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Any way to get a decent MacOS VM running?
Question
So I'm a relatively newcomer in my IT job and with the salary I make, no way I can afford a macbook or Mac mini and not knowing enough about MacOS sometimes puts me in awkward situations. I have been a windows guy since win 98 and all my Mac knowledge is from YT videos or written instructions. I have seen some pretty technical engineers here. Is there any way to get a decent MacOS VM that I can run on my laptop or maybe some cloud subscription like Windows 365 that I can get for a couple of months to build proficiency on the platform? Main target is to reproduce issues with O365 apps on Mac. Any advise is appreciated. Thanks!
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There is no legal way to run MacOS on non-Apple hardware.
That said, Google for VMware, mac, darwin
Alternatively, if you were to peruse GitHub for something like 'Mac OS' and 'KVM', some non-Apple-EULA-compliant but functional stuff may appear...
this hasn't been true since around the time Correllium won their lawsuit
https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/mac/
Shop used. With that said, there are many recipes for creating MacOS VMs using kvm/qemu. There might be some for Windows based hypervisors as well.
Apple ecosystem is as much about the hardware as the software. I'd probably seek the "used" hardware route if at all possible.
If you need to support one, ask for work to buy you an m1 MacBook pro 13
They aren't that expensive, but if you need one you need one
Check on Amazon AWS, they now do EC2 instances of MAC OS, as this is a subscription, you can do at a lower entry point. Only pay while you are using the VM on AWS
MacStadium is generally cheaper. AWS charges a 24 hour minimum for any usage of a Mac.
Aside from all the cops telling you it’s against apple’s EULA, in my experience, hackintoshing has become progressively more difficult over the past 5 years. Since I’ve moved to AMD for my main workstation, I’ve found it easier to just buy a Mac laptop, keep it up to date and have done with it. I know it’s an expensive outlay, but at some point you’re going to realize how much time you’ve sunk into getting hackintoshes running so you can do your main work. My main push with my ppl now is we shouldn’t be learning new skills we can’t use in the future. While hackintoshing IS a fun hobby, it’s not really reusable one. I also have a stack of used minis. Happy to send you one.
TLDR. It might be fun to learn how to forge your own framing hammer from recycled beer cans, but it’s prolly better in the long run to hit your local hardware store. Except of course, I LIKE my local hardware store. I’d rather have a root canal than visit an Apple store. In a mall. Ymmv of course.
A MacOS VM is affectionately called a “Hackintosh” and while it’s technically interesting that it can be accomplished, I’ve never seen one that isn’t hot garbage, not to mention that any legal battle surrounding one would certainly be lost.
At home, go for it, have fun. At work, it’s a definite “lol uh nope”
Edit: verb conjugation and words and stuff
isn't a hackintosh a notebook / desktop that runs OSX on non-Apple hardware ? I'm pretty sure thats what it was called like in 2011. (when i last bought anything apple)