What have you done with an early Intel recently?

[DCBassman]

Having tried a few things on the 2011 21.5 iMac, I returned it to High Sierra intending to OCLP back to Monterey or maybe Ventura. It will not open either latest version of the patcher tool. Just nothing. Went through security etc. It doesn't object, it just does zilch.
Baffled...

 

[ToniCH]

Weird, OCLP 1.0.1 works on my 2011 27" with HS just fine. Open disk util and repair disk and permissions. Or boot to recovery and repair from there. Reboot again, do PRAM reset, try again.

Please note that you can "partition" (or what ever it was called with APFS-drives?) your internal SSD and leave a working High Sierra installation on one partition/volume and install the Monterey on the other. This way you have a working os to go back if something goes wrong with the non supported installation.

 

[DCBassman]

Yes, will do that. I have two-thirds of the drive as a data partition, easy enough to subdivide that. Will try your suggestions. If no luck, will erase and start from scratch.

 

[ToniCH]

Just for the heck of it I today made a second APFS-volume/container/whatever to my internal SSD and OCLP-installed Monterey to it. Then I imported all my files from my High Sierra bootdisk. Following my own advice I didn't dare to go to Sonoma straight away with my "production" machine. 😉

Nice thing is that all my passwords were transferred too so minimum hassle when transferring.

Now, I will test drive this for awhile, seems to work ok this far.

EDIT: Thunderbird email is now timing out with the SMTP-server, incoming works fine. Any ideas what could fix it?
EDIT2: the SMTP problem might be caused by a bad VPN-server connection, testing further.
EDIT3: after changing the VPN-server the Thunderbird has worked without problems for couple of hours 👍

 

[rampancy]

I still own at least a dozen whitebooks. Maybe 5 of them are from 2006, which were the most problematic starting out. From 2007 till 2015 Apple was on an incredible run with their laptops. Getting incrementally better with each iteration despite closing off all user upgrades.

They lost their way in 2016 with that ridiculous 12” MacBook and the keyboard problems, but since 2020 have started finding their stride again.

Gently cleaning the white MacBooks with magic erasers dipped in a warm water-pine sol solution works wonders.

I haven't had much time to play with my A1181s for a while, thanks to a couple of A1278s that landed in my lap, and the mourning period I've been going through over my "perfect" green dot A1226 that completely died due to GPU failure. But it's great to meet other white MacBook afficionados!

 

[nathansz]

is 2012 mini "early" yet

it's our home server for backups, music and Plex

 

[swamprock]

Wow, that is brave! Isn't that a Core 2 Duo machine? How much RAM? SSD? Let us know how it turns out. 😎

6gb of RAM, and SSD. It's... ok, I guess. It's usable, but not great. It's quite glitchy and a tad choppy, but all of that is to be expected due to its C2D and unsupported nature. I'm considering making my 2010 13" MBP my main Linux machine and replacing Catalina, and installing Catalina on the Macbook.

 

[wicknix]

Catalina runs really well with 6gb ram and an SSD on c2d's. It's smooth a silk on this old 09 MBP.

 

[ToniCH]

is 2012 mini "early" yet

it's our home server for backups, music and Plex

2012 Mini is a great machine. IMO one of the Apples best Intel Macs. We have 3 2012 Mini Servers with i7, 16GB and SSD or 2. Two are actual servers (one for photos and other files and another one has movies) and wife runs one as her main computer.

Few years ago she was complaining about her 2014 Mini which was lagging due not enough RAM, after discovering that RAM cannot be upgraded with 2014 Minis I upgraded her gear to 2012 Mini Server which was/is way faster. Paid about 250€ for it at the time. I gave the 2014 to my mom, who basically only does web and email, plenty of speed for that.

Later on I have bought 2 more as their prices have come down to about 100-120€. And they do great as servers, infact maybe too good for a server as not much power is needed for plain fileserver. For movies and media yes, all available power is good though.

 

[DCBassman]

Yes, will do that. I have two-thirds of the drive as a data partition, easy enough to subdivide that. Will try your suggestions. If no luck, will erase and start from scratch.

And...no luck, so currently back to scratch! Ah well. Will do a fresh install, then OCLP that to Ventura.

 

[ToniCH]

Why are you doing a clean install of HS? Why not just boot from the OCLP USB-stick/drive, format and then install Ventura? Seems like you are making extra steps, unless you want a multi OS machine?

Or is the problem that you cannot make the OCLP stick as OCLP doesn't run on your current installation? What about using another machine to do the stick?

 

[swamprock]

Catalina runs really well with 6gb ram and an SSD on c2d's. It's smooth a silk on this old 09 MBP.

View attachment 2293669

I've played around a little more with Sonoma on the A1181, and it's actually better than I originally thought. I'm not going to keep it on that machine due to the memory limitations (the OS uses more than 4gb idling, and the fan is running constantly), but it's definitely a testament to the great work that the OCLP team has put into keeping these machines up and running in the modern age. My hat's off to them.

