
Ask HN: Anyone here use a Hackintosh as one of their main machines? - peruvian
I&#x27;m not sure if this is allowed here as it&#x27;s technically &quot;not legal&quot;, but while I love my MacBook, nothing beats having a comfy desktop computer at home with a ton of storage. I know I&#x27;m in the minority, but I miss it.<p>Unfortunately I am very much used to OS X and highly productive in it and Apple&#x27;s desktop offerings are pretty poor right now (correct me if I&#x27;m wrong), so unless I decide to go for Linux, I&#x27;ll try a Hackintosh.<p>What I&#x27;m looking for are experiences with them for someone who just wants a computer to code, torrent, and watch movies from and doesn&#x27;t care about iMessage working. I probably won&#x27;t update my OS X much either.<p>I keep hearing widely different things about Hackintoshes so I thought I&#x27;d try HN.<p>Thanks!
======
zavulon
I've used a Hackintosh as a main development machine for a few years. I spent
~ $800 on parts, and an equivalent (top of the line) Mac would've cost about
$4K, so the money savings were great.

However, it was a gigantic pain in the ass to maintain and I wouldn't
recommend it. Updating the OS is a nightmare, resulting in me staying with
10.7 while everyone was on 10.9. Things that you would expect to work out of
the box with a normal Mac do anything but - there's effort required to make
anything perform as expected. And there are some things that just never work
as intended - like the sleep mode that I was never able to figure out.

Troubleshooting issues is a nightmare - there's no support, and you have to
spend tons of time browsing through threads looking for someone with a similar
problem. Then if you get to a situation when you have to ask a question, you
sit and pray for someone to answer, because if they don't you're stuck.

Eventually, I bought an iMac, and couldn't be happier.

In general, if you're the kind of a person that enjoys tinkering and
troubleshooting, and have plenty of free time, then go for it. But if you want
to spend your time on other things, and want your computer to just work, I
would definitely not recommend it.

~~~
nik736
While I agree with you that years ago (>3) a Hackintosh wouldn't be a wise
choice to go for a productive environment, a LOT has changed. I am running
mine since 2 years now and am on the newest Mac OS version, most of the time
the App Store updates work flawlessly (even though it's not recommended),
alternatively you could just go for a small SSD, put everything else on
another SSD and/or HDD and you can reinstall the SSD with the newest version
which shouldn't take longer than 15-30 minutes. I am not doing that, I am just
saying it would be a choice. I completely reinstalled my Hackintosh only once
in those 2 years and that was from Yosemite to El Cap.

Sleep isn't a problem anymore if you buy the correct hardware, the question is
also why you even would want to use sleep when it's booting within some
seconds anyways...

In the beginning, like with the first setup, it probably takes some hours, you
should probably even calculate a day to set it up like you want it. But in the
end I probably saved 2k EUR going the Hackintosh route and don't regret it at
all. I don't even notice it's a Hackintosh anymore...

~~~
creshal
> Sleep isn't a problem anymore if you buy the correct hardware, the question
> is also why you even would want to use sleep when it's booting within some
> seconds anyways...

To keep your open programs?

~~~
nik736
Well, isn't there an option to just do that also on reboot?

~~~
creshal
Sure, if you don't mind diligently saving all documents on shutdown, or your
browser loading every single tab anew after starting, …

Applications are stateful. Sleeping keeps all that state.

~~~
RotsiserMho
Have you ever used OS X? Application state can be preserved and restored
across reboots. Most apps do this automatically. Actually I haven't
encountered one that doesn't.

~~~
philsnow
I run almost exactly three things on this MBP: screen (shells), emacs, and
Chrome.

\- My nested screen sessions with a ton of shells doing things all over the
place don't get restored on reboot \- My emacs state doesn't get restored on
reboot \- Chrome reloads all the pages from the network instead of just
serializing its entire state and restoring it on reboot

(All of the above are true on linux too.)

~~~
tedmiston
I've heard it's possible to persist some of the state of shell sessions across
reboot using tmux + the resurrect plugin.

------
dolguldur
My Hackintosh opened my eyes. It made me realize how sad it is that Apple
doesn't offer sensible Mac Pros anymore.

Even most tech people think in terms like "do you NEED it?" and "a laptop
should do it", etc., when the reality is still as simple as 4.4GHz > 2.5 GHz.

Of course a fast PCI-connected SSD is also very important. All new mainboards
have an M.2 slot for this, it's just that most people completely underestimate
how much you will feel this speed gain in everyday usage.

Anyways, money was also the main reason I built one. I absolutely don't regret
it.

The quintessence is: don't get your teeth too deep into some problems that
will arise. Onboard sound doesn't work? Buy a cheap USB-Dongle. iMessages
doesn't work. Well, I ended up using iPhone for replying to these and if it's
a longer conversation, I'll do it on the MacBook. Bluetooth is unreliable? Try
another crappy dongle from Amazon and don't even bother about refunds. Sleep
doesn't work? Well, see how little this thing draws in idle and postpone any
action for some months.

You might be able to get rid of all the arising issues by fiddling enough, but
in the end these are what make the experience unpleasant and the Hackintosh
becomes a time-sink.

If you stick to the basics, you get a very fast machine.

~~~
grzsrgdr
>Try another crappy dongle from Amazon and don't even bother about refunds.

If you are willing to pay return shipping you will always get a refund if the
product has no defect (within 30 days of purchase). It's automated. You don't
need to explain how you tried to use the product with a Hackintosh.

~~~
mark212
I think the commenter meant that the usb Bluetooth dongles are so cheap it's
barely worth even filing the return. I got mine two weeks ago for $7.50 and
it's worked perfectly since. Not exactly a do-or-die investment.

------
awesomerobot
After running a Hackintosh for about 6 months a few years ago I became
convinced that they're not really for budget-minded Mac enthusiasts, but for
people who enjoy maintenance and troubleshooting.

Unless you're on a tight budget and planning to use existing hardware, I
strongly recommend going the way of a Mac Mini and spend the time you would
have lost to building a Hackintosh on literally anything else.

~~~
eterpstra
This was my experience exactly. Seemed like a great idea at the time, but
always required some sort of maintenance at various times that required
researching solutions, posting on message boards, and trial-and-error.
Basically, it's the same amount of effort required to run a linux based
desktop.

~~~
awesomerobot
I'd argue that it's more effort than running a popular distro like Ubuntu
because the hackintosh knowledgebase is generally a lot smaller.

