7 ms·

Kind of funny, but what makes the new Mac Pro beautiful is the internal design, and that hackintosh is not beautiful on the inside.

ladzoppelin 13y ago
Nobody sees the inside so its kind of like they did it to justify the price. In my opinion the Mac Pro/All Macs would be a lot more interesting if I knew I could install any OS I want on it without a performance loss and it was officially allowed by Apple.
- Bud 13y ago
  As far as I know, various Unix versions, as well as Win7, will run just fine. No artificial performance penalties, and Apple is currently doing precisely NOTHING to disallow installation of alternate OSes. This has been the case for years.
  - joshuapants 13y ago
    Try booting a Linux install USB on a Mac sometime
    - tekacs 13y ago
      Running Linux installed by this method on a (2008) Mac right now. Have done the same on recent (2012, 2013) models, too. Macs have been using EFI boot for a few years, so the problem most have probably faced is trying to boot in BIOS emulation mode (which I've found to be iffy on pretty much every EFI motherboard I've come across). Arch Linux has particularly good support. :P
    - btgeekboy 13y ago
      I did, a few months ago. Booted both Fedora 19 and 20 Beta on a 2012 13" rMBP. Worked decently well, especially with how the version of Gnome included in F20 knows how to properly deal with high DPI displays.
      - joshuapants 13y ago
        Hasn't worked for me at all no matter how I create the USB, working with a 2011 MBP. Tried literally every method, and several distros.
        abrowne 13y ago
        I've had good luck booting Fedora (at least 19 and 20, and I think 18) on Macs. Other distros don't seem to work with Apple's EFI implementation. To boot other distros, I've had good luck with the refind[1] bootloader. Granted, I have only been booting live USBs, not installing on the internal drive. 1: http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/
  - Orva 13y ago
    Except getting macbook to boot anything else than OSX or Windows requires bunch of stuff that I can only describe as 'hacks'. At least it was like so couple years ago (http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/12037.html http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/12037.html) and I haven't heard that things would be different today.
- IgorPartola 13y ago
  You can and you won't and it is. Performance issues are from the fact that other OS's don't support the hardware properly.
- lstamour 13y ago
  If/when I get one, I'm going to run it without the shiny exterior as much as possible. That thing is too shiny and I much prefer the aesthetic of PC boards and parts on a Pro machine. (Then again I run my Windows tower with the sides off too, though that's because I was too lazy to hook up the power button and front USB ports.)
  - sounds 13y ago
    It has a sensor that disallows running it with the case off. Disabling the sensor would void the warranty. Not saying nobody will do it, because I'm quite certain someone will (or already has?). But you'll probably have to actually spring for your _own_ MacPro to mod the sensor.
    - weinzierl 13y ago
      Thermal design might rely on a laminar air flow inside the cylinder and taking the case off could result in increased tempatures. Of course we will only know if someone tries it and reports the measured temperatures.
      - lstamour 13y ago
        Well this is quite useful to know. I'm going to hope, then, that I can build or buy a clear plastic version of the casing. :)
    - weinzierl 13y ago
      Thermal design might rely on a laminar air flow inside the cylinder and taking the case off could result in increased tempatures. Of course we will only know if someone tries it and reports the measured temperatures.
- avn2109 13y ago
  The IT guy in my building claims "MBP's are the best Windows laptops on the market." I'm probably not in a position to say whether or not it's true, but it seems to be at least a defensible position.
  - ProAm 13y ago
    Which building?
- fastball 13y ago
  Well, considering the fact that Apple made a program called "Bootcamp" which simplifies the process of installing Windows on your machine, I'd say other OSes are officially allowed by Apple. In fact, I have Win7, OS 10.9, and Arch Linux on this computer (early 2013 MBP Retina)
CSDude 13y ago
Yes, because he does not have an assembly factory. He is just a modder. And it is a trashcan. And parts he used are probably not built to be put inside a trashcan. It is cheaper and he has a compact computer. Maybe it is good enough for him, and he can carry it around easily?
- Jormundir 13y ago
  When thinking about the merits of the mod, there aren't any. You can get mini computer cases for cheap, and they would work much, much better than his trashcan. So what we're left with is the "look a trashcan looks like the Mac Pro" joke with a more literal application, which is, as I said, kind of funny. Though who's to say a trash can isn't well designed? Edit Since the link switched to the original forum post with more pictures: I must say the project was quite impressive and the end result is cool, though I still stand by my original point.
  - rfnslyr 13y ago
    I appreciate it because it's a cool mod. Not everything needs to be the most rigidly functional computer of all time.
  - Shivetya 13y ago
    Well I would not doubt clones of the case will appear, many lan boxes are very small and can be made smaller. The trick of the MacPro is the integration of the AMD video which isn't something a modder is going to do.
    - pgeorgi 13y ago
      I didn't look - apart from making it pretty, what did Apple do with video beyond a PCIe x16 riser (like http://linitx.com/product/pci-express-x16-gen2-flexi-riser-7cm/13205 http://linitx.com/product/pci-express-x16-gen2-flexi-riser-7...)?
