

How that situation would be different from now? It's not like Apple actively
trying to defend itself from hackintoshes, they just don't care at all, so you
can use hackintosh if you want. Apple supports selected list of hardware which
is present in their products and it's not something proprietary, so you can
buy those parts and build computer.

For $999 I bet most people would just torrent it. For $99 there wouldn't be
enough purchases to justify a lot of additional work, especially support,
because selling product presumes that you're going to help customers with
their issues.

What Apple probably would do is just to release their OS X free without legal
restrictions and with some working installer, loader, etc. It's not a lot of
work and you're not getting support if you're not buying their hardware. Then
hardware manufacturers would build drivers, at least for some of their
hardware. Now hackintosh doesn't exist for manufacturers, because it's not
completely legal and community around hackintosh isn't good enough to write
their own drivers.

~~~
anonnyj
>It's not like Apple actively trying to defend itself from hackintoshes

Really? Going off sample size of 1 / gut feeling, OSX is the only OS that was
seemed actively hostile at every step for emulation / dual boot.

Win XP/Win 7/several flavors of Linux were all a relative walk in the park.

~~~
Jonnax
They're not suing people unless they try and sell things.

Also they aren't sending Cease and Desist or DMCA notices.

Softwarewise it's only designed to run on Mac hardware and it is in breach of
the licence to run a hackingtosh

------
kybernetyk
It's really astounding how well OS X works on notebooks.

My brother has an old Thinkpad X220 (with IPS panel) which he converted into a
Hackintosh. The only thing he needed to do is to replace the internal wifi
module with another one (cost roughly $8). This was done in 15 minutes as the
old Thinkpads are highly serviceable.

He's pretty happy with the machine as a MBA replacement. (He's waiting for an
update MBA model. That optimist.)

I myself converted my gaming rig into a hackintosh some time ago. Now I got a
beefy "Mac Pro" for a fraction of the original's price. Also I can upgrade and
fix it myself.

When my current 2013 MBP breaks I think I'm going to buy the small MacBook
(the plain one) and do my heavy computation work on the Hackintosh.

~~~
new299
If you buy the MacBook I recommend you try the keyboard first. I find it
absolutely awful to type on. The specs are also pretty poor. I'd opt for a
Macbook Air perhaps?

------
pjmlp
I really don't get the Hackintosh culture.

If one wants a Mac it should buy one, not kind of "pirate" it to run on a
Frankenstein system. It is the whole experience that counts.

If one isn't willing to pay for Apple's hardware, or not happy with the
existing options, then get a PC and whatever flavor of open source UNIX
variant and help improving the whole experience.

~~~
romanovcode
Maybe they want OSX but not 3 year old hardware.

~~~
pjmlp
I get that, but I think the efforts trying to make OS X run on their hardware,
would be better served improving the free UNIX desktop experience to close the
gap to OS X.

------
zachruss92
Cool project, congrats on getting a far as you have. Hopefully the remaining
To Dos won't give you to much of a hassle!

------
omouse
Ugh why would you ruin a perfectly fine GNU/Linux machine with Mac OS X?! ;-)

------
alien_
How hard would it be to convert it to other more or less related laptop
models?

Would it make sense to have a shared component that applies on multiple
models, and a smaller part to be model-specific?

------
hapless
Your karma check for today:

There once was was a user that whined

his existing OS was so blind,

he’d do better to pirate

an OS that ran great

but found his hardware declined.

Please don’t steal Mac OS!

Really, that’s way uncool.

(C) Apple Computer, Inc.

------
bitwize
DMCA shutdown of this repo in 3... 2... 1...

~~~
apocalyptic0n3
Apple has actually been pretty tolerant of the Hackintosh community so long as
they don't share pirated copies of macOS or try to profit from it. I doubt
they will have any issue with this project (or the dozens of other projects
like it)

------
EE84M3i
To clarify: this is OS X (MacOS 10)? What version/release? As far as I can
tell it doesn't explicitly state anywhere in the README, let alone title.

~~~
helb
Yeah. Apple renamed "OS X" to "macOS", starting with 10.12.

There are some conditions for handling "10.12+" and "10.12-" in the Deploy.sh
script, so i reckon it aims to support multiple versions.

------
adultSwim
What's the process for updates?

~~~
kennell
Minor updates, security patches etc. via the App Store usually work just fine.
Major OS updates (like going from El Capitan to Sierra) are a pain in the a
__. But there is no guarantee for any of this, as a rule of thumb: the closer
you are to "original" hardware, the less problems you will experience.

------
jmkni
Nice work!

Almost tempted to try it on my XPS 15!

------
ge96
Macbook Air vs. Dell XPS 13 Infinity, first step, get a job.

