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Building a Hackintosh Pro

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Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#91

Post by bitexploder »

valuearb wrote: post #61
bitexploder wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days setting up a Windows or Apple system means fighting lots of relatively confusing dialogs and options to avoid using cloud services, etc. Modern consumer operating systems want to analyze every bit of your activity they can get their grubby mitts on and you really have to fight them and say "No thanks!" about 15 times on a modern phone and less, but still a lot, on Win/Apple. I care about privacy, like most…

Yea, you might be confusing Windows and Macintosh there (or iOS and Android). It's trivial to setup a Mac, there is one dialog to collect crash data you can opt out of, and you don't have to use iCloud. Apple would like you to use iCloud but doesn't make you, doesn't want your private data, and is committed to protecting that data. Windows is a little more frustrating, and I don't think Microsoft has the same level o…

Sierra got a lot worse. That was the end of the line for me. App store, difficult to disable System Integrity Protection with no alternative APIs to replace lost functionality, etc. But, yes Apple is the best of the lot. Android phones require a lot of battle to tame by default.

iOS is by default the most secure phone OS, etc. (Secure Enclave is nice and you know it is available on all iOS devices newer than X) But it is a walled garden that is too tightly controlled in terms of what is allowed.

Still if you enable iMessage it gets murkier. Siri, cloud backupiCloud keychain (which is good, but not for me). Lots of small pushes to remote services.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#92

Post by bitexploder »

valuearb wrote: post #61
bitexploder wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days setting up a Windows or Apple system means fighting lots of relatively confusing dialogs and options to avoid using cloud services, etc. Modern consumer operating systems want to analyze every bit of your activity they can get their grubby mitts on and you really have to fight them and say "No thanks!" about 15 times on a modern phone and less, but still a lot, on Win/Apple. I care about privacy, like most…

Yea, you might be confusing Windows and Macintosh there (or iOS and Android). It's trivial to setup a Mac, there is one dialog to collect crash data you can opt out of, and you don't have to use iCloud. Apple would like you to use iCloud but doesn't make you, doesn't want your private data, and is committed to protecting that data. Windows is a little more frustrating, and I don't think Microsoft has the same level o…

Sierra got a lot worse. That was the end of the line for me. App store, difficult to disable System Integrity Protection with no alternative APIs to replace lost functionality, etc. But, yes Apple is the best of the lot. Android phones require a lot of battle to tame by default.

iOS is by default the most secure phone OS, etc. (Secure Enclave is nice and you know it is available on all iOS devices newer than X) But it is a walked garden that is too tightly controlled in terms of what is allowed.

Still if you enable iMessage it gets murkier. Siri, cloud backup iCloud keychain (which is good, but not for me). Lots of small pushes to remote services.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#93

Post by hedora »

tangue wrote: post #37

I started to build a Hackintosh using this kind of setup but I realized that I no longer love the OS (I already own a Macbook) and that there's no reason for such a hassle.

Yeah, I'm hitting this dilemma on the laptop front. It is hardware refresh time at work, and there is a concerning dent near the fan on my MBP, along with a light spot on the panel.

I despise MacOS's keyboad shortcuts. I just want a stable linux laptop that is fast enough for emacs + web browsing and has an impeccable screen/keyboard/trackpad/battery.

My HW budget is high enough to buy a high end apple laptop and tiny (27"?) apple-ish display from LG.

If I move to a overkill-nice PC laptop, and also buy a 43" 4K (non color matched) monitor, I think I'll be able to buy a ryzen cluster with the left over cash.

I'm not sure if that will be faster or slower than my xeon VM in the data center, or if I want to spend the time setting up distcc.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#94

Post by matt4077 »

jwr wrote: post #5

I used to use a Hackintosh. It was a time-consuming thing, I feared OS updates, and I could never be sure about the reliability (you can get really weird problems sometimes. I then switched over to a Mac Pro (cheese grater) and was very happy with it. Unfortunately, since the trash can Mac Pro I'm left out in the cold, so I'm considering running a Hackintosh again... Unfortunately, the information is still very fragm…

It's quite easy to do now, but the community is incredibly annoying.

The software is usually on sourceforge or something even shadier, it's rarely actually OSS-licensed, and configuration/documentation/interfaces are a nightmare of incomprehensible incoherence. There cannot be a software community less professional. I've seen Minecraft plugins by 8 year olds much better in these categories.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#95

Post by matt4077 »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #9

As a Hackintosh user, I'd recommend an NCASE M1 v5 or the Shuttle SZ170R8 for a significantly better chassis. With the NCASE, you can get a LGA 2011-v3 mini-ITX board and get as fast of a computer as you want. Though truthfully, I don't think there's much of a point. Likewise, an old NVIDIA card for a Hackintosh? Also not much of a point. The web drivers are so bad. Who knows when Apple will ship another NVIDIA chip…

I have the GTX980 and the NVIDIA driver for macOS works fine. It's just a pip install tensorflow-gpu nowadays.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#96

Post by hedora »

hedora wrote: post #93
tangue wrote: post #37

I started to build a Hackintosh using this kind of setup but I realized that I no longer love the OS (I already own a Macbook) and that there's no reason for such a hassle.