~~~
b_t_s
totally agree.

------
cweagans
I went down this route once. It's not worth it. You'll spend _so_. _much_.
*time. troubleshooting the smallest of details at seemingly random intervals.

Frankly, if Linux is an option, try that first. It's less work and more fun
(IMO). I've been strongly considering actually running Windows with the Linux
subsystem turned on. If you think about it, that solves the same kinds of
problems that a Mac does: you get nice Unix-y functionality, a wide variety of
shells/cli utilities that just work, and you can run commercial applications
(Photoshop and the like come to mind, but also games if you're into that). Of
course, it's not a Mac and you get all of the nastiness that comes with
Windows (viruses, having to reload every 6 months to keep things snappy, etc),
but I'm beginning to see it as a more economical option than a Mac and
potentially easier to deal with than Linux (as someone that has been using a
Mac for a workstation for years + Linux on servers and other workstations).

~~~
joshstrange
> You'll spend so. much. *time. troubleshooting the smallest of details at
> seemingly random intervals.

> Frankly, if Linux is an option, try that first.

I don't doubt the time sink from hackintosh (I did it some 6-7 years ago and
it worked 90% of the way but that was on hardware that I just had and didn't
buy the recommendations). That said linux, for me at least, was a huge
timesink as a desktop. I love it and will only use it for servers but for a
desktop/laptop I'll probably not stray from Mac (or Hackintosh) and MacOS.

Edit: For those downvoting I am only talking about desktops. I work in an
environment where nearly all the developers use linux as their desktop OS as
it's that or windows (or BYOC) and anytime someone decides to update their
distro or switch they will inevitably spend a day messing with graphics card
drivers, odd errors/issues, or tweaking an ungodly number of low level configs
to get it to work. After all of that they have a semi-stable desktop with a
handful of annoyances "Oh it just does that and I haven't have to time to
track down the cause". While you might deal with some of that on homebuilt
computer with MacOS I'd pick a hackintosh any day of the week due to the
higher quality apps.

~~~
prophet_
I did just that.

Mac > Hackintosh > Linux. but....

In the end I found out it was far worse having to deal with the crappy alpha
version apps for linux than fixing the hackintosh. If you are used to the
quality of mac apps you will certainly miss them once on linux. I did.

This was until the day the Hackintosh died with an unknown freaky kernel issue
and I made the best decision I ever made: bought a second-hand quad core mac
mini.

I never want to hear about hackintoshes ever since.

------
gargravarr
I've experimented with Hackintoshes a few times. All things considered, the
OSx86 project delivers. I too am a Mac person and find OSX to be the most
usable OS out there. I've switched to Linux (not too painful if you're willing
to learn) but the thought of returning to Mac OS when I bought a new laptop
was there.

As has been noted, Apple's current hardware lineup is unimpressive and even a
little embarassing. Their 'Pro' level computers haven't been updated in years.
Granted, the general performance improvement in that time hasn't been
dramatic, but lower power consumption, faster graphics etc. are all factors
that stop the current lineup being the cutting-edge it once was. You also run
into the problem that none of Apple's current computers are (significantly)
upgradeable - even MacBook Pros have soldered RAM and a proprietary SSD
interface.

So with these factors in mind, I'd say go for it. I managed to get 10.9
installed and stable, even with the App Store and other features. You can find
drivers for almost any hardware, especially when you factor that like Linux,
plugging in a device almost always Just Works with Mac. The project has
brought USB3.0 and other current-gen drivers to OSX. It's difficult to answer
the legal aspect, but if you've legally purchased your copy of OSX, you should
have a clean conscience.

In my mind, Apple have long neglected their professional market and arguably
brought this upon themselves. There really ought to be a machine between the
iMac and the Mac Pro, one close to a commodity PC that could be easily
upgraded. However, Apple are aware that people gladly buy Macs just for the
OS, and are more than happy to hold them over a barrel for it.

------
Hydraulix989
I built a Mini-ITX hackintosh with recommended hardware (Gigabyte mobo, half
mini PCI express wifi/BT card, NVIDIA GTX 980, etc.) for mobile development
(iPhone), and it is fantastic, with only a few quirks. It's running El Capitan
(I actually started with Mavericks and upgraded it), but I haven't installed
any of the minor version updates from the App Store (averting the imminent
breakage disaster).

Xcode runs like shit on my Macbook Pro -- it's very laggy, but my hackintosh
has "trashcan" Mac Pro spec'd hardware, Xcode runs like a dream, and it only
cost me $600 in parts.

I did spend a good week setting it up and tweaking various Clover settings and
kexts (I mistakenly copied them over manually instead of patching them in
Clover so next time I upgrade, I'm going to have a fun time).

It took some work to get HDA and Bluetooth 4.0 to work, and the wifi doesn't
work so well, but I use ethernet anyways. Finder also runs a little unstable,
but I switched to using Pathfinder.

Overall, it's lightning fast, stable, and very responsive -- an equivalent Mac
Pro would have been $4k.

------
anon1253
Been running Hackintosh as my main development machine for over 5 years. Yes,
it's been frustrating. But if you pick your parts right and are not too eager
about installing updates it really can be a stable solution. Right now
everything is working, from USB 3.0 to audio, to Bluetooth. Even iMessage and
Hands-off work flawlessly. Although I'll admit that this has not always been
the case, and I've spend many nights in frustration fiddling with obscure
parameters and kexts. For me the main motivation is that I really like Unix-
like systems, but I also need Adobe software. That means both Windows and
Linux are out for the time being. I've tried various permutations of virtual
machines, but they never seem to work (especially not on "retina" displays
...). I could buy a Mac Pro, but the hardware is just too overpriced, and
since I've started doing some Deep Learning stuff I would really like an
Nvidia card (which are oddly still supported, albeit unofficially, by Nvidia
on Hackintosh).

------
aroch
I run several hackintoshes + real Macs as my primary work machines and
personal use. Getting Facetime/iMessages to work is relatively straight
forward and easy if you'd like them (even easier if you have a real Mac too).

