macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[jackluke]

Thanks for sharing that, thats wonderful.

It only works for me if I set my desktop to light mode. When set to Dark Mode the selection box goes like below and it will not dynamically change the background.

View attachment 856522

However that selection box is perfectly fine in Light or Auto mode (although then the thumbnail doesn't match the one used in dark mode) and will change the background.

View attachment 856523

I compiled the "heic generator" from Mojave 10.14.3 with Xcode 10.3 (and Swift 5), however it's weird since I set both the thumbnails as the developer explained in his "json" examples, probably the developer focused more on Mojave than Catalina. For example I tested it on Mojave and it has the Mojave desert animation, but if I pick separately Dark/Light/Dynamic they work with Catalina.heic .

Moreover I also specified the time clock but I noticed that sometimes it is not so much accurate, probably there are some workin progress on source code or missing functions not handled, but as a beta dynamic wallpaper for a beta macOS let's say it works in an acceptable way.

 

[avz]

I compiled the "heic generator" from Mojave 10.14.3 with Xcode 10.3 (and Swift 5), however it's weird since I set both the thumbnails as the developer explained in his "json" examples, probably the developer focused more on Mojave than Catalina. For example I tested it on Mojave and it has the Mojave desert animation, but if I pick separately Dark/Light/Dynamic they work with Catalina.heic .

Moreover I also specified the time clock but I noticed that sometimes it is not so much accurate, probably there are some workin progress on source code or missing functions not handled, but as a beta dynamic wallpaper for a beta macOS let's say it works in an acceptable way.

Catalina does seem to have something strange going on with the Dark/Light/Automatic. I was manually running your previous apple script(after I edited some time intervals) and while I could not get it to change the desktop picture, my Dark mode changed to Light(so instead of changing the desktop picture, the script was somehow changing Dark mode to Light). Maybe this is an indication that Automatic mode is achievable on our unsupported Macs.

 

[jackluke]

Catalina does seem to have something strange going on with the Dark/Light/Automatic. I was manually running your previous apple script(after I edited some time intervals) and while I could not get it to change the desktop picture, my Dark mode changed to Light(so instead of changing the desktop picture, the script was somehow changing Dark mode to Light). Maybe this is an indication that Automatic mode is achievable on our unsupported Macs.

The issue (fixed re-uploading in previous post) was that I forgot to include in my selected time intervals "≤" and "≥", instead I wrote only "<" and ">", this excluded some entire hours of the day that's why wallpapers didn't changed properly, now it's fixed, however I prefer to keep the applescript in scpt because with "play button" you can test it directly and make your modification on-the-fly, but you also have to open "Date and Time" panel to change the current macOS time in order to test it.

But I guess apple will release a couple of dynamic wallpaper in their final release.

Just to add another issue about the catalinadynamic.heic, it doesn't allow to change the finder/dock in dark/light, but seems that it sets automatically them to dark when in use, after all how it was on Mojave, and I repeat the developer of "heic generator" based his work only on Mojave.

 

[olrik77]

Hi,

I have a weird configuration here :

Any comment ?

Many thanks,

Serviteur

 

[TimothyR734]

Hi,

I have a weird configuration here :

View attachment 856544

Any comment ?

Many thanks,

Serviteur

I think that is normal when using the Catalina Patcher and have SIP disabled

 

[olrik77]

I think that is normal when using the Catalina Patcher and have SIP disabled

I think so...but I can't copy anything in the /system/library/

Serviteur

 

[TimothyR734]

I think so...but I can't copy anything in the /system/library/

Serviteur

put this script in your /Library/LaunchDaemons folder that should give you permission

 

[TimothyR734]

another one of my favs

 

[olrik77]

@TimothyR734

Working,

Many thanks,

Serviteur,

 

[jackluke]

Thanks for sharing that, thats wonderful.

It only works for me if I set my desktop to light mode. When set to Dark Mode the selection box goes like below and it will not dynamically change the background.

View attachment 856522

However that selection box is perfectly fine in Light or Auto mode (although then the thumbnail doesn't match the one used in dark mode) and will change the background.

View attachment 856523

I just figured out to make "catalinadynamic.heic" work properly with "dark/light/dynamic" you have to copy it inside one of this Catalina path:

/System/Library/Desktop Pictures/

or

/Library/Desktop Pictures/
(if you copy here you will find the dynamic wallpaper on "Desktop and screensaver" the left tab column "Legacy desktops")

Otherwise if you copy the "catalinadynamic.heic" inside a custom path (different from the previous mentioned), the dynamic wallpaper will still work but treated as a standard wallpaper, however in this mode you can customize other useful features (stretch, center and fit).

But you were right, when "catalinadynamic.heic" is treated as a standard wallpaper (copied in custom path) to make it work dynamically you have to choose manually the system "Appearance" between "Light" or "Auto".

However if you copy it here: /System/Library/Desktop Pictures/
no more issues.

 

[Vyzantion]

I would like to install Catalina on an external pen flash drive (64 gb), like on external SSD.
I have already tried it, the first stage finished well, but it took much longer then on the internal hard-drive. On first boot, it got stuck for about 20 minutes at something like ”Installer will create a non-removable partition”, after 20 minutes I gave up and shut down the machine. If I waited long enough, perhaps it would have worked? Shall I try it again, it is even possible?

 

[iMac-Oldschool]

I would like to install Catalina on an external pen flash drive (64 gb), like on external SSD.
I have already tried it, the first stage finished well, but it took much longer then on the internal hard-drive. On first boot, it got stuck for about 20 minutes at something like ”Installer will create a non-removable partition”, after 20 minutes I gave up and shut down the machine. If I waited long enough, perhaps it would have worked? Shall I try it again, it is even possible?