Obligatory screenshot:

 

[headlessmike]

I've played around a little more with Sonoma on the A1181, and it's actually better than I originally thought. I'm not going to keep it on that machine due to the memory limitations (the OS uses more than 4gb idling, and the fan is running constantly), but it's definitely a testament to the great work that the OCLP team has put into keeping these machines up and running in the modern age. My hat's off to them.

Obligatory screenshot:

View attachment 2293909

Awesome! I'll have to try it on my mid 2010 MacBook (A1342). It has 16GB of RAM, so that shouldn't be an issue at least.

The mid 2009 model that you have was my first Intel Mac and did a lot of heavy lifting during my Master's studies in astrophysics. My first scientific paper was written on that machine back in 2011. It's impressive seeing them still keeping up. Mine is long gone, unfortunately.

 

[swamprock]

Awesome! I'll have to try it on my mid 2010 MacBook (A1342). It has 16GB of RAM, so that shouldn't be an issue at least.

The mid 2009 model that you have was my first Intel Mac and did a lot of heavy lifting during my Master's studies in astrophysics. My first scientific paper was written on that machine back in 2011. It's impressive seeing them still keeping up. Mine is long gone, unfortunately.

I have the same 2010 MBP in the 13" form factor. Ventura ran pretty badly on it, even with 16gb of RAM, but Sonoma may be better. Ventura's reputation for stability isn't exactly stellar, from what I've read, even on supported machines. Big Sur and Monterey had no issues, other than Monterey's need for Metal support for some apps (Maps, etc.)

I'm going to install Catalina on the A1181, and turn my MBP into a Linux machine. Debian (with XFCE as window manager) runs beautifully on my 2008 Blackbook with 4gb of RAM, so I can expect that the MBP will shine even more.

 

[DCBassman]

Why are you doing a clean install of HS? Why not just boot from the OCLP USB-stick/drive, format and then install Ventura? Seems like you are making extra steps, unless you want a multi OS machine?

Or is the problem that you cannot make the OCLP stick as OCLP doesn't run on your current installation? What about using another machine to do the stick?

To be honest, I didn't know that was a possibility!
But now I know, I will, of course, have to blow away HS just to try it!

 

[ToniCH]

To be honest, I didn't know that was a possibility!

Then I suggest you watch this first (same procedure to install Monterey and Ventura etc.):

And I recommend following his update videos on subject. They are IMHO very good.

 

[DCBassman]

Then I suggest you watch this first (same procedure to install Monterey and Ventura etc.):

And I recommend following his update videos on subject. They are IMHO very good.

Will do. Although the 2011 iMac is now happily back on Monterey, and the early 2011 15" MBP is nearly there, without yet seeing that.
Also, new iFixit battery ordered for the MBP.

 

[nathansz]

2012 Mini is a great machine. IMO one of the Apples best Intel Macs. We have 3 2012 Mini Servers with i7, 16GB and SSD or 2. Two are actual servers (one for photos and other files and another one has movies) and wife runs one as her main computer.

Few years ago she was complaining about her 2014 Mini which was lagging due not enough RAM, after discovering that RAM cannot be upgraded with 2014 Minis I upgraded her gear to 2012 Mini Server which was/is way faster. Paid about 250€ for it at the time. I gave the 2014 to my mom, who basically only does web and email, plenty of speed for that.

Later on I have bought 2 more as their prices have come down to about 100-120€. And they do great as servers, infact maybe too good for a server as not much power is needed for plain fileserver. For movies and media yes, all available power is good though.

Yeah I originally bought mine when the 2014 came out and opted for the 2012 instead for easy drive and ram upgrades

I only got the i5 though, wish I had got the i7. It’s still plugging along though and only rarely chokes up a bit serving 4k video via plex

It’s actually the last real Mac I bought. I transitioned from 2011 iMac to a 9900k hackintosh for my main computer and still using that no problem. and it's stuffed with storage... 2 x 1TB nvme drives, 1x 1TB ssd, 2 x 500GB ssd, 1 x 2TB hdd and 1 x 8TB hdd

I suppose my next computer will be a real Mac but it’s going to hurt to pay a premium for something that can’t be upgraded and I can't pull storage out physically to archive

 

[rampancy]

I've played around a little more with Sonoma on the A1181, and it's actually better than I originally thought. I'm not going to keep it on that machine due to the memory limitations (the OS uses more than 4gb idling, and the fan is running constantly), but it's definitely a testament to the great work that the OCLP team has put into keeping these machines up and running in the modern age. My hat's off to them.

Obligatory screenshot:

View attachment 2293909

LOL that has to be one of the coolest screenshots I've ever seen taken on an A1181, and it really speaks to the true staying power of the 2009 pre-unibody MacBooks, especially the 5,2 model. I didn't think Sonoma was even possible with OCLP.