Machines:

Dual Xeon | 64GB RAM | GTX960 | 4x4TB HDD, 3x5000GB SSD

(My oldest) Core i5 | 24GB RAM | GTX 680 | 3x4TB HDD, 150/250/500 SSDs

Intel Nuc i3

I'm happy to answer any questions!

~~~
nickjj
Since you've built a few, you likely have a good idea of what hardware is
compatible.

Most guides I've seen are very incomplete or don't list specific models of
everything -- or if they do, it's only for a specific point release.

At a glance do you think this hardware would be good for now and future
versions of El Cap + Sierra when it eventually ships?

I built this back in 2014:

MOBO:
[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157512)

CPU:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JIJUBAS](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JIJUBAS)

RAM:
[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231615)

GPU:
[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487024)

SSD:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KFAGCWK](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KFAGCWK)

HDD:
[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236339)

PSU:
[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207013)

Microphone:
[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16836431...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16836431024)

(Mic and overall audio performance is very important to me due to recording
courses, podcasts, etc.)

~~~
aroch
Should be fine, you may need to update the bios on your mobo, but other than
that looks good

~~~
nickjj
Thanks for the reply. How confident would you be in it?

For example, if this is your primary work station for completing somewhat time
sensitive things (books, courses, weekly podcasts, etc.) would you feel comfy?

What type of worst case scenarios are we looking at if an update fails?

~~~
mwfunk
For a hackintosh, there's no such thing as comfy, only minimally scary. The
worst case scenario is that your system becomes unbootable and/or data loss.
Being able to live with these possibilities is a requirement for hackintosh
ownership.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, just that there is no guaranteed safe path
and you'll always be at risk for an update borking your system. The best you
can do is make maximally informed decisions and prepare for the worst. And
ideally have your hackintosh be a secondary machine that can die at any moment
without screwing up your life.

It's a great hobby project but (like others have said here) it's something you
do because it's a fun and interesting ongoing challenge. There's really no
context for anyone in which building a hackintosh is a rational choice made
for purely pragmatic reasons. FWIW, I wouldn't consider saving money a
pragmatic reason- the ongoing time and risk involved will always exceed
whatever money has been saved, unless your time has little value and you have
nothing to lose (which admittedly is the case for some hobbyists or students,
but good luck getting anyone to admit that :).

~~~
nickjj
Unbootable without being able to revert it without formatting?

I put together the above for around $750 over 2 years ago. A somewhat equiv.
MBP is like $2,750 (and would still be worse in nearly every aspect spec for
spec).

I value my time and sanity but some of these stories make it seem like if you
have a good combo of hardware it's an hour or 2 per year just to handle some
updates and a bit of chaos. I think I'm willing to trade that to save nearly
$3,000 since for me it would be buying a MBP vs hackintoshing my current
machine.

The problem and cause of hesitation is due to it being my only machine capable
of doing my primary work.

------
fernandomm
I've been using a Hackintosh as my main machine for more than 4 years. Mostly
for Ruby on Rails and Mobile development.

The "secret" is to get a hardware that is supported (
[http://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/july/2016](http://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/july/2016)
) and wait a few months before upgrading when a new OS X versions comes out so
that all upgrade bugs are fixed.

When I started I had a graphic card that didn't worked well. Every 5 or 6
days, the UI would freeze completely. I simply got a graphic card that is
supported and the problem went away.

My current uptime is 183 days and I only had to reboot because I decided to
add a new SSD. I also have a mac mini but almost never uses it as the
Hackintosh hardware is far superior.

------
rprime
Proud owner of an Hackintosh here, I've been using one for quite some years
now (6-7 years) back when installing it was a real pain in the ass and a real
gamble, now with the right hardware, you can install OSX faster than
installing Windows 10 or Ubuntu. Upgrading to a new version is a bit of a pain
in the ass sometimes, but no more so than on linux most of the time.

I've tried multiple times to switch to Linux (multiple distros) and making it
play happy with 2 _4K monitors & 2_24" was never easy, Windows 7/10 lags when
the 24" monitors are running, so I've to keep them off when using Windows
(mostly for gaming), OSX has been running the show great and smooth.

I recommend you try it, although again, the secret here is in buying the right
hardware, of which there're plenty of guides online.

Good luck.

------
couldbeMe
Hi there,

Several years ago I built a hackinstosh workstation for a family member that
is still going strong. Now that Macs are on Intel's architecture setting one
up is a fairly straightforward process if you pick out the right hardware.
This website single handedly assisted me in the creation of that hackinstosh.

[http://www.tonymacx86.com](http://www.tonymacx86.com)

~~~
chx
Tony's site is the closest to legal this can get but since your install will
be illegal anyways why not go with Niresh's Yosemite Zone?

~~~
couldbeMe
Thank you for the suggestion as I am unfamiliar with Niresh's Yosemite Zone. I
purchased both the OS and hardware. How is that illegal?

~~~
greg5green
The OS X terms and conditions say you can't install it on non-Apple hardware
:/

------
nickjj
You mentioned having a MacBook. What's preventing you from just using that at
home too? Just grab an external HD. It's like $60 for a 1TB drive.

You could always hook up a real mouse too and a bigger monitor if that's what
you want.

