The Rebirth of a Hackintosh Dev Environment

Why should you consider using a hackintosh for software development?

My History

A few years back I went all-in on a setting up a Hackintosh pc. I even made a blog post about it, which you can’t find anymore. But, I had everything running perfectly and was productive in my work. Then I gave up on it due to the inconvenience of needing to boot back into windows constantly.

A Hackintosh is a regular pc with macOS installed on it. It’s a rather finicky process that requires getting drivers and kexts for your specific hardware.

OpenCore

Now there is a new kid on the block of bootloaders, and it’s called OpenCore. The experience I had while setting up my install drive this time around was extremely straightforward and easy. Pair this with the community around AMD, and I have the most stable hack I’ve ever used.

Why did I do this? Well, I have to do some ios app development for work, and you kind of need a mac for that! Other than that I probably wont be using it for like 99% of the work I do. And here’s why: I can get a lot done on windows between vscode and WSL.

Why do so many developers prefer MacOS?

The main reason why macOS is so popular in the programming community is that its unix based at its core. Unix is basically the original Operating System that was created at Bell Labs back in the ’70s. Since then operating systems like Linux and macOS/OSX have been created based on unix. Unix OS Tree

The reason this history lesson is important is because the terminals between linux and macOS are basically the same. They share almost all of the same tools because they’re both capable of running the same bash shell software. Most developers need to use a terminal at some point in their workflow. Common uses include managing git versioning, compiling an application, or using vim for their text editor environment.

It’s Aesthetically pleasing

While you can do this terminal work on both mac and linux, many opt for the mac because of aesthetics. They may have other apple devices that can communicate, and a vast selection of macOS applications available to them.

I kind of care about the desktop apps on macos for productivity, but otherwise I’m impartial between macos and linux. When I run linux, I always choose pop!_OS these days, and I highly recommend it as your distro of choice! It’s an Ubuntu based distro maintained by System76, a company that specializes in creating open-sourced systems for the STEM community.

Anyways, this is all just an update on what I’m using for my OS these days. I primarily work in Windows through vscode. I use the vim extension and do things in the WSL when I need to. . I’ll do another post in the future going over my actual dev environment in detail.

Do any of you also use a hackintosh? What has been your experience with it, and has that evolved over the years as support strengthens?

Update 2021: I no longer use a hackintosh due to the M1 chipset coming and the bleak outlook for the hackintosh community’s longevity