Amethyst1
macrumors G3
Better use the 2011 13" MBP for this. The i5/i7 runs circles around the C2D. No point in not giving Snowy the best it can handle. 😉
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What have you done with an early Intel recently?
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rampancy
macrumors 6502a
Sigh. I miss the days when SSDs were affordable. That plus the relative rarity of DD2 RAM driving up the price means that tinkering with old MacBooks isn't as easeful for me as it once was.
In the next few weeks I'm going to troll Facebook Marketplace for a decent hard drive to put in my last tinkering MacBook, as I'm likely going to take its precious 256 GB SSD to put into my partner's aging budget Lenovo machine.
Linux doesn't really like being on mechanical hard drives as opposed to SSDs, does it?
In the next few weeks I'm going to troll Facebook Marketplace for a decent hard drive to put in my last tinkering MacBook, as I'm likely going to take its precious 256 GB SSD to put into my partner's aging budget Lenovo machine.
Linux doesn't really like being on mechanical hard drives as opposed to SSDs, does it?
Amethyst1
macrumors G3
I don't suppose you're in Europe? I have several Chinese (but working) SSDs lying around that could use a new home.
Gloomy
macrumors regular
Agreed! I have Snow Leopard on my early 2011 17” with a Quad Core i7 and it’s insane how well it runs. Extremely cool too, idles around 28-29 Celsius.
retta283
macrumors 68040
I have returned... Hopefully I am not forgotten, I am glad to see a lot of familiar faces in this place still. I took a few years break from the internet to focus on work as I ended my career, and now I reap the benefits of free time for good. Lots happened with my Mac inventory in the last few years, I downsized massively. Reduced myself to just the machines I saw myself using and a few others just to have handy for jobs (mainly to help me work on the other machines) but recently I've been expanding my stable a bit again.
I got a 2009 Mac mini a bit ago and have been running it alongside my 2012. 2012 is definitely better, but no Rosetta support. I still do like to have a number of PPC apps, and needed a decent desktop with something better than a GMA 950... The real sticker though has been my old PowerBook G4 which has finally gotten to the point where it requires investment to keep running. Hard drive died on me and the one RAM slot is bad so currently I am down to 512MB RAM. It's a 1.67GHz but I still used it.
However, I stumbled onto what seems to be a very rare Mac computer - a 2009 15" MBP with the antiglare coating. It's not quite the max specs as the CPU is only 2.8GHz instead of 3.06 but otherwise it is maxed out completely.
It's got this weird type of SSD that I've never really seen before. Maybe I just need to get out more... It's very small though so it will be replaced with likely a mechanical drive, I simply need more space but SSD prices are an outrage. It also has a brand-new Lizone battery, I don't know if this brand is considered good or now but it seems to last respectably long, we'll see if the health craters quickly though.
Only thing wrong with the computer is the backlighting of the keyboard. It does not show well in pictures but most of the board is only very marginally backlit. You can notice the F7 key is immensely bright along with the 5-7 numbers, there's definitely something wrong with this and I don't know what the fix is besides replacing the whole top.
Otherwise this runs Leopard on it just for now, this will probably remain the OS it mainly boots into along with maybe a token SL partition and some unsupported modern OS just to have in a pinch. Clearly you can see this does not look like Leopard, I long ago skinned Leopard to look like Tiger and this tends to be how I run it. I may make a thread on this if there is interest.
I am basically using this as a replacement PowerBook right now. I mainly do Photoshop work on it with CS1 and sometimes CS2. These are the versions I still have, I do not know if all of my plugins and settings will work with CS3 or not. I never got any newer version to work without activation failure. So this is sort of the impressions of a PowerPC-Intel migration.
First I am very glad I managed to get the antiglare screen which seems very rare in this year model, it's just about the most powerful Leopard laptop ever. Glossy TN screens are an abomination to me, I can only really work with them in pitch black conditions. I do kind of miss the older 3:2 aspect of my PowerBook as well as the general design; I am not a huge fan of the unibody design or keyboard compared to the PowerBooks. At least it is more durable and easier to open, that is a very good thing. Having an SD card slot is also very good, though I wish I could still plug in CF cards like with my PB without a dongle. PC Card was nice for that.
