2008 Macbook

Not necessarily, that would depend on your usage. 10.6 had lower memory requirements than newer versions of OS X and the last officially supported version for this model is Mac OS X Lion (which you would have to purchase). The biggest bottleneck is the hard-disk drive. You should consider replacing it with an SSD.

 

My last Mac was a 2008 Unibody - cracking machine. Boosting the RAM certainly did improve its performance in my experience. It shouldn't be too costly, so no harm in giving it a go.

 

SSD first then maybe max out the RAM.

 

that machine can run el cap with a hack on this forum.
It has 64bit architecture but only using 32bit from factory.

With ssd and the max 6GB ram it will fly.

that is if you want to.

I have a macbook pro 2,1 I will hack for el cap when it arrives.
I played with older OSX versions but el cap I like alot so will try upgrade all my units to el cap if I can.

 

8GB RAM + ssd + El Capitan = A very happy chappy

 

Maxing out the RAM and getting an SSD will dramatically improve how your MacBook perform. With just 2GB and a traditional platter based hard drive, once your memory starts paging, it becomes torturous to use. Even with an SSD, you want to keep memory paging as low as possible, ideally at zero.

 

Hello, everyone!
I have an early-2008 white Macbook (4,1). I have 4gb ram, an SSD, Core 2 Duo processor and some low-end integrated graphics, but that doesn't matter. Core 2 Duo is a 64bit processor, I have 64 bit EFI, 64 bit kernel boot mode, but the kernel is 32bit. So the hardware should handle from at least OS X 10.9 until probably 10.11. But it doesn't, Apple doesn't provide support. I have x64 Ubuntu 16.10 running on another partition, without any problem. So first, what is the reason that Apple doesn't support this hardware, and second, how could I solve this trouble?

(ps. I'm not sure if this goes here or here instead, sorry if I made a mistake.)

Thanks

 

The problem with that model is the X3100 graphics. There are no 64 bit Mac drivers for it. Some people were able to jury-rig OS X 10.8 on to it but graphic never performed properly and it's not something I would recommend.

 

This model will run el capitan easy as I have a 2007 17" macbook running el capitan very well.
I am also about to hack a macbook pro 2,2 to run el capitan.

 

Apple never made a 17" MacBook in any year.

 

it a pro of course.

I know never made 17" macbook

 

Thanks for everyone helped. I'll look at some 'os x on unsupported mac' forums for more information.

 

Yes you will. The biggest update you can make thou is an SSD in there.

Just as an FYI, I have one.

 

Yes quite easy to change.

I personally bought an adata premium 240GB SSD.
Had mid 500 read and write speeds.

as long as high read and write should see HUGE speed gain.
my 2009 2.16GHz core2duo now has about 10 second boot, helped with 8GB ram too

 

Installation is very easy. I got a Samsung SSD, the 840 256GB.

 

For older MacBooks the SSD choice isn't so important - they only support SATA1 or SATA2 speeds so all the speed increases over the past 4-5 years in SSDs is meaningless as the controller doesn't have the bandwidth to support it. From my late 2008 MB I upgraded first to 4 GB, then to an SSD (Samsung 830) and finally to 8 GB. Still showing it's age with some things but the desktop is still zippy.

 

It does matter, SSD speeds are not to be interperted as how much Sequentialy it can read/write. That is the most meaningless benchmark in an SSD. Sure it's impressive, but the true beauty lies in the Random Read/Write. In that respect not many SSDs have broken SATA II speeds.

Bear in mind the fastest SSDs can barely reach 90k IOPs @ 4k blocks. Meaning we are barely beyond 300 MB/s (at a expected 350 MB/s rate) transfer rate of SATA II.

 

I installed Yosemite, but still didn't find a kext, that work. Do you have any sources? The graphic is really poor. At least I have ubuntu. So please help if you can!

Thanks!

 

I already told you, there are no 64 bit drivers for the X3100. The guy you are quoting installed El Capitan on MacBook Pros.

 

I have seen a1181 models run el capitan.
Yes some gpu are not supported past 10.7.

If you ran the hack the hack site should have said that it is not supported.

later a1181 models seem to run better as think has later hardware.

 

I have one and put 8GB of RAM in it and a SSD, it flies. I like that old little thing.