
I couldn't wait for the new Mac Pro - ranebo
http://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/2013/08/31/i-couldnt-wait-for-the-new-mac-pro/
======
jwr
I used Hackintosh machines in the past. The problem with those is that after
you've invested lots of time and effort, you end up with a machine that
doesn't work, but performs that task extremely fast and is relatively cheap.

This article is actually great, because it paints a very realisting picture of
the experience. Most hackintosh fans fail to mention that your machine might
not wake up from sleep, so you either run it 24/7 or shut down fully and wait
ages for it to boot afterwards. Or that you'll get weird networking problems.
Or that your video card driver will crash every once in a while, taking your
whole machine down with it. Or that you can't click "update" next to an OS
update and usually need to manually go through the process of waiting, then
reading the forums scanning for people's experiences, then moving various
kexts out of the way and patching them back in after the upgrade.

Yes, I realize there are many people with a nearly flawless experience. But
not everyone can get one.

In my case, I decided it definitely wasn't worth it and bought a real Mac Pro.
Couldn't be happier, especially as 3 years ago it wasn't easy to build a
machine with 32GB of RAM. Net result: yes, it was expensive, but it _works_.

~~~
Goopplesoft
Building a hackintosh is all about selective hardware (similar to the Apple
experience). Generally if you use one of the tested builds like the ones
listed here [http://www.tonymacx86.com/375-building-customac-buyer-s-
guid...](http://www.tonymacx86.com/375-building-customac-buyer-s-guide-
august-2013.html) you should have a pleasurable apple like experience with the
cost savings and fun of building it yourself.

~~~
adamors
> Building a hackintosh is all about selective hardware

Exactly. I bought hardware based on one of these lists and had no issues with
my Hackintosh since building it (almost 1 year ago). Also, the build took
about the same time as any computer would. I think I had to install one driver
post-install, but that's all the 'hassle' I've experienced.

And researching what hardware works well with OS X doesn't take more than 5
minutes since people compile lists and/or entire build guides for every
version of the OS.

------
cheald
Building a hackintosh will give you a deep appreciation for how well Windows
manages to work on such a dizzying array of hardware profiles.

Macs work so well because Apple controls the hardware pipeline from top to
bottom - the fact that Windows manages to work so well without controlling any
of the hardware pipeline is actually pretty incredible (and, it gives you a
lot of appreciation for the work that Linux developers have done to provide a
similar experience, as well as illuminating why some things still don't "Just
work" like they do in Windows or OS X environments).

~~~
mseebach
First, Windows doesn't "manage" a dizzying array of hardware profiles, try to
install a vanilla windows-copy. Literally nothing works. The display is
640x480. USB is out, network is out. I had to burn a CD rom with the network
driver to download the rest of the drivers. The vendor manages the hardware
profiles and puts them on the installer CD.

If manually managing drivers teaches you to "appreciate" anything, do yourself
a favour and install Ubuntu, if should cure you from such folly. Even if
you'll never use it a day in your life, it will show you that "managing a
dizzying array of hardware profiles" might well be difficult, but it's NOT a
discipline either Windows or MacOS even competes in.

EDITED to respond:

Yes, this was XP. But even back then, Windows was marketed (and had been for a
decade) as the "just works" OS, hardware wise. I'm glad they've improved, but
it took them long enough.

~~~
cheald
Have you ever tried building a hackintosh? If you don't have _just_ the right
hardware, the whole thing hard-crashes. It doesn't even boot with fallback
drivers. It just says "nope, not what I expected, goodbye." Additionally, it
only works on non-Apple hardware due to the efforts of a homebrew community -
out-of-the-box OS X just plain won't run.

The fact that Windows XP would boot into an at least marginally-usable state
on random hardware puts it lightyears ahead of OS X in that regard.

I've been running various flavors of Linux machines for 15 years now, as well.
I'm quite intimately familiar with the driver woes there (wireless drivers
_still_ basically never work out of the box on $LINUX_DISTRO), but again, it's
so far ahead of OS X in that regard, it's not even funny.

~~~
mseebach
You're setting the bar extremely low. MacOS is explicitly not supposed to run
on any other hardware configurations than exactly those sold by Apple. It was
never it's intended behaviour. There is nothing to be ahead of, MacOS didn't
even bother to get out of bed on race day.

~~~
cheald
That's my entire point. We frequently assume that most hardware "just works"
because it follows some specification or another. It's not until you run into
a system that just flat out blows up when it runs into unexpected hardware
that the work that Windows and Linux developers do becomes apparent.

