Minutes 2025-09-25

Hackintoshing by Simone!
- What is Hackintoshing
  - Running MacOS on non-Mac hardware
- Why
  - Cheaper, Macs are $$$
  - More powerful
  - More repairable
  - Can run Mac exclusive software
- History
  - Pre-2008
    - PowerPC chips
      - “Special snowflake chips”
    - 2006 Intel macs
      - People realized: “wait, what’s so special about these macs anyway?”
      - Immedietly set out on getting MacOS working on other manufacturer’s hardware
- How it works
  - Bootloader
    - Clover is old, OpenCore is used nowadays
      - mimicks Mac boot enviornment
  - Kexts (kernel extensions)
    - macOS krnel modules
      - adds support for more hardware
  - ACPI patching
    - fixes firmware issues
- Compatability
  - CPU
    - Intel works best
    - AMD possible with more work
      - issues with Adobe/32-bit/audio
  - GPU
    - NVIDIA is dead
    - AMD
      - Natively supported dGPUS (<RX6000)
      - Some iGPUs can work with patches
    - Intel GPUs (<= 10th gen) work natively
  - Ethernet/Bluetooth/Wifi usually require community drivers
  - Ultimatrely, if it’s not in a Mac, you’re gonna have to do some legwork to get it working
  - Community drivers
    - Wireless (few supported cards)
      - Intel works because it was ported from OpenBSD
    - Input
      - Voodooinput supports non-USB devices
    - Audio has drivers
    - Some hardware just won’t work
  - Install process
    - Download MacOS
      - It’s free!
  - USB preperation
    - Bootloader config takes time
    - Simone also took a super long time getting the display working
  - Updates/Maintenance
    - Small updates like security patches usually fine
    - Otherwise have to wait for community patches
    - X86 support gone by 2026
      - Effectively kills hackintoshing
      - ARM is probably unfeasible
        Apple silicon specific instructions
        
        No GPU support
        
        Chips on the market are too varied from eachother
        Qualcomm chips
        
        And others
        
        All different from eachother
  - Current status
    - Still works for now
    - Strong Community keeping it alive as long as possible
  - Dane wonders if it’s possible for someone in the future to create a chip close enough to a real Apple chip that would work for ARM hackintoshing
    - Kinda like how sellers on aliexpress sell desktop chips in laptop motherboard sockets for Thinkpads
    - It’s possible, but unlikely
  - Hackintoshers get tempted to just pick up a legitimate M-series macbook
    - They’re (regrettably) actually quite nice
    - Dane did
      - can confirm he hates how much he likes an Apple product
  - Windows on ARM sucks (well, more than Windows normally does)
    - The OS itself works great!
    - … until you try to run an application
    - the majority of applications don’t even distribute ARM builds
      - You see the “download for Windows x86/x64”, because even though there’s still someone out there using a 32-bit computer, notice there’s usually not an arm build
    - Windows’ x86 compatability layer sucks
- Legacy hackintoshing is still a strong community
  - so long as you run the same applications you would have run back then, they’ll be just as fast
  - the problem is if you try to run something modern
    - like a browser
    - …or a single electron app
- Most compatible hardware
  - Thousands of models of machines
  - Best bet is following a guide on hardware support
    - Intel/AMD iGPU from right era
    - Machines from pre-2020 is generally your best bet
    - No matter what machine you’re on you’ll have to do some extra configuration and work to get it running
Simone tries to give noah the slides for the talk
- mfw 45MB odp file
- transfer takes forever
- Simone shows off the fancy USB 3.0 to 2.0 downgrader
  - real bleeding edge technology over here
People shuffled out until ~8:30-PM ish