chune's house build

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chune

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Oct 28, 2013
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Here is my build. I am running esxi 5.5 on a ga-7pesh3 with donk's unlocker which allows for mac guests to be run on PC hardware (with GPU passthrough!!). This is all backed by a ZFS-powered NFS datastore (omniOS VM + nappit + onboard SAS2008 IT mode pci-passthrough). This started as just a windows + mac gpu passthrough rig and has slowly sprawled throughout my entire house. I am currently running a dual monitor win 8.1 workstation VM, Mavericks OSX dev VM, SteamOS arcade VM, and a win10 HTPC VM (Plex HT) all with individual GPUs passed through. I just realized how much stuff chained off one mini-DP port and had to document it. Yes, the dual apple cinema displays all work great from 100 feet away running through all the adapters with no relics or signal degradation. The DVI KVM Matrix allows me to mix and match any input to any output on my cinema displays. It comes with a cat-5 remote (not pictured) that allows me to select a source per monitor. The SnapX allows me to change my secondary monitor over to a local macbook laptop if needed
 
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TLN

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Feb 26, 2016
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That looks pretty much what I wanna do(kind of).

Now question: what videocard you're using for Mac OS X, do you use bootloader or something?
I've tried running HD8490 (~74xx or 64xx - they all the same) and cannot make it work. I wanna move to a bigger box (more ram, space, may be dual cpu) but there's no need if I cannot run mac on it. Win 7 runs perfect for me obviously.
 
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chune

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Oct 28, 2013
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TLN said:
That looks pretty much what I wanna do(kind of).

Now question: what videocard you're using for Mac OS X, do you use bootloader or something?
I've tried running HD8490 (~74xx or 64xx - they all the same) and cannot make it work. I wanna move to a bigger box (more ram, space, may be dual cpu) but there's no need if I cannot run mac on it. Win 7 runs perfect for me obviously.
Click to expand...
The trick with mac guests is to use natively supported hardware. I dont run any bootloaders or hackintosh tools. It was mostly trial and error for me, but i have found the HD6570 and HD7750 work well with mavericks and elcapo. yosemite had some horrible lag issues with these (maybe all?) video cards. This database is a good starting point:
HCL 10.8.2 - OSx86

Use the HCL for your respective version and find cards that "Work OOB"
 
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RyC

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Oct 17, 2013
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I tried to do almost exactly this in 2013, but I didn't have the hardware for it back then. I want to try again soon *cough*E5-2670*cough* and it looks like it's working for closely to how I want to do it too!

I've read that the Radeon 7000 series cards (with the exception of the 7850 IIRC) should work OOB on Mac OS X. Non Quadro Nvidia cards are shut down by the Nvidia driver in Windows, but I wonder if it does the same in Mac OS X?
 
T_Minus

T_Minus

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I ran OSX virtualized in Workstation on Win7 and had no problem with my video card working, in fact it worked perfect with all my hardware. I ran a 3930K back when it first came out, and had a dedicated 30" just for OSX.

That was my migration path to a OSX Laptop / Desktop, then I switcehd back to only windows :)

I ran Radeon series video card too, btw.
 
Patrick

Patrick

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Wait... are you guys doing OSX in a VM?!? I would LOVE that!
 
Patrick

Patrick

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I do not mind the $250 Workstation 12 Pro license, but I am not sure about running Hyper-V, Virtual Box and Workstation Pro.
 
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RyC

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Oct 17, 2013
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Patrick said:
Wait... are you guys doing OSX in a VM?!? I would LOVE that!
Click to expand...
Someone over at InsanelyMac created a patch that disables VMware's checks for the hardware module that identifies real Macs: Workstation 11/12, Player 7/12, Fusion 7/8 and ESXi 6 Mac OS X Unlocker 2 - Multi-booting and Virtualisation

Install the patch, install Mac OS X using the stock installer (you might have to convert it to/find a ISO format manually), install VMware Fusion VM tools, and you're more or less good to go!
 
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chune

Member
Oct 28, 2013
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RyC said:
Someone over at InsanelyMac created a patch that disables VMware's checks for the hardware module that identifies real Macs: Workstation 11/12, Player 7/12, Fusion 7/8 and ESXi 6 Mac OS X Unlocker 2 - Multi-booting and Virtualisation

Install the patch, install Mac OS X using the stock installer (you might have to convert it to/find a ISO format manually), install VMware Fusion VM tools, and you're more or less good to go!
Click to expand...
oh sweet, didnt see he finally added esxi 6 support! Ill have to try this out
 
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Marsh

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May 12, 2013
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You could run OSX vm on vSphere as well.
Run unlocker , then OSX installer.
 
T_Minus

T_Minus

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@Patrick it's been a couple years now, but yeah I ran it on a VM in Workstation. I downloaded a specific OSX OS someone made and that worked perfectly with my license. I now have a lot of licensed OSX "Apps" I don't use since I stopped using OSX/MAC everything... LOL

Sorry, back on topic :)
 
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chune

Member
Oct 28, 2013
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apnar said:
back on topic, chune, how are you routing USB up to your office?
Click to expand...
Good question. I purposely left this out of the diagram to reduce complexity, but some people probably noticed the pexusb3s44v card. There are two ways to handle this: usb controller pci passthrough and bluetooth usb dongle mapping.

Usb mapping of a bluetooth (4.0 LE) dongle works pretty good on simple machines that you only need a keyboard, mouse and possibly audio for. The basic procedure here is to add a virtual usb hub to your VM and then map the esxi host usb device to the VM directly. I then get the usb BT 4.0 dongle up to my office by using an active usb 2.0 extension cable from tripp lite. I have found the usb 2.0 extension cables work better for keyboard/mice. I have also used a usb 3.0 active adapter, but had some lag issues with the mouse. Here are the two models i use:
Tripp Lite USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Active Extension Repeater Cable (A M/F) 20 Meter (65
Siig Usb 3.0 Active Repeater Cable - 20M

For a more functional setup, i like to pass through the onboard usb 2.0 & usb 3.0 controllers of the ga7pesh3 board to my VM via pci passthrough. This allows me to plug in a hub at the end of the active usb extension cable and use multiple devices. Or in this case use the integrated usb hub, webcam, mic and speakers of the apple cinema displays. This board works well for usb passthrough since you have two separate usb 2.0 controllers+ports and two separate usb 3.0 controllers+ports that can each be mapped to their own vm. Having usb 2.0 controllers is also key for a functioning mac VM setup, as no usb 3.0 controllers were recognized natively the last time i tried in mavericks and yosemite. The onboard USBs take care of 3-4 of the VMs (3 for me since its nice to only passthrough one of the usb 2.0 ports so you still have keyboard access to the built in BMC/IPMI KVM). The workaround here is to use the pexusb3s44v card which is perfect because it has four separate usb 3.0 hubs on it, each with its own dedicated port all placed conveniently behind an ACS-capable PLX (aka avago) pci switch. This allows you to map all four individual usb controllers + ports to different VMs
 
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TLN

Active Member
Feb 26, 2016
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T_Minus said:
I ran OSX virtualized in Workstation on Win7 and had no problem with my video card working, in fact it worked perfect with all my hardware. I ran a 3930K back when it first came out, and had a dedicated 30" just for OSX.

That was my migration path to a OSX Laptop / Desktop, then I switcehd back to only windows :)

I ran Radeon series video card too, btw.
Click to expand...
What do you mean by "video card working" when you're running in vmware workstation?
You cannot pass-through videocard into VM in workstation, can you?

Making the videocard works is the biggest issue to me, but I'm looking into another build, so I'll just buy different card which works oob.
 
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