------
doe88
I actually use a hackintosh system since 2010 and I would not overstate enough
how much it is a pain in the ass, I've had all kind of issues although I've
always carefully chosen my components, moreover you cannot easily test
previews of OS X, if you're a developer it can be a problem. And because
generally xcode requires the last version of the system and also often the
last version of iTunes which in turn requires to be up to date you are then
forced to make every update and each update is a new risk to break something.

In short at one point or another I've had issues with the graphic card or the
integrated gpu, with USB 3, with the audio, with the screen resolutions on my
two displays, various kernel freezes, networking... And to this day some of
these issues are still unresolved.

Moreover you generally should always buy a Gigabyte motherboard for maximum
compatibility but with the new Z87 chipset if I were to buy a MB I'd like to
buy an Asus I prefer their current lineup. So in the end you don't even buy
what you really want to buy. And also if your mb have something fancy, forget
it you'll likely have troubles make it work.

After 3 years, my conclusion is it's not worth the energy I'm waiting the new
mac pro to ditch my current setup, I can't take it anymore.

~~~
listic
Can you install the version of Mac OS, iTunes and XCode that go together with
each other and stick with it?

I'm thinking of getting a Hackintosh on my laptop to get started with iOS
development, but I'm not ready o get a new laptop just for that (and I don't
really like Mac OS).

~~~
doe88
As I explained, yes you can but only for a limited time. For instance xcode 5
is only compatible OS X 10.8 and upward so it is likely that next year in june
the new xcode will drop compatibility on OS X 10.8. Moreover to target new
devices, new iOS versions you must use the latest xcode version thus at one
point you'll need to make an update.

I also don't want to scary you either because it is doable, this is what I do
since 2010 and I use it as my main system (I have a mac mini and a macbook pro
but I prefer a _big_ machine for my developments) and chances are that if your
system works well with a given version of OS X it will likely work well with
the next version. But it will always take some time to check the forums to
resolve a particular issue or to check what people have experienced before
making an update and breaking anything big. What I want to say is it's not
straighforward because you are somehow always forced to update if you use it
for developing apps.

------
jasonkester
Handy ROI calculator: Trading four days of otherwise billable work to save
$1,000 makes sense if you value your time at $31.25/hr or less.

Given that the tradeoff isn't even "end up with an equivalent thing at the end
of the day", I'd like to take the chance to thank the author for taking the
bullet for us on this one and being honest about how much work really goes in
to one of these builds.

I bet he'll save a lot of people a lot of pain and money.

~~~
otikik
What is the ROI of the time you invested in your comment? ;)

~~~
oxalo
Two cents. :V

------
grecy
I spent a lot of time getting OS X running on a Dell Mini 9 netbook.

At that time, I think it was regarded as the most compatible OS X netbook, and
(IIRC) absolutely all the hardware worked 100% correctly. Wifi, sound,
sleep/wake, external monitor, etc.

I used it extensively for 3 years as my main machine, and it never once
crashed or had a single problem.

The more I used it, the more I was absolutely certain of one thing. My next
machine will be a genuine Apple.

I bought a 2012 MBA 13inch for ~3 times the price of the mini 9 and am
extremely happy. Apple hardware is spectacular.

~~~
Tmmrn
> Apple hardware

What exactly is that?

~~~
xutopia
It's a single block of metal laser cut to fit all the components within a
solid yet light fixture. It's a power plug that if tugged will not drop your
laptop to the ground. It's a backlit keyboard that feels great on the fingers.
It's a beautiful screen that you can't get anywhere else. It's a large sized
trackpad that answers to your fingers without noticeable lag. It's a keyboard
that has all the keys on the top row to do all the things we do on a regular
basis. In short it's a super well integrated machine that wakes up from sleep
in an instant, has great battery life and is well suited for a worry free
computing experience.

------
Samuel_Michon
The author wanted a Mac Pro, but couldn’t wait a few months for it to be
released. He could’ve bought an iMac and then sold it when the Mac Pro was
available, that would’ve cost him $300 at the most.

Instead, he chose to spend 4 full working days to build a computer that
doesn’t work as well as a Mac and can stop working altogether any day with no
recourse. A computer that is worth zero in the resale market. A computer that
Apple will not service.

By the sound of it, this is the author’s only computer, which he is dependent
on to make his living, and it seems he isn’t planning to buy another Mac (even
though he is a professional iOS developer).

