Considering Taking the Plunge - Need Input

[thornomad]

So - I have lurked in the build-your-own Mac shadows for (literally) years. Probably since the first Intel Macs were released and I sat glaring with disdain at my G5 PowerMac sucking wind in the corner (it's still sucking wind).

Anyhow - the time is come and I am going to need a new machine. I am very tempted to build my own (for price and performance and re-use of parts I have - HDs, mainly) but do have some worries about it's overall reliability and longevity. As time has passed and I see these communities grow, I too grow more confident. I have built linux and windows machines before -- so the hardware doesn't worry me and I am very familiar with the command line. I am more concerned about compatibility and software not working or performing correctly in the long run.

I am looking for some input from folks who use their Hackintosh machines on a regular basis -- especially folks using some of the Pro suites (eg, FCP, Adobe, Aperture, etc).

My wife will also share this machine, so it can't have any "quirks" after I release it into the wild. Needs to be transparently wonderful.

Do you have any regrets? Are there any lingering issues that are unsolved in your mind?

Or - after the initial period of "getting things up" - does it all run transparently (ie, you wouldn't know it was a Hackintosh)?

Appreciate the input for someone who is tentatively leaning towards his own build.

I use: VMWare Fusion, FCP, iMovie, Aperture, and Adobe CS4 on a regular basis. Also, I need FaceTime to communicate with my family.

Thanks! Hoping this can be the start of a beautiful relationship. Smile.

Damon

 

[georgeba]

I got the taste for a hackintosh when I bought a 21.5" iMac. I owned it for 2 months, just enough to learn a bit about the Macs. Built the Hackintosh and after another month the iMac was sold.
The project is HIGHLY successful, I can't tell the difference. Everything worked out of the box and no Apple prices. Stop lurking and take the plunge, you won't regret it. The only thing I'd change is that I'd probably opt for a i7 CPU. Not that the i5-655K is a slouch.
Let us know about your success, as it's sure to follow.

VMWare Fusion, Adobe CS5 Suite, Aperture definitely work, I use them too. I don't know about FaceTime, since I don't have a camera, but there are cameras that work OOB. Skype definitely works.

 

[Project 2501]

It all depends on what hardware you start with. Since you are starting from scratch, you can be choosy about your components. In my case, I decided to go with 'most compatible' rather than 'cutting edge' to minimize the number or 'tricks' I would need to get it working. I was lucky enough to find a NOS GA-P55-UD5 MB because I didn't want to deal with the sound rollback.

Once I got the machine running, I could not tell the difference other than the boot screen and lack of a built-in speaker.

However, I did find that my 3D graphics performance varied depending on what Mac system definition I used and whether I was using DSDT injection or Graphics Enabler. I've never got the same performance as I would get with Windows 7. Since I don't have a real Mac as a reference, I don't know if this is a problem with Macs in general or with Hackintoshes.

The other foreseeable problem I can think of is system updates. I'm too chicken to use Software Update without first trying the standalone updaters on a test installation first. But FWIW, none of the Snow Leopard updates up to 10.6.7 have broken my system.

I would make sure you set Software Update not to download automatically to avoid accidentally updating until you are sure things will be okay.

 

[markhgn]

Do it! I was hesitant having read a huge number of confusing posts about putting a Hackintosh together until I arrived here . Once I had a handle on things I was still wary about dropping several hundred pounds on something I wasn't sure would work, especially as I hadn't put a PC together for ten years, not since I switched to a G4 Cube then a White Macbook in fact.

My build has worked fine since day one and you cannot tell it isn't a 'proper' Mac. I dual-boot to Windows 7 too, mainly for gaming purposes, which is another plus of running such a system in my book as price-to-performance is unmatched.

The components I used and build details are here: viewtopic.php?f=54&t=6983

My main recommendation would be once you have a stable system to clone the drive, that way you can update with impunity, secure in the knowledge you can switch to your last stable version in seconds.

No quirks and no lingering issues!

 

[thornomad]

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my posts - I had actually almost talked myself one hundred percent out of it by last night because I wasn't sure the Hackintosh route (saving the $$, better performance, fun hacking) was worth the effort (hours spent on forums crawling for help). With a soon-to-be-one-year old I was wondering if I might be better served by just spending the extra cash and consider it a payment on more free time with my son.

However! If there is a minor initial investement with a major long-term payoff ... then geez, here we go for second thoughts.

The project is HIGHLY successful, I can't tell the difference. Everything worked out of the box and no Apple prices. Stop lurking and take the plunge, you won't regret it [...] VMWare Fusion, Adobe CS5 Suite, Aperture definitely work, I use them too. I don't know about FaceTime, since I don't have a camera, but there are cameras that work OOB. Skype definitely works.

Well, that's reassuring to hear. I guess as someone who has struggled a bit with linux (which I love) and incompatibility issues (which I loathe) I was worried it might carry over into the Hackintosh.

