
What the Hackintosh community wants in the new modular Mac Pro - ingve
https://9to5mac.com/2017/04/14/what-the-hackintosh-community-wants-new-modular-mac-pro/
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kristofferR
I've got a Hackintosh as my main system, I love it.

I dual boot macOS (default) and Windows 10 on it. A nice feature is that I can
use my Windows installation while I'm using macOS through virtualization
(Parallels), yet boot natively to the same Windows installation when I need
the full performance.

Getting the Hackintosh working properly was hard as hell though, although I
kinda enjoyed it since I'm a geek. Now that I've got it working, it works
flawlessly. Recommended for people who want to save money/maximize performance
and don't mind the grueling effort required.

~~~
x0x0
How much effort was required?

I'm curious because I've been considering building one for a while, but the
reports from idly skimming eg tonymacx86 are all over the place. Some say as
long as you buy from their build guide it's very easy, and some people seem to
have tons of problems anyway.

~~~
jawngee
My main desktop is a hackintosh.

It took maybe an afternoon to build, and then a few more hours to get running.
It's been running solid ever since.

Everything works (thunderbolt 3, usb 3, sound, airdrop, iMessage, handoff,
etc) except you can't use apps that use SceneKit. So iBooks, Xcode instruments
and SceneKit editor don't work. You can get them to work, by using Apple's
drivers, but its a pita.

Some people claim the new nvidia pascal drivers work for SceneKit, but I've
not upgraded to a 1080 yet so I can't confirm.

This is my build:
[https://pcpartpicker.com/list/gwV6qk](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/gwV6qk)

~~~
pinum
SceneKit apparently works if you enable the Intel iGPU. The issue is related
to driver signing; it happens on real Mac hardware too and Nvidia has
acknowledged the issue.

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sigjuice
By "modular", Apple probably means that it is easier for themselves to provide
multiple configurations and make updates, rather than end-users having the
ability to stick in random cards/drives/memory/CPUs.

~~~
hilyen
I agree, I think they just mean they probably will stop the soldering and
glueing of pieces that should be easily replaceable.

~~~
sigjuice
I hope they improve things on the iMac as well. The situation with the current
iMacs is ridiculous. The 27 inch iMac has user-accessible SO-DIMM slots, but
the 21 inch iMac has the memory glued on.

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throwaway7645
I'm curious, most of the people with the skills to build a hackintosh could
easily build a Linux box as well and some probably do. However, is there any
reason they just don't go to Linux? Is it hardware support or Adobe?

~~~
tyteen4a03
Two deal breakers:

1\. None of the Ui packages out there in Linux is as good as macOS.

1.5. Gestures. Though I can live without one, I've grown accustomed to the
slick motions.

2\. Chinese input on Linux is unusable. It was so confusing I gave up setting
it up on my (was) Ubuntu installation.

~~~
pmiller2
You can get really close on point #1 with some work. I've never looked into
gestures, and I don't write Chinese, so I can't speak to those.

~~~
maksimum
Re #1: Yes, maybe I could get the main use cases to approximate OS X well. But
(a) I don't want to learn how multiple windowing systems work and how to
script them, and (b) then to fine tune them so corner cases are covered: how
to integrate Gnome and KDE applications so their menu bars have the same
shortcuts for the same operations, use the same font, have the same DPI
scaling, etc... It's a never-ending set of options to fiddle with, little
cohesive documentation, and no objective criteria to decide when they've been
fiddled enough. Not saying it's a fault of Linux, but that's what we get in a
open source ecosystem where the kernel team doesn't dictate how the desktop
works.

~~~
pmiller2
I wasn't responding to "approximating OS X," I was saying you can get the UI
to be "as good as" OS X, with some work.

~~~
maksimum
I think the problems I gave examples of do relate to the UI. If not, then what
we define as "UI" seems pretty trivial.

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klodolph
> I think it’s also important that Apple continues to keep the CPUs in Mac
> Pros socketed.#5

Honestly I wonder if this is actually the future of CPUs or if it will all be
soldered in. That, and RAM too. The history of computers is a history of
demodularization. Unlike, say, 15 years ago, today I expect a high-end CPU +
Memory configuration to remain high-end for a few years, so I'm not worried
about upgradability. That's definitely not true with GPUs.

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ksec
Mac Pro represent may be 1% of Mac Sales, and in terms of volume it is likely
to be a rounding error for Apple.

If this assumption is correct, I wonder why Apple doesn't make a high price
but also high value machine. Aiming at Prosumers, Pro Gamers ( If they are
still on Mac ) and Professionals. With starting price of $1299. The lowest
config could have been done with AMD Zen 2 and non ECC Memory. And Scale up
all the way to 32 Core Zen and 256GB ECC Memory. It fix the developer's need
for a "Desktop" Machine to program the iPhone, or Web Development. And the
years' of cry for just "Mac". And Something clearly the Mac mini shouldn't be
aiming at.

