The Mac Pro Lives • Hacker News Board

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#101

Post by nek4life » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 1:18 PM UTC

Great. Now they need to reintroduce a MBP with top of the line specs and without the stupid touchbar.

Snark aside, I have a mid 2010 mac pro at home that is still going strong (due to upgrades, SSD, more RAM.) However, I would like to get a new GPU for the machine, but I'm not about to spend $500 on a better, but ancient GPU that's compatible with a 7 year old machine. I've been wondering what my upgrade path would be. No way in hell I'm buying a trashcan mac without any upgradability. And I'm certainly not going to buy a MBP with the touchbar (I need a real escape key) and under powered specs.

I'm really hoping this is true, otherwise in the next year or two I'm going to be seriously considering building a PC like I used to and deal with Windows 10. The rest of my family uses apple and it makes support for their devices easier being on the same platform, but I need better performance for photo editing and audio production.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#102

Post by mikeash » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 1:18 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #58

jacquesm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He already has one.

Not selling it is equivalent to choosing to buy (a used) one.

Transaction costs (both the explicit "we take a percentage" kind, and the hidden ones like the risk of being ripped off) are pretty significant, so no, not really.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#103

Post by bane » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 1:19 PM UTC

Tl;dr Theatrical announcement of minor spec bump followed by undescribed future replacement product in the next 18 months, for a widely disliked and stale product makes front page of hn.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#104

Post by Bluestrike2 » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 1:20 PM UTC

j_s wrote: post #54

jacquesm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can run linux on the MBP. It's a pretty good combination.

Not sure on the specifics of an 18-month-old MBP vs. this list, but nothing is guaranteed. https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux State of Linux on the MacBook Pro 2016 Not Working: • Audio input & output • Bluetooth • Keyboard backlight • Suspend & Hibernation • Touch ID • Wi-Fi

When you start getting into Hackintoshes or running non-OSX operating systems on Macs (aside from Windows and Boot Camp), things can get iffy in some situations. That list is pretty nasty, though I'm fairly surprised someone got the damned Touch Bar working for Linux.

But if there's one good thing at play, it's that there's a fairly active community that tries to tackle these problems.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#105

Post by nek4life » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 1:21 PM UTC

milhous wrote: post #14

What are the chances the new Mac Pro will simply be a smaller, higher-density form factor of the cheese grater Mac Pro? Also glad to hear the Mac Mini's not being killed off.

I wouldn't mind a slightly smaller cheese grater truth be had. It's a heavy beast of a machine and takes up a fair bit of space. Although it doesn't really move much and I don't notice it too much sitting next to me. Top specs and upgradability are my top feature requests.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#106

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 1:21 PM UTC

jt2190 wrote: post #67

jlgaddis wrote: post #5

For me -- and, I suspect, many others -- this is too little too late. Just a few months ago, I spent somewhere around $4500 (all-in) putting together a new workstation. It runs Linux instead of OS X and this has led to me using my (4-year-old) ThinkPad more than my (18-month-old) MacBook Pro (when I'm "on the go"). I actually plan on selling the MBP; I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm sure this is great news…

Mac Pro, not MacBook Pro.

[deleted]

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#107

Post by intoverflow2 » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 1:22 PM UTC

jlgaddis wrote: post #5

For me -- and, I suspect, many others -- this is too little too late. Just a few months ago, I spent somewhere around $4500 (all-in) putting together a new workstation. It runs Linux instead of OS X and this has led to me using my (4-year-old) ThinkPad more than my (18-month-old) MacBook Pro (when I'm "on the go"). I actually plan on selling the MBP; I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm sure this is great news…

Same I was a huge mac fan, switched during the TiBook era a good 14 years ago used them throughout my professional career (designer, 3D, animation, creative tech) but after waiting and waiting for a pro refresh with Nvidia I bit the bullet and built a PC in December.

I would have been willing to spend several thousand £ on a Mac Pro that met my needs, ended up having my needs met by a PC with a GTX 1080 that cost less than the baseline iMac and within 15 minutes of 3D rendering using CUDA and Octane render I asked myself why I didn't do this years ago and my wallet thanks me.

Now I don't really see the point in going back to Apple, feels like they've only just decided to care about pro users again and this was probably a decision that came out of a meeting where it was 50/50 if the line was killed or rebooted.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#108

Post by manyxcxi » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 1:22 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #36

jlgaddis wrote: post #5

For me -- and, I suspect, many others -- this is too little too late. Just a few months ago, I spent somewhere around $4500 (all-in) putting together a new workstation. It runs Linux instead of OS X and this has led to me using my (4-year-old) ThinkPad more than my (18-month-old) MacBook Pro (when I'm "on the go"). I actually plan on selling the MBP; I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm sure this is great news…

You can run linux on the MBP. It's a pretty good combination.

I'll second that.

I've had very good luck with my conversion on my old MBP so far. I have a late 2009 kicking around the house, basically a web browsing computer or backup machine if I leave my newer model in the office, etc.

Since I couldn't get the latest macOS on it I figured I'd just wipe it and install a Linux distro- all told I was maybe an hour into the process and had Ubuntu 16.10 running like a champ. The built in Ethernet was a life saver because I had to replace the WiFi drivers and there were a few power settings I tweaked.

A few weeks post install I've tweaked touchpad settings and various other things, except for the WiFi, it worked nearly straight out of the gate, and it was certainly functional immediately post-install.

Known limitations that affect me are pretty much limited to Thunderbolt hotswap (you've got to boot with the TB hardware plugged in), lid close/sleep is pretty finicky (I feel like this has always been the case with every Linux laptop I've ever run), and the iSight drivers for the built in web cam have some issues therefor preventing some smart screen dimming functionality. If I actually took the time to patch the drivers this sounds like it's resolvable but I really just don't care.

Battery life is tough to gauge because it's so old and I didn't benchmark it pre-Linux but I'm getting about 2-2.5 hours out of it while writing code. Obviously not great, but I doubt I was getting that much more w/ OS X. This machine was my daily workhorse for a couple of years, it's got plenty of cycles on the battery. With auto screen dimming or GPU optimizations, this could likely get improved.

Really, the only thing I'm finding now is that I'm not a huge fan of the default Ubuntu 16.10 desktop and I'll probably start hopping distros since it's been a while since I was running a Linux desktop as a main OS.

I would say that from a completely subjective standpoint it feels every bit as snappy in standard use as OS X did and it will likely keep this machine quite useful for as long as it holds together.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#109

Post by dexterdog » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 1:24 PM UTC

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #78

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missing the point though. It's not just the hardware, it's the trust. A lot of pros will be thinking "So why should I buy New MacPro if they're only going to let the line stagnate again?"

Apple said entire point of the redesign is to make the machine modular, so that it can be upgraded down the line, specifically addressing this concern. I guess it's up to each person to determine for themselves whether to believe it.

Modular so you can upgrade it only with Apple parts?

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#110

Post by smpetrey » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 1:24 PM UTC

intoverflow2 wrote: post #95

simonbarker87 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't take that too literally, firstly those are Gruber's words and secondly, there isn't anything stopping you putting the Mac Pro on the floor so long as the cables reach.

Well not sure the air inlets taking the dust and fluff in off the floor is a great idea for it.

Couldn't agree more, I mean hell I put my G5 (cheese grater) behind my monitor (on my desk) back in the day _just_ so I could more easily dust my machine. Pretty? No way. Ergonomic? Yes.