Hackintosh (and other Mac -> PC) questions

Zython

This is cross-posted from the Technology forum. If that's not OK, please lock this.

Hello! So I'm considering building my own PC, and am possibly considering a hackintosh. However, I've been doing some reading, and it sounds like that hackintoshes aren't well-known for their stability. Does anyone have any experience with these, and know how well they function?

If I'm looking at something that's more trouble than it's worth, I would like to know what the best way to mass transfer files from my Macbook to a Windows machine. I know both support FAT32, but I get the feeling it's going to be a little more complicated than "plug in an ethernet cable and watch a movie" like moving stuff from my iMac to my Macbook was.

bowen

Hackintosh is a hobby thing. They tend to require a lot of baby sitting. Stability wise, I've never really had trouble, but, applying patches and all that becomes a chore.

If I was going to transfer files between PC and Mac, I'd just get a USB drive and do it that way.

bsjezz

i ran a hackintosh once... a fun project and after a lot of (LOT OF) work you could probably get it running with stability, but it's never going to run as well as windows or linux, it's fraught with hardware perils and you'll be left highly susceptible to security vulnerabilities

just build a pc, whack on windows or ubuntu, and transfer your important files with an external hdd. is that so hard?

then, when you are in a good, calm place in your life with no other immediate needs, play around with hackintosh.

Zython

Yeah, I was thinking of doing a Hackintosh to try to continue using my Mac shit going forward, but it's probably not worth the hassle. I was worried that migrating files across platforms would be a headache, but that doesn't sound like the case. I'll just go straight Windows, in that case. Thanks for the advice.

bowen

There's always mac minis if you need the capabilities there.

Zython

bowen wrote: »

There's always mac minis if you need the capabilities there.

Thanks, but I'm looking into something that can be used as a mid-range gaming rig. I would just buy a pre-built otherwise. I know it's weird to want a Hackintosh for that, but I was hoping I could continue using Mac and dual-boot windows for gaming. But that's probably not a smart bet.

bowen

What I ultimately meant was build your gaming rig and snag a mac mini if you need the mac part still. But if you don't, even better!

BlindZenDriver

Zython wrote: »

bowen wrote: »

There's always mac minis if you need the capabilities there.

Thanks, but I'm looking into something that can be used as a mid-range gaming rig. I would just buy a pre-built otherwise. I know it's weird to want a Hackintosh for that, but I was hoping I could continue using Mac and dual-boot windows for gaming. But that's probably not a smart bet.

I did exactly that a while back. Running my main PC and thus gaming rig with dual-boot so it was also a "Mac", but the Hackintosh was too much work in that every time there was an update to the OS or anything else from Apple there was risk of it killing the system.

If I absolutely had to try and run a Hackintosh today I would do it as a virtual machine. That would make creating a copy of the latest running image easier, so that when an update messes things up going back to a running system was not much work.

My advice is to forget the Mac thing altogether and if not get a cheap used Mac to run those programs you must have.