Yeah, I'm hitting this dilemma on the laptop front. It is hardware refresh time at work, and there is a concerning dent near the fan on my MBP, along with a light spot on the panel. I despise MacOS's keyboad shortcuts. I just want a stable linux laptop that is fast enough for emacs + web browsing and has an impeccable screen/keyboard/trackpad/battery. My HW budget is high enough to buy a high end apple laptop and tin…

The dilemma is the following: do I flush a few thousand bucks of company money down the drain to get a middling, marginally productive setup, or do I deal with the PITA / risk of configuring my described linux setup?

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#97

Post by wmf »

matt4077 wrote: post #94
jwr wrote: post #5

I used to use a Hackintosh. It was a time-consuming thing, I feared OS updates, and I could never be sure about the reliability (you can get really weird problems sometimes. I then switched over to a Mac Pro (cheese grater) and was very happy with it. Unfortunately, since the trash can Mac Pro I'm left out in the cold, so I'm considering running a Hackintosh again... Unfortunately, the information is still very fragm…

It's quite easy to do now, but the community is incredibly annoying. The software is usually on sourceforge or something even shadier, it's rarely actually OSS-licensed, and configuration/documentation/interfaces are a nightmare of incomprehensible incoherence. There cannot be a software community less professional. I've seen Minecraft plugins by 8 year olds much better in these categories.

Android ROMs are the same way. Maybe something about the semi-illegality of it brings out the old DOS scene culture.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#98

Post by jasonlotito »

Razengan wrote: post #87
nottorp wrote: post #54

Problem is, Apple doesn't have anything for power users or developers right now. I'm currently hackintoshing, but with every "dumb it down" decision (like remove the battery life time estimation), hardware mishap (LG monitors not working near wifi, come on) or new hardware announcement that still doesn't serve my demographic i wonder if i shouldn't just switch back to Linux. I used to say that their laptops are fine,…

> Apple doesn't have anything for power users or developers right now. I'm a power user and a developer and I find the 2016 MBPs to be the best laptops around. My only misgiving was the hefty price. The only "dongle" I needed was a single USB/USB-C adapter but I really don't have to use it most of the time; everything I have — phone, tablet, portable hard disk — works wirelessly. The battery time (I think you mistype…

> Re: the LG shielding mishap, you're blaming Apple for a completely different company's product, okay.

It's a monitor Apple effectively blessed as their monitor replacement. They sold it. So... yeah. Yeah, I do blame them for their lack of due diligence.

Why is this their problem?

Because, how am I supposed to rely on Apple to meet my needs if they are perfectly happy dropping products a business depends on?

> Which demographic and what do you require?

Not the OP, but none of the half-dozen developers/tech-oriented people I know who have switched to the latest laptops prefer them over the older ones. I've heard nothing good about them besides being a bit lighter, but that was one person and it was more a "the only thing better is it's a bit lighter" before listing complaints.

The complaints range from the touch bar to performance being far worse than older models. Running side by side, it's noticeable just by watching things run.

> What?

Are you not aware of the touch bar?

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#99

Post by jasonlotito »

swah wrote: post #66
nottorp wrote: post #54

Problem is, Apple doesn't have anything for power users or developers right now. I'm currently hackintoshing, but with every "dumb it down" decision (like remove the battery life time estimation), hardware mishap (LG monitors not working near wifi, come on) or new hardware announcement that still doesn't serve my demographic i wonder if i shouldn't just switch back to Linux. I used to say that their laptops are fine,…

I'm on Linux now, and people that like design and attention to detail can't really be happy using this... I don't expect massive migration to Linux from OSX. People will go back to Windows and OSX in a few months.

Can confirm. Ubuntu, supposedly the most user-friendly Linux desktop distro, can't even get it close to being right.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#100

Post by CPLX »

valuearb wrote: post #56
CPLX wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish I know what Apple was thinking. It's literally incomprehensible. Just make a really good fast desktop computer. They're one of the largest companies in the world now with essentially unlimited financial resources, and decades of core competency in making high end desktop computers. So like why don't they just fucking do it.

And they clearly make substantial profits on the Mac line, so again why don't they just fucking do it?

Even if they didn't who cares? For example, every motor vehicle manufacturer has an unprofitable racing effort and generates interesting concept cars and special editions to fill out the line.

Apple can have a flagship line that's break even or worse to anchor the high end. It's literally inexplicable, and I think framing it in the rational actor model is a mistake, it's best explained as a fuckup.

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