Hacker News Reader

Comment by post_break | Hacker News Reader

I ditched my Macbook pro non touch bar for an XPS 13 with 8th gen i7 for $900 and shoehorned high sierra on it. I've got 5-8 hour battery life, full sized usb ports and USB C, 1080p 13" display with almost no bezel, and a modern cpu. I say modern because when I bought it even macs didnt have 8th gen. Apple pretty much doesn't make a laptop I want and the few that I might want are double what I paid. I know not everyone can hackintosh but it's getting easier.

View on HN

Why run macOS on a non-Mac? For me, as a long time Linux user, the point over several generations of Mac machines was always to have a usable desktop Unix with flawless hardware support (i.e. macOS).

Because there isn't a Mac laptop that fits my bill that I can afford, and I'd rather DIY one. I mean technically I can afford a macbook pro, but at the time the keyboard was absolute trash (still sort of is from a typing stand point, my work supplied me with a 2016 Macbook Pro non touch bar).

Yeah, but why run macOS on the Dell? Obviously if you need it as a platform for a specific software it makes sense. On the other hand if you want a generic software development or sysadmin machine or something why not run Linux – that should support all of the Dell XPS hardware, I guess (on the other hand every time that topic turns up on HN there are mixed reviews. Some people say that Ubuntu runs flawless while others complain, so I don't know what to make of it).

EDIT: Ok, I remember now: iOS development :)

I have bought and paid for software for MacOS. My workflow is designed with it in mind. I can inception style fire up VMware and run anything I need on the OS. I generally like the OS. Things just work like printers, iMessage, Facetime, I edit video using Final Cut Pro. For me linux is for my raspberry pi's.

Makes sense. So how is the Hackintosh hardware support for the Dell? What about updates to the OS?

I have installed Hackintosh on a netbook some years ago and as far as I remember you needed to take care not to agree to an OS update.

Everything works with the exception of the SD card reader and microphone.

It's vanilla so I can update it for the most part no problem. Just gotta make sure my kexts are updated to support the OS. It's not as simple as an actual mac, but it's close.

It's pretty amazing. It boots up, shows the Dell logo, then the Apple logo, then it's up. Brightness, sound, thunderbolt, usb 3, wifi card had to swap but that was $20. Bluetooth, it all works. Keyboard backlight, multitouch trackpad, sleep.

Are you aware that you are using MacOS outside of the boundaries stated in the user agreement? For personal use that is probably okay/defendable but I can hardly imagine a business would like taking that risk.

As an Apple Mac user and Hackintosh builder: Apple has gotten thousands from me over the years, so care factor zero :)

I am aware. So far no one has been prosecuted for violating a user agreement this way. Back in the day for hackintosh you would literally buy the OS and install it on the hardware. Apple still gets my money through the app store, iPhones, iPads I buy.

Other than if Apple try and track him down via HN, how would they ever know?

By keeping track of the serial numbers they put in the motherboards and the ones that are reported when you add your iCloud account for example.

If they cared, they would have made a move.

They do actually ban users of iMessage on hackintoshes, according to a few forum users of tonymacx86

Non-iOS developer and Hackintosh user here:

I feel that sometimes Linux can be a hobby, more than a productive machine. I realize that there are distros out there that cater to people like me (Elementary comes to mind) but there just some things that work better on MacOS.

MacOS is the only thing keeping me on Apple hardware. There are so many laptops of great build that I’ve been ogling in the past few years. I’d prefer to not go back to windows, though.

Linux user here. I had to use MacOS at work, I felt like it was a penance more than anything else. However Apple hardware is quite good.

I was arch linux user for years. First time I tried osx I also did not like it, all the things are slightly different in some small ways. But, given enough time to learn how the osx desktop environment works, shortucts, etc. I would now not change it for anything else.

Just run a vm with linux in it and do most of your work from there? Can do the same thing if you were stuck in windows too.

I've been running Ubuntu Gnome for years at work, and it's great, and I think maybe the next machine I buy will just run Linux. Then randomly after some recommended update the headers are hosed, and I can't not my machine. And if I could, I wouldn't know how to fix it. Linux is 97% there for me, and every day it gets a bit better. I still worry about those updates though.

Maybe they need to use macOS/Windows only software and don't want to deal with Windows.

Some software is only available on OSX (like Sketch)

Bcos Adobe on Apple environment.

