Comment by teilo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by teilo | Hacker News Reader

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Apple has abandoned any users who need real power. They have abandoned enterprise. They have abandoned video, 3D, DAW. My company, which would love to maintain our Mac fileservers and OpenDirectory, but we are being forced, kicking and screaming into the open arms of Windows Server, Active Directory, and ExtremeZ-IP. We don't need "desktop-lite". We need server-grade multi-core workhorses to run CPU-intensive workflow automation services (graphic arts, print production, high-end color stuff), but can't get them.

And their iMacs and Mac Mini's? Yeah, we use them as servers because we have no choice. We actually need Thunderbolt now. But they are buggy as hell. The built-in network interfaces on them drop for no apparent reason, and need to be re-started. Three separate boxes do this: 2 iMacs and one Mini. We have actually resorted to putting SmallTree PCIe gigabit ethernet cards (Intel Pro chipsets) into Thunderbolt PCI express chassis, in order to get a stable ethernet stack. Those never drop on us. How can Apple get something as basic as a stable Ethernet port so wrong? No load testing. No desire to fix their drivers or firmware, whichever is responsible.

I can vouch for the terrible ethernet controllers on the new iMacs. Random dropped connections, reboots required after waking from sleep.

Interestingly, we haven't had any problems with 21.5 inch models, only the 27's (although we've got more 27's).

Another Apple-in-the-enterprise sysadmin here. I confirm the same issues as mentioned above.

Let me sing your hosannas. I'm in this exact same boat, watching a fleet of of (MacPro1,1)s pop their videocards while the 'test' iMac 27" struggles to keep up with work life despite being utterly tricked out.

There is simply no acceptable substitute for a Mac Pro, and we're going to bail if Apple won't spend the effort.

I just nabbed an old iMac G4 with 10.4. It's clearly designed for a more power user; it openly advocates having your own website running on it.

Whereas my 10.8 MBP tries to play at being a tablet.

I'm basically done with Apple after the 10.7/10.8 direction of OSX.

I agree with your sentiment, everything is still OK right now. But if I am forced to use Apple's equivalent of a "Metro" interface, I am done and going to Linux.

While I realize its not 'apple approved' it is very easy and cheap to build an extremely powerful 'hackintosh' as long as you pick the correct hardware. See http://www.tonymacx86.com/

I am glad that is possible (and tempted to do it at home every time I go to plug in a thunderbolt device into my Mac Pro, and then have to go oh yeah, god dammit...) it is not just not 'apple approved' it is not legal.

In most normal business environments where obeying the law is a required practice and bootlegging software is not allowed, building a hackintosh isn't a solution.

Even if it were allowed, it would not be supported by the vendor in terms of warranty support. when you're a 27x7 org, you don't need excuses from vendors as to why your setup is not a supported configuration.

LDAP issues. Apple will not support it. Driver issues, the HW mfg will not support the HW when weird things pop up.

Wasn't one of the points of the OP that Apple is doing a poor job of supporting the systems they do sell?

I honestly don't understand how this issue is any different than the numerous companies whom purchase generic hardware to run linux on, there isn't much support from either end, yet they manage to create some impressive systems from this 'unsupported' hardware/software.

How is running OSX on 'unsupported hardware' that much different than running a postgres server on EC2? Would the same company force their devs into using MySQL because RDS exists? If your reliant on computers beyond 'MS Office', and you don't have a dev team to deal with it, your going to lose.

Granted there will be those companies who would never 'take this risk' but, frankly, that is an issue of company culture, not one of suppliers.

There are a lot of companies out there doing amazing AV work using mac's as front end machines despite the lack of a mac pro update, how are all these folks pulling it off without Apple's hardware support?

"when you're a 27x7 org,"

I assume you mean 24x7 :P

I can imagine a not-too-distant future where we have cloud hosting available[1] from flocks of solar-powered UAVs[2] loitering around the International Date Line, thus finally paving the way for >100% uptime.

[1] http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/06/10/1389516.ht...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Pathfinder#Helios_Prototy...

In general relativity and closed-timelike-curve-time-travel there is a concept of a universal clock, against which >100% uptime is impossible

Not to mention, supporting any more than a few Hackintosh machines would be a nightmare for any serious organisation.

There is no need to bootleg any software and no it is not 'Illegal'. You can and should buy a copy of OSX which you can do on the app store without much issue. It is however, against the 'terms of service' which is not a legal issue but one of support / danger of being 'cut off' by an update.

That said, keep in mind that much of the work done to allow this is done by people disenfranchised by Apple's lack of a decent, upgradable, 'pro' model. In other words your often being supported by people in the same position as you.

It is not a criminal issue, but it is certainly a legal issue. Even if you buy the install media at the Apple store, you don't legally have the right to install the copyrighted work on your hackintosh.

I'm not saying there are likely to be real-world consequences, just that most normal businesses have policies in place to make sure they comply with legal and contractual obligations, which make hackintoshes a non-starter.

I should not have said you have to "bootleg" the OS, though; as you point out, that is wrong. You can simply buy it and then install it in violation of the license terms -- which is not the same thing at all.

I'm sure if we did that then our auditors and compliance officers would love the fact that we chose a system with full knowledge that we'd be breaking the contract we bought it under.

I know of a 20-person animation shop which uses hackintoshes exclusively.

I really wish that Apple would go back to licensing its OS for clones: say they charged $2-300 minimum or 10% on a $1500 minimum selling price. This would enable almost reasonably priced powerful hackintoshii, while not cannibalizing their current products too badly.

Why not Linux or the business distros from Red Hat and Novell?

We abandoned Linux for Mac, because Samba was horrendously slow when running on a large case-sensitive filesystem; because netatalk (we MUST have AFP at our company, given our industry) is horrendously slow an large filesystems of any type due to the CNID database it maintains, and it doesn't support spotlight searching from Finder clients (evidently there is now alpha support - too little too late); and because Linux does not integrate with a large network of Macs nearly so well as a proper OpenDirectory installation.

AND because we are running Mac-based workflow automation software for which there is no equivalent in Linux. For example, it drives Adobe Creative Suite in an automated fashion, as well as other print-industry specific tools.

Because Adobe's Creative Suite does not run on Linux.

> Apple has abandoned any users who need real power.

I still think Apple might bring at least 1 more generation of Mac Pro's on the market. Main reason would be for development of both Mac OS X as well as iOS. I think developing operating systems is best done on powerful hardware, mainly due to long compilation times.

But perhaps all this is wishful thinking. Apple could use Xgrid to build their operating systems on a bunch of Mac mini's of course.

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