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Running Mountain Lion on current rMBP.

jbrown

jbrown

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 7, 2002
997
4
London
I've been keeping my eyes open for a way to run ML on the current rMBP.

The reason being is that I have an expensive bit of software that won't run in Mavericks.

In an ideal world I'd just clone my current drive onto a new rMBP and go.

Most opinion seems to say this not possible.

But at the Apple Store today I was speaking to one of the geniuses who told me that it is possible.

He said that it you wipe the SSD on the rMBP, then do a clean ML install
to it. That will enable the rMBP to run. Then use Migration Assistant to copy all your programs over.

Anyone done this?

:):confused:
 
Only choice is to have that software upgraded to run in Mavericks or buy last years rMBP. Of course if you want to try install ML then go for it.
 
Depending on your specific needs, you could run an older OS X in a virtual machine. Although, if the software you use relies on OpenGL, OpenCL or CUDA, virtualization might not be a feasible option.
 
jbrown said:
I've been keeping my eyes open for a way to run ML on the current rMBP.

The reason being is that I have an expensive bit of software that won't run in Mavericks.

In an ideal world I'd just clone my current drive onto a new rMBP and go.

Most opinion seems to say this not possible.

But at the Apple Store today I was speaking to one of the geniuses who told me that it is possible.

He said that it you wipe the SSD on the rMBP, then do a clean ML install
to it. That will enable the rMBP to run. Then use Migration Assistant to copy all your programs over.

Anyone done this?

:):confused:
Click to expand...

It's not possible, I tried it on both my Haswell rMBPs before.

Not sure whether this way would work or not, but you could probably install a bare-metal hypervisor like VMware ESXi, create a blank VM, install ML and enable GPU pass-through for native graphics support.
 
yjchua95 said:
It's not possible, I tried it on both my Haswell rMBPs before.

Not sure whether this way would work or not, but you could probably install a bare-metal hypervisor like VMware ESXi, create a blank VM, install ML and enable GPU pass-through for native graphics support.
Click to expand...

The Apple guy at the store was sure this would work ( installing a fresh ML - then using migration ). He said he knew someone who had done just that, so they could run software they had that would not run on Mavericks.
 
jbrown said:
He said that it you wipe the SSD on the rMBP, then do a clean ML install
to it.
Click to expand...
The 2013 rMBP came out after Mavericks was already released, that means ML does not have the necessary kexts for the Haswell chip set. In other words, you cannot load ML on a 2013 rMBP


The only option as I see it, is running ML in a VM which was recommended above as a possible solution.
 
maflynn said:
The 2013 rMBP came out after Mavericks was already released, that means ML does not have the necessary kexts for the Haswell chip set. In other words, you cannot load ML on a 2013 rMBP


The only option as I see it, is running ML in a VM which was recommended above as a possible solution.
Click to expand...

And I figure the best way is to do it on a bare-metal hypervisor like VMware ESXi to enable GPU pass-through support.

If it's virtualised via Fusion, there's no GPU acceleration.
 
I've run OSX via Vmware's workstation and server (not ESXi) At best the performance is plodding, due to the lack of GPU acceleration.

I'm not sure how much more performance you'll get using ESXi over say workstation. When I was doing it, I ran it on Fedora if that has any bearing.
 
maflynn said:
I've run OSX via Vmware's workstation and server (not ESXi) At best the performance is plodding, due to the lack of GPU acceleration.

I'm not sure how much more performance you'll get using ESXi over say workstation. When I was doing it, I ran it on Fedora if that has any bearing.
Click to expand...

In ESXi, OS X runs at native performance, because as long as GPU pass-through is enabled, you get native GPU power.
 
I'm not up there with you guys technically ;) The only VM ( virtual machine? ) I know is Parallels.

So could you run ML in Parallels?