I still believe there is at least another 5 - 10 years of life in Mac before
we sunset it, and unless Apple will be moving to ARM Mac ( which i doubt they
will ), there is no better time to bring some of these people into the Apple's
ecosystem. Whether it is iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

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URSpider94
What distinguishes the Mac ecosystem over other PC OS'es is that the small
number of supported hardware configurations makes it possible to do much more
thorough system-level testing and optimization. The result is a much more
stable and secure OS. As soon as you start letting users swap out components
without restriction, you're going to see user experience decline.

EDIT: I'm still fully expecting Apple to allow change-outs of key components
through Apple-supplied upgrades.

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gonyea
I've been using a Linux workstation for the past year and actually feel like I
could go with a Linux laptop too. I was contemplating Hackintosh but no need.
I only miss the Magic Trackpad.

Atom + Chrome (with a dozen extensions) makes web development a breeze. I can
do a lot of quality front-end work.

You're also not stuck with god awful Homebrew for installing dependencies. OS
X is a pretty hostile place for developers who don't live out of XCode.

~~~
wishinghand
I've only used Homebrew to install Node and that went well. What're the areas
Homebrew gets ugly?

~~~
gonyea
Install a modern Bash and set it as your default shell. When Homebrew updates
(which it does automatically now) you might be locked out of your Terminal.

`brew --prefix package` returns the latest _installable_ package, and not the
version you actually have installed.

Also things like:
[https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/2402](https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/2402)

It tries to do too much and ends up being a never ending surprise from hell.

(The solution to the Bash issue is to hard code the path for chsh, etc.)

~~~
BoorishBears
I've never had issues with Homebrew, and no one I know has either.

I _have_ had apt refuse to install npm because of a full /boot partition
(Imagine if Homebrew refused to run because I couldn't update OS X)

I think it's ironic you say _homebrew_ is the one trying to do too much...

~~~
gonyea
What. I've seen issues with Homebrew at every company/team I've worked with
since it came out. The solution is always the same: Use vagrant and
chef/puppet for your development environment.

Meanwhile, apt packages are incredibly stable, install the same way every
time, and are exactly what you'd run on the server anyway. You can use PPAs if
you need bleeding edge versions.

~~~
BoorishBears
I really don't know what to tell you then, because I've yet to see a Homebrew
installation that couldn't install packages, but _many_ times I've had apt
break and require either fixing something unrelated to installing my packages
(like failed upgrades) or copying and pasting some dpkg invocations until
things weren't broken anymore. And when I mention the latter most Linux users
I've spoken to say PPAs are a great way to end up doing that (I don't want to
start vetting PPAs when I need software, I've never had an issue with a
Homebrew installation, be it bleeding edge or old as dirt and requiring
finding an old version).

I have no idea how you'd compare Vagrant to... homebrew. Sometimes it's
convenient to have software on my actual machine, not a VM...

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killbrad
Also known as "please tell us how you might try to make our system more open
so we know where to close it off."

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btgeekboy
I wouldn't mind if the CPU remained soldered - I don't think I've ever done an
upgrade that didn't require a new chipset too.

Give me standard ram, m2 slots, and pcie graphics card slot, and I will order
on day one.

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draw_down
"Here's what people who don't buy Macs want Apple to do"

~~~
smacktoward
Yeah, that was my first thought too. Has Apple ever seen a single dime from
the "Hackintosh community"? Why would they care about what people who by
defintion are not customers want?

~~~
xor1
>Has Apple ever seen a single dime from the "Hackintosh community"?

My first three Mac systems as a poor student were Hackintoshes. Couldn't
afford a real Macbook. The first one was a Dell Mini 9, which was a $200
netboook that could somehow run Snow Leopard flawlessly (with significant
contributions from the community of course).

As a working professional, I have spent close to $10k on Apple hardware in the
past two years. I've also helped them make quite a bit of money through their
App Store cut.

I recently put together a dual-booting Windows 10/OSX system for usage at
home, used for both gaming and development. I spent about $1200 on it, and I
couldn't even get an equivalent desktop from Apple no matter how much I spent.
My ceiling would have probably been around $3k.

~~~
jsz0
> My ceiling would have probably been around $3k.

That gets you real close to buying an iMac for development and a PC for
gaming. I think this is part of the reason Apple has pulled back from the high
end. Hardware is cheap enough that we can use different devices for different
purposes now. There are often some good advantages to doing it too. I like
having my workstation in the office, my gaming PC in the living room, and a
tiny little laptop for travel. That would have cost me close to $10k a decade
ago!

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poidog44
It seems Apple is pushing away more and more of the "Pros," just take a look
at the latest macbook pros. The only way I use MacOS anymore is with a
hackintosh.