Second and probably more important I definitely feel like having to run almost everything I use through Rosetta is making this less of an upgrade than it really is. I can sometimes see over 90% CPU usage on one core via PhotoShop though I don't notice any major slowdowns. Word 2004 is a bit of a dog though, and a few other programs are as well. I'd say about 85% of my software on this laptop is PPC. So is it really worth using it like this instead of just fixing my PowerBook? It's hard to say. This MBP is way easier to maintain in the long run and has an LED backlight, my old PB is a bit dim (must run at max brightness at all times). FWIW my 2009 Mac mini is effectively the same, I just run PPC stuff on it. If I were to focus on the performance I would want a faster PPC desktop as well because the old 733 G4 doesn't quite cut it for mid 2000s stuff.
I will probably recieve questions about using Leopard vs Snow Leopard, and what I do remain curious about is Rosetta performance gains. That is the only thing that really would sway me to switch to it as the main boot; otherwise I don't have any current need. I like that Leopard can be skinned easily to look very close to Tiger (my favorite OS design) and also is the last version of OS X that features some things that I find useful. HFS disk support, last OS to support configuring the Graphite and Snow AirPort base stations (still use them for WEP devices sometimes), last OS to allow Finder's list view to run without the striped coloration (see below) which I always disliked, and white Dock stack lists instead of black. Search also seems faster.
This post ended up longer than I expected but it's been a while... Just some current musings from what is engrossing me. I might eventually get an antiglare i7 2012 MBP if I find a good deal just for newer stuff. One thing I will say is that the PowerFox web browser is the slowest web browser I have ever used. TenFourFox on my PBG4 is faster even today with 512MB RAM versus 8GB. Have the same issue on my Mac mini, and in both Leopard and Snow Leopard. Makes the computer feel worse than it really is. Momiji in newer OSes runs plenty fine for a dual core.
One last little funny thing is how junked up the open with menu gets for pictures one you have Adobe stuff installed. This is complete madness. .exe? I don't even have Windows or Wine! LOL
I got a 2009 Mac mini a bit ago and have been running it alongside my 2012. 2012 is definitely better, but no Rosetta support. I still do like to have a number of PPC apps, and needed a decent desktop with something better than a GMA 950... The real sticker though has been my old PowerBook G4 which has finally gotten to the point where it requires investment to keep running. Hard drive died on me and the one RAM slot is bad so currently I am down to 512MB RAM. It's a 1.67GHz but I still used it.
However, I stumbled onto what seems to be a very rare Mac computer - a 2009 15" MBP with the antiglare coating. It's not quite the max specs as the CPU is only 2.8GHz instead of 3.06 but otherwise it is maxed out completely.
It's got this weird type of SSD that I've never really seen before. Maybe I just need to get out more... It's very small though so it will be replaced with likely a mechanical drive, I simply need more space but SSD prices are an outrage. It also has a brand-new Lizone battery, I don't know if this brand is considered good or now but it seems to last respectably long, we'll see if the health craters quickly though.
Only thing wrong with the computer is the backlighting of the keyboard. It does not show well in pictures but most of the board is only very marginally backlit. You can notice the F7 key is immensely bright along with the 5-7 numbers, there's definitely something wrong with this and I don't know what the fix is besides replacing the whole top.
Otherwise this runs Leopard on it just for now, this will probably remain the OS it mainly boots into along with maybe a token SL partition and some unsupported modern OS just to have in a pinch. Clearly you can see this does not look like Leopard, I long ago skinned Leopard to look like Tiger and this tends to be how I run it. I may make a thread on this if there is interest.
I am basically using this as a replacement PowerBook right now. I mainly do Photoshop work on it with CS1 and sometimes CS2. These are the versions I still have, I do not know if all of my plugins and settings will work with CS3 or not. I never got any newer version to work without activation failure. So this is sort of the impressions of a PowerPC-Intel migration.
First I am very glad I managed to get the antiglare screen which seems very rare in this year model, it's just about the most powerful Leopard laptop ever. Glossy TN screens are an abomination to me, I can only really work with them in pitch black conditions. I do kind of miss the older 3:2 aspect of my PowerBook as well as the general design; I am not a huge fan of the unibody design or keyboard compared to the PowerBooks. At least it is more durable and easier to open, that is a very good thing. Having an SD card slot is also very good, though I wish I could still plug in CF cards like with my PB without a dongle. PC Card was nice for that.
Second and probably more important I definitely feel like having to run almost everything I use through Rosetta is making this less of an upgrade than it really is. I can sometimes see over 90% CPU usage on one core via PhotoShop though I don't notice any major slowdowns. Word 2004 is a bit of a dog though, and a few other programs are as well. I'd say about 85% of my software on this laptop is PPC. So is it really worth using it like this instead of just fixing my PowerBook? It's hard to say. This MBP is way easier to maintain in the long run and has an LED backlight, my old PB is a bit dim (must run at max brightness at all times). FWIW my 2009 Mac mini is effectively the same, I just run PPC stuff on it. If I were to focus on the performance I would want a faster PPC desktop as well because the old 733 G4 doesn't quite cut it for mid 2000s stuff.
