Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide October 2016
tonymacx86.com
tonymacx86.com
I know they won't, but I still have dreams. I do wonder what was the real story when Steve Jobs made his public comments on clones[3] and what the price was they refused[4].
1) Lord knows I paid more for NeXTSTEP back in the day.
2) It was kinda fun to call a number and get a fax back with the list of hardware you could buy.
The fact is that many of the innovations we come to appreciate Apple for come from their ownership of both the hardware and the software.
Since they switched to Intel, what are these innovations that I cannot just buy? I see the new Touch Bar, but even that I can skip[1]. I really wonder what would be different?
I doubt they will ever go back, but Apple sure isn't doing a whole lot to satisfy my desktop love. What exactly on the Mac mini and Mac Pro cannot be bought by a third party?
1) The whole idea of something that make me move my eyes to the keyboard is unwelcome.
For example, being limited to 16gb because of power consumption because they picked LPDDR3 memory instead of LPDDR4.
More importantly, Hackintosh requires custom kexts, at a minimum FakeSMC.kext. That kext is used to bypass Apple's hardware locks. Has it been audited? If so, can you trust that the installer you use to wedge the kext in actually uses the clean kext and not a rooted version that puts you at risk? What happens when you load that kext? Even if it isn't overtly trying to compromise your system, does it open security holes? Does it silently corrupt your disk due to a bug somewhere?
Let's say you're ok with all that. What happens when you make it big, and Apple decides to sue you for breaking the EULA of MacOS? I wouldn't base my business on it.
However I did put a Hackintosh into mission critical use for a bit. The machine was a ~$300 Dell Mini 9 which remains one of the all time easiest and most stable Hackintosh builds. To be fair it was a puny computer, but I upgraded mine with a larger SSD which made it pretty quick, and it was rock-solid stable. TBH I don't think it ever crashed or hang. And it was tiny.
I used this as my onstage computer for about a year running Reaktor and Sampletank. It took many falls. I never once had a problem with it. Its teensy size meant it could perch in a blank area on top of my keyboard.
However you're right about updates. They could be fatal and had to be well-researched and planned.
[1]: http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbo...
I’m looking forward to see how many times my new pre-ordered MBP 2016 will need to be serviced.
Meanwhile, I would bet good money that my two hackintosh systems will keep running.
The only reason I chose Hackintosh over actual hardware is that Apple seems to have given up on the desktop market. When their current top of the line machine costs $9400 for 3+ year old tech, of course people are going to look for alternatives. In the life of GPU tech, the Dual D700s are as useful and relevant as T-Rex arms. CPU tech hasn't changed, but preventing me from keeping up to date with GPUS is unforgivable in a desktop.
As long as EULAs are concerned, in the EU they are unenforceable.
No, that's a myth. It's only that certain clauses in RULAs are unenforceable
However, making hackintosh a commercial business (Psystar), actually selling pre-configured, ready-to-go systems, yes, that is a law suit.
I never dual booted Windows, but I read about lots of problems people had in the forums.
It was like removing a large pebble from my shoe when I got my Mac Pro.
Who even said anything about business?
But if you're worried about security you can run OS X well enough in a VM (optionally with real hardware) doesn't need any 3rd party kexts AFAIK.
At least in VirtualBox, OS X dev tools short circuit on illegal instructions pretty quickly
You can even run several VMs with several GPUs at the same time. Essentially you can have 2+ computers at the price of one.
Of course, a lot of HD content can run with very modest specs (as long as the codecs are accelerated on the GPU), but for occasional content that requires CPU decoding or players/sites that aren't yet supported on standalone devices (Apple TV, Roku, etc), it's a really nice solution. Plus, it keeps each TV very clean in terms of cables and hardware.
I've done hackintosh on bare metal in the past, but even if I were setting up a single-headed hackintosh now, I'd still go the VFIO route - it makes updates much less stressful since you can quickly roll back to a snapshot if you break something.
