Comment by qubex | Hacker News Reader

Comment by qubex | Hacker News Reader

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I'll air my recent horror story: my Mac Mini Server 6,2 (2012) has two SSDs I had welded together as a RAID-0 array. I updated from 10.12 Sierra to 10.13 High Sierra without a hitch. On 20 November I for reasons I know bitterly regret I decided to wipe my system and reload from backups... an exercise that usually takes six hours, max. I've run into issue after issue (High Sierra formatting the RAID array as APFS by default and then announcing that is not a bootable configuration, terrible RAID drivers littering my installer log with write errors and thus refusing to restore Time Machine backups onto the array once I reformatted it as JHFS+, and latterly some obscure kernel cache error that precludes booting)... long story short, twelve days after the fatal decision, my system is still not bootable.

And Apple Support is non-existent. Documentation about APFS and RAID is thin on the ground. Phone support told me in no uncertain terms that my Mini's number was not a Server so I could not access Enterprise Support, and of course the consumer level folks do not know anything about RAID (or even multi-drive systems). It's been a total shitstorm.

Never have I been so proximate to just dumping them and telling them to piss off, but I also know I won't, because I am too deeply invested in their integrated ecosystem (macOS, Mac Pro, MacBook, iOS, iPhone, iPad, Apple Music...)... except I am starting to think it might make sense to tell them to piss off integrally and voting with my feet.

Maybe wait until more documentation comes out? I had the same problem except when I updated to High Sierra, not after. I had this problem on my hard drive that "corrupted" it in a way neither Disk Utility nor Terminal accessed from the masOS recovery could fix. And before you ask, this was network recovery, so the recovery image I was using was technically not on my hard drive-- meaning I could wipe the entire drive and reinstall macOS if I had to. Found out that I'd have to wipe it, update, and restore from my backup. Easy-ish, right? No. Once I updated, I was presented with a debacle as Apple just dropped AFP support in High Sierra. Problem is, I have been using a NAS to store my Time Machine backups. THE NAS CONNECTED TO MY COMPUTER USING AFP. I had to downgrade back to Sierra, restore from the network backup, back up my system to an external hard drive, wipe the Mac's SSD, update, and restore from the backup. Only took a few weeks to get all that done :) And nope, Apple support did NOT help with this. I read an article on HN a while ago about how Apple painlessly updated an entire Mac's filesystem without any hitches, and seemed to implement HFS+ backwards compatibility better than HFS itself. Whether that's true or not, High Sierra is by no means a painless update. And don't even mention the new root bug.

I can’t “just wait” because this machine (notwithstanding it being a Server) is my main workstation for doing financial modelling on.

You’ve just solved a mystery for me: at one point I was struggling (and failing) to get Time Machine to restore from my Synology NAS. Now you’ve explained why!

I am about to switch away from my Mac Mini Server:

It gets way to hot, more and more features are no longer available through Server.app, and Spotlight on MacOS Server has never been great (at least not better than on an up-to-date Synology NAS these days). Each update was a reason for bad sleep …

Since all the software we were using as local installations moved to SaaS, only file storage and Resilio Sync are left – band oth can be done with a NAS or cloud services like Google Team Drive / Google Drive File Stream. The latter has great reliability and many useful compliance features.

Install Ubuntu or Debian on it. Find linux alternatives to the solutions you use now.

For various options pertaining to the software that runs on it, that’s not an option... it’s a Mac Mini Server but it’s actually my main workstation.

I do have Linux and DragonFlyBSD machines as ’real’ servers, the former being a Mathematica grid for my numerical heavy lifting.

Install 10.12, then update to 10.13, then restore your backup. And now we're at it, why don't you use Debian or Ubuntu as server?

Despite being a Server, this is actually my main workstation. It just bought a server unit because I needed a RAID subsystem and opening up a mac to add/replace drives would invalidate the warranty (which has long since expired anyway, but wasn’t an enticing prospect when it was brand new).

As for Ubuntu or another Linux distro, I do use Linux and DragonFlyBSD on my servers and to host my Mathematica grid.

I was like you a number of years ago (iPhone, Macbook, iMac, etc) but decided it was time to switch rides. Google has a massive intensive to making switching from iOS to Android as easy as possible. But I do admit, it took some time to get used to Windows coming from a Mac, and bootcamp was not great for me on my macbook pro.

For someone who values their privacy at least a little bit, Google and Windows are no options.

Outside Pixel, updates on Android are an embarrassing shit show. I did a three year detour to Android, but never again. Update after update things were broken until and you had to wait 6 months to get an update that was supposedly fixing things.

As someone who considers privacy important, Linux and BSD are the only credible alternatives to the Mac. Unfortunately, a lot of software that I use nearly daily is missing, because the Linux ecosystem does not have a strong ISV ecosystem (Little Snitch, OmniGraffle, Things, DeckSet, LaunchBar, Alfred, Arq, 1Password, Tweetbot, Affinity Designer/Photos, etc.) and does not support some hardware well (Sonos, etc.).

True. And the cross-macOS/iOS app ecology is just too compelling. I’m captive.

the software you list shows a disinterest in considering alternatives. if you’re already considering Linux or BSD, it behooves you to also consider open source alternatives to your applications, especially when at least some of the responsible companies are currently engaged in predatory business practices (1Password).

BitWarden is a fantastic FLOSS alternative to 1Password, Emacs’ org-mode for Things is perhaps the finest of its kind and easy to get started with with a distro like Spacemacs, a plethora of Alfred alternatives, Marp for DeckSet, i could go on but at this point i just want to throw up my arms and shake you.

i’ve switched dozens who were sick of proprietary lock-in. it doesn’t sound like you’re sick enough.

I have a Linux desktop machine at home besides a Mac and regularly try open source alternatives. I also use org mode besides Things, and have a custom Emacs configuration with evil, ivy, magic, and whatnot.

However, the open source alternatives for the software I mentioned (and other software) are simply not good enough for me. The additional 'problem' is that open source software that I use, such as Emacs, Latex, compilers, etc. work fine on macOS.

(I used Linux and BSD full-time on the desktop from 1994-2008.)

You can't judge all Android phones the same. One Plus has pushed Android 8 a few weeks ago and their beta channel is on the November security patch.

Stop buying Samsung.

What data do you think windows sends to microsoft that macOS doesn’t send to apple? Why do you think windows has worse privacy than macOS?

I’ve been using “Apple” back since the NeXTStep/OpenStep days. My customised software is deeply tied to the platform.

A few years ago I grew so sick and tired of iOS’ arbitrary restrictions compared to Android that I skipped from the iPhone4S to the iPhone6+ with a Google Nexus 5 device, but it was a really hellish experience because I never managed to get things to sync right.

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