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Just updated to a 2017 1.8 / i5 13" (mostly for older eyes), 256 / 8, but my mid-2011 11" Air (1.6 i5 / 128 / 4) ran just fine on High Sierra and the APFS file system. Plenty of cycles left on the battery, but it would certainly benefit from that being replaced, rather than a worry about the OS.

In prep for handing off my trusty 11" to another, I did a full reformat / fresh install of High Sierra and that went off without issue.
 
Plenty of cycles left on the battery

Well... you never know. As I posted earlier, I've been trying to help a friend in the EU with some issues on the 2011 MBA that I sold her many years ago. As we were discussing things, her battery suddenly failed completely so now she must keep it plugged in all the time. Her battery had 659 cycles when this happened. ;)
 
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Hi everyone,
It's end of 2019 and my MBA 13inch i5 mid 2011 is running El Capitan. DDR3 4GB 1333Bus and I've replaced the original hardrive with Sam Sung SSD 256GB. I have to say SSD Drive will make your performance quite amazing.
I'm working on Logic Pro X for making simpe tracks, and surprisingly this old machine can smoothly run 32 tracks at once time. Also I frequently make video on Final Cut Pro X, and it will work so well on 30-60mins video rendering on 1080p solution (please do not render 4k as your Mac will stuck off).
OSX Marverick is fine but it doesnt support newer Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro X. It was a primary reason I have to move straight to El Capitan.
The Yosemite is no much faster than the El Capitan, so if you consider between Yosemite and El Capitan. I highly recommend you the El Capitan.

James Dory.
 
Hi everyone,
It's end of 2019 and my MBA 13inch i5 mid 2011 is running El Capitan. DDR3 4GB 1333Bus and I've replaced the original hardrive with Sam Sung SSD 256GB. I have to say SSD Drive will make your performance quite amazing.
I'm working on Logic Pro X for making simpe tracks, and surprisingly this old machine can smoothly run 32 tracks at once time. Also I frequently make video on Final Cut Pro X, and it will work so well on 30-60mins video rendering on 1080p solution (please do not render 4k as your Mac will stuck off).
OSX Marverick is fine but it doesnt support newer Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro X. It was a primary reason I have to move straight to El Capitan.
The Yosemite is no much faster than the El Capitan, so if you consider between Yosemite and El Capitan. I highly recommend you the El Capitan.

James Dory.
Thank you for adding your personal experience.
 
I'm running 10.14.6 quite well on my Mid 11 MBA 11. Definitely an option for those doing research and come across this old thread.

You’re running 10.14? That’s the same year as my 13” MBA, and it was announced that High Sierra (10.13) was the last supported for that Mac..

How are you getting 10.14 running on it? Not accusatory, but really curious..

BL.
 
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You’re running 10.14? That’s the same year as my 13” MBA, and it was announced that High Sierra (10.13) was the last supported for that Mac..

How are you getting 10.14 running on it? Not accusatory, but really curious..

BL.
For this machine, I’m using the DosDude patcher. Check out the Mojave on unsupported thread in the forum or go to DosDudes site.
 
For this machine, I’m using the DosDude patcher. Check out the Mojave on unsupported thread in the forum or go to DosDudes site.

Got it. I was thinking you were implying that the 2011s were officially supported, which they are not.

BL.
 
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I have a macbook air 11" late 2011 4gb of ram.

Was running catalina with dospatcher but the thing was laggy, the drive nearly full with nothing installed and the fan went on full speed when I had one program open. Now I run debian testing (bookworms) with lxqt+wmf4 as DE, I made sure I have enabled hardware accelleration in Firefox and mpv. The thing is snappy: it can handle 4gb of ram fine+ the OS is optimized for lo-res screen. I can browse the web easily with 10+ tabs open. watching youtube in fullhd in firefox makes the cpu usage goes up to 15-20%,
Only thing I couldn't make work is the bluetooth. Broadcom support on linux is limited...

However it is still hot, about 55-60c on idle, 70c on light load, easily reaches 80c+ on load and takes forever to cool down. it's not as bad as Catalina but It's not comfortable with the summer heat right now... I wonder if there is anything I could do. some cheap and easy mod?
 
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