Other Getting Catalina to play nice with 32-bit binaries and applications

[Wowfunhappy]

Personally, at this particular moment, I’d prefer finding a way to backport the current source for Signal to compile and run in Mojave, but that is also unlikely to come to pass.

...it looks like it's just an Electron app, so all you should have to do is recompile the app with a slightly older build of Electron. (It seems very unlikely they actually need anything in the latest versions of Chromium; you don't need to go back very far for Mojave support.) This should be extremely doable. Maybe a little annoying if it's you first time with something like this, but manageable.

 

[B S Magnet]

...it looks like it's just an Electron app, so all you should have to do is recompile the app with a slightly older build of Electron. (It seems very unlikely they actually need anything in the latest versions of Chromium; you don't need to go back very far for Mojave support.) This should be extremely doable. Maybe a little annoying if it's you first time with something like this, but manageable.

An unofficial Signal wiki still has a “TODO” on the steps for setting up the macOS correct build environment for simple-minded people like me who can’t code their way out of a shoe box, or else I’d have tried…

…no, wait: I did try in December, right when they informed users how the desktop client would cease to work/sync on Macs running Mojave or earlier. The basic, I’m-a-simple-brain method of configure, make, make install, didn’t even make it out of the configure step. At that moment, it was also not something I had unbroken hours to pore over and figure out, so the notion of trying again sort of languished.

 

[Minghold]

Your soon-to-be-unveiled "Ultimate Universal Catalina 32-bit Enabler" would extend this to 32-bit stuff. Can't wait....

So.... Does anyone have 32-bits apps actually working in Catalina yet? (Or, for that matter, any later OS?) And I mean important stuff, like CS6, or Peggle Nights (because every computer should have that).

 

[rea987]

:: whingey-poutey voice :: But I don’t wanna have to carry two laptops or flip back-and-forth all the time. Gosh, why couldn’t Apple have just let the poor little i386 libraries just live on? It was harmless and not hurtin’ nobody! :: whingey-poutey voice persists as I walk out of the room. whingey-poutey voice grates on people’s ears ::

Sorry for necromancy, but this is the longest and most promising thread I found regarding running native 32 bit apps on post-Mojave releases with Intel Macs.

I value being able to play games natively a lot and there are tons of 32 bit Mac games for x86 architecture. When I stumbled upon the Medium article regarding the 32 bit apps on Catalina, I found it very interesting.

Test Publication

Fret not, for a simple invocation will allow your 32-bit apps to run natively on macOS Catalina, with no frills. It appears that Apple has not removed 32-bit capability from the Darwin kernel itself…

xentutor.medium.com

However, checking the origins left me a bit confused. As a Linux user, I found Netkas' instructions a bit unclear, unfortunately.

netkas.org » Bringing back 32-bit apps to life

web.archive.org

After reading this thread and other very few sources, I understand that only 32 bit terminal apps could be run this way on Catalina, but unable to find any 32 bit example with GUI. Has anyone able to run on a 32 bit app with gui such as productivity suit, media player/editor, video game etc? I do have a Mac that supports Mojave and later versions up to Big Sur. I am fine with launching binary within .app container via terminal by entering arguments such as Mojave libs. But I need to know if anyone able to successfully done it. Thank you!

 

[f54da]

gui app would likely not be successful beacuse we don't have 64-bit version of relevant frameworks. You could try to use mojave frameworks but it's probably not likely to work well, since all of osx userspace is kind of integrated (e.g. XPC to windowserver)