This is a cautionary tale, an extreme example of being penny wise and pound
foolish.

~~~
ranebo
As I stated in the post I also have a MacBook Air that still functions
perfectly for development work. I would never recommend a Hackintosh as a
developers sole computer. I also mention that I pursued this route because my
gaming pc needs a refresh cpu/mb wise and this can be easily converted by
dropping in my existing high end GFX card.

You are right about one thing though, it is a cautionary tale. I wrote it
because I didn't see enough showing the pain involved.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
In the article, you wrote you gave your MacBook Air to your girlfriend. I
guess she doesn’t use it often and you have made separate user accounts?

As for the part about you wanting a gaming PC anyways, I had somehow missed
that. (I have to admit I zone out whenever video games are mentioned.)

> seeing as my gaming PC was due for a refresh I figured I could give it a go
> and if it all went to hell, I’d suffer through the pain then move it to that
> role when the Mac Pro was ready.

------
burrokeet
The Mac Pro is a beast - I am still running a first gen MacPro1,1 - it's got
an IDE drive installed in the second optical bay, four 3.5 SATA drives in the
main bays and 2 2.5 SATA drives connected to the extra SATA connectors hidden
under the front fan. At various times it has a hardware RAID card, extra
FW+USB card, extra video card, video capture card, etc. I'm just about to grab
a pair of 4 core xeons, extra ram, a Radeon hd5770 and some SSD drives - flash
it to a MacPro2,1 and I can run Mavericks on it, with a Geekbench of about
10k. US$400 for the upgrades not including the SSDs.

I think Apple has really dropped the ball with the new Mac Pro - it is like
the Cube, it looks cool but the Mac Pro is not a machine that requires form
over function - people buy them to upgrade them, swap things in and out, stick
them in racks, etc. Thunderbolt is not a replacement for pro use expandability
- it just means a lot more cost + a lot more (very expensive) cables + a
performance hit.

A good excuse for Apple to discontinue the Pro line eventually though - "hey
we made this great new machine, but nobody bought it, so sorry"

~~~
alwaysinshade
> I think Apple has really dropped the ball with the new Mac Pro

Guy English made some great points about potential for the new Mac Pro:

"The CPU is a front end to a couple of very capable massively parallel
processors at the end of a relatively fast bus. One of those GPUs isn’t even
hooked up to do graphics. I think that’s a serious tell. If you leverage your
massively parallel GPU to run a computation that runs even one second and in
that time you can’t update your screen, that’s a problem. Have one GPU
dedicated to rendering and a second available for serious computation and
you’ve got an architecture that’ll feel incredible to work with."

[http://kickingbear.com/blog/archives/349](http://kickingbear.com/blog/archives/349)

~~~
Steko
Guy says it's not about benchmarks but the innards seem to be entirely
designed around generating a ridiculous Cinebench score for a keynote demo.

Right now it's trendy to criticize the new Mac Pro for boxes it doesn't check
that the current version does; mainly a lack of enclosure space. That's
something Apple can easily address with their in store setups. But when the
thing releases all anyone will be able to talk about is how much Apple is
charging for the high end version with the E5 2697 and 2 W9000 Firepro cards.

~~~
alwaysinshade
> Guy says it's not about benchmarks

I think what he meant was that the current benchmarks are unable to quantify
the benefit to users of having a GPU for computational power while the other
is driving the displays. The new Pro configuration suggests you'll be working
in real-time when doing graphically intensive tasks rather than waiting for
something to render. Animators & video editors will benefit from this in ways
that are difficult to slap a technical benchmark on.

These machines are probably aiming to scoop up some high-margin high-end
workstation business, hence the demo by Pixar at the last WWDC.

------
jlgaddis
Slightly off-topic: Does anyone run Mac OS X under VirtualBox on Linux (or
tried to)?

I have a 2011 MacBook Pro (8 GB RAM, 500 GB SATA, 15") that I used almost
exclusively (and occasionally used a Windows 7 VM on) until this past May when
I bought a beefed up Thinkpad W530 (32 GB RAM, 480 GB SSD + 500 GB SATA,
1920x1080) and installed Linux on it

I've barely touched the MBP since then and only occasionally miss it, but I
did notice that OS X is apparently supported on recent versions of VirtualBox.
Like the Windows 7 VM that I keep around, it might be useful to have an OS X
VM that I can fire up if the need arises.

~~~
pkteison
No experience with VirtualBox, but I use OS X in ESXI and VMware Fusion and
both of those work for me. Initial installation of OS X can be a challenge -
you may need to disable some virtualization features e.g. interrupt remapping
and you can have some driver challenges depending on your specific hardware
(e.g. recent mac mini needs a network driver).

Officially, VMware only supports mac pro (1). Unofficially, minis also work.
Haven't tried a macbook pro.

1:
[http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?dev...](http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=server&partner=269)

~~~
jlgaddis
Thanks, I appreciate the reply. It's looking like I won't bother actually
attempting this, though. If it were real easy I might do it but from all of
the replies it sounds like way more trouble than I want to deal with.