It all depends on what hardware you start with. Since you are starting from scratch, you can be choosy about your components. In my case, I decided to go with 'most compatible' rather than 'cutting edge' to minimize the number or 'tricks' I would need to get it working.

Is MacMan's MacPro setup considered to be the gold standard for compatibility? That was a question I couldn't find an answer to. I do have the luxury of choosing my parts and don't need a gaming machine -- just FCP, Aperture, and Adobe. Which does take some power. But I am not that picky. I would happily go with what is known to work and be community supported than top-o-the-line.

My main recommendation would be once you have a stable system to clone the drive, that way you can update with impunity, secure in the knowledge you can switch to your last stable version in seconds.

That's a great suggestion. Do you use SuperDuper! (or the like) to do the cloning? Which actually raises a related question: on my linux setup, I keep my /home/ folders on a separate RAID array -- I like this because I can easily re-install the underlying system without touching my /home/ stuff ... and it's always there when I come back.

Any issues with having a Software RAID setup outside of the primary boot drive that would separate my data from my system disks? This way I could re-install with impunity and my data remains intact? I haven't seen much mention of Software RAID and its successes.

Thanks again for your input. My wife will just roll her eyes at the number of times I've gone round and round with this.

Damon

 

[RTK]

That's a great suggestion. Do you use SuperDuper! (or the like) to do the cloning? Which actually raises a related question: on my linux setup, I keep my /home/ folders on a separate RAID array -- I like this because I can easily re-install the underlying system without touching my /home/ stuff ... and it's always there when I come back.

Any issues with having a Software RAID setup outside of the primary boot drive that would separate my data from my system disks? This way I could re-install with impunity and my data remains intact? I haven't seen much mention of Software RAID and its successes.

After my install I moved my user directories and purchased applications (non Apple) to a second hard drive. I pretty much followed the procedure from MacGurus. With this MacGurus system I have a backup of both the user data and the system drive. So far everything works. A side benefit of this setup is that you can use your backup system partition for testing (or even the system partiton, assumung they are identical when you start). If the item you are testing breaks the system you can just reboot into the other one via Chameleon and use SuperDuper! to restore back to where you started.

Not sure about Software Raid, but my guess is that it should work just like in your Linux system.

 

[thornomad]

After my install I moved my user directories and purchased applications (non Apple) to a second hard drive. I pretty much followed the procedure from MacGurus. With this MacGurus system I have a backup of both the user data and the system drive. So far everything works. A side benefit of this setup is that you can use your backup system partition for testing (or even the system partiton, assumung they are identical when you start). If the item you are testing breaks the system you can just reboot into the other one via Chameleon and use SuperDuper! to restore back to where you started.

If your "Users" drive goes down but your "Root" drive is still working, are you able to boot and login to the system (to restore you backup, etc)? I was reading somewhere that folks suggested an additional "Safe" account with its user files stored on the "Root" drive in this case.

In linux, I don't think this missing home folder causes much of a problem - just everything is missing. But I wasn't sure about on OS X.

I got a 64 GB SSD for the root drive and am going to move the Users folders to a RAID 0 array -- I plan to use SuperDuper to backup versions of the root drive to an older partitioned 320 GB drive and rely on Time Machine to backup the RAID 0 data array. I also have Backblaze which (when it finally finishes! have 800+ GB of stuff) will provide an off-site backup to everything.

I think I may be okay - unless there is something I overlooked.

 

[RTK]

If your "Users" drive goes down but your "Root" drive is still working, are you able to boot and login to the system (to restore you backup, etc)? I was reading somewhere that folks suggested an additional "Safe" account with its user files stored on the "Root" drive in this case.

In linux, I don't think this missing home folder causes much of a problem - just everything is missing. But I wasn't sure about on OS X.

In my system I left my Admin account on the Root drive.

I have repartitioned the drives once and cloned the BackupRoot back to Root and then Users to BackupUsers and so on until the two drives were "identical" again. Need to reinstall Chameleon on the Root drive when you do this to get back to full boot functionality.

I have not had the Users drive fail to see what would happen then. I guess I should probably unplug the Users drive and see what happens. I'll try it sometime in the next few days and report back.

 

[RTK]

Okay, disconnected the Users drive and restarted the machine.

Short answer: Yes, able to login the the Admin account that I left on the Root drive. From there one should be able to restore, remap, etc.

Long answer: OS X started fine but was unable to login to my normal account. The system is setup to auto-login to my normal account so I was presented with a dialog box stating there was an error and it was unable to login to the selected account. Clicked thru the dialog box and was presented with the normal OS X login screen. Selected the Admin account, entered password, and was up and running.

If the drive had really failed and I needed to complete something immediately I could re-map my normal account to point to the BackupUsers location and then login to my normal account. Files would then be accessible up to whatever the last backup point was.

 

[Solidww]

Taking a G5 Power Mac and modernizing it seems like a great project. Of course a little bit of work will be required. Good luck, how far along are you?