> How does it compare to running a Hackintosh? Is it much easier to set up?
I have no idea about Hackintosh, but you can efficiently just grab ready-to-use VM image somewhere and use it with libvirt/virt-manager, e.g convert VMWare one. It's just works.
> Do you still need to have compatible hardware and to mess with drivers and system configuration?
I only had issues with sound since QEMU doesn't have compatible sound hardware and HDA driver for Hackintosh didn't work out-of-the-box. This can be solved by passing USB audio card.
Addition: obviously your CPU must support whatever instruction set macOS require otherwise it's won't work.
> How easy are OS upgrades?
There were some breakages, but they usually fixed within QEMU upstream in few weeks. Though this mean you might need recent QEMU sometimes.
> How is the performance, including graphics?
Performance is great. Surprisingly without GPU you can even run some image editing software with lag since Apple software OpenGL implementation is more or less working.
Or you can just buy compatible GPU and pass it to VM, then it's also just work without any issues.
> Any issues?
My VM image HWID got banned from using App Store fairly soon. Fortunately Xcode and all software I possibly need can be downloaded without it so I never did any research on how Hackintosh users solve it.
> My VM image HWID got banned from using App Store fairly soon
I never heard about HWID on Mac OS X before, and quick googling didn't produce any information about HWID on Hackintosh. Are you sure that is the real issue? Where can I read more about HWID?
Sorry. I probably shouldn't have called it HWID, but the fact is: App Store account that I've registered using said VM was after about a months limited so I unable to use it.
So I came to conclusion they detected it's was used on VM and limited it.
PS: And yeah I tried to use another new store account that also stuck in same state.
I guess it's because you used the same image as many other people?.. Which brings me to the question: was it an install disk image, or a pre-installed, ready-to-go OS image? Can you install a fresh OS from an install disk?
I have no idea about Hackintosh, but you can efficiently just grab ready-to-use VM image somewhere and use it with libvirt/virt-manager, e.g convert VMWare one. It's just works.
> Do you still need to have compatible hardware and to mess with drivers and system configuration?
I only had issues with sound since QEMU doesn't have compatible sound hardware and HDA driver for Hackintosh didn't work out-of-the-box. This can be solved by passing USB audio card.
Addition: obviously your CPU must support whatever instruction set macOS require otherwise it's won't work.
> How easy are OS upgrades?
There were some breakages, but they usually fixed within QEMU upstream in few weeks. Though this mean you might need recent QEMU sometimes.
> How is the performance, including graphics?
Performance is great. Surprisingly without GPU you can even run some image editing software with lag since Apple software OpenGL implementation is more or less working.
Or you can just buy compatible GPU and pass it to VM, then it's also just work without any issues.
> Any issues?
My VM image HWID got banned from using App Store fairly soon. Fortunately Xcode and all software I possibly need can be downloaded without it so I never did any research on how Hackintosh users solve it.
PS: Edited. Added note about SSE.