Now all of your problems go away (you have something you can code on, it's OSX
which is what you like and you don't have to mess around with a Hackintosh).

~~~
toephu2
Monitor compatibility with MacBooks is an issue. I can't get native good-
looking resolution when connecting to my Acer LCD.

------
gjkood
Here's what I do to satisfy my cravings for Macs. I just buy used Macs from
OWC/MacSales (www.macsales.com). The 2012 machines are pretty affordable and
will give me years of service even if bought today.

I have outfitted all my family members with used Macbook Airs (average price
$499) except for my son who is holding out because he believes he needs
nothing but top end Graphics Cards to run games.

I know this doesn't directly address the Hackintosh question, but provides an
affordable alternative to splurging on brand new latest and greatest Macs or
hacking together an unsupported system.

------
Karunamon
I did this for a year or two.

Pros:

* It's a mac, with decent specs, on a budget. Considering I was running dual boot on a machine I already owned, it was free!

Really, that's the biggest and only one.

Cons:

* PITA to set up and make everything work, and this on a hardware configuration that is explicitly supported. In my case, to get everything working, I had to wipe my OS (since a GPT partition table is required), install, bail out and reinstall after finding the right combination of kernel flags, and then after I got it running, I had to hex edit my graphics driver (!!!) to get the second display to work.

* Updates are scary, and will ~%50 of the time lead to a broken system. Unbreaking it is easy (usually just updating and rerunning the prep tool), but still annoying.

* Never was able to get sleep mode to work. I had to disable it, since if I used it, my CMOS was wiped!

-

That sounds bad, but this was also years ago. The tools have gotten better,
and I had a working system in an hour or two with a lot less screwing around
just a month or so ago. Everything but sleep mode Just Worked too, though
updates were still scary.

------
midgetjones
I have looked into them in the past, but I don't really feel like Linux is a
huge learning curve coming from OSX, especially if you stick with one of the
well-known distros.

Even if it is a learning curve, it's probably one that will be at least
somehow useful professionally.

------
phodo
What if you stayed with Mac and invested in some goodies:

For storage: Why don't you get an external SSD with a fast connection (eg
Thunderbolt)? Depending on your budget, data rates can be 450 MB/sec on up to
20GB/s if I recall correctly. I am running a Samsung SSD at 450, and it does
fine (a bit laggy sometimes, but it was under $100).

For GPUs: You can buy an nvidia card and mount externally. Here is a good link
(though I haven't gone that route yet) :
[http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-build-an-
external...](http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-build-an-external-gpu-
for-4k-video-editing-vr-and-gaming/)

~~~
ShakataGaNai
"Step 3: Run Boot Camp." \-- Why bother buying a mac, bootcamping it to
Windows... just to use a better GPU? Why not just use a Windows machine to
start with?

------
Jaruzel
I ran a Hackintosh a few years ago on a Samsung laptop. Like Linux of yore,
your key issue is hardware support. To have the best success with a Hackintosh
you need to nail down exactly what hardware will work with it, and buy that
hardware. Just trying to bung it on a spare box you have lying around is
asking for trouble, a lost weekend, and a very cranky spouse.

Hunt around on the Hackintosh forums, find a hardware list that works, get the
bootloaders or kexts you may need, and give it a go. I won't say it's not
worth it, because I do know people who run Hackintoshes on a daily basis
without issue. However, you will not be able to upgrade easily. Every major
macOS upgrade will require a rebuild.

------
joeyrobert
I've had good success running OS X El Capitan on an i3 Intel Nuc. It's my main
music composition platform, mostly for Logic Pro. It's a cheaper Mac Mini in
that you can get one with the required parts (SSD and laptop RAM) for under
$400 USD.

As I own no other Apple products, it helps having an Mac in house to run the
occasional Mac only software.

Here's a guide [1] with a matrix on how to install it on other NUC models.

[1] [http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-el-capitan-on-the-
in...](http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-el-capitan-on-the-intel-
broadwell-nuc.171942/)

------
rajangdavis
I have been using a Hackintosh for the last 2 years and I love it. I bought a
Dell
([http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15-5000-series/pd](http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15-5000-series/pd))
and had a friend set up the Mac VM; the only issue that I can recall is that I
couldn't use Sound Cloud's API (I vaguely remember what the issue is).

I installed a SSD not too long ago and the computer runs both VM's, no
problem. One of the best decisions I have ever made.

------
lossolo
I don't know about desktop but running Hackintosh in VM oh man what a
nightmare, i run different OSes in VMs (Linux, Windows in different versions)
inside my OS for testing and i never had any problems but hackintosh works
like trying to run windows 10 on pentium 2. It's slow as hell, i have problems
with sound, rendering is awfully slow and is losing frames, it hangs without
reason from time to time. This are my experiences with hackintosh inside VM, i
don't know how it works as standalone OS.

~~~
mercora
i run them on KVM and have not much of an issue. But i do not use them for
much really. However i was actually somewhat surprised that it runs as well as
it does... I dont feel much of a difference to running windows on KVM except
that RDP works much better than VNC...

Im running these on a Core2 Duo E8400...

------
pella
see:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Hackintosh](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Hackintosh)

FOR EXAMPLE :

"Building My $1,200 Hackintosh"

[https://medium.com/swlh/building-
my-1-200-hackintosh-49a1a18...](https://medium.com/swlh/building-
my-1-200-hackintosh-49a1a186241e)

hn:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12024949](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12024949)

------
eterpstra
If all you are doing is coding, torrenting, and watching movies, what about a
'osx like' linux desktop? [https://elementary.io/](https://elementary.io/)
comes to mind. I think there are others, as well. The amount of fiddling and
maintenance required with a hackintosh is no different that running a linux
box. In fact, your hardware options will be greater with linux (e.g. AMD
cpus/gfx cards, wifi adapters).

------
pdevine
I use a hackintosh as my main desktop at home for the reasons you describe,
32GB RAM, terabytes of storage, much cheaper than Apple's offerings. Here's
the thing, it takes a time investment to update it, and updates can be
unpredictable.

I spent several days playing with various settings to get everything working--
would have been easier if I had chosen a motherboard that's mainstream in the
hackintosh community--didn't buy the machine with this in mind. Once up and
running I thought I was home free, then 10.10.2 came out, thought I'd just
apply the update, took me 4 hours to get my machine back. Since I've learned
more about it I can now update my machine in about 10 minutes but it's taken
much trial and error to get here. I've had to read a lot of forums with
conflicting advice and try to debug with endless reboots.

Since then most updates have gone smoothly, though rarely an update will bork
the video drivers or the Ethernet due to changes on apple's side. I spent 2
hours one time getting sound to work. I'm glad for the learning experience but
at this stage I often debate if I've spent more time on maintenance than the
cost of just paying Apple their ransom for a nice machine.

If you're game for the time investment I'd say go for it. Definitely research
which motherboard to use, I think that's been a big part of my struggles is
having one nobody else uses I'm having to invest a lot of time in debugging my
particular setup. The drivers have been the big deal, I've at various times
had trouble with video, sound, Ethernet, and usb 3.0. Today I have everything
but sleep working and am on the latest El Capitan release. YMMV.

~~~
arviewer
So to get this working you need to have an image of your disk ready at all
times, to be able to go back when you need it. I suppose you have your Users
(home) folder on a different partition so you can just whipe the root
partition.

