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Heads up for developers like me building Mac apps, this release is going to take a little more adoption time than most due to the 64bit-only nature of this rele

Heads up for developers like me building Mac apps, this release is going to take a little more adoption time than most due to the 64bit-only nature of this release. For example, I know there is a contingent of people who are stuck at Adobe CS6, whose certain critical components are 32 bit. Since Adobe no longer sells permanent licenses, opting to only rent their software instead, it's impossible to get these updated. And these expensive and still-in-use licenses are going to die the moment people update to Catalina.

pazimzadeh 7y ago
Does anyone know if it's possible to start from a pure Catalina installation of macOS and install a partition with Mojave? For the first time in forever I won't update macOS on my computer so that I can keep using a few 32-bit app, including http://www.halomd.net/ http://www.halomd.net/.
- zitterbewegung 7y ago
  Probably would be a better idea to run Mojave in a VM like virtual box.
  - iscrewyou 7y ago
    OSX VMs are so slowwww in a virtual environment though. I’ve tried doing it several times in parallels and they just crawl. Unless I’m doing something wrong.
    - simcop2387 7y ago
      My experience and knowledge about it has said that this is because of the reliance of OSX on GPU hardware. That means it won't ever perform well on any kind of software rendering. Some kind of GPU passthrough or sharing is needed to make it work acceptably.
      - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
        It's got to be more complicated than that. I've used Parallels to run complex DX10 games such as a Tomb Raider 2013. I'm not sure what wizardry they use to make that happen, but it works really well. Parallels is, perhaps not coincidentally, not as terrible at running macOS as some other solutions, but it's still fairly poor.
        xoa 7y ago
        >It's got to be more complicated than that. It's not. I've run macOS under a hypervisor with GPU passthrough and it's essentially as fast as on metal (I think you can see a single digit percentage difference in benchmarks). I don't think anyone has a soft 3D driver though for macOS guests. Parallels and VMware have both put a lot of work into getting some level of soft VM based 3D acceleration working for Windows guests, presumably because that's where the demand is. At the same time macOS has been built heavily around GPU for everything for a very long time now, initially as a way to improve even basic interface smoothness in Aqua back in the day. So it's a dog in pure software on a VM. It really needs a GPU. FWIW, in the past VMware did officially have Mac Pros on the hardware compatibility list for ESXi (up to 5.5 I think? maybe the trashcan lasted longer). And that in turn would be legit for running a Mac guest. I've read you can sort of get it to work on other Macs like the Mini, though secure boot must be disabled and the T2 causes other issues. Otherwise you need to patch it, or go with KVM or some other alternative.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        selectodude 7y ago
        It’s some sort of crazy hack mess that converts calls from DirectX to Vulkan, and then from Vulkan to Metal.
    - arthurfm 7y ago
      With VMware Fusion, if you install their VMware Tools (after disabling SIP [1]), macOS is much more usable in a VM. [1] https://notebook.yasithab.com/macos/disable-sip-in-macos-vm-under-vmware-workstation-fusion https://notebook.yasithab.com/macos/disable-sip-in-macos-vm-...
  - AlexeyBrin 7y ago
    Unless you have a very powerful host system running macOS in a VM is painfully slow. On a 2019 MacBook Air with 16GB or RAM running a virtualized macOS is crawling to render the Finder window.
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      Parallels specifically is much better than e.g. Virtualbox in my experience. Still not really pleasant—there's a lot of latency for some reason, unless you directly pass through the mouse as a USB device—but usable enough. I still think I'd rather dual boot though.
    - kitsunesoba 7y ago
      The biggest problem with virtualizing macOS is that it’s built assuming that a half competent GPU is available, meaning that its software rasterizer is dog slow which is a big problem because no VM simulates a GPU that macOS supports. I’ve heard things about getting GPU passthrough working to fix this but I’ve not tried that myself.
    - userbinator 7y ago
      A few months ago I tried a Mojave and a few older versions of macOS in VirtualBox on a 2013 Thinkpad (Hackintosh) and had no problems with booting nor basic things like Finder and other operations with the GUI. I didn't try more graphics-intensive apps, however, but it was actually surprisingly fast and easy to install from an ISO created using the official source download, minus the workaround I needed for EFI booting from APFS. Building an app with Xcode (the reason for doing all this in the first place) also worked decently.
  - SloopJon 7y ago
    Somewhat related: if I tracked down a copy of Snow Leopard Server and ran it in a VM, would I be able to run old PowerPC apps using Rosetta?
    - dreamcompiler 7y ago
      Yes.
    - dkonofalski 7y ago
      Did Snow Leopard still bundle Rosetta with the install? I thought that Snow Leopard still required a download of Rosetta that likely wouldn't be available now...
    - mrpippy 7y ago
      Yes. CodeWarrior flies on modern hardware, even with the CPU being emulated.
- AlexeyBrin 7y ago