      - zanny 13y ago
girvo 13y ago
I disagree. It's not as nice as the real Mac Pro, but what this modder made, even inside, is really impressive and quite cool looking. I'm impressed, anyway.
- MBCook 13y ago
  I don't know. He did a really good job on the outside. His job replicating the look of the grill on the bottom was a great touch. But inside, it was just a bog-standard Mini-ITX, standard graphics card, etc. Before I clicked on the link I was hoping to see something more unique. Two of the neatest things about the new Mac Pro are it's size and silence. This mod is bigger (not surprising), but why not go further? If the enclosure was bigger you could have simulated the triangle layout of the Mac Pro and put something interesting down the middle. Or you could work to make the machine quieter with some elaborate heat-pipe or water-cooling setup. I have a feeling the small graphics and CPU fans in that metal case make a fair amount of noise. I guess I was expecting something much more exotic, maybe using a small single board computer (Beagle Bone or Raspberry Pi) or something else strange. It looks nice considering the constraints of using normal PC hardware. Apple went back to the drawing board with the Mac Pro, I guess I'm a bit disappointed by this being 'just' a round case.
kenrikm 13y ago
This one is interesting, I'm on the fence about it though. I have a Hackintosh (i5 3470k,16gb,2X GTX660TI SLI) inside of a G5 case. The interesting thing about the older Mac Pro is they did not really change the design for so many years and you can pickup a empty G5 case for $70-100 on ebay. Only slight modifications are needed to make it work with PC components.
WaterSponge 13y ago
So modder gets close to fit/finish with his hands and then its not good enough cause the "insides"... which you can't see BTW is the real good stuff is. Design can be just for design sake and not for technical or mechanical superiority. Your thought train is living somewhere between these: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/special-pleading https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/special-pleading
- xmonkee 13y ago
  Please stop quoting irrelevant fallacies. Jeez.
- velis_vel 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy
  - devcpp 13y ago
    The fallacy-pointing was just an explanation of why the poster above may be wrong. But if you look closely, there is a paragraph above the one with the fallacies. And, lo and behold, that paragraph contains arguments which are not of the "argument from fallacy" type. Please review them, prove them wrong, and then we'll speak.
    - velis_vel 13y ago
      Well, 'beautiful' is to a certain extent a subjective quality. 'What makes a Mac Pro beautiful is X' can be interpreted as 'What makes a Mac Pro beautiful to me is X', and that's not really a statement that you can argue against. But even so, the fallacies are either stretched or completely inapplicable. Both the 'no true scotsman' and 'special pleading' fallacies involve constantly shifting goalposts, but we've only ever seen Jormundir say that internal design is part of what makes the new Mac Pro beautiful. Where are the shifting goalposts? Like, I don't think that the fact that it's not beautiful on the inside is relevant to the fact that it's a cool as hell mod; I think it's completely irrelevant. But throwing fallacies at the statement is just weird. I don't get how they apply at all.
Sanddancer 13y ago
To be quite honest, I think the new mac pro's design is on the ugly side from an internal standpoint. There are existing standards for things like small form factor graphics interface, like MXM, that seem like they would work much better than apple's variant which requires a rather frail looking connector between the graphics cards and the I/O card. Though I imagine one of the problems there is that it would be much harder for Apple to keep people from purchasing a third-party video card two years down the road when the current boards start getting long in the tooth.
- 2muchcoffeeman 13y ago
  The interesting thing about the Pro is the heat management & power in such a small form factor. I have yet to see a Pro IRL, but reports indicate that it is very quiet for such a powerful machine. The last tower machine I had years ago was loud and doubled as a room heater in winter. I still see video cards being made that require their own heat sink and fan. Then add all the other standard fans: power supply, CPU (+ heat sink), one or two on the case. You have these huge empty, inefficient boxes. I really hope Apple brings their heat management knowledge to their other lines. Edit: grammar.
  - kayoone 13y ago
    Why compare a box you had a few years ago to the new Mac Pro? Today you can put amazing performance in mini itx or micro atx cases.[1] Granted Apples custom design still offers some space savings but also zero upgradability. Of course those small standard cases aren't made for xeon CPUs and Dual GPUs, but most people that buy/need powerful workstations do not really care about the size of the thing. [1] https://teksyndicate.com/videos/build-most-powerful-mini-itx-system-july-2013 https://teksyndicate.com/videos/build-most-powerful-mini-itx...
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >Granted Apples custom design still offers some space savings but also zero upgradability. Zero upgradability? The Mac Pro is quite upgradable, with the exception of the GPU. It got a 8/10 from iFixit in this area.

ladzoppelin 13y ago

Nobody sees the inside so its kind of like they did it to justify the price. In my opinion the Mac Pro/All Macs would be a lot more interesting if I knew I could install any OS I want on it without a performance loss and it was officially allowed by Apple.

