Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Next Mac Mini

rustyshelf.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 361 posts

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#61

Post by snuxoll »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #52
rwmj wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when I had a Mac Mini (10 years ago), you could pull them apart and upgrade the RAM and hard disk, which I did. Is that not still the case?

You still can, but they're a few hardware generations out of date. You'd have more fun with a raspi 3 or a less expensive mini-ITX build that you can upgrade with current gen components.

No you can't, the current Mac Mini has RAM soldered onto the board. I think the only machines Apple now sells with any internal expansion are the 27" iMac and the trashcan.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#62

Post by bangonkeyboard »

rwmj wrote: post #29
zymhan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone buy a Mac Mini and put Linux on it?! There are a million other small PCs that are far better for that. If I was going to buy a Mac Mini, it's to have an affordable Mac that I can stick somewhere in my house to run occasional OS X software. I already have a few other computers, plenty of them running Linux. A Mac Mini is a great way to get a cheap OS X setup going. Also, it's not low margin, they char…

Back when I had a Mac Mini (10 years ago), you could pull them apart and upgrade the RAM and hard disk, which I did. Is that not still the case?

The last Mac mini "update" in 2014 soldered the RAM to the motherboard and sealed away access to the internals. [0][1]

[0]: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/IMG_0...

[1]: https://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/11/not-the-upgrade-we-wer...

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#63

Post by washadjeffmad »

devdoomari wrote: post #42
pmorici wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? I have one and the wifi definitely doesn't work out of the box and there are a couple other annoyances the worst being the machine locking up if you let it sit for too long. I haven't spent time to investigate but that isn't the definition of "works out of the box"

> the worst being the machine locking up if you let it sit for too long. uhm... look into power settings? That's common for most os.

No it isn't, and you shouldn't accept that as a standard behavior.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#65

Post by Damogran6 »

That NUC looks like it would be SO close to my needs...but the need pushing a new, small, quiet computer into the living room is VR...and I don't think it would quite do that. (Perhaps a TB3 dock to a gtx1070?) I'm not ever sure if the blocker is processing power or physical video ports.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#66

Post by lultimouomo »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #52
rwmj wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when I had a Mac Mini (10 years ago), you could pull them apart and upgrade the RAM and hard disk, which I did. Is that not still the case?

You still can, but they're a few hardware generations out of date. You'd have more fun with a raspi 3 or a less expensive mini-ITX build that you can upgrade with current gen components.

Ram is soldered so you cannot upgrade it. You can swap the HD with a SATA SSD, iFixit has an easy 35 step tutorial to do that (plus 35 steps back to reassemble it) that involves a custom made tool to remove the motherboard and a pretty rare anti-tamper Torx TR6 screwdriver.

(Once you get ahold of the screwdriver it's actually not as hard as it looks. You can DIY the motherboard removal tool from a wire coat hanger and in 40 minutes of focused work you'll be done.)

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#67

Post by Damogran6 »

That NUC looks like it would be SO close to my needs...but the need pushing a new, small, quiet computer into the living room is VR...and I don't think it would quite do that. (Perhaps a TB3 dock to a gtx1070?) I'm not ever sure if the blocker is processing power or physical video ports.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#68

Post by peatmoss »

windexh8er wrote: post #38
pmorici wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? I have one and the wifi definitely doesn't work out of the box and there are a couple other annoyances the worst being the machine locking up if you let it sit for too long. I haven't spent time to investigate but that isn't the definition of "works out of the box"

Since there are a number of iterations of NUC I suppose you could have one that doesn't. However most of the Intel wireless chipsets are some of best supported. I own two Intel NUC and two Gigabyte Brix machines - all of them were specifically selected to run Linux and all of them work flawlessly out of the box under any major distro. One of my favorite desktop machines is the Intel Skull Canyon (NUC6i7KYK). It has a…

> I'd love to drop Intel from a pure privacy standpoint.

Are you referring to the Intel Management Engine? I was under the impression that AMD was as bad if not worse than Intel in that regard:

https://libreboot.org/faq/#amd

Or is Ryzen expected to be better in that regard?

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#69

Post by nottorp »

CydeWeys wrote: post #43
nottorp wrote: post #17

Speaking of NUCs, are there any that are (a) quiet at load (b) have the PSU integrated in the case? Those are about the only redeeming qualities of a Mac Mini right now, and it pisses me off to no end that no one bothers with (b) on the Wintel side. Edit: please don't explain to me how a power brick that's sometimes as large as the NUC doesn't bother you, it does bother me.

Unfortunately, your two desires are at cross purposes to each other. An external power brick helps keep a lot of heat out of the system, which allows you to run less cooling in the box, and thus be quieter.

Yeah, except Apple manages to come close so it's possible :)

Give credit where credit is due.

Post reply on HN