  You can install macOS (this also works for Catalina) on an external hard drive (I recommend an SSD if possible). This runs at native speed and you can use it to test/try anything without touching the internal disk.
  - dahx4Eev 7y ago
    Yes this works! Highly recommended. I’ve installed it on an Intel 660p with a USB3 1GBps enclosure.
  - pazimzadeh 7y ago
    Does the SSD drive need a separate power source when booting from it or can it run on Thunderbolt 3?
    - AlexeyBrin 7y ago
      No separate power source, I've used a portable Samsung Passport 250/500 GB external SSD. Something like this https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Portable-MU-PA250B-AM-Alluring/dp/B073H552FK/ https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Portable-MU-PA250B-AM-Allurin... is similar with what I've used.
- js2 7y ago
  Should be possible: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 I've done this to install a beta, but not to try to install an older macOS version from a newer release. If for some reason, the Mojave installer won't launch from Catalina, then you could create a bootable Mojave installer: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
- anaisbetts 7y ago
  Ah dude no problem, you can actually play Halo on Xbox now
- miles 7y ago
  There’s something even better now, thanks to APFS: Installing macOS on a separate APFS volume https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 “APFS makes it easier than ever to switch between versions of macOS, including a beta (prerelease) version of macOS.”
  - pram 7y ago
    Very nice, good find!
- splatcollision 7y ago
  Greetings to halo MD fans! Unfortunately the original Mac Halo binary that MD wraps is itself 32 bit, but some hope lies in a project called wineskin. Look up the Porting Team discord or atomical’s Halo MD discord for some discussion...
lbotos 7y ago
I've committed to just maintaining an "offline" mac for CS6 as on my 2016 Mac running Mojave I have _weird_ problems with visual artifacting using CS6. I'm actually sad because I wanted to find a replacement that had: - layers - Good text engine - good magic wand I use Photoshop/Illustrator for very basic collage style works and those are the tools I need. I was excited to try gimp, but it was slow enough on this Mac that I gave up. Inkscape is on the list, but my hopes are low.
- tomovo 7y ago
  Try Affinity. Fast, actively developed and an affordable one time purchase.
- Joeri 7y ago
  Have you tried pixelmator? For me it has removed my need for photoshop.
- vmokry 7y ago
  Try Affinity Designer. It merges bitmap and vector tools. Works pretty good. And no subscription.
  - scrumper 7y ago
    Seconded. It's just different enough from Illustrator to be unsettling for the first few days, but the core of it is immediately and very obviously excellent. I persevered (it's vastly less money) and I'm very pleased I did. It's significantly smoother and faster in daily use than Illustrator (at least on my machine) and that counts for a lot for me. Updates are thoughtful and contain useful features. There's very little now that I actually have to work around and some parts of it are just intrinsically better - snapping candidates, for example.
    - c0nsumer 7y ago
      I'm really liking it myself. Unfortunately I've got hundreds of hours wrapped up in making maps that I periodically update, and there's no good path to move them from Illustrator to Designer. PDFs move, but then every path comes over weird... And without the layers and groupings that are otherwise so helpful.
bitL 7y ago
I have my film production machine stuck with Windows 7 and CS6. You can survive with the same on older macOS I guess...
favorited 7y ago
Honestly it shouldn't take any more time than previous updates for Mac apps. I'm pretty sure all of my work projects were made 64-bit clean in 2014? If you were already using Cocoa, and were heeding deprecation warnings for the last 10 years, there should be zero issues. Of course, with lots of software (especially projects started decades ago) it might have been difficult to do this. But the only paths forward were (A) expect to drop support once 32-bit was removed (B) gradually replace components which were dependent on things without 64-bit versions (C) wait until 32-bit support was removed, then have a terrible time updating And the writing on the wall has been there for a very, very long time.
- sb8244 7y ago
  It would be feasible to upgrade if you were incentivized to make it work. It sounds like some programs, particular Adobe which changed its licensing model, are not incentivized to make it work. This is fine for the producer, who can drop support for old software. It's not fine for the consumer, who may not want to pay yearly for their software and therefore don't want to upgrade to the latest versions.
  - delfinom 7y ago
    Sounds like you are an communist against the American rent seeking capitalism ways.
    - sb8244 7y ago
      Don't worry, I'd feel differently if I held Adobe stock
- skohan 7y ago
  What about legacy applications which are no longer actively developed? I still use Aperture quite happily, and there's no obvious alternative (aside from Lightroom which has a subscription model). I don't see why Apple couldn't provide an optional compatibility solution, even if it were something I had to download separately.
whywhywhywhy 7y ago
CS6 hasn't worked right in OSX for years anyway. I hung onto it as long as I could but Save for Web stopped working around Yosemite so I could no longer save GIFs, then around El Cap PS started crashing when you did certain drag operations and Illustrator started acting weird. Think CS6 is still a viable option for Windows 10 users though.