I'm glad with my Macbook. It's expensive, but it works. I've thought about
moving to Ubuntu, which I use at work since five years, but still lacks in
some points compared to the Mac. And finding a modern laptop that just works
with Ubuntu, while being significantly cheaper than the Macbook is not easy.

------
celly
I'm the same way as you. There is something about having a desktop set up the
way you like it, and having a Laptop set up the way you like it because my
mobile work style and desktop work style are completely different.

So, back to your question. Yes. I tried it, and hated it. It was fun at first,
but like everyone says, anytime there is a problem (And oh, there will be
problems) You're sorta screwed. If it is a Hobbiest machine, and not a primary
work machine, then sure give it a whirl.. Just don't over invest in hardware
that you can't return or reuse on something else.

What I ultimately ended up going with was a MacMini. I got a late 2012 Core
i7, which is one of the last Mini's that you can upgrade ram and HDD. Maxxed
out the ram, and put in a speedy SSD and it ran me about $700. This lil guy is
still a beast -- with it's biggest limitation is the shitty video card.

What sucks now, is this same Mac Mini setup will run you $1400. That is
bonkers.

Honestly, If you can, try waiting to see what Apple releases in the next few
months. The Mini is due to be refreshed or Killed. My guess is it'll be
refreshed and be given beefier video options, especially if apple releases a
new cinema display.

Good luck!

------
chaostheory
The main point of a Mac and why you are "highly productive" in it is because
"things just work" with a nice Unix environment. When you go the Hackintosh
route, things will no longer just work. Your life would be easier just going
with Ubuntu or buying a Mac Mini.

This said, I still don't understand why Apple doesn't release a Mac Pro lite.
A screenless laptop (Mac Mini) isn't good enough and a big screen with a
laptop embedded doesn't cut it either. Personally I got a last gen Mac Pro on
Ebay for a quarter of the price of a new Mac Pro. The problem is that now the
upcoming MacOS update isn't compatible with it...

I've also gone the Ubuntu route and I've found that it's really only good for
development and some Steam games; not to mention that with every small
official update from Canonical, I'm wondering what part of my UI will break
next?

------
WayneBro
Don't do it. Buy a refurb 2012 Mac Pro from OWC/MacOfAllTrades/wherever and
upgrade the ram and SSD yourself.

~~~
ex3ndr
This macs are unsupported by latest macOs

~~~
WayneBro
Incorrect. The minimum requirement is a Mac Pro 2010 or higher. I recommended
buying a Mac Pro 2012.

\- [http://osxdaily.com/2016/06/14/macos-sierra-compatibility-
li...](http://osxdaily.com/2016/06/14/macos-sierra-compatibility-list/)

\- [http://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/mac-software/will-my-
mac-r...](http://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/mac-software/will-my-mac-run-mac-
os-sierra-3521736/)