- Hardware (which is dated now): Asus Z87 Pro with i7 4770, 16 GB Memory, 4x AMD Radeon 6450 cards (< $20/ea used)
- Proxmox/host config: vfiobind the PCI device IDs for graphics cards on boot, slightly modified pve-q35.cfg (workaround for some OS X issues on q35), using fairly standard VM args for booting OS X
- GPUs work fine after a standard OS X install, but to get audio working over HDMI, I needed a couple of edits to my DSDT (basically just inserting a GFX0 device with "hda-gfx" = "onboard-1", a standard HDAU device, and a DTGP device), and boot with the Enoch bootloader (this can be specified in the VM args to avoid having to install to disk). No extra kexts needed.
That's about it. Some of those things may no longer be necessary in the latest version of Proxmox (I haven't updated my base system in a while). Once I got things working, it's been completely stable for more than a year.
Depending on the environment, wireless devices could be used with separate USB receivers (e.g. Bluetooth adapters) for each screen (passed directly to the VMs), but the distance in my setup was proving to be a bit too far for a stable Bluetooth connection.
I'm just using some of my own scripts right now to configure everything and allow for some meta commands (things like powering on/off the TV, switching inputs, etc). I'd love to clean it up and publish it at some point, but just haven't had the time.
https://nixos.org/wiki/QEMU_guest_with_VGA_passthrough
https://www.reddit.com/r/unRAID
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PCI_passthrough_via_OVM...
I'd recommend going with NixOS and libvirt, but other communities such as around unRAID or Arch might be bigger.
https://gist.github.com/xaduha/226ff1b991bd54db09ff0bbd1df79...
snapshot=on option allows me to discard changes to the image with every launch, folders like Desktop, Downloads, etc are not part of the image.
When I do need to keep the changes I use a commit command, not mucking with actual snapshots anymore.
$ virsh qemu-monitor-command MAIN --hmp commit all
As for macOS VM, I haven't used one recently, but it's totally possible.
If you're not passing a real GPU then you're doing it wrong and shouldn't expect much anyway.
Also by default qemu/kvm only uses one processor core I think, what are using to launch it? A script?
However, when I upgraded the OS to El Capitan, I needed to update the firwmare of the mobo. After upgrading the firmware, Gigabyte removed support for the Thunderbolt expansion card. Suddenly, I can no longer use any of those devices. I searched, but there was no mention of the loss of thunderbolt with the use of that firmware. I have seen online where others are also in the same Thunderboltless boat, even if they are running Windows.
Just and FYI to consider if anyone reading this thread is thinking of the CustoMac route. This isn't the Hackintosh community's issue for something they changed. It's the hardware vendor's decision.
You install via USB.
I seem to have to update my video card driver after an OS X update, but it takes less than 3 minutes.
I built it figuring worse-case scenario, I can slap Linux or Windows on it, and it will still be good hardware.
I spent more on the monitor than the system build.
If you do, I recommend purchasing the PCI-E adapter for the Apple Broadcom BCM94360CD card to have native wifi+bluetooth.
Very stable.
Here is an overview of the bootloader used, Clover.
2. DRM protected iTunes movies (the ones that don't work if you don't have a DRM capable monitor attached) won't play.
Those are the only two issues with Hackintoshes that can't be fixed by buying right hardware.
The Mac Pro supports up to 64GB of RAM.
Of course, you can buy a similarly capable Dell (OSX not included) for less, but you lose the hassle-free Macintoshness.
Financial sanity, mostly. Those things cost $10,000+
You don't need a mac pro if your only reason for having a Mac is to run Xcode.
Is not ideal to have more than 1 machine.
The inconveniences of using another platform (or lack of support with macOS on unsupported hardware) far outweighs the slight benefit of 32gb vs 16gb of ram.
We don't buy for years-ago needs, but for now-and-future.
And even ignoring this: Is also signaling. We expect top-of-the-line machine for work.
IF we use at FULL capacity OR NOT, is not the business of Apple.