pazimzadeh 7y ago

Does anyone know if it's possible to start from a pure Catalina installation of macOS and install a partition with Mojave? For the first time in forever I won't update macOS on my computer so that I can keep using a few 32-bit app, including http://www.halomd.net/ http://www.halomd.net/.

zitterbewegung 7y ago
Probably would be a better idea to run Mojave in a VM like virtual box.
- iscrewyou 7y ago
  OSX VMs are so slowwww in a virtual environment though. I’ve tried doing it several times in parallels and they just crawl. Unless I’m doing something wrong.
  - simcop2387 7y ago
    My experience and knowledge about it has said that this is because of the reliance of OSX on GPU hardware. That means it won't ever perform well on any kind of software rendering. Some kind of GPU passthrough or sharing is needed to make it work acceptably.
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      It's got to be more complicated than that. I've used Parallels to run complex DX10 games such as a Tomb Raider 2013. I'm not sure what wizardry they use to make that happen, but it works really well. Parallels is, perhaps not coincidentally, not as terrible at running macOS as some other solutions, but it's still fairly poor.
      - xoa 7y ago
        >It's got to be more complicated than that. It's not. I've run macOS under a hypervisor with GPU passthrough and it's essentially as fast as on metal (I think you can see a single digit percentage difference in benchmarks). I don't think anyone has a soft 3D driver though for macOS guests. Parallels and VMware have both put a lot of work into getting some level of soft VM based 3D acceleration working for Windows guests, presumably because that's where the demand is. At the same time macOS has been built heavily around GPU for everything for a very long time now, initially as a way to improve even basic interface smoothness in Aqua back in the day. So it's a dog in pure software on a VM. It really needs a GPU. FWIW, in the past VMware did officially have Mac Pros on the hardware compatibility list for ESXi (up to 5.5 I think? maybe the trashcan lasted longer). And that in turn would be legit for running a Mac guest. I've read you can sort of get it to work on other Macs like the Mini, though secure boot must be disabled and the T2 causes other issues. Otherwise you need to patch it, or go with KVM or some other alternative.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - selectodude 7y ago
        It’s some sort of crazy hack mess that converts calls from DirectX to Vulkan, and then from Vulkan to Metal.
  - arthurfm 7y ago
    With VMware Fusion, if you install their VMware Tools (after disabling SIP [1]), macOS is much more usable in a VM. [1] https://notebook.yasithab.com/macos/disable-sip-in-macos-vm-under-vmware-workstation-fusion https://notebook.yasithab.com/macos/disable-sip-in-macos-vm-...
- AlexeyBrin 7y ago
  Unless you have a very powerful host system running macOS in a VM is painfully slow. On a 2019 MacBook Air with 16GB or RAM running a virtualized macOS is crawling to render the Finder window.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    Parallels specifically is much better than e.g. Virtualbox in my experience. Still not really pleasant—there's a lot of latency for some reason, unless you directly pass through the mouse as a USB device—but usable enough. I still think I'd rather dual boot though.
  - kitsunesoba 7y ago
    The biggest problem with virtualizing macOS is that it’s built assuming that a half competent GPU is available, meaning that its software rasterizer is dog slow which is a big problem because no VM simulates a GPU that macOS supports. I’ve heard things about getting GPU passthrough working to fix this but I’ve not tried that myself.
  - userbinator 7y ago
    A few months ago I tried a Mojave and a few older versions of macOS in VirtualBox on a 2013 Thinkpad (Hackintosh) and had no problems with booting nor basic things like Finder and other operations with the GUI. I didn't try more graphics-intensive apps, however, but it was actually surprisingly fast and easy to install from an ISO created using the official source download, minus the workaround I needed for EFI booting from APFS. Building an app with Xcode (the reason for doing all this in the first place) also worked decently.
- SloopJon 7y ago
  Somewhat related: if I tracked down a copy of Snow Leopard Server and ran it in a VM, would I be able to run old PowerPC apps using Rosetta?
  - dreamcompiler 7y ago
    Yes.
  - dkonofalski 7y ago
    Did Snow Leopard still bundle Rosetta with the install? I thought that Snow Leopard still required a download of Rosetta that likely wouldn't be available now...
  - mrpippy 7y ago
    Yes. CodeWarrior flies on modern hardware, even with the CPU being emulated.
AlexeyBrin 7y ago
You can install macOS (this also works for Catalina) on an external hard drive (I recommend an SSD if possible). This runs at native speed and you can use it to test/try anything without touching the internal disk.
- dahx4Eev 7y ago
  Yes this works! Highly recommended. I’ve installed it on an Intel 660p with a USB3 1GBps enclosure.
- pazimzadeh 7y ago
  Does the SSD drive need a separate power source when booting from it or can it run on Thunderbolt 3?
  - AlexeyBrin 7y ago
    No separate power source, I've used a portable Samsung Passport 250/500 GB external SSD. Something like this https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Portable-MU-PA250B-AM-Alluring/dp/B073H552FK/ https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Portable-MU-PA250B-AM-Allurin... is similar with what I've used.
js2 7y ago
Should be possible: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 I've done this to install a beta, but not to try to install an older macOS version from a newer release. If for some reason, the Mojave installer won't launch from Catalina, then you could create a bootable Mojave installer: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
anaisbetts 7y ago
Ah dude no problem, you can actually play Halo on Xbox now
miles 7y ago
There’s something even better now, thanks to APFS: Installing macOS on a separate APFS volume https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 “APFS makes it easier than ever to switch between versions of macOS, including a beta (prerelease) version of macOS.”
- pram 7y ago
  Very nice, good find!
splatcollision 7y ago
Greetings to halo MD fans! Unfortunately the original Mac Halo binary that MD wraps is itself 32 bit, but some hope lies in a project called wineskin. Look up the Porting Team discord or atomical’s Halo MD discord for some discussion...