------
amykhar
I have not used a Hackintosh. But, I have a Mac Mini at home that I upgraded
to max out the RAM and add a SSD. With the addition of an external drive for
media storage, it ended up being perfect for the needs you describe. In
addition to my home use, I take it to trade shows for work to run as a demo
web server for our product.

~~~
unixhero
Well that was exactly what OP was not looking for in an answer.

------
greenbee
I have a 5-year old Hackintosh still going strong on El Capitan. I would say a
few days each year of maintenance is a minimum to keep it running smoothly and
updated.

I started off with free parts from friends and bought a semi-supported
motherboard. Since then I've upgraded a GTX, added ram, switched PSU, added TB
drives and bluetooth. My advice is to get supported parts as far as possible.

I get a huge productivity boost when I can use it because I can plug in
several huge displays and my best keyboards/ mice. It's exactly like having a
Mac Pro except slightly more fragile.

I can foresee still using my Hackintosh for the next few years because it's
performance hasn't degraded. I will just keep swapping parts and upgrading as
needed.

Plan for it to fail during crunchtime, and make sure you keep your Macbook
handy. My Macbook Pro and Hackintosh work synergistically to repair and update
each other :)

------
tedmiston
I spent $800 to build one circa 2011 and tried to use it full time. For that
price you got great hardware relative to what Apple was putting in anything
close to that price point.

There was one bug I couldn't get past... I don't remember exactly what it was
now, but it had to do with audio out and the Sound preference pane forgetting
about your speakers and having to be opened after every restart. Perhaps
someone who's been working on them for a few years can describe it more
precisely.

I also remember inexplicable kernel panics. And updating the OS was tricky.

I ended up using it just a few dozen times, then it mostly collected dust (I
still have it today). A lot of that probably had to do with needing a portable
computer every day. It was just more convenient to keep everything on a
MacBook and dock it to a keyboard and monitor on my desk at home.

------
mark212
I just built one, my first, last month. Works just fine, including sleep /
wake and upgrading a minor OS release and installing apps from the App Store.

I used the TonyMac recommended set up, of which there are a ton of
permutations, picking the i5 6600K CPU and a fairly middling ASUS Z170
motherboard. The onboard graphics is a huge step up from my mid-2011 i7 Mac
Mini Server. Popped in a 960 gb SSD and it runs like a charm. I also have a
MacBook Pro in hand in case things go really bad but so far no issues at all.
(Except Messages, but I didn't use that on the Mac Mini so no loss there.)

Can't recommend it enough. Great rig for about $600 including case and power
supply, and when I'm ready to upgrade most of that investment will carry over
(SSD, case, PSU, keyboard, monitor, etc). Far more sane and cost effective
than the 5K iMac I was considering.

------
jalvarado91
I had a beefy gaming pc, but the graphics card died. I didn't have the money
to shell for a comparable one, and I had been using the machine for developing
more than gaming. So I got a cheaper graphics card and a wifi card, and went
through the set up.

I've been using it for 2 years and a half now. I was on mavericks for a while,
skipped yosemite, and did the clover setup for El capitan. Now I have regular
updates that don't break everything, and this works pretty much as well as my
MBP. I'm on android, so I don't worry about iMessage, but everything else
works just fine.

It might save you some bucks if you get some deals on parts, but I'd say it's
almost as efficient to get a mac mini. I'd say that the only advantage, is
that you can easily upgrade parts if you come across the money since you have
your own case and build.

------
Artlav
Not sure that it would be any better than Linux.

At one point i needed to port a game to iPhone, which, for context, requires
MacOS and their whole stack of locked-up tools.

At first i tried to run MacOS in a VM (VmWare), which kinda worked, but moving
files in and out of it caused all sorts of crashes (more like the files got
stuck and couldn't be read or deleted, the system itself almost never
crashed).

Then, i tried to install MacOS on a laptop (high-ish end Lenovo), with similar
sort of success - it would just crash at random and WiFi wasn't working.

Finally, i went and bought a second-hand MacBook. Worked beautifully ever
since.

Going back to the first sentence, i found MacOS barely usable compared to both
Windows and Linux, so if all you want is to code (not for mac/iphone), torrent
and watch movies, then Linux does all that with none of the Mac's problems.

------
vasac
I'm using it as a main development machine. Also, I'm using MacBookPro when
traveling and for some sort of a backup if main machine fails.

So far (and I'm using it for a last two years) I'm very happy. Yosemite
upgrades were somewhat painful as it took me couple of hours to upgrade each
time but I couldn't be happier with El Capitan - since tonymacx86 switched
over to Clover bootloader every update goes like this:

1\. upgrade through AppStore to the latest OX X version

2\. install new version of Nvidia drivers (OS X must be booted with disabled
Nvidia GPU nv_disable=1)

I also had to apply fix for sound card but that was one-time endeavor.

So, excluding time needed for a regular OS X update, in a last year I spent
maybe 3-4 hours extra on keeping Hackintosh in working state.

------
cowpewter
I ran one as my primary work machine about 5 years ago and then built a
duplicate for home. Yes, it saved me money (I built the box for about $600 and
it was hardware equivalent to probably a $2000 mac at the time) but you
basically couldn't ever install any update (even security updates) unless you
were mentally prepared to potentially lose half a day to troubleshooting.
Usually they installed fine, but you could never be 100% sure in advance.

This meant putting off updates longer, which would lead to bigger updates,
which only raised the chances of things going wrong. By the time OS X had gone
up two major versions I just stopped using it and got a Mac mini and dumped
more RAM in it instead.

------
nlopez
I've used a hackintosh as my main dev machine for 4 years now. Got everything
working, audio, webcam, usb3, even some additional SATA PCI-E controller. What
I basically did was using one of the lists of "recommended" hardware from
tonymac's site and bought the best of each component.

I've got some issues with updates as many other people commented, but having a
HDD specifically for timemachine backups was key for not stressing too much
about it. I can try updating and risk breaking everything, and I know my stuff
is going to be there even if I roll back to a previous version.

I'd definitely recommend it, but it's not as easy as buying a MBP. But the
results are really good.

------
AWildDHHAppears
If you haven't looked at windows lately, look at Windows 10. It's wonderful; I
"switched back" from Mac, and so has everyone else at the office, except for
ios development.

So you can get exactly the hardware you want and a stable experience.

------
EasyTiger_
I have a Hackintosh for web development. It's extremely stable - the only
kernel panic I've had was due to Razor mouse drivers. I have hardware that is
very hackintosh compatible however. Also, I ended up changing out my USB
wireless adaptor for a PCI express one which is natively supported by OS X
rather than mess about with drivers etc. Everything works - iMessage, Facetime
etc. If you have compatible hardware and some free time I would recommend it,
I would NOT recommend it if your hardware is atypical and requires bludgeoning
to get Mac OSX onto it.

I should add that due to my experiences with OSX my next desktop purchase will
definitely be a mac.

------
Philipp__
If you pick the right hardware things will be pretty smooth! But it is called
Hackintosh for a reason. Things can get ugly, but if you backup your system
you could be pretty safe. Go to tonymacx86, de facto best resource for
Hackintosh builds. Process can be a bit nerve wrecking but I think it is
rewarding thing. I learned a lot about macOS just through using Hackintosh for
3 years. But let me tell you, buy iMac/Macbook and Chromebook (for Linux).
Hackintosh is great but you may spend a lot of time tinkering about some
trivial thing (I'm bit of a OCD person).

------
nkohari
I have a Windows machine that I use for gaming, and a MacBook Pro that I use
for work. Both are connected to the same monitor, which can toggle between
inputs. For storage, I have a Synology NAS, but an external USB3 hard drive
would work just as well.

This isn't the most budget-conscious setup, but it's the best of both worlds.
I looked at building a Hackintosh as a single machine solution before I built
my Windows machine, but decided that it wasn't worth the hassle. As best as I
can tell, it's a constant uphill battle of keeping things configured
correctly.