I'm going to install Catalina on the A1181, and turn my MBP into a Linux machine. Debian (with XFCE as window manager) runs beautifully on my 2008 Blackbook with 4gb of RAM, so I can expect that the MBP will shine even more.

My experience with Linux on an upgraded A1181 with an SSD and maxed-out RAM has been fantastic, even with the lowly GMA 950.

Heck, with an appropriate 32-bit Linux distro, SSD, RAM and battery even a Core Duo-based A1181 can be a very capable and functional computer in 2023.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

Yesterday (12.10) I've created dodude1's patched Mojave installer for A1342. Really straightforward program, impressive 😀. The best - menu item to download the Mojave installer itself. Installation wasn't fast, around an hour, but it completes without unneeded issues 🙂. System works except Siri not detecting microphone (but it seems works in Audio prefpane). Now I think about Catalina, it seems Dosdude1 created patcher for it as well & this computer IS compatible 😀. I wonder if 8Gb RAM is sufficient for it (it is used for web-browsing, some small games, played by son, and some else tech activities, from time to time).

 

[headlessmike]

Yesterday (12.10) I've created dodude1's patched Mojave installer for A1342. Really straightforward program, impressive 😀. The best - menu item to download the Mojave installer itself. Installation wasn't fast, around an hour, but it completes without unneeded issues 🙂. System works except Siri not detecting microphone (but it seems works in Audio prefpane). Now I think about Catalina, it seems Dosdude1 created patcher for it as well & this computer IS compatible 😀. I wonder if 8Gb RAM is sufficient for it (it is used for web-browsing, some small games, played by son, and some else tech activities, from time to time).

8 GB of RAM is perfectly adequate for Catalina unless you have some special requirements that need a lot of memory. New Macs still come with 8 GB as standard and work well in Sonoma for basic use.

 

[DCBassman]

OK, here's a question which I'm not able to see definite answers to anywhere, but do correct me if I'm wrong.
When using the various patching methods for MacOS on unsupported machines, has anyone got together a set of information on what will work usably on essentially *unmodified* machines? By unmodified, I mean different graphics, etc. Upgrading CPUs within or similar to what was actually available, or maxing out RAM, doesn't count as modifying in this context.
Part of my reason for asking this is knowledge, but also because it seems that the methods are not absolutely consistent in that any one machine can have different results at different times, even with the same apparent install. I'm writing this on the mid-2011 iMac, which seems OK running Monterey, and presumably will run it a little easier with maxed out RAM. Or not, maybe?
I'd particularly like to know what I can realistically do with the late-2009 Core 2 Duo iMac. That has an E8500 CPU and will shortly have 16GB of RAM. What can it cope with? It would eat any Linux for breakfast, but what about MacOS?

I'd be happy to write up what I have done with my small collection of machines, and make a wiki of it if there is no other such knowledge base.

If this makes no sense, or is in the wrong place, happy to move it. I put it here because all my machines fall into the early Intel Macs category, but I'm aware that this could apply to others.

 

[TheShortTimer]

8 GB of RAM is perfectly adequate for Catalina unless you have some special requirements that need a lot of memory. New Macs still come with 8 GB as standard and work well in Sonoma for basic use.

It works fine for me with 2GB RAM so 8GB would be luxurious. 😀

 

[ToniCH]

OK, here's a question which I'm not able to see definite answers to anywhere, but do correct me if I'm wrong.
When using the various patching methods for MacOS on unsupported machines, has anyone got together a set of information on what will work usably on essentially *unmodified* machines? By unmodified, I mean different graphics, etc. Upgrading CPUs within or similar to what was actually available, or maxing out RAM, doesn't count as modifying in this context.
Part of my reason for asking this is knowledge, but also because it seems that the methods are not absolutely consistent in that any one machine can have different results at different times, even with the same apparent install. I'm writing this on the mid-2011 iMac, which seems OK running Monterey, and presumably will run it a little easier with maxed out RAM. Or not, maybe?
I'd particularly like to know what I can realistically do with the late-2009 Core 2 Duo iMac. That has an E8500 CPU and will shortly have 16GB of RAM. What can it cope with? It would eat any Linux for breakfast, but what about MacOS?

I'd be happy to write up what I have done with my small collection of machines, and make a wiki of it if there is no other such knowledge base.

If this makes no sense, or is in the wrong place, happy to move it. I put it here because all my machines fall into the early Intel Macs category, but I'm aware that this could apply to others.

Make a new thread about this subject. Doesn't really apply to this particular thread were are in now.

Ask what patch, os and (early intel?) hardware and for what work/play/etc. people are using and you will find out how they are running and if there is some shortcomings or actual problems.

 

[DCBassman]

RAM max-outs ordered for both iMacs!