
Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide October 2016 - rcarmo
https://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/october/2016
======
protomyth
I dearly wish that Apple would just go back to licensing their OS. I get the
feeling, other than portables, they really don't want to make Macintoshes.
Heck, even a $500[1] package would be fine. Put out a list of acceptable
hardware like the old NeXT list[2].

I know they won't, but I still have dreams. I do wonder what was the real
story when Steve Jobs made his public comments on clones[3] and what the price
was they refused[4].

1) Lord knows I paid more for NeXTSTEP back in the day.

2) It was kinda fun to call a number and get a fax back with the list of
hardware you could buy.

3)
[https://youtu.be/a3MrpLyUOo8?t=34m41s](https://youtu.be/a3MrpLyUOo8?t=34m41s)

4)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYLuoahTP_s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYLuoahTP_s)

~~~
threeseed
No Apple will never go back to licensing their OS. It nearly killed them after
Power Computing went straight for Apple's profit margins instead of trying to
entice new customers to the ecosystem.

The fact is that many of the innovations we come to appreciate Apple for come
from their ownership of both the hardware and the software.

~~~
protomyth
> The fact is that many of the innovations we come to appreciate Apple for
> come from their ownership of both the hardware and the software.

Since they switched to Intel, what are these innovations that I cannot just
buy? I see the new Touch Bar, but even that I can skip[1]. I really wonder
what would be different?

I doubt they will ever go back, but Apple sure isn't doing a whole lot to
satisfy my desktop love. What exactly on the Mac mini and Mac Pro cannot be
bought by a third party?

1) The whole idea of something that make me move my eyes to the keyboard is
unwelcome.

~~~
redial
I don't know if you would count this as innovations, but magsafe, the glass
trackpad still ahead of anything else and the full unibody enclosure in my
mind are clear innovations that made a mac a much better alternative than the
competition. I also think they were only possible because people are willing
to pay a little more to get macOS, thus allowing Apple a higher price point to
develop and include those features.

~~~
protomyth
Neither of which helps the desktop computers. Hackintoshes aren't all about
getting a cheaper computer these days. They are about buying current chips and
higher memory. I'm now one of those willing to pay for macOS, but the hardware
is a big downside to the OS experience.

For example, being limited to 16gb because of power consumption because they
picked LPDDR3 memory instead of LPDDR4.

------
op00to
I experimented with Hackkntoshes years ago. It was a fun toy, but overall not
the best use of my time. Upgrades required effort even if they didn't outright
break my system.

More importantly, Hackintosh requires custom kexts, at a minimum FakeSMC.kext.
That kext is used to bypass Apple's hardware locks. Has it been audited? If
so, can you trust that the installer you use to wedge the kext in actually
uses the clean kext and not a rooted version that puts you at risk? What
happens when you load that kext? Even if it isn't overtly trying to compromise
your system, does it open security holes? Does it silently corrupt your disk
due to a bug somewhere?

Let's say you're ok with all that. What happens when you make it big, and
Apple decides to sue you for breaking the EULA of MacOS? I wouldn't base my
business on it.

~~~
riprowan
Base your business on it? No.

However I did put a Hackintosh into mission critical use for a bit. The
machine was a ~$300 Dell Mini 9 which remains one of the all time easiest and
most stable Hackintosh builds. To be fair it was a puny computer, but I
upgraded mine with a larger SSD which made it pretty quick, and it was rock-
solid stable. TBH I don't think it ever crashed or hang. And it was _tiny_.

I used this as my onstage computer for about a year running Reaktor and
Sampletank. It took many falls. I never once had a problem with it. Its teensy
size meant it could perch in a blank area on top of my keyboard.

However you're right about updates. They could be fatal and had to be well-
researched and planned.

~~~
applecore
Why not get a refurbished MacBook Air 11"[1] which is guaranteed to work?

[1]:
[http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbo...](http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbook_air/11)

~~~
CPLX
Not the OP but I am a musician. You'd fill up an Air drive in minutes with
audio files and samples, presumably.

~~~
riprowan
OP here, the thing I was working on was only 64GB, so that wasn't it. The real
reason was price and size. This was even smaller than an Air at less than 1/2
the price.

------
xaduha
Alternative route is to build a VFIO capable computer and run OS X or whatever
your heart desires in a VM with real hardware (read GPU) passed through.

You can even run several VMs with several GPUs at the same time. Essentially
you can have 2+ computers at the price of one.

~~~
dperfect
I use a configuration like this (with Proxmox) to send content to the various
TVs in my house (HDMI over Cat 5e). 4 cheap GPUs in the machine allow for up
to 4 VMs running OS X (my preferred OS for media) to simultaneously play HD
content, run classic emulated games, web browsing, etc. (haven't bothered with
UHD yet, and probably won't for a while).

Of course, a lot of HD content can run with very modest specs (as long as the
codecs are accelerated on the GPU), but for occasional content that requires
CPU decoding or players/sites that aren't yet supported on standalone devices
(Apple TV, Roku, etc), it's a really nice solution. Plus, it keeps each TV
very clean in terms of cables and hardware.

I've done hackintosh on bare metal in the past, but even if I were setting up
a single-headed hackintosh now, I'd still go the VFIO route - it makes updates
_much_ less stressful since you can quickly roll back to a snapshot if you
break something.