I installed Catalina on an external USB drive; a 300 Gb Passport drive. It took a very long time, much longer than the 20 minutes that you experienced.
It was installed twice: once connected to a supported iMac and once connected to an unsupported iMac, using Dosdude1's Patcher. The second was even slower than the first.
It's worth another try.

 

[biiishplz]

Hi all. Installed Beta 7 on my Late 2008 Unibody MBP using dosdude1's Catalina Patcher 1.1.0. I did a clean install, but used a Time Machine backup to restore from my external drive (which, appropriately, looks like a cheese grater Mac Pro). I'm consistently seeing the Patch Updater pop up that 4 patches have been overwritten. I get the attached message even after installing the patches and restarting. Is this anything to be worried about? Overall, I see no issues other than those previously mentioned, like the 5.74 Mbps WiFi link speed (running stock wireless card) when Speedtest.net shows that its running around 100 Mbps and the nonexistent Siri animation. Other than that, this old machine is humming along. I only wish the integrated Nvidia 9400M graphics still worked; I'm stuck on the more power hungry discrete 9600M GT. Special thanks to dosdude1 for making it dead easy to breathe new life into these old-but-perfectly-capable machines!

 

[Vyzantion]

I installed Catalina on an external USB drive; a 300 Gb Passport drive. It took a very long time, much longer than the 20 minutes that you experienced.
It was installed twice: once connected to a supported iMac and once connected to an unsupported iMac, using Dosdude1's Patcher. The second was even slower than the first.
It's worth another try.

No. te 20 minutes was only on the first boot, something that on the hard-drive would last 5 minutes the least. Who knows how much it would have taken if I left it. I would not do this if Catalina would see my internal hard-drives (vanilla and RMC patch) or if if shall not get stuck when patched with dosdude1 on Still waiting for root device.

 

[jhowarth]

I ran across this article...

https://www.cnet.com/news/6-macos-catalina-security-changes-from-apple-coming-this-fall/

which describes the change over to the new user-land device drivers and the depreciation of the traditional kernel extensions as 'Catalina will be the last MacOS version that'll run kernel extensions "without compromises," Apple said.' Depending on exactly how that pans out, I guess we might actually see one more OS release for unsupported hardware prior to the complete elimination of kernel extension support.

 

[aqibi2000]

Hi,

Can someone please clarify how I get AirDrop and handoff continuity features etc working on 10.15 (8,1 2011 MBP with the upgraded WiFi Card: BCM94331PCIEBT4CAX).

Much appreciated

 

[cransy]

If this has been asked and answered before, please forgive me. Does anyone know why the 'Photos' tab is absent on photos? It shows up on my Mac Pro 5,1, but not on my early 2008 MBP 4,1.

 

[jhowarth]

If this has been asked and answered before, please forgive me. Does anyone know why the 'Photos' tab is absent on photos? It shows up on my Mac Pro 5,1, but not on my early 2008 MBP 4,1.

Probably just another corner case of breakage from running a Metalized Photos app on a non-Metal GPU. I assume you have a Metal compatible GPU in your MacPro 5,1.

 

[cransy]

Probably just another corner case of breakage from running a Metalized Photos app on a non-Metal GPU. I assume you have a Metal compatible GPU in your MacPro 5,1.

I do, but I just found this odd. I suppose a way to test would be to pull the GPU and boot with the GT120 and see what happens.

 

[ASentientBot]

I do, but I just found this odd. I suppose a way to test would be to pull the GPU and boot with the GT120 and see what happens.

If it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you please do this? I don't really use Photos, but I'd be willing to look into a fix if somebody confirmed that this was my fault/non-Metal GPU related.

 

[DanieleDN]

If this has been asked and answered before, please forgive me. Does anyone know why the 'Photos' tab is absent on photos? It shows up on my Mac Pro 5,1, but not on my early 2008 MBP 4,1.

I confirm that.

In addition:

1) Corners aren't perfectly rounded.
2) There isn't keyboard's backlight.
3) Maps isn't working.

I think that this is the complete report of MBP 4.1 problems, despite that many features are already better than Mojave ones (for example the absence of that bloatware which was iTunes has improved system performances).

 

[Alan Gordon]

If this has been asked and answered before, please forgive me. Does anyone know why the 'Photos' tab is absent on photos? It shows up on my Mac Pro 5,1, but not on my early 2008 MBP 4,1.

If it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you please do this? I don't really use Photos, but I'd be willing to look into a fix if somebody confirmed that this was my fault/non-Metal GPU related.

I've asked about it before, but never received an explanation, just confirmation that others have experienced the same bug. I find it to be an odd "bug".

You can right-click on a picture and tell it to "View in All Photos" or something like that (I'm not near my Mac), and it'll switch to the "Photos" view instead of "Recent". You will have to do this EVERY time though.

 

[Vyzantion]

I installed Catalina on an external USB drive; a 300 Gb Passport drive. It took a very long time, much longer than the 20 minutes that you experienced.
It was installed twice: once connected to a supported iMac and once connected to an unsupported iMac, using Dosdude1's Patcher. The second was even slower than the first.
It's worth another try.

All attemps to install on the 64 pen drive failed, but in different ways. It usually got stuck on installation on 7 minutes left.

 

[jhowarth]

I do, but I just found this odd. I suppose a way to test would be to pull the GPU and boot with the GT120 and see what happens.

Don't forget to really do the comparison, you would have to install the legacy graphics patch for the non-Metal card. Then after you reinstall your metal card, you'll need to install again to purge out those patches.

 

[cransy]

If it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you please do this? I don't really use Photos, but I'd be willing to look into a fix if somebody confirmed that this was my fault/non-Metal GPU related.

Yep, I'll do it once I return home (most likely Thursday the 12th). Stay Tuned!