[Tfug] Roll your own Mac

[Mr Brevity]

Hi Zack,

On 9/23/2014 2:01 PM, Zack Breckenridge wrote:
> Yeah, I personally recommend buying a used mac mini for this reason. I just
> purchased a 2011 mac mini with only 4GB of RAM and it runs the latest copy
> of yosemite just fine for the purpose of messing around with OS X, using
> Xcode every now and then, etc.

I have no desire to *own* one.  I just want to "play" long enough to
understand what it's like.  E.g., I would not be averse to *buying*
(NEW!) and then RETURNING in a week!

This, of course, is more repugnant (though LEGAL) than running an unlicensed
copy for the same amount of time.

> The "hackintosh" route is more of a sport and a constant battle against the
> changes Apple introduces. For example, they recently changed the boot
> process in Yosemite enough that popular hackintosh bootloaders (e.g.
> Chameleon) have to play catch up. I'm sure they're doing just fine, but
> they probably have plenty of bugs too.

Again, not an issue for me.

OTOH, if getting a *first* image up and running is a royal PITA, then
I can live without having experienced the "wonders" of a Mac!  :>

> Then theres the Apple SMC chips and the fact that the core hardware is
> basically Nvidia and Intel. Allegedly plenty of people have gotten AMD
> hardware and other graphics hardware to work, but I think its more trouble
> than its worth, as any non-apple hardware will require custom kexts.
>
> I truly wish apple would open up OS X a bit more to non-apple hardware or
> at least facilitate its use in virtualized environments such as KVM.
> There's a lot of possibility that I think they're missing out on.

Well, they are consistent in keeping all of their products
"closed".  And, VERY SUCCESSFUL (in the marketplace).  Hard
to see the incentive they would have to do otherwise!