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iOS

Posted by Ken Chung
Ken Chung
17,585 Points

Is there a way to learn Swift without buying a $4k+ USD Macbook? Can someone tell me how to dual-boot or get Hackintosh?

Hi everyone,

I really want to learn Swift Development, but I don't want to spend $4k on a Macbook.

  1. Can someone tell me how to dual-boot/install Windows 10 and MacOS both on my computer? Or how to install a Hackintosh? Dual-boot and Hackintosh is the only solutions I can think of without spending $4k (Not from American so it's going to be very expensive).

  2. I'll probably save up for a Macbook in a few months. If I had a choice, which Macbook is the best in terms of 'Bang for your buck'?

I would very much appreciate it if you have any better ideas or suggestions to share.

Thank you,

1 Answer

Jennifer Nordell
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Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher
Jennifer Nordell
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Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher

Well there's great news for you! Swift just went open source. Not all of the features are really out there yet as I understand it, but it's being made available fast. The downside is that you're still going to need another OS to run it... namely Linux. I prefer the Ubuntu distribution. Here's a link to a great tutorial about how to get it set up. Keep in mind though, that when you go to download Ubuntu version do not get the newest one. Get the one talked about in this tutorial.

https://www.raywenderlich.com/122189/introduction-to-open-source-swift-on-linux

Hope this helps (and maybe saves you some cash)! :sparkles:

Ken Chung
Ken Chung
17,585 Points

I appreciate your answers, love it. However, the instructions are for Mac users, I still can't install Swift on Windows. For example: "Go to the VirtualBox downloads page, and download the disk image for VirtualBox 5.0.16 or later. Double-click the downloaded DMG and run the VirtualBox.pkg package installer:"

Windows don't have .DMG file extensions or .pkg file extensions, I think they're for Mac. The entire blog instructions don't apply to windows users. Can you find a windows version of this? I can't seem to.

Thanks,

Jennifer Nordell
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Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher
Jennifer Nordell
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Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher

Ken Chung You are correct. They're assuming you have a Mac to install the VirtualBox. What I was referring to is that you have a dual boot system instead of a VM. In my scenario, you'd have skipped that part because you'd already have Ubuntu installed as a secondary boot alternative. In my experience, you will get increased performance with running a dual boot as opposed to a VM. But if you still want to run the VM with Ubuntu... go here:

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

You will see this line "VirtualBox 5.0.22 for Windows hosts" almost at the very top. That will download VirtualBox for Windows. Once you have the VM installed, the rest of the tutorial should apply. Good luck to you! :sparkles:

Also, keep in mind that I specifically said you'd need Linux. How you choose to implement that is, of course, up to you :smiley: