3 ms·

Assuming you're not joking, which macOS version are you currently running?

DCKing 6y ago
Surprisingly, you can get the current macOS Catalina running on 2008 Mac(Book)s with the tools published by dosdude1 and other contributors [1]. macOS Catalina will actually still get security updates for two years after Big Sur is released (they support macOS releases three years after release). So that's until ~late 2022, a pretty long run for that 2008 hardware until you have to go to Linux or Windows for your patches. It looks like Big Sur has a hard requirement on Metal (at the moment at least), which kills all pre 2012 Macs [2] that were still running Mojave/Catalina using OpenGL. [1]: http://dosdude1.com/catalina/ http://dosdude1.com/catalina/ with various important caveats of course, depending on your model. [2]: Metal is supported on GPUs since Intel Ivy Bridge and Vulkan compatible AMD/Nvidia hardware. The Mac Pro 2010 is the exception since you can upgrade its GPU to a Metal compatible one.
- qball 6y ago
  >The Mac Pro 2010 is the exception since you can upgrade its GPU to a Metal compatible one. You can also do this with the 2008 Mac Pro; either by using a recent nVidia GPU (though every time I've done this I've seen a bunch of weird artifacting) or by using an AMD GPU with the patch that removes the requirement for the SSE 4.2 instruction set (which the CPUs in the 3,1 don't support). RX570s and RX580s being 100 dollars makes the decision upgrade that much easier.
  - DCKing 6y ago
    Ah that's interesting. I hope the 2008 Mac Pro can be stretched to run all Intel macOSes like this :)
gambiting 6y ago
Not joking at all, I still use it daily, works fine as a machine for browsing the internet and watching youtube/netflix, with ocassional dev in terminal. Replaced the HDD with an SSD years ago and it's still very brisk. It runs El Capitan 10.11.6, which I don't have any issues with, but I am mildly concerned about the lack of security updates for it.
- andrewl-hn 6y ago
  I have a very good experience with Mojave so far on my mid-2012 MacBook pro. I upgraded straight from El Capitan last year, skipped both Sierras. Haven't moved to Catalina because, you know, 32bit.
- blattimwind 6y ago
  I guess you upgraded the RAM to 8 GB? Because I don't see how the web is usable on a machine with 2 GB of RAM...
  - gambiting 6y ago
    Yeah, it's a Late 2008 MacBook Pro unibody, 2.4GHz Core2Duo, 8GB of ram, 240GB SSD.
  - auiya 6y ago
    I'm running a 2011 MBA with way less than 8 GB RAM and the web is perfectly usable. Why wouldn't it be?
    - blattimwind 6y ago
      Sometimes I use a quad-core laptop with 2 GB of memory and no swap (because it doesn't have enough disk space for a meaningful amount of swap) and five tabs is practically a hard limit. Even with adblocking, news sites and sites like imgur or reddit -- or really anything using heavy and fancy scripting or animations -- demand to be the sole tab on the machine.
Marsymars 6y ago
Just speaking of performance, I can easily see systems where there's about a five-year gap before a low-end system catches up in performance to a higher-end one. e.g. a 2010 iMac performs about the same as a 2015 12" MacBook, though the latter will retain support to a much later date.

Surprisingly, you can get the current macOS Catalina running on 2008 Mac(Book)s with the tools published by dosdude1 and other contributors [1]. macOS Catalina will actually still get security updates for two years after Big Sur is released (they support macOS releases three years after release). So that's until ~late 2022, a pretty long run for that 2008 hardware until you have to go to Linux or Windows for your patches. It looks like Big Sur has a hard requirement on Metal (at the moment at least), which kills all pre 2012 Macs [2] that were still running Mojave/Catalina using OpenGL. [1]: http://dosdude1.com/catalina/ http://dosdude1.com/catalina/ with various important caveats of course, depending on your model. [2]: Metal is supported on GPUs since Intel Ivy Bridge and Vulkan compatible AMD/Nvidia hardware. The Mac Pro 2010 is the exception since you can upgrade its GPU to a Metal compatible one.

qball 6y ago
>The Mac Pro 2010 is the exception since you can upgrade its GPU to a Metal compatible one. You can also do this with the 2008 Mac Pro; either by using a recent nVidia GPU (though every time I've done this I've seen a bunch of weird artifacting) or by using an AMD GPU with the patch that removes the requirement for the SSE 4.2 instruction set (which the CPUs in the 3,1 don't support). RX570s and RX580s being 100 dollars makes the decision upgrade that much easier.
- DCKing 6y ago
  Ah that's interesting. I hope the 2008 Mac Pro can be stretched to run all Intel macOSes like this :)

gambiting 6y ago

Not joking at all, I still use it daily, works fine as a machine for browsing the internet and watching youtube/netflix, with ocassional dev in terminal. Replaced the HDD with an SSD years ago and it's still very brisk. It runs El Capitan 10.11.6, which I don't have any issues with, but I am mildly concerned about the lack of security updates for it.

andrewl-hn 6y ago
I have a very good experience with Mojave so far on my mid-2012 MacBook pro. I upgraded straight from El Capitan last year, skipped both Sierras. Haven't moved to Catalina because, you know, 32bit.
blattimwind 6y ago
I guess you upgraded the RAM to 8 GB? Because I don't see how the web is usable on a machine with 2 GB of RAM...
- gambiting 6y ago
  Yeah, it's a Late 2008 MacBook Pro unibody, 2.4GHz Core2Duo, 8GB of ram, 240GB SSD.
- auiya 6y ago
  I'm running a 2011 MBA with way less than 8 GB RAM and the web is perfectly usable. Why wouldn't it be?
  - blattimwind 6y ago
    Sometimes I use a quad-core laptop with 2 GB of memory and no swap (because it doesn't have enough disk space for a meaningful amount of swap) and five tabs is practically a hard limit. Even with adblocking, news sites and sites like imgur or reddit -- or really anything using heavy and fancy scripting or animations -- demand to be the sole tab on the machine.

Marsymars 6y ago

Just speaking of performance, I can easily see systems where there's about a five-year gap before a low-end system catches up in performance to a higher-end one. e.g. a 2010 iMac performs about the same as a 2015 12" MacBook, though the latter will retain support to a much later date.