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Late 2010 MBA 2GB Mavericks - Upgrade OS?

Buadhai

Buadhai

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 15, 2018
1,139
440
Korat, Thailand
I have a Late 2010 MBA (1.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) with 2GB of RAM and 25GB of free storage. This machine sits in a remote location and does nothing but run shell scripts 24/7 that run a webcam and keep the machine connected to a captive portal Internet connection.

I visit the machine once a month and upgrade MacPorts and otherwise have a look. I rarely use GUI apps. Most of what I do is via command line.

I log on to the machine remotely using Chrome Remote Desktop. The machine is behind a double NAT. Back to My Mac never worked and I can't SSH in, but Chrome Remote Desktop works great and the performance is admirable given the relatively slow Internet bandwidth of the remote machine.

Lately I've been receiving notices that certain software, including Chrome Remote Desktop, will no longer support Mavericks. I'm tempted to upgrade to High Sierra, but am somewhat wary about how well the machine will run with a more resource intensive OS.

I'd be interested in hearing from other users with similar 2010 MBAs who have upgraded to High Sierra.

==========-
Aside: For reasons that remain unclear, Apple pushed High Sierra to this machine on June 10th of this year and attempted to install it. From the console log:
Code: 
Jun 10 04:48:26 Axe.local softwareupdated[240] : SWU: downloading "macOS High Sierra,  "
Jun 10 04:49:14 Axe.local softwareupdated[240] : SWU: installing "macOS High Sierra,
All of this was done without my permission.

Fortunately, the installation failed. From the system log:
Code: 
Sandbox denied authorizing right 'system.install.app-store-software.standard-user' for authorization created by '/System/Library/CoreServices/Software Update.app/Contents/Resources/SoftwareUpdateConfigData'

I have no idea why Apple would push this upgrade to my machine two years after it was introduced.

Any ideas?
 
I have a 2011 11" Air (1.6GHz i5, 2GB RAM, 128GB SSD) that I currently have on El Capitan. I ran High Sierra on it for a few months earlier this year, but decided that the performance hit from El Cap just wasn't worth it. It ran, but became uncomfortable with more than a couple apps open. Granted, these were apps like Office 2016, multiple Safari tabs, etc. With non-GUI apps, it would likely be smoother running, although performance would still take a hit, especially from Mavericks. If all it's doing is running a couple scripts to run a webcam, it's not doing the world's most resource-intensive work anyway.

I would try El Cap as a stopgap for now, and see how that goes. If you're happy with it, you can give High Sierra a shot; just make a clone beforehand that you can roll back to.
 
Last edited:
Hi there,

I just got a MacBook Air 2010 with 2GB. Initially I was surprise that this 2010, 2GB core 2 is able to support High Sierra.

I did a clean installation of High Sierra. And my usage is merely for web browsing, telegram and WhatsApp and Spotify.

To my surprise, it's still okay and acceptable. Exceeded my expectation.
 
technano said:
Hi there,

I just got a MacBook Air 2010 with 2GB. Initially I was surprise that this 2010, 2GB core 2 is able to support High Sierra.

I did a clean installation of High Sierra. And my usage is merely for web browsing, telegram and WhatsApp and Spotify.

To my surprise, it's still okay and acceptable. Exceeded my expectation.
Click to expand...

Thank you for that encouraging report. I may give it a try as all I use it for is terminal commands and shell scripts.
 
I ended up going for High Sierra. The upgrade wasn’t trouble free, but it’s working fine now. There is a subjective but noticeable sluggishness under HS, but after the upgrading I’m doing a lot more than normal. Once things settle down to my usual shell scripts and casual use, I’m sure it will be fine.
 
Excellent, enjoy! I wasn’t a fan of High Sierra in my 2GB Air, but then again I was using GUI applications. With your command line shenanigans, hopefully it will perform just fine for you :)
 
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