------
elithrar
I feel this would have been more comparable with a Xeon, otherwise it's
effectively a decked out iMac.

Also: I toyed with the idea of building a Hackintosh to replace my 2011 iMac,
instead of waiting for the 2013 model (Haswell, 780MX GPU). By the time I'd
specced a comparable machine-i7, 16GB RAM, GTX 770, 3TB HDD, SSD, and a 27"
Dell UltraSharp (to match the iMac panel), I really wasn't that far off the
iMac's price with only a larger (256GB vs. 128GB) SSD to show for it. About <
AUD$400 off, which if you consider the time to order, build, etc, isn't as
significant as many make it out to be.

The actual Hackintosh process seems to be relatively "smooth" if you use
compatible parts and set a day aside (and a couple to research similar
builds), but I dread any warranty issues (and therefore dealing with > 6
manufacturers).

I'm still open to the idea, and maybe it makes more financial sense in US
(there's about a 20% markup on parts here in Australia), but the price
different wasn't substantial enough to offset the added effort/risk.

~~~
blinkingled
>About < AUD$400 off, which if you consider the time to order, build, etc,
isn't as significant as many make it out to be.

Not only does it make financial sense - the upgrade-ability and repairability
of a custom build in unparalleled by the iMac - esp. the newer one. You would
at least need the $169 AppleCare to allow for the possibility of free repairs
on the iMac for 3 years. That still leaves out upgrades. Whereas for the
custom build it's just a matter of yanking out the failed part and putting in
a new one at cost.

~~~
outworlder
Only if your time has no value. With at least one day to setup (according to
the poster) and issues popping up from time to time (not to mention OS
upgrades), the difference is not that big.

We are not even factoring the resale value after a couple years, of an iMac vs
a generic hackintosh.

~~~
blinkingled
Well the resale argument doesn't really apply to a hackintosh - I wouldn't
need to sell it - not at least in 5 years or so - I can just keep upgrading.
And a 5 yr old iMac will fetch you roughly $200 from Gazelle.

About time - I suspect more than a handful of people will find spending a day
here and there worthwhile if it saves them $400 + $169. (Also if in best case
Apple keeps your iMac for 2-3 days in repair - that's time lost as well. You
could do the Hackintosh repair faster yourself.)

The OS upgrades however - yeah they will be a pain. I can see that as a
significant deterrent.

~~~
kosherbeefcake
My greatest deterrent is the OS upgrade. I've been mulling over whether to
just buy a Mac, or to build a Hackintosh. I would like the upgrade ability,
but I would also prefer to not have to worry about accidentally upgrading my
OS and having a few hour downtime every so often.

------
captainmuon
I think all the negativity is a bit unfair. I built a Hackintosh last year,
I'm very satisfied with it, and I think it was worth it also economically. The
PC includes a Core i5 2500K, Radeon HD6870, 8GB RAM, SSD, nice screen of my
choice, etc.. I started by installing Windows 7, but very soon I tried to
install OS X (I bought the components with that option in mind).

The benefit of OS X for me is that on the one hand it can run all my consumer
software (especially games, MS office). On the other hand it is also a pretty
nice Unix, so I can run all my work stuff (mostly scientific computing, and
stuff that is distributed as source code). It took me a few evenings, but
eventually I got everything working (including sound, network, and standby
mode). Now its probably the most stable system I've ever had.

The thing is, I was fully expecting to put in some hours of work. That is the
price you pay for building your own computer, whether you install Windows, OS
X, or something else. Installing OS X was only slightly more complicated than
installing e.g. Linux. If you include the time needed for choosing components,
assembling everything, installing applications, the difference is very small.
Especially considering how hard it is to get UNIX stuff under Windows (cygwin,
mingw32, and so on), or games and big proprietary applications on Linux (using
Wine).

Now, may people say you should just pay a bit more, and get a solid Mac that
you know works fine, and has a warranty. The problem is, I couldn't afford a
new Mac with the specs I needed. And you are never as flexible with a prebuilt
computer as with one you build yourself.

