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Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

tonymacx86.com

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Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#61

Post by zmb_ »

jfroma wrote: post #31

I tried once but now I don't understand it. The main benefit for me using OSx is that is a nix desktop os that works well on a very specific hardware. Having used linux on the desktop before for years I always had some problem with drivers and alike. If I were willing to deal with these kind of issues I'd do it with some linux distribution not osx. I guess there are some cases like developing software for Apple os.

For me, Linux on the desktop is not yet close to OS X in terms of usability and application support (especially MS Office). I'm currently thinking about a hackintosh, simply because Apple does not build good hardware for desktop. The two Apple desktop machines that I currently have (Mac Mini and iMac 27") both cooked themselves to death (DVD drive on the mini and graphics card + display on the iMac). Apple simply puts too many components into too small case without enough proper thermal engineering. As a result, in heavy use the devices just end up frying themselves.

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#62

Post by ido »

jfroma wrote: post #31

I tried once but now I don't understand it. The main benefit for me using OSx is that is a nix desktop os that works well on a very specific hardware. Having used linux on the desktop before for years I always had some problem with drivers and alike. If I were willing to deal with these kind of issues I'd do it with some linux distribution not osx. I guess there are some cases like developing software for Apple os.

Pretty much, I need to compile to iOS and OS X. I currently use my (5 years old, but upgraded over the years) Mac mini for it, but as the latest version of the mini is severely restricted in upgrade potential (soldered on ram etc) when I'll want to upgrade I might look into this.

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#63

Post by orbifold »

jfroma wrote: post #31

I tried once but now I don't understand it. The main benefit for me using OSx is that is a nix desktop os that works well on a very specific hardware. Having used linux on the desktop before for years I always had some problem with drivers and alike. If I were willing to deal with these kind of issues I'd do it with some linux distribution not osx. I guess there are some cases like developing software for Apple os.

If you use a reasonable Gigabyte main board, an Intel CPU and a Nvidia graphics card, you will most likely not run into trouble. I had to change some Bios options (turn on AHCI, disable Intel Vd) and install a network and sound driver after successful installation. One of the few remaining glitches is that authentication in FaceTime is done in part by reading a unique identifier in the Firmware, which apparently is not present.

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#64

Post by orbifold »

lokeshk wrote: post #57

After a bit of brain storming between mac and hackintosh, I eventually decided to buy a mac mini 2012. I agree that the site appears very convincing, but I wonder if it's worth putting the effort to build a system that may or may not work 5 years from now. I took the cheapest mac mini 2012, $499 at BHPhoto, and upgraded the RAM to 16 GB, and HDD to 512 SSD. Couldn't be happier! I can see this device working 5 years f…

The installation is by now very straightforward, if you have for example Gigabyte board and standard components. In 2012 I bought a i7-3770, 8gb ram, nvidia gtx 680, gigabyte-z77-d3h and 256 SSD. On such hardware all it takes is readjusting some BIOS settings (turn on AHCI, disable Intel Vd) and maybe install a ethernet driver and sound driver. I'm pretty sure an equivalent iMac would have been significantly more expensive, than what I paid then.

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#65

Post by MatekCopatek »

hapless wrote: post #52
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #37

It's worth noting that this site, TonyMacx86, isn't well-liked by some of the Hackintosh community, because they plagiarise and rebrand software and drivers helpful or necessary in Hackintosh setup. The guide may be useful, but please get your setup tools from the original sources. My main source for this is conversations I've had in IRC, but it's also been noted elsewhere.[0][1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Also, apparently…

I don't think anyone is surprised when a software piracy site doesn't have careful copyright attributions for all of its piracy tools.

Don't fall for that story.

Building a Hackintosh is far from illegal, it's merely breaking Apple's EULA, and even that might be null in many places (especially EU).

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#66

Post by acous »

zaphoyd wrote: post #23
presumeaway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once it's set up and working the way you want, how often do you find yourself dealing with small issues?