Define top of the line. What measurement do you use?
The reason the 2016 MBP has a 2015 Intel CPU is the same reason it has a 16GB memory limit.
Intel hasn't shipped a LPDDR4-capable quad-core mobile processor yet. Even dual-core Kaby Lake mobile processors released already don't support LPDDR4, and even if they did, they're less appropriate for a "pro" machine than previous generation quads.
[In competing devices the only machines that exceed 16GB of RAM will be using regular DDR3/4, (i.e. not low-power) and there will be a significant battery life effect, not to mention running hotter. (More power in == more heat out)
As a developer (i.e. not video/audio/graphics editing/production) the only use I can imagine that would regularly benefit from > 16GB of RAM is running multiple virtual machines to simulate a complex server environment.
This is the exact scenario I personally would like 32/64 GB of RAM to better handle. And yet, I'm still in favour of the highly portable configuration they settled on, rather than a power-hungry, hot machine using regular DDR.
If you are spending on memory and CPU you don't need, you are spending your money (ou your client's money) foolishly. Spend it on things that'll make you more productive.
No machine should be left so long without updates. I really don't understand why Apple does that, they should be embarrassed
Margins. The more they can flog the same hardware, the higher the margins: you need less changes to the production chain (which are the real cost) and components get cheaper over time.
Guess who's in charge of Apple since 2013? A production-chain guy.
The prevalence of hackintoshes is a direct result of a gaping hole existing in Apple's product line. Mac Pros are badly priced given their age and not everyone needs dual GPUs, but you don't have the option to reduce costs by dropping the second GPU if it's not needed. You can't opt for a more CPU/less GPU config either. The iMac is nice, but it has the reverse problem: its graphics are terribly weak for the display it drives and can never be upgraded. And of course there's the Mac Mini, which is little more than a low end headless 13" MacBook Pro, complete with the limitations of that model. There is no midrange Mac desktop that can be tailored to an individual's needs at a reasonable cost, and that's where hackintoshes come into the picture.
If Apple wants to slow down hackintoshing dramatically all they have to do is release a tower akin to the old aluminum Mac Pros and start its pricing at $1500 - $2000. People will gladly pay the price for a real Mac as long as they feel like they're getting a machine that caters to their needs. It's mostly alienated Mac fans who hackintosh, not cheapskates.
https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/7319000
https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/7246385
They are both equipped with GTX 970.
It's been rock solid, and I want to write my own boxen so that I can mimic my MBP build
How hardware and software come together in an unified user experience.
This is why people talk about Spectrums, Commodores, Ataris, Amigas, Macs, and game consoles.
This is why hardly anyone talks about nice memorable experiences with PC clones.
Also, the UX/UI of OS X is just miles ahead of anything on Linux. Same for 3rd party software.
I thought the same, but I spent the last few days surveying the field and it's not actually the case anymore. ElementaryOS and LinuxMint have top-notch desktop managers (Pantheon and Cinnamon respectively) and provide a really polished experience. After a few hours on Elementary in a VM, I am really tempted to format my rMBP and see if it can be my main OS going forward.
I still remember having to write a Bash script on Ubuntu to move the mouse every 2 minutes because the screensaver couldn't detect VLC was running in fullscreen. Or having to reboot because the audio driver crashed randomly.
Even xkcd has a strip about something similar https://xkcd.com/196/
I remember when compiz came out and it was supposed to make the UIs really pop with a good graphics card. It really bridged the gap a lot, but the physics in the animation lacked a bit of timing finesse. The animations weren't terribly clunky, but they lacked a certain fluidity with the interaction. When interacting with a mouse or finger, certain things like input speed wouldn't be taken account for. Like on MacOS, a fast moving mouse cursor travels more across the screen than a slow moving mouse cursor. When scrolling, moving the scrollbars faster increase the scrolling speed while slowing down the movements slow things down proportionately in a very intuitive fashion, while a similar concept on Linux may do something very similar, it doesn't quite hit the nail on the head. It usually requires adjusting ones input and getting used to the tool.