I guess my bottom line is that it is unfair to compare buying a Mac with
building a Hackintosh. The alternative to a self-built Hackintosh is not a Mac
Pro, but a self-built Windows PC. The Mac Pro is the alternative to an
assembled Dell, HP, etc..

------
timerickson
On the Retina MacBook Pro

"Scrolling and animation tasks are jerky or just plain slow. I can’t deal with
that in a new machine. Maybe in a year or two when it can drive its screen and
a large external retina smoothly."

What? Has the author used one recently? These problems were fixed within a
month of original release. I've been using one for over a year and love it.

~~~
veidr
They are not completely fixed.

They did fix some of the issues (and continue to), but I just don't think the
hardware has the capacity to make it right. There are all kinds of graphical
lagging, jerking, and stuttering in my completely-maxed-out-with-all-upgrades
latest model Retina MacBook Pro, when using it with 30" external monitors.

Like using Exposé with a couple dozen apps open is like:

    
    
        - Hit button
        - Wait... thinking... thinking...
        - Still thinking... wait for it...
        - OK, here is the Exposé mini-window view, sans animation
    

EDIT: AND, I should add, my monitors are the old stone-age 2560x1600 type of
30-inch, not the awesome modern high-res type (
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DJ4BIKA/ref=as_li_qf_sp_...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DJ4BIKA/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00DJ4BIKA&linkCode=as2&tag=mamaco-20)
). I don't believe the current MBP can even drive an external 4K display,
which is what I think the OP was referring to.

EDIT2: _woah_ , I realized at that price, I _really_ should be using an
affiliate link where I get a kickback if anybody buys it. ;-)

------
shawnreilly
I think it would have been better to compare this build to the iMac or the
Mini. While I definitely applaud osx86 builds, I don't really find this build
comparable to a Mac Pro of any recent generation. I think a much better
comparison build would have been to upgrade an older Mac Pro 3.1 or 4.1 (EFI64
being the key) to 12 core with maximum ram and video card upgrades. I think
right now the 4.1 is the sweet spot (considering memory prices). But even if
someone maxed out the build, I don't think it would come close to the new 2013
Mac Pro. Another thing to think about here, especially for developers, is the
software aspect of hacked/upgraded osx builds. When Apple releases a new OS
version, or a new Xcode version, it might not work or it might be buggy /
unstable. This is what happened with my old Mac Pro 1.1 and OSX 10.8 (flashed
to 2.1 and upgraded 8 core 3.0ghz w/ 32gb). I was able to get up to 10.7 but
10.8 is messed up and the new 10.9 look like a no go. Which is why my old Mac
Pro is now an ESXi Server (working on getting v5u1 working so I can run osx
10.8 virtualized)

~~~
ranebo
I don't disagree, I'm not comparing the build I did with an actual Mac Pro. I
just didn't have time to wait for it (I did this build months ago). As I
mentioned at the end of the post if I had seen the tiny mac mini-esque build I
linked to before I bought the case I did, I would have built something like
that instead.

------
jacques_chester
Luckily for me, I don't do anything particularly CPU-intensive.

I just bought the current Mac Pro. Sure, I'd like the shiny new one. But I
also needed a faster Mac that could accept a bit of expansion that I could get
before the end of last financial year.

The hardest part about being an Apple tragic is separating my need for the
_zomg new shiny_ from simple business decisions like "is it worth getting
something better _now_ or limping along until some indeterminate future time?"

~~~
bluedino
Curious to the reasons you didn't go with the iMac? Did you need a ton of
cores, didn't want to deal with external disks...?

~~~
jacques_chester
Two reasons.

First: I have 2x30" screens. I don't want to go down.

Second: I can't put multiple HDDs and SSDs in an iMac.

The new system replaces a 24" iMac I bought in 2008. It made it for 5 years;
the only upgrades were extra RAM when new and swapping the HDD for an SSD
about 2.5 years into its lifetime.

I don't know how long I'll keep this one. Under Australia's small business
equipment rules, it's already fully depreciated. So there's no accounting
purpose to hold onto it if I don't want to.

~~~
interpol_p
With the iMac you would have 1x27" and 1x30" — that's not too bad is it?
(That's my current setup and I find it quite good.)

~~~
jacques_chester
I dunno why, but the inconsistency is grating to me.

~~~
girvo
I'm the same. I even put my monitor on a book to make it perfectly in line
with my imac.

~~~
jacques_chester
I did this too, when I had the iMac. I have a nice hutch arrangement now.

