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

211–220 of 272 posts

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#211

Post by unscaled »

Razengan wrote: post #159
nottorp wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you keep saying this? The Touch Bar replaces the FN keys, not the keyboard. I use those keys. Without looking down. > Which computer do you use? Is it a desktop without any fans? Let's say I build my systems according to the advice on silentpcreview.com. Apple laptops on full load may be quiet for a laptop, but they have nothing on a custom built desktop.

> I use those keys. Without looking down. Unless you slide your finger across the keyboard to "count" which FN key is under your finger, you can still use FN keys on the Touch Bar, without looking down; they are in the same positions. The Touch Bar is always within your peripheral vision when you're looking at the screen anyway [1] [2]. > Let's say I build my systems according to the advice on silentpcreview.com. App…

> Unless you slide your finger across the keyboard to "count" which FN key is under your finger, you can still use FN keys on the Touch Bar, without looking down; they are in the same positions.

If that was true, we could just use an iPad instead of a physical keyboard. But there's a reason people don't like typing on chiclet keyboards or glass, and some developers even go to great lengths of geekery to build custom mechanical keyboards with different types of switches.

Typing on glass just doesn't give you the same feedback you get from physical keys.

I'm not saying the Touch Bar is not an improvement for many people. Many people (even some developers or professionals) rarely use the F-keys. But there is a certain demographic which deeply cares about the keyboard, and there's no denying parts of this demographic overlapped with that of MBP users.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#212

Post by H4CK3RM4N »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #160
SXX wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO this have really little to do with legal status, but more with work atmosphere in community. You can see exactly the same problem on console hacking / homebrew scene. From one side there is huge user base full of people who want to get something working with no effort and usually tend to demand something from developers, but very few can provide even proper bug reports. On other side there is bunch of "experts"…

Back when I was in high school, I ported the game DOOM to Nintendo DS with a friend on IRC, and watched dozens of "forks" afterwards with minor changes or repackaging show up trying to take credit for our work (sometimes not even mentioning us at all as the authors!).

Oh man, I just saw DOOM on a DS the other day. Was it a source-port or a dosbox implementation?

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#213

Post by wingworks »

nottorp wrote: post #80
swah wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For the record, I've been using Linux as my main OS for 10 years when I finally decided to switch to OS X about 4 years ago. I have no problem switching back if Apple stops offering me enough flexibility. After all, you don't need to recompile your kernel to install drivers any more :)

You don't need to deal with drivers period on MacOS. I use Linux every day as a server, and have tried a few times to use it as a desktop platform, but never last longer than a few hours. (I'm a graphics person)

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#214

Post by wingworks »

eosrei wrote: post #197
jasonlotito wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Assuming you mean the GUI side, as a full time Linux user: Unity is infuriating. I run MATE and recommend trying Cinnamon (Mint), Gnome3 (Fedora), KDE (Kubuntu), or https://elementary.io/ for strong hints of apple flavor.

Yeah hints, I've been waiting years for a well-polished frontend, still waiting. Though as you mentioned the likes of elementary.io and the like, they are getting closer, but feel it'll still be a few years away.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#215

Post by throwaway55523 »

CPLX wrote: post #100
valuearb wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wish I could upvote this (and your other comments) 100 times. Amazing high quality machines will keep the design and dev community on Mac for years to come, churning out the apps that help to make the iPhone ecosystem work.

Bleeding power users to alternative systems creates vulnerability.

These arguments would be the same for Microsoft circa 2007. Why should Microsoft care if the designers, developers, and tastemakers hate their products? They've got so much lock-in that people will be forced to use their stuff forever. Wheee, we're invincible. We all know how this turned out.

I'm running up against low memory issues on my 16gb MBP lately. I absolutely cannot responsibly update my Apple product right now because of the 16gb limitation on the MBP. It does matter!

I'm getting ready to bite the bullet and go back to Linux desktop.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#216

Post by nzp »

eosrei wrote: post #197
jasonlotito wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Assuming you mean the GUI side, as a full time Linux user: Unity is infuriating. I run MATE and recommend trying Cinnamon (Mint), Gnome3 (Fedora), KDE (Kubuntu), or https://elementary.io/ for strong hints of apple flavor.

I'm honestly curious, what is it that you find infuriating with Unity? I hear this often, but never specific reasons. I'm perfectly OK with Unity, and I'm a tiling WM kinda guy (so it's far from ideal, but still perfectly usable). The few times I've tried to use Gnome 3, on the other hand, I just couldn't figure it out.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#217

Post by tbrock »

tushar-r wrote: post #191
wmf wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Depends on the device and the ROM creator. I'm using an OnePlus One with SultanXDA's excellent CyanongenMod-based ROM for over a year. Updated every month with security updates and works perfectly fine. Similar good experience with Nexus 4 and NitrogenOS for my standby device. Android 7, works perfectly fine.

Wow, "security updates" from some random person making roms on the internet. Good luck buddy!

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#218

Post by freshyill »

Larrikin wrote: post #116
wmf wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Honestly the most annoying thing about that community is that you're expected to wade through hundreds of pages on forums, piecing together information, and people get furious because the answer to your question was on page 63 out of 124. The custom roms will list the very specific things that differentiate them but there are hardly any guides with best practices except maybe if you have the most popular phone out th…

So it's slightly better than trying to find an answer on Apple's support forums.

I'm kidding, but only a little. This actually sounds a lot like the state of the Minecraft ecosystem last time I checked, about two years ago.

Re: Building a Hackintosh Pro

#219

Post by Hydraulix989 »

H4CK3RM4N wrote: post #212
Hydraulix989 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when I was in high school, I ported the game DOOM to Nintendo DS with a friend on IRC, and watched dozens of "forks" afterwards with minor changes or repackaging show up trying to take credit for our work (sometimes not even mentioning us at all as the authors!).

Oh man, I just saw DOOM on a DS the other day. Was it a source-port or a dosbox implementation?

Source port using SDL and my friend Wintermute's libnds. There's no way the DS's ARM9 processor would've been able to handle running DOSBOX. Just out of curiosity, where did you see it, if you don't mind me asking?

Man, I remember feeling disappointed people weren't making more FPS games for DS, so I decided DOOM would be fun to port. I even got the wifi multiplayer working.

EDIT: The biggest unsolved hurdle was getting the music to play (it was MIDI and the DS hardware didn't really have anything to play it back). Eventually someone got a hand-optimized OPL3 ASM player to work on ARM7, but I don't think anybody ever managed to connect it to DOOM running on the ARM9 processor using the FIFO. The DS had two CPUs (ARM7+ARM9), and the ARM9 was completely utilized.

I also helped out in a very minor capacity with DS Linux, but pepsiman did nearly all the work.

Post reply on HN