Should I Switch to OSX?

[iPC]

I've always disliked macs. I've always seen them as expensive for the hardware you actually get and limiting as to the amount of control you have over the system. I usually use windows, with a server running various linux installs and a laptop that dual boots kali. However, I've been thinking more recently of making the switch to Mac. I program quite a bit, and I'm much more comfortable with bash than with command prompt. Now that I have the server, I can do heavier processing remotely if I get a GPU for it. I originally contemplated switching completely to linux; however, I also enjoy music production, and my software, ableton, does not support linux. I'm also trying to figure out what my setup should be. Another dilemma I have is whether to switch my desktop to linux. I want to be able to remotely access my gpu for neural nets, but I also want to be able to game. I could get a gpu that's more for the purpose of neural nets and parallel computing that will live in the server, but that's quite a bit of money. Thoughts on the switch? If so, what model mac? And if you think I should get a GPU for the server, which do you recommend? Thanks for all the advice!

[Firewrath9]

Yeah, I do admit that MacOS/Linux is much better for programming/coding, I myself have a macbook that I do my programming on, and I also use linux. I'd reccommend either dual booting a hackintosh, or dual booting linux. You could also use bootcamp with an actual mac.

The best GPU supported in MacOS is the Radeon 7, but its not a good buy. Navi has no support in MacOS, so that leaves the Vega 64/56. Polaris also works, Fury does not, 290x/390x works, 290/390 does not. I'd reccomend a Vega 56 if you can get it for around 250$-ish used.

For a linux server, I'd go with nvidia, probably a 2060 super, as CUDA is really helpful and tensorflow doesn't support openCL.

[iPC]

14 minutes ago, Firewrath9 said:

Yeah, I do admit that MacOS/Linux is much better for programming/coding, I myself have a macbook that I do my programming on, and I also use linux. I'd reccommend either dual booting a hackintosh, or dual booting linux. You could also use bootcamp with an actual mac.

The best GPU supported in MacOS is the Radeon 7, but its not a good buy. Navi has no support in MacOS, so that leaves the Vega 64/56. Polaris also works, Fury does not, 290x/390x works, 290/390 does not. I'd reccomend a Vega 56 if you can get it for around 250$-ish used.

For a linux server, I'd go with nvidia, probably a 2060 super, as CUDA is really helpful and tensorflow doesn't support openCL.

I'm too concerned with the GPU in the Mac. If I really want to do portable gaming I can use my current laptop with it's 1050 or get an enclosure for my current desktop's 1080. So you're saying you think I should switch? I'd rather not do a Hackintosh. I could see myself dual booting kali or parrot on my laptop just for the pen testing tools, but other than that I'd rather not. Also, for the server, A: you'd recommend the 2060 over something more geared towards the purpose of nn or parallel computing? and B: I'm currently running proxmox (hypervisor). Would you recommend moving away from that? Or do you think there wouldn't be too many performance issues if I had a dedicated VM for the GPU computing? Server is 20 cores 40 threads btw with 64G RAM so those shouldn't be bottlenecks. Also which Mac would you recommend? Thanks for all your help and advice!

[Firewrath9]

13 minutes ago, iPC said:

I'm too concerned with the GPU in the Mac. If I really want to do portable gaming I can use my current laptop with it's 1050 or get an enclosure for my current desktop's 1080. So you're saying you think I should switch? I'd rather not do a Hackintosh.

 

I could see myself dual booting kali or parrot on my laptop just for the pen testing tools, but other than that I'd rather not.

 

Also, for the server, A: you'd recommend the 2060 over something more geared towards the purpose of nn or parallel computing? and B: I'm currently running proxmox (hypervisor). Would you recommend moving away from that? Or do you think there wouldn't be too many performance issues if I had a dedicated VM for the GPU computing? Server is 20 cores 40 threads btw with 64G RAM so those shouldn't be bottlenecks. Also which Mac would you recommend? Thanks for all your help and advice!

If you want MacOS, you should switch, if not you shouldn't. I can't really make that decision for you.

 

If you want dual booting, I'd reccomend it with 2 seperate drives, a cheap 120gb ssd is fine.

 

Yes. I'd reccomend the 2060 for ann and tensorflow. It has CUDA, so it can actually run tensorflow on gpu, and the 8GB of vram is a helpful step up from a 2060 non-super/1660.

https://www.servethehome.com/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2060-super-review/6/

I use Hyper-V personally as a supervisor, and I like it, however I'm not that sure about proxmox, I've never used it. 

 

For a Mac right now, I'd reccommend the base model iMac 27" w/ 256GB SSD (stock i5, stock gpu, stock ram) its pretty expensive at 2000$ though, however the 21.5" imacs imo aren't really worth it as they are basically just a mac mini with a screen.

 

If you'd like something cheaper, I'd reccomend if apple launches a new MBP 13" in the next couple months getting one of those.

Else, a 2015 mbp like this

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MacBook-Pro-15-Retina-2015-2016-2-2GHz-Core-i7-1TB-SSD-16GB-WARRANTY/143387807982

seems to be a pretty good deal, not sure about the seller.

mac's tend to last a good bit, my 2012 mba is still quite usable.

 

[iPC]

6 minutes ago, Firewrath9 said:

If you want MacOS, you should switch, if not you shouldn't. I can't really make that decision for you.

 

If you want dual booting, I'd reccomend it with 2 seperate drives, a cheap 120gb ssd is fine.

 

Yes. I'd reccomend the 2060 for ann and tensorflow. It has CUDA, so it can actually run tensorflow on gpu, and the 8GB of vram is a helpful step up from a 2060 non-super/1660.

https://www.servethehome.com/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2060-super-review/6/

I use Hyper-V personally as a supervisor, and I like it, however I'm not that sure about proxmox, I've never used it. 