------
empire29
As an ex-hackintosher im always thrilled to see people pull great stories like
this off! I gave up on rolling my own due to the small irritations (system
error when my logic mouse's USB dongle was removed) and the upgrade-paralysis;
Every new rev of OS X would met w trepidation as a carved out a weekend "just
in case". Either way, I hit a point where investing in an MBA was more
economical... Now I can get by with a MBA; if we're talking about a MacPro
then the value trade off might still be there :)

------
canthonytucci
I built a very similar system using the "confirmed working" parts listed in
the buyer's guide at [http://tonymacx86.com](http://tonymacx86.com)

To those poo-pooing the hackintosh, my experience was quite different this
time around from when I had OS X running on a netbook a few years back.

I already had a monitor, PSU, video card and ram, so the money investment for
me was fairly small when compared to builing a system from scratch.

It took one evening to put everything together and install the OS, I followed
the instructions there and have done several system updates without new
problems coming up. I had to mess around a bit with kernel extensions to get
my Radeon card put out 2560x1440 properly, but my problems were solved in
under an hour. I've had strange problems connecting to my wireless printer,
but I solved them by plugging it in and forgetting about it.

I've used it as a development machine w/ xcode and have not had any problems
there.

All that said, I would NEVER use this as my only mac. I'm careful about
keeping work backed up and off the machine in the event that something strange
comes up, so there is that added overhead, but for any data/files you care
about this should be done anyway.

------
Udo
I couldn't wait for the new Mac Pro as well, so I bought an 27" iMac a few
days ago.

Building a Hackintosh is something I considered as well, but based on my
previous experiments in that area I absolutely have to concur with the others
here who say it's not worth the hassle and at the end the machine never works
quite right.

The biggest issue for me is multi-screen support, it was the main reason I
bought my old Mac Pro. But it's a loud machine and it eats _a lot_ of power,
even when idle. And let's face it, most computers spend most of their time in
idle. The new iMac supports two external displays, so that was my minimum
requirement met right there (possibly by accident on Apple's part). I thought
I'd miss the Pro's raw computing power but when rendering or gaming the iMac
doesn't seem to be significantly slower to be honest. The entire setup
consumes less than half the wattage of the Pro, it's relatively cheap (around
€ 2k), and most importantly it's very very quiet.

------
nicholassmith
I tried a Hackintosh a while back, it was mildly interesting, sucked more time
than I really felt happy with and I abandoned it.

Part of the reason I moved to Apple hardware (and OS X) was to avoid spending
time digging around with graphics cards, and RAM and making sure I have the
correct drivers. I'm sure plenty of people enjoy it, but I don't, and it's
just diverting time from things I do enjoy. There was also lots of other side
issues, updates could cause it to break and require a revert back to a known
good point, and hope it still worked okay, or having some slight system
instability.

The Hackintosh project is pretty useful, but I currently don't need Mac Pro
level of power, and if I did then I'd prefer to pay the premium to avoid
spending time working on it. 4-5 full work days doesn't cover the cost of one,
but it's certainly a non-trivial amount of it.

------
happywolf
It would be a good exercise when I were in college, not enough money, more
than enough time. Tinkering and optimizing a rig was what i liked to do. Fast
forward to now, still a hacker at heart, but the extra time I would rather to
go out for a walk, do some workout, or talk to friends. Just the priorities
have changed

~~~
eropple
I didn't build my desktop to be a Hackintosh, but it took me about two and a
half hours my first time. The second (and last), it took me an hour and
fifteen minutes. It's really not that rough.

~~~
jlgaddis
The one time I tried to make a Hackintosh, it ran wonderfully for weeks (after
spending tens of hours getting it going in the first place). Then an OS X
update came out, I installed it, and it never recovered. Nowadays, I don't
have the time or desire to have to screw with it every time a major update
drops and it messes up (or even has the potential to).

One of the greatest things about Apple's combination of software and hardware,
IMO, is that It Just Works(TM). A Hackintosh doesn't.

~~~
eropple
_> One of the greatest things about Apple's combination of software and
hardware, IMO, is that It Just Works(TM). A Hackintosh doesn't._

For sure, and my primary machine is a rMBP 15", but my Hackintosh is also
about $2K less than an equivalent Mac Pro would be (if they even fielded Sandy
Bridge ones). Personally, I can be a point release or two behind as the kinks
in the updates get worked out for two grand in my pocket.

~~~
jlgaddis
Totally understand. I paid just under $2300 for my MBP in June 2011 and a few
dollars more for this Thinkpad in May. Five or six years I probably would've
put a serious effort towards the Hackintosh but nowadays I'd rather not have
to spend much time maintaining or fixing it if/when it broke.