lbotos 7y ago

I've committed to just maintaining an "offline" mac for CS6 as on my 2016 Mac running Mojave I have _weird_ problems with visual artifacting using CS6. I'm actually sad because I wanted to find a replacement that had: - layers - Good text engine - good magic wand I use Photoshop/Illustrator for very basic collage style works and those are the tools I need. I was excited to try gimp, but it was slow enough on this Mac that I gave up. Inkscape is on the list, but my hopes are low.

tomovo 7y ago
Try Affinity. Fast, actively developed and an affordable one time purchase.
Joeri 7y ago
Have you tried pixelmator? For me it has removed my need for photoshop.
vmokry 7y ago
Try Affinity Designer. It merges bitmap and vector tools. Works pretty good. And no subscription.
- scrumper 7y ago
  Seconded. It's just different enough from Illustrator to be unsettling for the first few days, but the core of it is immediately and very obviously excellent. I persevered (it's vastly less money) and I'm very pleased I did. It's significantly smoother and faster in daily use than Illustrator (at least on my machine) and that counts for a lot for me. Updates are thoughtful and contain useful features. There's very little now that I actually have to work around and some parts of it are just intrinsically better - snapping candidates, for example.
  - c0nsumer 7y ago
    I'm really liking it myself. Unfortunately I've got hundreds of hours wrapped up in making maps that I periodically update, and there's no good path to move them from Illustrator to Designer. PDFs move, but then every path comes over weird... And without the layers and groupings that are otherwise so helpful.

bitL 7y ago

I have my film production machine stuck with Windows 7 and CS6. You can survive with the same on older macOS I guess...

favorited 7y ago

Honestly it shouldn't take any more time than previous updates for Mac apps. I'm pretty sure all of my work projects were made 64-bit clean in 2014? If you were already using Cocoa, and were heeding deprecation warnings for the last 10 years, there should be zero issues. Of course, with lots of software (especially projects started decades ago) it might have been difficult to do this. But the only paths forward were (A) expect to drop support once 32-bit was removed (B) gradually replace components which were dependent on things without 64-bit versions (C) wait until 32-bit support was removed, then have a terrible time updating And the writing on the wall has been there for a very, very long time.

sb8244 7y ago
It would be feasible to upgrade if you were incentivized to make it work. It sounds like some programs, particular Adobe which changed its licensing model, are not incentivized to make it work. This is fine for the producer, who can drop support for old software. It's not fine for the consumer, who may not want to pay yearly for their software and therefore don't want to upgrade to the latest versions.
- delfinom 7y ago
  Sounds like you are an communist against the American rent seeking capitalism ways.
  - sb8244 7y ago
    Don't worry, I'd feel differently if I held Adobe stock
skohan 7y ago
What about legacy applications which are no longer actively developed? I still use Aperture quite happily, and there's no obvious alternative (aside from Lightroom which has a subscription model). I don't see why Apple couldn't provide an optional compatibility solution, even if it were something I had to download separately.

whywhywhywhy 7y ago

CS6 hasn't worked right in OSX for years anyway. I hung onto it as long as I could but Save for Web stopped working around Yosemite so I could no longer save GIFs, then around El Cap PS started crashing when you did certain drag operations and Illustrator started acting weird. Think CS6 is still a viable option for Windows 10 users though.