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

Building a Hackintosh Pro

dancounsell.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 272 posts

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#101

Post by Razengan »

jasonlotito wrote: post #98
Razengan wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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.

Apple don't make the LG Ultrafine Display. Apple offer many other third-party products through their stores, but it's the manufacturer's responsibility to support those.

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

Apple still make amazing 5120×2880, 10-bits-per-channel screens: The Retina iMacs. If your business depends on such screens, you'd get the iMacs, not the MacBooks, or get a MacBook with any of the many third-party 4K displays.

> none of the half-dozen developers/tech-oriented people I know who have switched to the latest laptops prefer them over the older ones.

Why?

> before listing complaints. The complaints range from the touch bar

Like? What complaints specifically?

> to performance being far worse than older models.

They have some of the fastest SSDs on the market [1], their batteries can go up to 18 hours [2], they have the fastest GPUs ever in a MacBook, and how many laptops do you know that have high-DPI Wide Color screens?

----

> Are you not aware of the touch bar?

I use it daily, and it's better than the archaic row of limited and cryptic FN keys that it replaces, especially once you've tweaked it a little. [3]

FN Keys:

• 12

• Have to remember what each number does in each app

• Different numbers remain "fixed" for different functions in different operating systems (e.g. F1 for Help, Alt+F4 for Quit.)

• Not customizable

• Cannot give at-a-glance status without taking up main screen space

----

Touch Bar:

• More than 12

• Not limited by physical space

• Context-sensitive and adaptive

• More types of controls than just buttons (e.g. sliders, color pickers)

• Customizable

• Can display at-a-glance status such as time, battery etc.

----

As for other companies that offer high-end laptops, take a look at people's experience with Razer for example. [4]

All of the over-a-dozen developers/tech-oriented people that -I- know prefer the 2016 MBPs to everything else. They've also outsold all other competitors in just a single month. [5]

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/01/2016-macbook-pro-ssd/

[2] https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/13/macbook-pro-battery-issu...

[3] https://alexw.me/2017/01/what-if-you-could-customize-your-ne...

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13785247

[5] http://fortune.com/2016/11/09/apple-macbook-pro-sales/

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#102

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

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.

There's also turf war nonsense. The site that the OP mentions so much, from what I remember, plagiarises the software it offers.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#103

Post by jseliger »

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…

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

Isn't that a Dell XPS? https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/the-xps-13-de-dell-c...

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#104

Post by astrodust »

CPLX wrote: post #49
jrnichols wrote: post #2

I'm in the same boat this author is. It's disappointing to see the desktop market lagging so far behind. For all of the 68k/PPC years, we could at least say "different architecture" and Intel hadn't caught up. Now we're all Intel, and it's Apple that isn't keeping up. It's frustrating, and I'm not necessarily a "Pro user" anymore at all. I have a current generation Mac Mini, and it's over 2 years old now. What I can…

> 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.

> So like why don't they just fucking do it.

Google shovels billions into these absurd projects that never go anywhere and nobody blinks because it's Google. They announce projects and then cancel them just before they hit store shelves, or worse, after they've sold some and then decide to arbitrarily brick them. It's just Google being Google. Nobody cares.

Apple removes a single connector on their product and everyone goes apeshit. "Apple's doomed!" "Apple profits are going to suffer! Sell!" Doesn't matter that their device sold in record numbers. It's about perception.

Apple has to tread carefully. They too unbelievable amounts of shit on the Cube, a computer that in retrospect was just one stepping-stone on the path towards the very successful Mini, and on other "failures". They're allergic to public humiliation like that, and a desktop computer that sells only in low volumes is a failure.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#105

Post by rickyc091 »

tumblen wrote: post #45
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…

I think things have improved in the Hackintosh community. I built one a few months ago and was up and running in a day. Small issues since, but there's always a solution + guide within 15 minutes of searching (and it's usually just flipping a flag in Clover). When an update comes out, I just wait a week or so to make sure there are no issues and then update (no issues at all so far with that). Having a ridiculously p…

Does iMessage work without utilizing a real mac's serial number? I learned my lesson after I used the same serial to get it working on my hackintosh and then I got locked out on my real mac. Ended up resolving it after a few support messages.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#106

Post by thyselius »

I built a crazy fast Hackintosh using the intel 8 core 5960x CPU. 17000 on Cinebench. However I sold it a week ago.

Being iOS developer really sucked, as I needed to upgrade OS X for Xcode but the CPU wasn't supported with Sierra for 6 months.

Also I spent at least 2 weeks of work on it during the year I had it. So not worth it. But there are slower cpus that are better supported. It was fun the days it worked though:)

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#107

Post by haltandsleep »

I bought my Mac the first month they appeared in 1984. I won't bother you with the ensuing history, but I will raise a question related to it:

I remember when Apple could not offer a retail OS, not without cannibalizing hardware sales. If Pro desktops fade, is that still true for that segment? Or could they offer something Xeon only (to keep out commodity laptops) as a legal Hackintosh? Or do certified configurations a la Oculus? If their profit is in mobile, and cloud services, it might help more than hurt.

FWIW I like Debian now, and the non-intrusive UI.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#108

Post by daxelrod »

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.

> it's rarely actually OSS-licensed

It seems strange to worry about licensing in a community predicated on violating a term of an OS license.

Is this a problem because source code isn't available?

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#109

Post by colept »

rickyc091 wrote: post #105
tumblen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think things have improved in the Hackintosh community. I built one a few months ago and was up and running in a day. Small issues since, but there's always a solution + guide within 15 minutes of searching (and it's usually just flipping a flag in Clover). When an update comes out, I just wait a week or so to make sure there are no issues and then update (no issues at all so far with that). Having a ridiculously p…

Does iMessage work without utilizing a real mac's serial number? I learned my lesson after I used the same serial to get it working on my hackintosh and then I got locked out on my real mac. Ended up resolving it after a few support messages.

Yes it works with a spoofed serial

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#110

Post by nottorp »

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…

First, you're defending the laptop, not the desktops. The laptops are still almost okay. Now for some point answers...

> The battery time (I think you mistyped "life time") estimation was dumb, never accurate or consistent, and people don't mind the lack of it on billions of other mobile devices anyway.

It was accurate as long as you kept doing the same task. For example, I knew how much longer a gaming session or a long build could last on battery. But this is laptop stuff and the original article and my whining is about desktops.

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

A completely different company's product that is the only solution that makes use of the emoji mbpro's features, is sold and promoted a lot by Apple, and thus endorsed by them on their web site.

> Which demographic and what do you require?

Independent dev working from home. Running two VMs simultaneously at times, and also using the same computer for entertainment, namely gaming. Working on compiled software, not scp-ing stuff to a server for web development, so I actually need CPU power.

I could almost use the trash can, except they want me to pay for two slow video cards that are for some reason labeled "pro". Put in it a nvidia 1050+ and I'll buy it, although I'll be a bit space challenged. Some source trees take a lot of space. I'll even pay extra for the Xeon and ECC ram i don't really need, but give me a video card i can game on.

Before you ask, no, the iMac is not a dev's computer. It thermally throttles if you actually use the CPU, and makes laptop-like noise when compiling. No thank you. I've heard even the trash can throttles, and i blame the "pro" video cards.

> touch typing hostile emoji keyboard?

What you read exactly. Please explain how you touch type on the touch screen that replaced the F keys and how it is useful to me when I, like anyone who works a lot with the keyboard, have memorized every shortcut I use. It's mostly good for emoji in instant messaging, and I don't use that either.

Post reply on HN