------
sebzz
I've been using one since about 2011. It's true that there can be some issues
depending on the hardware you have. I've only had issues with waking up my PC,
and sound, and only had to download a DSDT for my motherboard.

To be honest, if you already have a desktop which is somewhat compatible, then
this makes total sense. The fact that you can continue upgrading hardware, add
SSDs, change graphics card is fantastic. I did this as an experiment, and it
worked so well that I never switched back. You no longer have to buy the
latest Macs to get the latest hardware.

That said, I don't think buying new hardware for making a hackintosh is
necessarily the best idea. You _will_ run into problems that can vary, and
these aren't necessarily things you expect when buying a new desktop.

The problems mentioned in the article were harder to solve than the ones I
had. But a hackintosh's return over investment is HUGE, if it works!

------
rdl
I would have gone with a 15" rMBP; I assume he was only considering a 13"
rMBP.

I bought a Mac Mini 2.6 GHz i7 a month or so ago, and added a 240GB M500 SSD,
16GB RAM, and 4 x 4TB external HDDs. Pretty happy with it performance-wise,
even for Final Cut. I'd probably get an Areca ARC-8050 8-drive Thunderbolt
RAID
([http://www.areca.us/products/thunderbolt.htm](http://www.areca.us/products/thunderbolt.htm))
if I needed faster storage beyond 100GB, though. It's mostly a Plex server,
VMware server (although I just use Fusion at home), and testing some
proxy/etc. stuff, and is connected only to a 1080p projector and 5.1 HT
system. I figure not much will get upgraded on the Mini in the next 6 months
-- maybe no upgrade at all, or if it is upgraded, only some pretty irrelevant-
to-me stuff.

~~~
jlgaddis
> ... and added a 240GB M500 SSD ...

This is a long shot but would you happen to know anything about the built-in
encryption on this drive?

I bought the 480 GB version a few months ago to put in a new laptop and the
primary reason I chose the M500 is because it is a "Self-Encrypting Drive".
IIUC, third-party software is required to actually benefit from that -- but
I'm not sure that I _do_ understand correctly.

~~~
rdl
Yeah, it is standard Opal, but I just use FileVault 2. I find AES-NI supported
FileVault performance to be more than adequate. I don't know of anything but
Wave which does Opal key management for OSX, particularly for boot drives.

I use Fusion Drive with the 1TB drive I already had, too, so SED on just one
of those drives wouldn't help.

~~~
jlgaddis
A very similar situation here, although I'm running Linux on this machine and
not OS X. I feel that the SED stuff (while technically true) is misleading --
I specifically chose this drive over cheaper and better drives because of this
feature. Lesson learned, though.

The only thing I could ever find for Linux that supported Opal was "SecureDoc
for Linux" which, apparently, is impossible to get ahold of unless you're an
enterprise with a fat bank account. Fortunately, like with FileVault, dm-crypt
(which also leverages AES-NI) is more than sufficient for my needs.

Thanks for the reply.

~~~
rdl
It shouldn't be too hard to do a SED control utility fundamentally. It is
maybe a licensing or TCG membership issue though. I thought it was just some
extra drive commands.

------
zamalek
Am I the only one that is irked by the first paragraph: "Macbook Air hard
crashed rendering in Final Cut Pro [...] I had been asking too much of the
little 11” wonder."

