Downgrade from Yosemite to Mavericks or disable driver signing

[brdeveloper]

Hello!

I just bought a condenser microphone for doing home recordings (guitar and vocals). My audio interface is a M-Audio/Avid Fast Track Pro, which has driver issues in OSX since the launch date. However, the manufacturer's Yosemite-compatible driver is a PITA. Every restart in OSX I have to reinstall the drivers to make the soundcard work -- sometimes I have to manually delete files on /Library/Extensions or /System/Library/Extensions. I'm thinking on disabling kext signing verification to be able to install previous (more stable) drivers, however I don't know if this could be really harmful to my system.

From that time, I'd probably have to install programs only from AppStore or well reputed repositories (like MacPorts). Every security hole in Safari could open a door for a rootkit installation (that is, no more obscure porn sites... perhaps just Xvideos -- maybe a guest account in this case would keep my Mac safe). In short, what real life consequences I would face disabling kext signing? Am I better off downgrading to Mavericks?

All of this because OSX's default Fast Track Pro driver only records at 44100Hz/16bit (set in MIDI Setup under Utilities menu), which is even worse than the built in soundcard quality. If the default driver could record at 48KHz/24bit I'd be fine without manufacturer drivers.

Thanks in advance!

 

[KALLT]

Kext signing only prevents macOS from booting with kernel extensions that have no special entitlement from Apple. Disabling it means that anyone can install and enable kernel extensions with root privileges. There is no functional impact when you disable it.

I think you should stay on the newer version and rather disable kext signing. It has not been uncontroversial and the security benefits so far seem only minor, given that an attacker with root privileges can already do so much more.

 

[brdeveloper]

Kext signing only prevents macOS from booting with kernel extensions that have no special entitlement from Apple. Disabling it means that anyone can install and enable kernel extensions with root privileges. There is no functional impact when you disable it.

I think you should stay on the newer version and rather disable kext signing. It has not been uncontroversial and the security benefits so far seem only minor, given that an attacker with root privileges can already do so much more.

Thank you. I think this is the first option to get my audio interface working. There was a day when Macs were the best platform for audio production, but these days Windows seem better mantained in terms of drivers, DAWs and plugins. If OSX allowed the default driver to capture at 48KHz/24bit on MIDI Setup, I'd be fine.