Bud 13y ago
As far as I know, various Unix versions, as well as Win7, will run just fine. No artificial performance penalties, and Apple is currently doing precisely NOTHING to disallow installation of alternate OSes. This has been the case for years.
- joshuapants 13y ago
  Try booting a Linux install USB on a Mac sometime
  - tekacs 13y ago
    Running Linux installed by this method on a (2008) Mac right now. Have done the same on recent (2012, 2013) models, too. Macs have been using EFI boot for a few years, so the problem most have probably faced is trying to boot in BIOS emulation mode (which I've found to be iffy on pretty much every EFI motherboard I've come across). Arch Linux has particularly good support. :P
  - btgeekboy 13y ago
    I did, a few months ago. Booted both Fedora 19 and 20 Beta on a 2012 13" rMBP. Worked decently well, especially with how the version of Gnome included in F20 knows how to properly deal with high DPI displays.
    - joshuapants 13y ago
      Hasn't worked for me at all no matter how I create the USB, working with a 2011 MBP. Tried literally every method, and several distros.
      - abrowne 13y ago
        I've had good luck booting Fedora (at least 19 and 20, and I think 18) on Macs. Other distros don't seem to work with Apple's EFI implementation. To boot other distros, I've had good luck with the refind[1] bootloader. Granted, I have only been booting live USBs, not installing on the internal drive. 1: http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/
- Orva 13y ago
  Except getting macbook to boot anything else than OSX or Windows requires bunch of stuff that I can only describe as 'hacks'. At least it was like so couple years ago (http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/12037.html http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/12037.html) and I haven't heard that things would be different today.
IgorPartola 13y ago
You can and you won't and it is. Performance issues are from the fact that other OS's don't support the hardware properly.
lstamour 13y ago
If/when I get one, I'm going to run it without the shiny exterior as much as possible. That thing is too shiny and I much prefer the aesthetic of PC boards and parts on a Pro machine. (Then again I run my Windows tower with the sides off too, though that's because I was too lazy to hook up the power button and front USB ports.)
- sounds 13y ago
  It has a sensor that disallows running it with the case off. Disabling the sensor would void the warranty. Not saying nobody will do it, because I'm quite certain someone will (or already has?). But you'll probably have to actually spring for your _own_ MacPro to mod the sensor.
  - weinzierl 13y ago
    Thermal design might rely on a laminar air flow inside the cylinder and taking the case off could result in increased tempatures. Of course we will only know if someone tries it and reports the measured temperatures.
    - lstamour 13y ago
      Well this is quite useful to know. I'm going to hope, then, that I can build or buy a clear plastic version of the casing. :)
  - weinzierl 13y ago
    Thermal design might rely on a laminar air flow inside the cylinder and taking the case off could result in increased tempatures. Of course we will only know if someone tries it and reports the measured temperatures.
avn2109 13y ago
The IT guy in my building claims "MBP's are the best Windows laptops on the market." I'm probably not in a position to say whether or not it's true, but it seems to be at least a defensible position.
- ProAm 13y ago
  Which building?
fastball 13y ago
Well, considering the fact that Apple made a program called "Bootcamp" which simplifies the process of installing Windows on your machine, I'd say other OSes are officially allowed by Apple. In fact, I have Win7, OS 10.9, and Arch Linux on this computer (early 2013 MBP Retina)

CSDude 13y ago

Yes, because he does not have an assembly factory. He is just a modder. And it is a trashcan. And parts he used are probably not built to be put inside a trashcan. It is cheaper and he has a compact computer. Maybe it is good enough for him, and he can carry it around easily?

Jormundir 13y ago
When thinking about the merits of the mod, there aren't any. You can get mini computer cases for cheap, and they would work much, much better than his trashcan. So what we're left with is the "look a trashcan looks like the Mac Pro" joke with a more literal application, which is, as I said, kind of funny. Though who's to say a trash can isn't well designed? Edit Since the link switched to the original forum post with more pictures: I must say the project was quite impressive and the end result is cool, though I still stand by my original point.
- rfnslyr 13y ago
  I appreciate it because it's a cool mod. Not everything needs to be the most rigidly functional computer of all time.
- Shivetya 13y ago
  Well I would not doubt clones of the case will appear, many lan boxes are very small and can be made smaller. The trick of the MacPro is the integration of the AMD video which isn't something a modder is going to do.
  - pgeorgi 13y ago
    I didn't look - apart from making it pretty, what did Apple do with video beyond a PCIe x16 riser (like http://linitx.com/product/pci-express-x16-gen2-flexi-riser-7cm/13205 http://linitx.com/product/pci-express-x16-gen2-flexi-riser-7...)?
    - zanny 13y ago

girvo 13y ago

I disagree. It's not as nice as the real Mac Pro, but what this modder made, even inside, is really impressive and quite cool looking. I'm impressed, anyway.