Even when the OS UI improved, individual applications also needed appropriate UI updates and UX. Since a lot of GUI apps were wrappers for underlying command-line utilities, they felt a lot like thinking in command-line mode for a GUI app or were unapproachable unless one came from a technical background.
But even for people who may only use a browser, when starting a browser, the default set of fonts in a given browser were usually not that great. Not sure how much it has improved now, but I think the main culprit lies in the font rendering settings and available fonts. Getting prettier fonts have improved slightly, but a lot of the system feel comes from these fonts, especially in things like menus. So reading a webpage in some standard sans-serif may be fine on Windows & Mac, but just look slightly off on Linux. Functionally, nothing was wrong, but maybe the text box slightly overflowed outside of a div that was sized well for MacOS and Windows, but not Linux.
Small things like these add up and make people feel like desktop Linux is just not quite there. I think Canonical has done a tremendous amount of work getting desktop Linux closer to being viable. This is coming from someone that's on 14.04 ubuntu. I haven't tried the lastest 16.x series, but I'm guessing it will get closer.
The other challenge outside of UI/UX improvements really is commercial support that comes along with 3rd party products. When you purchase some printer and you see there is included productivity software, it will 100% work on Windows, 20% chance there is a Mac port, and usually 0% chance that it has a Linux port/version. Even when you purchase something OS agnostic like a cable modem, there will be Windows/Mac Compatible logos, but no Linux Compatible sticker making one feel like desktop Linux is relevant or even a prudent choice for someone non-technical to use.
A few years later, after Apple released the first intel macs, I discovered the osx86 wiki, gave it a shot and it worked! I built a Hackintosh that was almost as powerful as a full MacPro, Intel Q6600, 16GB RAM, RAID10 HDD, for 1/3 of the price.
I've always enjoyed using a Mac since the System 7 days. But in this day and age paying >$1500 for a laptop just seems ludicrous. I'm typing this from a 2011 MBP. I anticipated purchasing a newer 2016 MBP. After this announcement I'll probably look into a refurbished rMBP.
Sadly, I believe the entry level xMac is never going to happen. the Mac mini gets no love, the MacPro gets no attention, the iMac gets and it appears the focus is mobile and laptops. So I'll be back on the OSX86 wiki making my shopping list and doing my research once again.
Do not even bother to mention Wine, or Linux native alternatives, because there are non that are good enough for most professional users.
Also, less painful? I spend less time installing and configuring a hackintosh system and upgrades than I do configuring and maintaining most Linux distros.
Making a stable hackintosh system these days is as easy as picking parts from something like OP’s post and following install and configure guides on the same site. Very little pain involved actually.
My preferred work environment is OS X/macOS as host and a Linux distro as guest.
I also prefer a hackintosh system to a Mac Pro for price/performance ratio, and the flexibility of selecting my own hardware and upgrading whenever I feel like it.
Also, curiosity.
Take window management, for example: If I want my windows to fill exactly half the screen, have one window on top of all others or move them from anywhere (just not the title bar), last time I checked it was just impossible out of the box.
Package management is another thing where GNU/Linux excels. On Debian, I am usually just a single “apt-get” away from having exactly what I need. The UI for such tasks does not seem to exist at all on OS X without third party tools.
In practical terms, Apple delivering outdated GNU utilities that are by now nine years old is something that should not happen with a modern operating system. I have encountered a lot of (non-developer) Apple users who do not know this and then wonder why something does not work.
If you would explain what makes the “UI being much better” in your eyes, it might help us to understand why exactly we think differently (heh) here.
My blood boils when I hear about linux on desktop because my experience always involved up keeping linux doing millions of easy things all the time just to make the thing run.