You can now run macOS in Linux KVM (https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM), although I guess you'd need a beefy machine to have Indesign run fluently in a VM. Also I don't know if and how the license manager works in a virtualized environment. I guess overall it's not more hacky than Hackintosh :)

But adobe runs terriblely on OS X?!? OS X has some awesome apps like sketch. But adobe really sucks on OS X.

Adobe runs better on macOS than Linux :P

I ran macOS on a Dell netbook for a few years, and funnily enough it just made we want a genuine Mac more. I'm typing this on a MacBook Air.

The incorrect sleep-wake behavior, the average track pads and the inability to easily upgrade macOS were all annoying, but for me the straw that broke the camels back was when a friend tripped over the charging cable, pulling the laptop onto the ground and smashing the screen.

The irony was not lost on me - had it been a genuine Apple laptop macsafe would have saved it.

>The irony was not lost on me - had it been a genuine Apple laptop macsafe would have saved it.

The irony is your comment since Apple removed magsafe

The Surface line seems to have picked up the torch on magnets in the power connector and it is one of the little touches I love about my Surface Go.

I was aware of that when I typed it too :)

My MacBook Air is a mid-2012 model. Many thousands of hours of use, including in stuipd-cold (-40) and stupid-hot (+45C), dusty and humid, and still going strong.

I can't imagine how/where you got to use a laptop at -40C, did you made a mistake or my imagination is limited?

I also have bought a 2012 era Macbook for testing on OSX, the screen has some artifacts, battery is dead.

Mid 2012 machines are my favorites.

Lots of ports, Magsafe... sigh.

> The incorrect sleep-wake behavior

It's funny you mention that, because I can't for the life of me get my 2018 MBP to lock the screen without going to sleep randomly and disconnecting my IRC session, despite changing every possible setting that could affect it.

It's amazing how hard it is to get basic shit to work on these things.

I've never had an issue with going to Energy Saver and changing "Turn display off after" to Never.

Is the going to sleep truly random? Do you get the screen saver first? If you aren't seeing the screen saver, the sleeping may actually be an issue with the lid sensor - possibly due to a nearby magnet or some hardware issue.I had that in the past when I inadvertently set the MBP on top of an iPad (in case).

Well if you had a current Macbook it would still get smashed by a friend tripping over the cable ;)

Not on any post-2015 models.. :(

FWIW I went 2015 MBP->XPS->2017 MBP. I really liked the idea of the XPS but it had too many hardware issues and the touchpad was considerably worse than the MBP. I would get another Lenovo X1 carbon if I had to go back to a windows machine

Using an XPS 13 myself. The touchpad is a nightmare but the 3200x1600 screen makes it totally worth it..

Which guide did you use to install OS X on there?

I didn't use a guide, it's a vanilla install with tweaks from darkvoid. He has a github repo xps-9360 if you search for his name and that model number.

same here - I run Fedora 29 on the XPS 13 and both the hardware and the software frankly looks/works better than a macbook

It's funny how wildly differences can be. My experience (I use a TB16 Dock, F29):

- Ethernet device sometimes disappears after resuming

- USB devices randomly disconnect

- It sometimes gets very confused about displays (e.g. the primary device, rotation)

(However, generally, I find undocking/docking more stable than F28)

The XPS hardware/build quality is crap: thermal throttling often, coil whine, bendy, noisy, web cam in a stupid place, terrible mic, auto screen dimming that can't be turned off (AFAIK). This is not a lemon: I know companies with XPS fleets. Read Reddit, too.

EDIT: I've owned a 2015 rMBP 13" for 2.5 years.

Screen dimming they put out a firmware flash for the display. Coil whine on mine was insane, then a chipset update fixed it and it went away. Webcam, mic are terrible. Build quality isn’t the best but I still like it.

Do you miss the retina screen?

1080p at 13" is perfect for me to be honest. They sell a 4k one but I wanted better battery life vs more pixels.

I think you've made the right choice for another reason too. If you ever have to drop down to a raw terminal on the XPS with 4K the text is tiny. The screen is pretty much unusable at that res.

You can turn on resolution scaling so that doesn't happen. There are some tweaks even on 1080p to make tiny text readable.

Is that a BIOS setting? I will definitely look into that. Thanks for the suggestion.

Just leaving here for reference (from Arch wiki)

  setfont /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/latarcyrheb-sun32.psfu.gz

Or on Fedora:

    setfont /usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts/latarcyrheb-sun32.psfu.gz

Thanks for the hint. Perfect fix. :D

For hackintosh: https://github.com/syscl/Enable-HiDPI-OSX

Reply on news.ycombinator.com