There are a few different kinds of issues that come up. Software updates are a pain. Most of the time they work fine (especially now that Apple has more commodity hardware and public OS betas). Sometimes there are issues though and it is just always smart to wait a few months while they are figured out. If you are the sort that always wants to be running the latest OS version you'll find this frustrating or you'll sp…

Just a small note... when I changed my bootloader from Chameleon (BIOS) to Clover (EFI), I stopped encountering upgrade issues. Clover lets you do "native" OS updates without resorting to messing around with the bootloader. I upgraded to each 10.9.x release and have been on the public yosemite betas since beta 1, all without touching any boot flags or kexts or anything like that. iMessage and the app store have continued to function too.

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#67

Post by simonh »

LarryMade2 wrote: post #38
sounds wrote: post #3

The Hackintosh movement is still going strong. One would think Apple would make their life difficult but quite the opposite appears to be the case: there are a few well-understood workarounds to get OS X working on an off-the-shelf PC, mostly just audio and networking. Be careful if you choose not to follow the guides, though! There's a reason most Hackintoshes use Gigabyte motherboards, Atheros wireless, etc. - Just…

I think Apple doesn't worry too much, their best customers, aren't techies. They may get a hackintosh up, but if there’s any frustration they probably will just go and get an all-apple product, which will "just work". And that's the attraction of Macs.

Quite. I seriously considered the Hackintosh route a few years ago and spent some time looking into what's involved, but in the end decided it wasn't worth it. One of the reasons I switched to the Mac was because I want something that just works - I was fed up with viruses and virus scanners, driver issues and such on windows. Linux wasn't an option for similar issues though I always have it handy in a VM.

The problem for me is that while I think I'm perfectly capable of handling the technical issues with setting up a Hackintosh, the extra value of that customisability it's isn't there for me. I'd rather pay a few hundred quid more and have a solid, supported system than spend a few days of my time setting a machine up and then a few hours every few months fixing niggling issues.

I fully understand why people with specific needs go the Hackintosh route, for them it's worth it. Maybe I'll be in that camp some day, but not for now.

I suspect this is why Apple doesn't bother killing Hackintoshes. If people, are wiling to spend their own time and effort doing it, they're probably not going to instead spend the money with Apple. They are still paying a cost though, so that's the market in action. The alternative would be Apple spending Engineering effort fighting them. Again, that's not an efficient or economically useful way to spend that time and money.

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#68

Post by jfroma »

eropple wrote: post #39
jfroma wrote: post #31

I tried once but now I don't understand it. The main benefit for me using OSx is that is a nix desktop os that works well on a very specific hardware. Having used linux on the desktop before for years I always had some problem with drivers and alike. If I were willing to deal with these kind of issues I'd do it with some linux distribution not osx. I guess there are some cases like developing software for Apple os.

I can only speak for myself, but I Hackintosh because I need more computrons than I can get in a retina MBP or a Mac mini and I'm not paying $5K for a Mac Pro. My desktop (a Nehalem i7 with a Radeon HD6870) is still competitive with every Mac they field, aside from that Pro, and I paid about a grand for it three years ago. Even aside from the lack of basically essential applications like Photoshop and Illustrator, I'…

Thanks for sharing, application support is something I didn't consider on my post and yes I can see a great value there.

Regarding Gnome, KDE and XFCE, I think these are not that bad, but I understand having different experiences than you because I suspect we are different type of users.

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#69

Post by wila »

lnanek2 wrote: post #43
foobarqux wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to run OSX in a VM.

VMWare has been capable of that for a long time, although not publicly.

While I understand what you mean let me try and clarify that a bit.

Running OS X under VMware Workstation is not supported by VMware and is not allowed according to apple's EULA. This probably was what you referred towards.

However you can run OS X legally and supported on VMware Fusion and VMware vSphere provided that the hardware it runs on is apple hardware.

Yes I realized that that by itself is probably no good for most of the hackintosh folks, but it is an alternative option if you have a need to run more as one OS X version and want to reduce the cost a bit.

Below is a direct link from the VMware compatility guide on OS X 10.9, you can change the details in the search if you want info about another OS X version.

http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?dev...

Re: Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide

#70

Post by cowsandmilk »

MatekCopatek wrote: post #65
hapless wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is surprised when a software piracy site doesn't have careful copyright attributions for all of its piracy tools.

Don't fall for that story. Building a Hackintosh is far from illegal, it's merely breaking Apple's EULA, and even that might be null in many places (especially EU).

They are both violating licenses authored by Apple to protect their copyright. In one case, the APSL, in the other, an EULA.
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