 

For a Mac right now, I'd reccommend the base model iMac 27" w/ 256GB SSD (stock i5, stock gpu, stock ram) its pretty expensive at 2000$ though, however the 21.5" imacs imo aren't really worth it as they are basically just a mac mini with a screen.

 

If you'd like something cheaper, I'd reccomend if apple launches a new MBP 13" in the next couple months getting one of those.

Else, a 2015 mbp like this

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MacBook-Pro-15-Retina-2015-2016-2-2GHz-Core-i7-1TB-SSD-16GB-WARRANTY/143387807982

seems to be a pretty good deal, not sure about the seller.

mac's tend to last a good bit, my 2012 mba is still quite usable.

 

Sorry for being unclear, I'd be looking at a Mac purely for a laptop that I can use as my daily driver and for programming and music production. I'd be dual booting kali or some other linux distro on the mac laptop. Would there be any way to install another drive? I also have a nvme enclosure housing a 256GB samsung SSD in fair condition, so I could use that if I can't. I'll definitely look into the 2060. I could additionally boot windows on that enclosure and dual boot linux and mac os, effectively triple booting, because the one thing kinda holding me back is the inability to game on mac.

[Firewrath9]

3 minutes ago, iPC said:

Sorry for being unclear, I'd be looking at a Mac purely for a laptop that I can use as my daily driver and for programming and music production. I'd be dual booting kali or some other linux distro on the mac laptop. Would there be any way to install another drive? I also have a nvme enclosure housing a 256GB samsung SSD in fair condition, so I could use that if I can't. I'll definitely look into the 2060. I could additionally boot windows on that enclosure and dual boot linux and mac os, effectively triple booting, because the one thing kinda holding me back is the inability to game on mac.

yes, you could get a TB3 or USB 3.1 to have an external SSD.

Nvidia gpus don't have macos drivers, so you'd need a AMD gpu. You can game on macos with bootcamp and windows 10. Also, there are quite a few games that work on macos, more so on macos than linux.

[iPC]

2 hours ago, Firewrath9 said:

yes, you could get a TB3 or USB 3.1 to have an external SSD.

Nvidia gpus don't have macos drivers, so you'd need a AMD gpu. You can game on macos with bootcamp and windows 10. Also, there are quite a few games that work on macos, more so on macos than linux.

If I have a windows install on a separate drive, could I use that and an external enclosure for my 1080?

[Firewrath9]

12 hours ago, iPC said:

If I have a windows install on a separate drive, could I use that and an external enclosure for my 1080?

yes, although sometimes TB3 will share bandwidth, so if you use 2 TB3 devices it might go to 2x pcie 3.0 each

[Dat Guy]

Macs (even: MacBooks) are currently the least inconsistent and affordable way to do POSIX programming. Linux is not a POSIX-compatible programming environment. (Neither are the BSDs, if you're as strict as I am.)

[OnePlane]

I'd say try it out, and if you don't like it after a while the Apple devices are usually pretty consistent in keeping their value. So as far as 'test driving' a new daily driver goes, it's a pretty safe thing.

 

eGPUs, external drive booting (including Windows) and software engineering generally works very well, with the exception of WinForms, WPF and classic .NET as those are rather restricted to Windows + Visual Studio, but as most non-legacy work revolves around web, mobile and more universal platforms (python, java) you probably won't miss that (unless that is your main work  ). I have mostly USB3-SATA and USB3-PCIe bridges with SSDs running other systems and extra boot loaders to keep my daily driver clean, and a multiport hub (one at home, one in the bag and one at the office I frequent the most at the time). Selecting a different boot option is a matter of holding Alt (or option as Apple likes to call it) to get a boot selection at startup and use whatever happens to be needed. 

I'm currently sharing a TB3 eGPU (RX580) and a USB3 multiport hub with a Carbon X1 (gen 6) and two MacBook Pros, and it's working great. There are only a few things to keep in mind while swapping/plugging devices:

 

- Linux will be sad if you switch between HiDPI and classic DPI, this is mostly an issue on my X1

- macOS will switch fine and even mix and match, but if your monitor happens to be slow to wake up it won't re-read the EDID and you'll miss some resolution options (re-plug the DP to fix)

- Windows will switch, but sometimes not switch back, log out or reboot to fix

- USB devices are always happy, no matter the OS or order of plugging things in/out.

- Linux and Windows don't always switch audio correctly (Windows will sometimes switch to HDMI audio which isn't even used, probably driver issue, Linux will detect my speakers but keep playing using the internal speakers until manually switched or re-plugged)

 

Most of the engineering places with a reasonable size workforce has about 80% Apple hardware running macOS and 20% everything else (including Apple hardware only running Linux or BSD). People generally get confused about that because the general thought would be that a developer would want much customisation and tuning, but as it turns out, after a short while people really just want to work consistently and be done with it. And that is a hard thing to accomplish, even with a single-vendor ecosystem, but it's about as close als you can get (also known as the least-worst solution, there was nice story on HN about that a while ago -- I'll link it in if I can find it). The only other commonly attempted method is a custom Linux setup that has increased maintenance effort and non-transferability as a downside (meaning you will have a workstation that nobody else can work on, and you won't be able to efficiently use someone else's workstation either - this is more important than one might think and a factor in choosing to not customise a system too much).

 

If you want more input on development, switching and common setups, just ask, I've been at it for almost two decades and I'm sure there are others here with the same experience (or baggage as some would call it  ).