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Ask HN: Hackintosh Thinkpad being used for Mac OSX developement

3 points by limeblack ↗ HN
I would like to develop OSX/iOS, but after looking at the Mac's I can't imagine 1) Having a glossy screen (they don't appear to offer matte any more) 2) No pointing stick (I'm addicted to the red dot)

I have been using a Lenovo Thinkpad for years, and was wondering if anyone successfully using one for iOS/OSX development?

So, Is anyone using a hackintosh(preferably with a pointing stick) for iOS developement? I need reliability and I'm slighly concerned after reading some forums http://www.tonymacx86.com/snow-leopard-laptop-support/18619-lenovo-x220-3.html

If you don't have advice about hackintoshes, how do you do development on multiple operating systems on a single laptop(especially if you are a pointing stick addict)?

So far virtual machines have been quiet painful for me, but I would still love some advice.

5 comments

[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 21.8 ms ] thread
shrughes
The macs' glossy screens seem alright to me, I'm typing on one now and was a former matte screen zeolot. They don't reflect very much. They're quite usable even when you have an open window behind you on a sunny day.

If you want to develop on multiple operating systems, well, I recommend making sure you get a CPU with VT-d. If your current machine on which virtual machines are painful doesn't have VT-d, I recommend trying one that does. (And of course, get sufficient RAM.) VMs seem painless to me, at least on the machines with VT-d that I've tried, and somewhat painful on machines without VT-d. (I experimented on the same Thinkpad enabling and disabling it in the BIOS -- the difference was clear!)

runjake
If you need reliability, buy a Mac, flat out. There are people who will tell you they have awesomely reliable builds -- and I had one or two relatively-stable builds myself, but people have widely-varying definitions of reliable.

Just buy a Mac. Even a Mac Mini works great. I have last year's HD3000 Mini. The lowest end model with upgraded RAM.

hoka
Not sure about doing it on a thinkpad, but there are ways to use OSX in a virtualbox image. I've seen such a system (i5, 12gb ram) run rather smoothly.
gered
"Hackintosh" and "Laptop" don't go well together. Regardless of the type of laptop. A certain model HP laptop is a small exception, but it's not 100% perfect.

From my own personal experience running a Hackintosh on a desktop PC I built myself (using community recommended and tested compatible components), I can say that a desktop Hackintosh can be very stable.

However, with a laptop you will be making compromises. The exact compromises vary from laptop to laptop. Usually these will include Wifi, battery life and general power management stuff (hibernate, sleep, etc) and possibly more. For a Thinkpad specifically, I do know that you'll end up needing to use a separate Wifi adapter as the built in one will not work with OS X.

To be honest, since you seem dead-set on a Thinkpad (and I don't blame you, I love them myself) I don't know what to suggest, aside from "don't bother" which you probably won't find too helpful. I would just caution you, don't set your expectations too high, regardless of what you may read on tonymacx86 or wherever else. As runjake said, people have widely varying definitions of stable.

epikur
I hackintosh'd my x220 to the latest Mountain Lion. My only real problem was getting sleep functionality to work, but I didn't really see others with my problem and didn't post asking for help. I had to buy an alternative wireless card (Dell 1515) for $10 off ebay, as the included chip doesn't have OSX drivers. It probably would have been fine for at least a couple months if I had spent more time fixing the sleep issue. Except for that, it worked great, and it wasn't difficult to add drivers or processor power management stuff.

I switched to dual-booting Ubuntu and Windows 7, but will either switch back or buy an Air in the future.