Apple Mac Mini + PC peripherals + SSD?

Question

Mac Mini

I'm looking in the direction of buying an Apple Mac Mini (the simplest one on a Core i5 with an integrated graphics card). I'm currently using a PC with Linux Mint.
How do I imagine it? Buy an Apple Mac Mini block on Amazon and:
1) Connect your old keyboard, mouse (I don’t want to change to a Mac one), monitor and speakers to it.
2) Replace the standard HDD with a third-party Micron Crucial M4 or Intel SSD or whatever is the best for 128-256Gb
And use it for everyday tasks (web, FTP, a little bit of programming, a little bit of layout, movies, I don’t play games at all ).
Questions:
- Are there any pitfalls in my case? Will everything connect and work?
- How is the "distribution" of the operating system Mac OS X? How can I transfer it from HDD to SDD, how can I reset it to zero, it's paid, and, as I understand it, I get it for free along with Mac Mini? Should I back it up or will it somehow be tied to the hardware and I can download OS X from the site at any time and install it and it will see that I have an honestly purchased piece of hardware and will work right away?
- Is the software installed from the Mac Store in the same way as in Linux from repositories or on android / iPhone in their playmarkets and appstores?

Answer 1

Regarding the legal installation on a blank disk, I advise Internet Recovery .
In the case of my macbook pro 2012, I pulled out the old HDD, inserted a new blank SSD, clamped Command-Rit at startup, entered the wi-fi password, waited an hour - and the system was installed on a new disk. The version of the OS that your Mac came with is installed, you don't need to enter an Apple Id.

Answer 2

– Peripherals via USB – ok. For my SSD OSZ - for 10.8 it was necessary to update the firmware (no problem).
- Download OSX from a torrent and install from a USB DVD (the easiest way, I did not try to install via an image on a USB Flash).
- The software is installed in "one click".

Answer 3

I have done according to your scheme, except for the keyboard. But in general, the Mac keyboard still annoys me.
I also bought an adapter for the second screw, so you need to be careful with it, they are different for the first and second HDDs and for different mini generations.
There were no problems with the transfer of the system, various options are described on the network, but I myself don’t remember exactly how I did it.

Answer 4

The peripherals work fine, the monitor will only pull DVI, HDMI, DP, if the ancient VGA will not work. The screw can be installed second, 2 screws fit into the minicom normally, you just need to buy a cable. The axis comes with a minicom, you can make a bootable USB flash drive directly from the system or download an image from a torrent (or the App Store), there is no binding to the hardware. For an SSD, you will most likely need to update the firmware and use the TrimEnable utility to enable trim support, which is automatically enabled only on apple branded ssds. Software can be installed from the app store, you can simply download images from the manufacturer's website or torrent, for almost all programs, installation is a simple drag and drop of the package into the program directory, with the exception of drivers and system software. You can connect repositories and install Linux software, but without extreme necessity I do not advise, it spoils the system very much. I strongly advise you to immediately buy additional RAM, regular 4 GB on the younger model is not enough, 8 is enough, if with a margin for virtual machines it is better than 16.

Answer 5

If you are concerned about legality, just clone the screw and officially update to the new version of the OS.

Answer 6

I have a 2011 model mac-mini-server i7 processor and with a built-in intel hd 3000 video card. Later I bought it a 128GB ssd and 16 gigabytes of memory,
It's no problem. But a microphone without an amplifier will not work. I bought myself a USB audio card with a microphone input.
You will have problems later, when you realize that hotkeys will have to be retrained.
For example, to move a file from one folder to another you need to:
1) copy -- cmd-c
2) paste cmd-alt-V
cmd key. In Windows keyboards, this is the one with the mastday icon, and you need to swap it programmatically with the alt key. otherwise it will differ from the Makov keyboard, and you will not have an easy time on a real Makov keyboard.
Most of the combinations are performed with fingers that are not what you are used to (instead of control (little finger) you will press alt (thumb))
That's exactly what I did. I bought an SSD from OCZ, and took it to a service center for a replacement.
In my mini model, there are two 500GB hard drives, I asked that one of them be pulled out and an SSD inserted there. And from the pulled out disk I made a removable drive by purchasing a case for it with an adapter to USB3
Asche without problems, by the way the games are going well. I played PORTAL2, MAFIA2 , RAGE... On the built-in video card they work well.
You will have no problems with the OS, at least nothing happened when I downloaded from the torrents and installed. The latest version of the OS (10.9) is currently distributed free of charge directly in the app store.
When installing the system on a new hard drive, it will itself be loaded from the network (google it. when loading, you need to press some combination .. I don’t remember right now, most likely it’s Cmd-R)
There are no repositories. There is a paid store -appstor. It remembers everything you bought and links it to your apple-id (it's your id of the anal probe from apple, which looks like email )
Usually the software is googled and downloaded from the internet (tarents). There are app store analog programs and there is something like Linux repositories (macports, brew ...) with console utilities like mc.
and also ..... many more troubles with management. (You can't change the keyboard shortcut to change the keyboard layout to ctrl+shift, you can't remove mouse acceleration and mouse wheel, and other things that aren't obvious and unpleasant.)
But there won't be any problems with computer performance.