Some funny glitch when running Chrome? Oh that's because of the display driver, update it and you'll be fine but to update it you need to install some dependencies and to install these dependencies you need to add some repo. Oh great now the app that worked is no longer working because installing drivers somehow messed to the permissions of some folder, just run this command to fix the permissions and now you are all good. Remember that app that was crashing due to permissions? Yeah, it was due to a bug that is fixed on the new version now you need to run this command o undo the permissions change because the bug was fixed and now it's not working with the hack.
I like not maintaining my tools, I don't maintain my macbook except for installing updates when prompted and cleaning the screen and the keyboard every now and then. My uptime tends to be from OS update to OS update.
First, the argument against third party software to me is irrelevant, after all I use macOS and not, say iOS, because you can install these kinds of applications. Besides, from my point of view, almost all software on Linux is third party software anyway so I don't get the difference. For window management I install Spectacle and for package management I install HomeBrew and call it a day.
The UI to me seems superior because a) it looks better, b) it's more integrated with the system, and c) it doesn't bother me every 5 minutes trying to get my attention. I realize that looks are subjective but Linux has always looked "wrong", like it's unfinished; typography looks wrong, and the dimensions of the elements look wrong, some too big, some too small. Lately it has gotten better but still, the more deep you go, the less finished it gets. I guess one tends to like what one's used to. On my second point, macOS is the UI, not like on Linux where you can tell the Windowing System seats on top of the OS. It feels disconnected somehow, and as soon as something goes wrong, you are back on the terminal trying to hack your way back to stability. Lastly, macOS is not constantly begging for my attention. Windows is much more guilty of this than Linux is, but it still happens, showing you bubbles and messages for non critical tasks that ruin concentration. It also provides the information you need and very little else, the information is there if you want it, but it's not in your face. It gets out of the way, and lets me focus on the application and task I'm really interested in, not in managing the system.
And don't get me started on installing applications. Apt-get is fine if all you try to install is a low level package that is not dependent on anything else. As soon as things get more complicated you think about it twice before attempting to install something out of fear of it requiring a kernel recompile. In my opinion, dependencies and repositories are two words no normal user should be familiar with.
Of course, if you are a developer, or if you spend all day on the terminal I can see how your point of view might be different, or why you would care about your GNU tools being up to date. And I get how macOS might seem to someone coming from Linux, or even Windows, more limiting. But the truth is I don't care about the system that much, I want it not to bother me.
Lastly, and perhaps my strongest and more frivolous point, command-H to hide applications is the best shortcut ever. I haven't minimized a window in years.
These are a must for any front-end developer these days and personally although I like some window managers for X11, I can't afford to go that way, because they don't feel mature enough.
Not to mention iTunes, Photos and all the nice software that comes with OS X.
Right now Darktable seems to be more of an editing tool and less of a cataloguing tool.
UPDATE:
Oh yeah, you can upgrade the various components too.
Contract law, due to the user not abiding by the license agreement, is more relevant than copyright infringement. Apple gives the OS away freely and there's no copying act that you do for yourself that would be infringing (e.g. copy the OS to a Mackintosh's drive and you're still okay), it's only the use of the OS which is a problem and that's not a copyright problem, it's a license problem.
In other words, you're violating Apples copyright by running MacOS on a Hackintosh, and Apple is well within their rights to sue you for damages. Defending these types of lawsuits are expensive.
IMHO they did the copyright, because they don't want someone to put a stamp "MacOS X - tested" or something on their hardware.
Does Apple really document how to break their EULA on their website: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205041
Or the other way around. If I take the HDD of a MacBook Pro and put it on my Hackintosh, am I violating the EULA?
So I think the line is so thin and you can argue about anything on that topic.
"Removing or installing memory
You should not manually upgrade or replace the memory in these Mac mini models. Instead, contact an Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple Retail Store to install memory for you."
For KDE, the best experience at the moment seems to be Neon, although I've not tried OpenSUSE.
I think Intel boards are ideal because they are presumably quite similar in hardware to the Mac Pro motherboards. All my hardware (including GTX480) worked without any additional configuration.