Installing OS X Yosemite on a pc. Any thoughts pros and cons.

Wellll, a few things:

• Making a Hackintosh is going to be less stable than just having a Mac, and it's also (at the least) a legal grey area (putting the hack in hackintosh). To me, the stability issue is a big con if we are looking at pros and cons.
• that said, Lifehacker used to write about it quite a bit and it seemed fun!
• I run Windows on my 2009 iMac no problem--with the benefit that this is something Apple actually supports.
• Part of Apple controlling the hardware is that it means that each machine is built specifically to run OS X. Rolling your own hardware means that even if you have "more powerful" specs, if you don't know what you're doing it might actually not run well.

So i'm thinking just buy a Mac if you want OS X, build a Windows machine if you want to build a Windows machine, or (if it's for developing), maybe even consider building a whopper of a Linux box.

Oh, and if it helps: I bought 3 computers for my main machine since 2005 (knock on wood): a 2005 iMac, a 2009 iMac, and the newest Retina MacBook Pro. All of them still work.

Pros

• You get (almost) complete customization of your computer. Don't want ATI graphics as offered on the Mac Pro? Use nvidia! Want quad SLI? Go ahead!
• You can choose more high end components than what Apple uses on the Mac Pro.
• Or if you want to save money, you can choose lower end components than Apple.

Cons

• Not all hardware is supported, especially certain chipsets and CPUs. Consult the the forums at osx86 et al to see if your rig will work with OSX.

• Software update are a pain in the ass. Want to upgrade from Mountain Lion to Mavericks? One little error and you potentially have to start from square one — installing a fresh copy and reinstalling all your apps.

• Even intra-OS updates are a pain; i.e. you can't use the Mac App store to update from 10.8.1 to 10.8.2. You have to download a complex set of tools and whatnots and do the update manually.

• There are some minor stability issues. The hackintosh is more prone to randomly crashing but overall, I haven't really had an issue with this.

• And in general, a lot of trial and error. It's a frustrating process, especially for first timers, but there's a vibrant support community out there.

• No Hackintosh is as gorgeous as the Macbook Pro with Retina Display (which I am currently using).

Be sure to at least legally purchase a copy of OSX (at $19.99 it's dirt cheap).

Source

In my opinion dude, if you're going with a PC, just install Ubuntu Linux. It's very polished these days, and using it will give you a good grasp on how to use the commandline on servers, which almost always are running some distribution of Linux.

Hi Jovanny,

What you're thinking of building is a Hackintosh, Apple despise of this because they designed OS X to run on tech approved for MacBook's, iMac's, Mac Minis etc. Now days Hackintosh computers are very popular because you can dual boot them with a Windows HDD or emulate windows via Parallels or VMWare but there is a major drawback and this drawback extends to the core reason of why OS X runs best on Apple products.

1. Not all graphics cards work, even if they do they may only support one screen, they might have a memory limitation or in my experience trigger a kernel error when booting up

2. Some newer motherboards aren't supported at all, they will be in time but not at this point

3. Some NIC's don't have drivers, even if the motherboard is support your network might not work at all

4. Depending on the motherboard RAM can be a problem, my board supports up to 128GB/s but it's unknown how much OS X supports

5. Artefacts, screen tearing and mouse lag are a common problem, no solution is perfect and differs between users

6. Probably the most important point to note is you will need a Mac, an 8GB USB stick and knowledge of changing your BIOS settings, the reason you need a Mac is to create the bootable drive in which to install OS X from as well as a kernel patch for your motherboard that allows OS X to boot post-install.

At the end of the day buying a Mac is far cheaper, less stressful and overall saves you hours upon hours of messing around with your system until you get it working the way you want, with a Mac you open the box and get going.

If you're really set on building a Hackintosh see the below link to the buyers guide, I used this to build my new system as it has the most up-to-date list for compatible and working parts.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/building-customac-buyers-guide-november-2014.html

Disclaimer: A word of warning, I do not endorse Hackintosh, I'm simply a person who tried it and continued with it, my experiences will not be the same for others and I take no responsibility for any actions you take by attempting to build an Hackintosh nor do I encourage the use of Apple products on non-certificated Apple Hardware.

Hi Jonavnny,

I'd say if your going to be spending a good amount of cash, a Mac is going to give you a much better return.
I'm still running a 2007 MacBook Pro, while a few of my friends are on their third PC build.
Windows runs great on a Mac, usually better than it does on a PC, but the same can't be said for the other way round. And I'm not sure how smooth the App Store will work out either, even if it's okay now things could change in the future.

Like Jim said, you can have a really high spec PC but Yosemite could still run like crap on it.
You may also still find yourself upgrading your PC as time goes on just to support windows, which is something you shouldn't have to worry about while running it as a virtual machine on a Mac.

My two cents worth.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for all your input. I figured it sounded to good to be true. I was leaning towards getting Mac pro at first and most likely will get one. I will be using it mainly for developing. I have used windows on a Mac before and it worked way better than than a pc. I want to read more about working with Ubuntu Linux that could also be another alternative.