~~~
2almalki
when you toggle between inputs for the monitor, are you using the buttons or
some software? Also how are you connecting the mouse/keyboard? I have 3
monitors, and would like to toggle all 3 from MBP and my desktop.. currently I
just use one monitor for MBP and other 2 for desktop.

~~~
nkohari
I use the monitor's toggle. For keyboard/mouse, I have a separate keyboard for
the two computers, and my mouse (Logitech MX Master) has a toggle that lets it
switch between computers. I'm not sure how you'd do this with a multi-monitor
setup, but there's probably an intermediary DisplayPort controller that would
let you do it.

------
funkjames
VMware workstation can be modified using an enabler to allow support of Mac OS
X within a virtual machine. The functionality is there already in Workstation
but it's hidden away by default. El Capitan installs with no problems. It
might work as an option for you if you're not overly dependant on the OS for
native graphics. If you want Bluetooth/Wifi to work without any hassle, it's
worth looking on eBay for native Mac components in USB or PCIE form (generally
found by searching for hackintosh and the component)

------
nicolapcweek94
I tried running it as my only os on my daily driver laptop a few years ago
(mountain lion, I think), checked all the hardware before even thinking about
installing it, everything was "fully compatible"... and it was pretty bad. The
os itself kinda worked (except for audio dying after a while and standby not
working), but the experience in general was horrible (laggy ui, things
crashing everywhere, even a few kernel panics).

Keep in mind this was a few years ago, but I wouldn't recommend even trying
wasting the time to try installing it.

------
bechampion
I've used one for 2 years ... things worked and it was rather stable ... but
stay away from updates. Later i bought a macbook and used it for a while , now
days I run ubuntu , everything works well for software dev and all that ...
but webex and other fancy webapps(flash or activex) are always a problem. My
company uses lync , so i use a combination between bitlbee weechat and
bitlbee-libpurple ... works but sharing desktops and voice calls obviously
can't be done.

Good luck!

------
sxg
I thought about a Hackintosh as well, but I ultimately decided on just getting
two monitors and keyboard/mouse and hooking up the MBP to the setup. Way
better than the headache of dealing with a Hackintosh in my opinion. You also
have the benefit of only having one computer to deal with, so no issues with
syncing files and apps. It's also much cheaper than building a whole computer.

------
Fard
I built one back in 2011 for 25% of the price of an original mac. It was my
main development machine.

Check out: [http://www.tonymacx86.com](http://www.tonymacx86.com) \- It is the
one that I used and it was perfect.

It was super fun to build one. Buying the parts, assembling it, install the
software was a little challenging but fun! Mine still works, I think about
keeping it.

------
milankragujevic
I have been using a Hackintosh for about a week to test drive OS X before
buying a Mac. I don't recommend it, I spent 2 days trying to get it to work on
AMD hardware, and in the end the results were poor. Ended up buying a MacBook
Air and an Apple keyboard and mouse and a 2TB USB 3 HDD for storage. It's
great for me, works flawlessly.

------
SwaroopH
I have a powerful ROG Asus G750JX that I use as my main machine which has dual
boot with OSX 10.9 and Windows 10. It was a bit of pain to set it up, haven't
gotten the time to update it but it works mostly fine. Even the top end
Macbook Pro is no match to the specs I have on this 2.5 year old ROG: 3.2Ghz
i7, 32GB RAM, GTX 770M 3GB.

------
anfogoat
I've been using one for a little over a year with frequent OS updates and have
had no problems so far. However, setting it up was stressful and each time I
apply an OS update I image the drive prior, in case something does go wrong.

Once you have it setup, the biggest drag is that you have to be ready to fix
the potential damage after each update.

------
cameroncooper
When I set up my Deep Learning rig I intended to run Linux, but ended up
installing OS X and have had a great experience. Really no other way I could
get a Mac with these kinds of specs:

Titan X, 32GB Ram, 6-core i7-5820, hot-swap SATA bays, water-cooled CPU/GPU.

Would definitely build another in the future, especially given the status of
Mac Pros.

------
unixhero
It always was a fun idea for me to run that juicy Unix OS on my x86.

In my case - I tried a lot, albeit back in 2008 and 2009, but wasn't able to
get it to work reliably on different machines. I ended up in a quagmire of
undocumented problems and errors, forum-hunting, loading kernel modules by
hand - kext hell. Do you really want to?

~~~
untog
It's not unreasonable to think that a lot might have changed since 2008/9.

~~~
unixhero
Sure

------
ryaneager
I've been waiting for the Mac Mini to get refreshed. It'll do everything that
you want for $500-800 and you can always add a thunderbolt RAID if you need
more storage.

I would like one that can support multiple 4k monitors, but we shall see. They
are due for a refresh since the current offerings are a few years old.

~~~
zwetan
I'm a big fan of mac minis but the RAM soldered on board is a "no go" for me
and so also thinking of going hackintosh only for that reason.

------
serge2k
> Apple's desktop offerings are pretty poor right now > What I'm looking for
> are experiences with them for someone who just wants a computer to code,
> torrent, and watch movies from

an iMac will do things fine, possibly with extra storage.

A hackintosh is cheaper and more flexible, but an iMac will do what you are
describing.

------
lostotheracc
I run a multiboot workstation with OS X, Linux, and Windows. My preferable for
daily use and coding is my archlinux desktop but since I dabble with iOS dev
every once in a while I'll use my hackintosh and end up using it for days.

So yes, it's totally stable and will work for you. Just be sure you get the
right hardware.

~~~
swah
What advantages you see of running archlinux vs Ubuntu? I wonder if I should
change my default server distro...

~~~
mercora
i would not recommend archlinux as a server distro. Things break sometimes and
typically in a server environment you care more about stability than about
running on the bleeding edge. Its not unreasonable unstable though extra care
is needed.

------
pieterr
I would not call the 27" iMac "pretty poor".

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/11/mini-review-test-
drivin...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/11/mini-review-test-driving-a-
fully-loaded-4000-27-inch-5k-imac/)

~~~
sotojuan
I mostly meant the price:performance+storage ratio, but happy to be proven
wrong.