MBCook 13y ago
I don't know. He did a really good job on the outside. His job replicating the look of the grill on the bottom was a great touch. But inside, it was just a bog-standard Mini-ITX, standard graphics card, etc. Before I clicked on the link I was hoping to see something more unique. Two of the neatest things about the new Mac Pro are it's size and silence. This mod is bigger (not surprising), but why not go further? If the enclosure was bigger you could have simulated the triangle layout of the Mac Pro and put something interesting down the middle. Or you could work to make the machine quieter with some elaborate heat-pipe or water-cooling setup. I have a feeling the small graphics and CPU fans in that metal case make a fair amount of noise. I guess I was expecting something much more exotic, maybe using a small single board computer (Beagle Bone or Raspberry Pi) or something else strange. It looks nice considering the constraints of using normal PC hardware. Apple went back to the drawing board with the Mac Pro, I guess I'm a bit disappointed by this being 'just' a round case.

kenrikm 13y ago

This one is interesting, I'm on the fence about it though. I have a Hackintosh (i5 3470k,16gb,2X GTX660TI SLI) inside of a G5 case. The interesting thing about the older Mac Pro is they did not really change the design for so many years and you can pickup a empty G5 case for $70-100 on ebay. Only slight modifications are needed to make it work with PC components.

WaterSponge 13y ago

So modder gets close to fit/finish with his hands and then its not good enough cause the "insides"... which you can't see BTW is the real good stuff is. Design can be just for design sake and not for technical or mechanical superiority. Your thought train is living somewhere between these: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/special-pleading https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/special-pleading

xmonkee 13y ago
Please stop quoting irrelevant fallacies. Jeez.
velis_vel 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy
- devcpp 13y ago
  The fallacy-pointing was just an explanation of why the poster above may be wrong. But if you look closely, there is a paragraph above the one with the fallacies. And, lo and behold, that paragraph contains arguments which are not of the "argument from fallacy" type. Please review them, prove them wrong, and then we'll speak.
  - velis_vel 13y ago
    Well, 'beautiful' is to a certain extent a subjective quality. 'What makes a Mac Pro beautiful is X' can be interpreted as 'What makes a Mac Pro beautiful to me is X', and that's not really a statement that you can argue against. But even so, the fallacies are either stretched or completely inapplicable. Both the 'no true scotsman' and 'special pleading' fallacies involve constantly shifting goalposts, but we've only ever seen Jormundir say that internal design is part of what makes the new Mac Pro beautiful. Where are the shifting goalposts? Like, I don't think that the fact that it's not beautiful on the inside is relevant to the fact that it's a cool as hell mod; I think it's completely irrelevant. But throwing fallacies at the statement is just weird. I don't get how they apply at all.

Sanddancer 13y ago

To be quite honest, I think the new mac pro's design is on the ugly side from an internal standpoint. There are existing standards for things like small form factor graphics interface, like MXM, that seem like they would work much better than apple's variant which requires a rather frail looking connector between the graphics cards and the I/O card. Though I imagine one of the problems there is that it would be much harder for Apple to keep people from purchasing a third-party video card two years down the road when the current boards start getting long in the tooth.

2muchcoffeeman 13y ago
The interesting thing about the Pro is the heat management & power in such a small form factor. I have yet to see a Pro IRL, but reports indicate that it is very quiet for such a powerful machine. The last tower machine I had years ago was loud and doubled as a room heater in winter. I still see video cards being made that require their own heat sink and fan. Then add all the other standard fans: power supply, CPU (+ heat sink), one or two on the case. You have these huge empty, inefficient boxes. I really hope Apple brings their heat management knowledge to their other lines. Edit: grammar.
- kayoone 13y ago
  Why compare a box you had a few years ago to the new Mac Pro? Today you can put amazing performance in mini itx or micro atx cases.[1] Granted Apples custom design still offers some space savings but also zero upgradability. Of course those small standard cases aren't made for xeon CPUs and Dual GPUs, but most people that buy/need powerful workstations do not really care about the size of the thing. [1] https://teksyndicate.com/videos/build-most-powerful-mini-itx-system-july-2013 https://teksyndicate.com/videos/build-most-powerful-mini-itx...
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >Granted Apples custom design still offers some space savings but also zero upgradability. Zero upgradability? The Mac Pro is quite upgradable, with the exception of the GPU. It got a 8/10 from iFixit in this area.