I'm used to things taking forever when I ask too much from a computer, not it
outright crashing. Is this "normal" on Macs?

~~~
ranebo
Definitely not normal. I covered this in much greater detail in another post
[http://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/2013/07/22/ios-app-
prom...](http://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/2013/07/22/ios-app-promo-video-
on-a-budget/)

------
tehwalrus
I've never had a "real" reason to use OS X over anything else, only
convenience (numerical programming in Python, works pretty much everywhere,
slightly easier on Linux in fact) - Thus, if I were in this situation I'd hack
together a cheap Linux box (of which I have...three lying around the flat now,
including old laptops) and work on that for a few months while waiting for a
new release (more likely, saving up for the new release.)

That said, if I _had_ to work on OS X, hackintosh would probably have appealed
to me (if I was spending my own money on the hardware and _needed_ a good
GPU.) Thanks for thoroughly disabusing me of this preference!

------
trebor
A hackintosh is only an option when you don't mind breaking your word. In
fact, this is why I bought a Mac mini instead of built a Hackintosh; I even
wrote Tim Cook about a "system builder" license being something I'd dream of.
The license explicitly states that you agree to install OSX on only Apple-
approved/sold hardware (paraphrased).

I'm aware of most the arguments why EULAs are unenforceable, why/how to bypass
them, etc, but is any of that honest?

------
gbrhaz
I guess I must be in the minority. I've had 3 Hackintosh machines in the past,
all with different hardware. They have all worked almost perfectly.

Each one did require some post-install setting up. For example, dual monitors,
sound card issues, graphics etc. But the set up never took longer than a few
hours, and I get a machine that is 1/4 the price of a retail Mac.

I also think I can count the number of the times they've crashed on one hand.

------
jcrei
Wouldn't it be great if you could just build a Mac Mini stack? Like a Mac
Mini, on top of a Mac Mini, on top of a Mac Mini, with some sort of a daisy
chained thunderbolt connection that also shares CPU/RAM/Graphic resources.
That would make for a perfect Mac Pro set up and also for servers. If you
would ever need extra resources, just buy a new Mac Mini and put it on top.

------
Void_
Hackintosh is fine as secondary/backup computer. I built one after I had to
send my Air for repairs.

But there will always be little issues. For example you can't install OS X
Mavericks just yet. Being a developer this bugs me very much because I would
very much like to try the new APIs.

------
daGrevis
Seems to me that this is something between OS X and Linux. Beautiful and will
work with most apps on OS X (the OS X part), but not that easy to set up and
may require some tinkering (the Linux part and I'm not saying that it's a bad
thing or that Tux is not beautiful).

------
cones688
2 of OPs biggest gripes were onboard WIFI and BT not working, these could have
been fixed with a 40 buck TP-Link card which requires _no_ kexts and is
recognized as an Airport card and a 10 buck Belkin USB Bluetooth dongle which
again requires no install or configuration.

------
kayoone
Ive used OSX on relatively old (2009) Intel hardware a couple of times in the
past and generally only had minor problems. Certainly less than when going
with Ubuntu or other Linux distros. If youve got the money a real mac is still
the way to go though!

------
nmc
Aaron couldn't wait either, but...

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wShNx6cdk_8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wShNx6cdk_8)

------
jeswin
I would love to do this too, but the licensing situation bothers me. Even if
you owned an OSX disc, you aren't in the clear, right?

~~~
cheald
IIRC, OS X is only licensed to run on official Apple hardware, so yes, it's a
violation of the license to run a hackintosh.

------
benjamincburns
Am I the only one who thought (per the photo) that the author was saying he
needed a Mac Pro because he makes fancy toilets?

------
Ecio78
AFAIK the Apple Mac OSX licensing doesn't allow you to do so. Here's an
article about different involved aspects:
[http://www.lockergnome.com/osx/2012/02/24/are-hackintosh-
com...](http://www.lockergnome.com/osx/2012/02/24/are-hackintosh-computers-
legal/)

~~~
legulere
That's irrelevant in many countries. The EULA is non-binding in many
countries.

~~~
Ecio78
Interesting, I didn't know. Can you tell me some examples of these countries?

~~~
legulere
Germany
[http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/73768](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/73768)

------
frozenport
Seems ridiculous, if not snobby that the author will only run OS X.

~~~
eropple
Why? His video software is on OS X. Learning a completely new workflow that
will provide no benefits in the long run? Money is cheap. Time is not.

As a programmer, I won't use a non-OS X machine as my main computer. I have a
desktop with Windows 7, but that's basically for games. I need Unix to feel
comfortable (Cygwin doesn't cut it) and I need a desktop environment that
doesn't feel hostile to just-pick-up-and-use (and that knocks out every Linux
DE out there). It is the only choice that really fits my needs.

~~~
cheald
I run Win 7 basically as a thin terminal + Steam machine, and do all my actual
development (web stuff) on a LAN-connected Fedora machine via Samba and SSH.
It works great, and it also means that I can pick up my Macbook or Chromebook
(or just find a machine with an SSH client) and have my entire development
environment immediately available.

~~~
eropple
I've done that before for web stuff, but I quit when I found IntelliJ; I'd
rather develop locally and not have to screw around with sbt (I use Play)
because sbt is a tire fire. And there's no thin-client solution for game
development (Xcode and as little MSVC as I'm forced into using), so I'm sort
of stuck there too.

But for me the OS matters, too. I have a strong aversion to how Windows
handles...well, Windows, and Linux isn't much better there either. Mission
Control is good enough to be a "nope, won't go back" for me.