I will probably recieve questions about using Leopard vs Snow Leopard, and what I do remain curious about is Rosetta performance gains. That is the only thing that really would sway me to switch to it as the main boot; otherwise I don't have any current need. I like that Leopard can be skinned easily to look very close to Tiger (my favorite OS design) and also is the last version of OS X that features some things that I find useful. HFS disk support, last OS to support configuring the Graphite and Snow AirPort base stations (still use them for WEP devices sometimes), last OS to allow Finder's list view to run without the striped coloration (see below) which I always disliked, and white Dock stack lists instead of black. Search also seems faster.
This post ended up longer than I expected but it's been a while... Just some current musings from what is engrossing me. I might eventually get an antiglare i7 2012 MBP if I find a good deal just for newer stuff. One thing I will say is that the PowerFox web browser is the slowest web browser I have ever used. TenFourFox on my PBG4 is faster even today with 512MB RAM versus 8GB. Have the same issue on my Mac mini, and in both Leopard and Snow Leopard. Makes the computer feel worse than it really is. Momiji in newer OSes runs plenty fine for a dual core.
One last little funny thing is how junked up the open with menu gets for pictures one you have Adobe stuff installed. This is complete madness. .exe? I don't even have Windows or Wine! LOL
Gloomy
macrumors regular
I am just guessing here, but it appears to be a 1.8" enterprise grade SSD. Usually those are in massive RAID arrays in servers. Very odd to see inside a laptop!
retta283
macrumors 68040
What’s even more strange is that it’s held in place by a Ziploc bag full of Philips screws. I presume they must be from the old 2.5” caddy. It’s a Micron 1100 SSD, and looking on Google apparently it’s just the 2.5” SSD model removed from its case, why somebody would remove the board I have no idea.
Here is it opened up, a very strange thing to do… https://www.nikktech.com/main/artic...s/7138-micron-1100-256gb-ssd-review?showall=1
DCBassman
macrumors 65816
Both of mine are late 2011s, and will only go back to Lion. Unless there's a fix for that?
Edit: there are ways...
Researching...
Gloomy
macrumors regular
You can use the 10.6.7 MBP Restore DVD .iso (available here) to get Snow Leopard on a Late 2011 MacBook Pro. By far the easiest way is to mount the .iso in a Mac already running Snow Leopard and run the installer, install to a USB drive and finally clone that over to the internal drive inside the MacBook. From there it'll boot right into Snow Leopard and you can install the updates etc.
DCBassman
macrumors 65816
@Amethyst1 I just got hold of a 10.6.3 iso, Etched it to USB, and it just installed, no issue, on a late 2011. Fair enough, it should go like a rocket!
...except it won't go past keyboard selection. Rats. More thought required.
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Amethyst1
macrumors G3
10.6.3 doesn't support the Sandy Bridge CPUs in the 2011 MBP so I'd have expected it to panic. Is this a modified ISO? In any case, after you've updated to 10.6.8, check if SpeedStep is working properly -- if it isn't, the CPU is throttled significantly.
Using the correct 10.6.6/10.6.7 build for the 2011 MBP takes care of that and SpeedStep, so I'd strongly suggest using that instead of some random ISO. 😉
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Gloomy
macrumors regular
It was worth a try, but you'll need to grab that Restore DVD image I linked in the earlier post for it to work properly as the 10.6 and 10.6.3 retail builds lack the correct kernel extensions for 2011 models.
Minghold
macrumors 6502a
If you ever find a 2.2ghz i7 11" early-2015 Air, don't let it go. It was the last, and fastest, of the 11" models, and they are IMO much more stylish than a iPad. (I have one that's a Mojo daily-driver w/1tb ssd.)
Minghold
macrumors 6502a
Depends on the distro (although in general everything is faster on ssds). Any SystemD "corporate" variant (e.g. piggy Ubuntu), is going to tease you into drive-encryptuon (don't) and time backups that all subject the drive to a lot writes.
retta283
macrumors 68040
Maybe it's just me but I cannot comfortably use Mojave or newer on these old non-Retina Macs. There is a change to the way text is rendered or the anti-aliasing of the text and for my eyes it is brutal. The lower the PPI the worse it gets. Most of my external monitors are 24" 1920x1200 that I've acquired over the years, rather low PPI of 94 but I have many of them. They look fine enough running HS and earlier, you can see the pixelation but it's totally legible, but Mojave it's like a got ten cataracts in each eye.