Could you CCC my drive into the Parallels environment? Thing is I can't re-install this software and it almost costs as much as a new computer to upgrade it!! So I'd need to copy my setup as it stands.

cheers
:)
 
jbrown said:
I'm not up there with you guys technically ;) The only VM ( virtual machine? ) I know is Parallels.

So could you run ML in Parallels?

Could you CCC my drive into the Parallels environment? Thing is I can't re-install this software and it almost costs as much as a new computer to upgrade it!! So I'd need to copy my setup as it stands.

cheers
:)
Click to expand...

You can run it in Parallels, but you don't get any graphics support. So most apps will run slowly, and apps that require graphics acceleration won't even run.

The only way is ESXi, which is an enterprise/corporate-grade bare-metal hypervisor. However, it's not intended for average consumers to use, although ESXi is the only thing that will suit your requirements.
 
Have you already got the rMBP?
If so try it. Parallels is available as a fully functional trial for 14 days so you could try it.
I have parallels installed but unfortunately I don't have a copy of ML to test it with.

Barney
 
ESXi will not run on a mac. ESXi is an entire OS and needs to be installed on the hard drive a booted. You could run it in a VM then run your VM's on top of that but that is a stupid method lol I run mavericks in Workstation 10 just fine but... not sure the method on a Mac
 
ha1o2surfer said:
ESXi will not run on a mac. ESXi is an entire OS and needs to be installed on the hard drive a booted. You could run it in a VM then run your VM's on top of that but that is a stupid method lol I run mavericks in Workstation 10 just fine but... not sure the method on a Mac
Click to expand...

ESXi does run on a Mac, as a bare-metal hypervisor. Basically, it's installed in a pre-OS environment (so the sequence goes something like this: Hardware → EFI → ESXi → OS).
 
yjchua95 said:
ESXi does run on a Mac, as a bare-metal hypervisor. Basically, it's installed in a pre-OS environment (so the sequence goes something like this: Hardware → EFI → ESXi → OS).
Click to expand...

I tried on a 2012 rMPB and it did not boot and gave me the PSOD (Pink Screen of Death). There may be hacks but it's not officially supported and VMWare does not recommend it. A BMH is not a good idea on your laptop as your screen will essentially becomes useless. He's better off hacking an install of Fusion. ESXi might be out of the scope of this topic in terms of getting it up and running lol
 
ha1o2surfer said:
I tried on a 2012 rMPB and it did not boot and gave me the PSOD (Pink Screen of Death). There may be hacks but it's not officially supported and VMWare does not recommend it. A BMH is not a good idea on your laptop as your screen will essentially becomes useless. He's better off hacking an install of Fusion. ESXi might be out of the scope of this topic in terms of getting it up and running lol
Click to expand...

It worked on my Mac Pro and 27" iMac (the iMac required some tweaking).

The only ones officially supported by VMware are the Mac Mini and Mac Pro.

Either way, having to tweak around is worth it, because you don't have to put up with crappy OS X performance in Fusion or Parallels. At least in ESXi, you can enable GPU pass-through for native graphics performance.
 
yjchua95 said:
It worked on my Mac Pro and 27" iMac (the iMac required some tweaking).

The only ones officially supported by VMware are the Mac Mini and Mac Pro.

Either way, having to tweak around is worth it, because you don't have to put up with crappy OS X performance in Fusion or Parallels. At least in ESXi, you can enable GPU pass-through for native graphics performance.
Click to expand...

Virtualbox on Windows can allow GPU acceleration but not a passthrough (works quite well for almost all games). Does the free version of ESXi support GPU passthrough?
 
ha1o2surfer said:
Virtualbox on Windows can allow GPU acceleration but not a passthrough (works quite well for almost all games). Does the free version of ESXi support GPU passthrough?
Click to expand...

Yes it does.

Afaik, there isn't any paid version of ESXi. The only paid version is vSphere, which includes ESXi itself and additional management capabilities. ESXi itself is free.

vSphere bundles with vCenter server and ESXi, so if you pay for it, you're only paying for vCenter and not for ESXi.
 
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