~~~
weitzj
Do you have this configuration by chance as a GIST on GitHub? There are
KVM/Qemu configurations, but especially ProxMox would be nice

~~~
dperfect
Kind of a late response, but here are the basics of my setup (maybe I'll
publish some specifics in a gist at some point):

\- Hardware (which is dated now): Asus Z87 Pro with i7 4770, 16 GB Memory, 4x
AMD Radeon 6450 cards (< $20/ea used)

\- Proxmox/host config: vfiobind the PCI device IDs for graphics cards on
boot, slightly modified pve-q35.cfg (workaround for some OS X issues on q35),
using fairly standard VM args for booting OS X

\- GPUs work fine after a standard OS X install, but to get audio working over
HDMI, I needed a couple of edits to my DSDT (basically just inserting a GFX0
device with "hda-gfx" = "onboard-1", a standard HDAU device, and a DTGP
device), and boot with the Enoch bootloader (this can be specified in the VM
args to avoid having to install to disk). No extra kexts needed.

That's about it. Some of those things may no longer be necessary in the latest
version of Proxmox (I haven't updated my base system in a while). Once I got
things working, it's been completely stable for more than a year.

------
dylan604
When I built my current CustoMac, I selected an Gigabyte X99 chipset
motherboard that supported an optional Thunderbolt2 expansion card. This was
an important part in my decision making as I have a lot of peripheral video
equipment that I need in day to day work. It worked, with the caveat that it
was not plug-n-play. Devices were only detected at boot. Cool, I can handle
that.

However, when I upgraded the OS to El Capitan, I needed to update the firwmare
of the mobo. After upgrading the firmware, Gigabyte removed support for the
Thunderbolt expansion card. Suddenly, I can no longer use any of those
devices. I searched, but there was no mention of the loss of thunderbolt with
the use of that firmware. I have seen online where others are also in the same
Thunderboltless boat, even if they are running Windows.

Just and FYI to consider if anyone reading this thread is thinking of the
CustoMac route. This isn't the Hackintosh community's issue for something they
changed. It's the hardware vendor's decision.

------
riprowan
I think this trend becomes popular every time Apple's product line becomes
stale.

~~~
chrisabrams
Yeah, it's kind of a catch 22 as the product line has to stop innovating for
these guides to stay relevant.

------
orf
Has anyone here actually made a custom mac? I thought Apple tried to stop this
by preventing the OS from installing and you had to do some hacky stuff to get
it to work?

~~~
mountaineer22
Last year i7, 32gb ram.

You install via USB.

I seem to have to update my video card driver after an OS X update, but it
takes less than 3 minutes.

I built it figuring worse-case scenario, I can slap Linux or Windows on it,
and it will still be good hardware.

I spent more on the monitor than the system build.

If you do, I recommend purchasing the PCI-E adapter for the Apple Broadcom
BCM94360CD card to have native wifi+bluetooth.

Very stable.

~~~
pritambaral
Any indication anywhere of the software noticing it's not running on official
Apple hardware?

~~~
izacus
1\. iMessage App uses hardware serial and usually doesn't work on Hackintoshes
without copying a serial from another working Mac.

2\. DRM protected iTunes movies (the ones that don't work if you don't have a
DRM capable monitor attached) won't play.

Those are the only two issues with Hackintoshes that can't be fixed by buying
right hardware.

~~~
erikbye
iMessage works just fine here, on two hackintosh systems, all I had to do was
generate a unique serial, I did certainly not copy one from another Mac.

------
ScarZy
I was lucky to infact have the components that I built for my gaming computer
also tick the boxes for a hackintosh build. I had a spare SSD that I was
running arch on, so thought I'd give it a whirl. I use a MBP for work, and
having a similar system to work on is quite nice (especially since it's great
for labwork with 32GB of RAM).

It's been rock solid, and I want to write my own boxen so that I can mimic my
MBP build

------
pjmlp
I understand not wanting to pay the Apple tax, but I think what makes a
desktop experience great is the whole package.

How hardware and software come together in an unified user experience.

This is why people talk about Spectrums, Commodores, Ataris, Amigas, Macs, and
game consoles.

This is why hardly anyone talks about nice memorable experiences with PC
clones.

~~~
FullyFunctional
Based on the comments of people doing this, the vast majority are far less
motivated by saving money than by getting macOS on great hardware. It's a
frustrating fact for those willing to pay that the Mac "Pro" is very far
behind the bleeding edge.

------
erlehmann_
Why do people do this? Is it only for fun? I would think that any GNU/Linux
system could provide similar or better tooling and most likely results in a
less painful upgrade process.

~~~
e40
Because of the software we use. Lightroom and MS Office (please don't suggest
Libre Office is good enough, it's not for legal and accounting documented
exchange, as I had many spreadsheets that were broken on LO).

~~~
erlehmann_
As a Lightroom user, how do you think Darktable compares to it for amateur and
semi-professional use cases?
[http://www.darktable.org/](http://www.darktable.org/)

~~~
jseliger
I've tried and liked it, but it seems that it isn't really meant to replicate
Lightroom's cataloguing functionality. I tried importing the 20 or 25K photos
I have, which Lightroom cruises through (I've met people with hundreds of
thousands of photos in their catalogues) and Darktable gacks. That's on a
relatively recent 5K iMac too, so I don't think hardware limitations are the
problem.

Right now Darktable seems to be more of an editing tool and less of a
cataloguing tool.

------
mmastrac
Has anyone built a Hackintosh laptop that works? Even one that booted into
Linux (with proper sleep/hibernation support) to run an OSX VM using PCI
passthru would be useful.

------
keeran
Last time I tried this is it was a complete ballache to get iMessage working -
I expect other services are similarly problematic. Is this still a problem?

~~~
Retr0spectrum
I installed Sierra just a few days ago on an Intel server board (S5000XALR). I
had to change a single setting in my bootloader (clover) to make all the
services work (Admittedly, it did take a bit of googling to find that
setting).

I think Intel boards are ideal because they are presumably quite similar in
hardware to the Mac Pro motherboards. All my hardware (including GTX480)
worked without any additional configuration.