Same goes for 27" at 2560x1440 though, so it's not exclusive to sub-100 PPI. It's enough of a problem that I can't do it for daily use, I need a Retina display on these OSes. I am getting up there in years and my vision is significantly degraded, so maybe it's just a me thing, but do you guys have any issues and how do you handle them?
Same goes for 27" at 2560x1440 though, so it's not exclusive to sub-100 PPI. It's enough of a problem that I can't do it for daily use, I need a Retina display on these OSes. I am getting up there in years and my vision is significantly degraded, so maybe it's just a me thing, but do you guys have any issues and how do you handle them?
Gloomy
macrumors regular
Agreed. For my money the font smoothing was defintely altered post-High Sierra, perhaps due to the move to Metal GUI rendering as opposed to OpenGL? (I'm not too savvy about CoreImage etc so just spitballing there.) Retina displays weren't affected as much like you said, and my 17" 1920x1200 MBP screen is "okay" but on other screens (such as this 1440x900 MBP) the LCD font smoothing option toggle only marginally helps. You have to choose between pixelated boldened or spindly thin. 😕
EDIT: Found this article about it, maybe have a play with the commands if you're happy to use Terminal.
DCBassman
macrumors 65816
Agreed, but it's taken me years to find ANY 8GB 11" Air. There just weren't that many over here, it seems.
Gloomy
macrumors regular
retta283
macrumors 68040
Just a little curiosity for anyone to try if they have access. There appears to be a driver issue with many of the Nvidia drivers (and some ATI/AMD, seemingly) involving antialiasing in OS X. It breaks it in many games, such as Enemy Territory Quake Wars, where the option simply becomes unavailable.
The one that’s perhaps most amusing and the one I am trying to collect data for is in Civilization IV (with Beyond the Sword expansion, original game seems unaffected). Antialiasing can be enabled, but it causes all the leader graphics to become bugged and show massive issues, such as the leader being invisible but hair still rendering, the teeth being outside the face, or the leader appearing behind the background graphic.
This can easily be tested by just going to start a new game and looking at the various leaders when you choose one. Set your antialiasing setting to 4 samples in the game, though I believe 2 is equally affected.
So far I have confirmed that the Nvidia 9400M and 9600M are affected but I want to catalog as many GPUs as possible. It appears the GMA950 is not affected, ironically. So if anyone has access to CivIV BTS and can test the results would be greatly appreciated. I am testing in 10.5 and 10.6 but OS should not matter.
The one that’s perhaps most amusing and the one I am trying to collect data for is in Civilization IV (with Beyond the Sword expansion, original game seems unaffected). Antialiasing can be enabled, but it causes all the leader graphics to become bugged and show massive issues, such as the leader being invisible but hair still rendering, the teeth being outside the face, or the leader appearing behind the background graphic.
This can easily be tested by just going to start a new game and looking at the various leaders when you choose one. Set your antialiasing setting to 4 samples in the game, though I believe 2 is equally affected.
So far I have confirmed that the Nvidia 9400M and 9600M are affected but I want to catalog as many GPUs as possible. It appears the GMA950 is not affected, ironically. So if anyone has access to CivIV BTS and can test the results would be greatly appreciated. I am testing in 10.5 and 10.6 but OS should not matter.
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DCBassman
macrumors 65816
I do have one, and got it for very little, a 2015 i5 - £35 delivered. Priced so because the Apple logo was cracked. Gimme!
Amethyst1
macrumors G3
For me it's even worse, once I go past Snow Leopard the HiDPI modes are a requirement. Text looks so much better. 🤣
boswald
macrumors 68040
Would you recommend something like Cachy for someone with a mechanical HD? I have an SSD as my primary drive in my Linux machine, but I'm thinking of adding a second option for tinkering on the HD. I avoid Ubuntu, but I like Fedora as far as "corporate distros" go.
Minghold
macrumors 6502a
Just about any distro is fine, and WAY easier on the drive than any APFS OS.
Does disabling font-smoothing help? https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/46527-is-macos-mojave-making-some-fonts-blurry-heres-how-to-fix-it/
retta283
macrumors 68040
Luckily yes in the case of Mojave it can mostly be rectified via Terminal, which is useful. It seems like in either Catalina or Big Sur they changed things again and it got messed up.