Arising from a discussion aside to come up on another thread, @TheShortTimer suggested this question be spun off into a new thread.
Even as Apple formally withdrew support for running 32-bit applications from Catalina forward, the ability to use 32-bit binaries in Catalina persisted with the inclusion of an nvram boot-args setting, as mentioned by @Dayo earlier in the same thread. Indeed, this discovery, originally reported by the Hackintosh community’s netkas, has been known since 2019.
There are selected dynamic libraries which would need to be sourced from, optimally, the final version of Mojave, to help facilitate the running of 32-bit binaries, but the key word here is binaries — not the usual clicking of an “Application.app”, et voilà, 32-bit applications play nice on Catalina. Which libraries those are is less clear, as the only suggestion is to link the entire dyld directory location from Mojave to Catalina. There hasn’t, so far, been a more selective means of managing this — to pick only those libraries needed and nothing more.
There may, however, be a way to make this happen. That’s what this topic hopes to invite.
What that thread (nor any source we’ve been able to find so far) was unable to answer is which libraries and/or frameworks, sourced from Mojave, may permit the running of 32-bit applications in Catalina? Assembling that list of needed libraries — to pull only those libraries needed — is what this thread can discuss.
This legacy capability may be valuable for users of specialized software which either was never ported to 64-bit or is tied to external hardware for which their ongoing utility is still handy, but software support for them is frozen in the time the product was current. A couple of good examples include utilities for legacy MIDI devices and dedicated film scanners.
(I post this with self-awareness this task may not actually be possible.)
Anyhow, if healthy participation warrants it, I can convert this to a wikipost. Cheers.
Even as Apple formally withdrew support for running 32-bit applications from Catalina forward, the ability to use 32-bit binaries in Catalina persisted with the inclusion of an nvram boot-args setting, as mentioned by @Dayo earlier in the same thread. Indeed, this discovery, originally reported by the Hackintosh community’s netkas, has been known since 2019.
There are selected dynamic libraries which would need to be sourced from, optimally, the final version of Mojave, to help facilitate the running of 32-bit binaries, but the key word here is binaries — not the usual clicking of an “Application.app”, et voilà, 32-bit applications play nice on Catalina. Which libraries those are is less clear, as the only suggestion is to link the entire dyld directory location from Mojave to Catalina. There hasn’t, so far, been a more selective means of managing this — to pick only those libraries needed and nothing more.
There may, however, be a way to make this happen. That’s what this topic hopes to invite.
What that thread (nor any source we’ve been able to find so far) was unable to answer is which libraries and/or frameworks, sourced from Mojave, may permit the running of 32-bit applications in Catalina? Assembling that list of needed libraries — to pull only those libraries needed — is what this thread can discuss.
This legacy capability may be valuable for users of specialized software which either was never ported to 64-bit or is tied to external hardware for which their ongoing utility is still handy, but software support for them is frozen in the time the product was current. A couple of good examples include utilities for legacy MIDI devices and dedicated film scanners.
(I post this with self-awareness this task may not actually be possible.)
Anyhow, if healthy participation warrants it, I can convert this to a wikipost. Cheers.
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