~~~
pieterr
Do you take maintenance time (is money) into the equation too?

~~~
sotojuan
That's what this thread was for :-) Looks like a good amount of day to day
maintenance is still required.

------
segmondy
I thought about it, considered, decided it's not worth it and bought a used
macbook, either 2010 or 2011 with 8gb of ram for $200 from craigslist. I use
PC keyboard, PC mouse and it drives a 2560x1920 monitor. I don't have to worry
about an OSX update breaking the computer.

------
wineisfine
A friend of mine has a nice hackintosh running just fine, with some quirks
like iMessage not working.

Going the Linux route would mean misssing out on a lot of nice software.

I personally think the IMacs have great value. Have a 2011 model, maxed out
ram, running El capitan smooth as hell.

------
manav
I used to complement my MacBook with a hackintosh. I now have a beefy xeon
server running esxi. This lets me run windows/mac/and primarily linux.

I'd still consider my MacBook my main machine even though my storage and
faster processing is remote.

------
b_t_s
I tried that about 5 years ago because I was temporarily broke, already owned
a mostly compatible PC, and wanted to do iPhone dev. It was a nightmare. It
took like a week to set up & managed to brick itself within a year. If you
absolutely _need_ a mac then just buy a mac. I've even recommended that people
who want to make an iPhone app buy a mac, make the app, and then sell the mac
again when they're done, because the alternatives, like hackintosh, are such a
pain. If you don't absolutely _need_ it to be a mac then just go linux and
save yourself a ton of aggravation. Apple laptops are head and shoulders above
the competition, but their OS kinda stinks compared to linux, especially for
power users(this coming from someone who's used OSX about 5 times as much as
linux). Oh and those trashcan mac pros are insanely powerful if you really
_need_ OSX on beast mode.

------
navaru
I used one for about 8 months in 2012, had a good setup and no issues. Saved
enough cash and bought a MacBook Air, now I own a MBP.

I was really happy with the outcome. Before I was a linux user for about 4
years so the transition was easy for me.

------
nix0n
> while I love my MacBook, nothing beats having a comfy desktop computer at
> home with a ton of storage.

Maybe buying a whole PC of any kind is the wrong approach. Get a cooling tray,
mouse, keyboard, monitor, and some USB3 storage.

------
byandyphillips
Yeah I'm obsessed with my dual boot Windows 10 / Yosemite hackintosh. As
others have said, it requires the right components and time, but the reward in
the end pays off. I'd recommend it!

------
kentt
I used a Hackintosh for iOS development. If you buy parts that are generally
well supported, you'll likely have minimal issues if any.

------
Glyptodon
My brother has one and it's more or less impossible to keep it up to date.
It's also somewhat less stable than a regular Mac.

------
bbritton8
I have been running one for over a year now no problems at all updated to el
capitan no problem everything works great.

------
tambourine_man
How I wish Adobe would release their CC suite for Linux. A blessed distro and
custom Wine version.

Mac laptop, Linux desktop. Maybe someday.

------
Kinnard
This seems like something that would get a lot better if you developed a real
community around it.

------
dataminded
I used one every day for two years. I loved it. The only time it was unstable
was when I did major OS upgrades.

------
lamontcg
Its a bit of a PITA, it kind of depends on the cost/benefit analysis as to if
its worth it to you or not.

You should definitely look at if an upgraded MacPro with bumped up RAM and CPU
would cut it for you. If you need an upgraded GPU or you want the latest CPU
(i.e. you have workloads that you know are single-threaded on the CPU and just
need the fastest single core possible and 3 year old cores won't cut it for
you) then a hackintosh may make sense.

My experience is that roughly every three months you can expect to burn most
of a day (call it 4 solid hours) yak shaving on something. This happened to me
this week where my machine wouldn't boot and just black screened. I had to
boot into safe mode with the graphics card disabled + yanked and apply the O/S
upgrade. That got me far enough that after a very slow boot up I could start
without safe mode, which let me reinstall the bootloader. I also upgraded the
graphics driver and did a few other settings tweaks and now its back and happy
again and the graphics card is back in it. But there was a lot of rebooting
and using my laptop to surf the web to figure out possible solutions and
trying multiple different dead ends before I started to make progress in
making it more bootable.

I'm pretty comfortable messing around with this stuff having started my career
as a PC tech 25 years ago, and first started building my own patched linux
kernels sometime in the late 90s.

I've got a friend of mine that uses macs professionally to do video editing
and if she had to go through this she'd be even more dead in the water than me
and would probably take her longer to recover and my advice to her has been
that I don't know how to build a hackintosh that she could rely on day-to-day
without suffering interruptions like this.

I'm actually happy enough with it that I'm not going back to windows and not
interested in buying a MacPro, but its not for everyone.

One thing that was a showstopper for me with my Linux desktop (and I do miss
my il3 tiling window manager) is that when I bought a 4k display so that I had
mixed 4k + 2x 2.7k displays xorg just became a total clusterfuck. They pin all
the displays to 96dpi and you can't change it and have to set font-sizes per-
application -- and then AFAIK nobody has any solution to having different
resolution displays that you drag windows between. I found an open issue which
just had some xorg dev explaining down to everyone how they didn't really need
resolutions that small other than on phone screens. On the other hand Mac +
Windows Just Works(tm) and I can setup the scaling and drag windows between
monitors and they don't change size. Way easier to deal with Hackintosh
occasionally acting up than wading into that nightmare...

------
bcheung
I use a Hackintosh as my main. It works great except but I don't have a
webcam, bluetooth, or wifi hardware in it.

I have a GTX 980 Ti OC hooked up to a Dell 5k monitor. Performance is great
for general usage and gaming.

One annoyance, which I still have to deal with to this day, I can not boot the
OS with the monitor on or the kernel will panic and reboot. I have to turn the
computer on, wait for the boot loader, hit enter and quickly turn the monitor
off, then after about 40 seconds I turn the monitor back on and OS X is
working.

For some reason, when I full frame a video that is playing in the browser the
frame rate drops to like 10 fps. It's kind of annoying. It has something to do
with the type of video encoding. I suspect one of them is hardware decoded and
other entirely in software. Not sure the specifics. When that happens I
usually just zoom in (Ctrl + scroll wheel). If I download the video and then
play it in VLC it plays full screen at the full frame rate no problem. Not
sure what is going on.

Gaming was completely fluid. I was playing Heroes of the Storm and StarCraft 2
fine. There are some minor issues with the gamma and mouse not working right
but there are easy workarounds. Problem was just limited to HoTS. I never saw
the display / mouse problems in any other program.

One other thing that annoyed me was that FCP X and Adobe Premiere would not
use the GPU for anything. My MacBook Pro is much faster for 4k video work than
my super beefy Hackintosh. I think it has something to do with Intel QuickSync
not being recognized on the Hackintosh even though my CPU supports it.
Couldn't find a way to make it work. Supposedly very little of video encoding
uses the GPU for some reason.

RAW photo converters like Capture One Pro takes advantage of the GPU just
fine. Processing RAW photos is about 10x faster on my Hackintosh than my MBP.

Coding works great, torrents work fine, watching movies work perfectly fine
with VLC. No issues whatsoever with those things.

I also had some issues with video conferencing solutions like WebEx and Blue
Jeans. I had to use my MBP for those.

Be careful of updating on a Hackintosh. Wait for the community to vet an
upgrade. Sometimes you need to reinstall things after an update. I had 3 days
where my graphics driver didn't work after a security update. Luckily nVidia
released a driver fairly quickly.

If Apple ever comes out with a MBP I'm going to switch to that for a desktop.
I'm thinking I can use an external GPU enclosure over USB-C / Thunderbolt for
when I need the extra power. The fan noise is pretty loud, it sucks up a lot
of power, and creates a lot of heat. That's fine when I'm gaming, but it's an
annoyance when I'm just in vim coding.

------
cocotino
I do, but like with Linux, be prepared for constant troubleshooting after each
update.

Also you'll probably get lower performance, especially from your GPU, and also
from your CPU if your ACPI tables aren't properly configured.

