macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[jbiser361]

I really don't know as I don't have Catalina up and running but I do know Apple and Nvidia are at odds with each other so maybe that's why they are not included or maybe they do install during the setup process
[doublepost=1560207993][/doublepost]The other thing I noticed is openGL and openCL are in the base system but not openAL which is a cross platform audio package API

I not sure what that means for the openAL


but whaat does it mean for the graphics

 

[crazybirdy]

Right but was I am attempting is edit the file. recompress it a mpkg.

compare the two packages.. one part were the signature is it should be obvious. and should the 1 bit I changed.

Guess I will find out. It's a small test anyways.

I really don't understand how others on the MP5,1 are editing the file and getting that work without signing.

How can the signing be turned off or ignored like in the patched installers?

well, I have some other ideas around the APFS cloning, so I may be able to get the installer to run unsigned and create the Data drive separately.

You can patch the OSInstaller to ignore the mpkg signature errors.
BaseSystem.dmg/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/OSInstaller.framework/Versions/A/OSInstaller

10.15.beta.19A471t

perl -pi -e "s| remove worng code |g" OSInstaller
codesign -f -s - OSInstaller

But you will need to re-pack the BaseSystem.dmg, and check the size of /macOS Install Data/index.sproduct after installation stage 1.

edit:
My bad, I didn't test it before, the old patch code is wrong, this new patch code is test fine with mod-OSInstall.mpkg.

10.15.beta.19A471t
perl -pi -e "s|\x0f\x84\x94\x0d\x00\x00\x48\x8b|\x90\x90\x90\x90\x90\x90\x48\x8b|g" OSInstaller
codesign -f -s - OSInstaller

 

[Starplayr]

You can patch the OSInstaller to ignore the mpkg signature errors.
BaseSystem.dmg/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/OSInstaller.framework/Versions/A/OSInstaller

10.15.beta.19A471t

perl -pi -e "s|\x0f\x84\xbc\x0f\x00\x00\x48\x8b\x3d|\x90\x90\x90\x90\x90\x90\x48\x8b\x3d|g" OSInstaller
codesign -f -s - OSInstaller

But you will need to re-pack the BaseSystem.dmg, and check the size of /macOS Install Data/index.tjx! after installation stage 1.

Thx!
[doublepost=1560223353][/doublepost]

That's great! I was thinking about upgrading the card, but since I use only bluetooth on my cMP 4,1->5,1 I think I'll just keep using the one I have.



dd has a similar function, which has been added quite a while ago and it's the

status=progress

option.

So you'd just have to do something like

dd if=/dev/xxx of=/dev/xxx bs=4096 status=progress

EDIT: actually, it looks like the dd included in High Sierra is *very* old. Not the end of the world, just install coreutils from brew and you're good to go.

brew install coreutils

gdd if=/dev/xxx of=/dev/xxx bs=4096 status=progress

notice the "g" at the beginning to specify the GNU version.

I saw that. i’ll Have to check which version of dd is on Catalina. The recovery disk also has dd and diskutil on it. Catalina has rdisk. Mojave does not.

 

[s.berlin]

All research, testing, and releases of tools and patches relating to macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs should be posted here.


Machine Support
As it currently seems, all machines with at least SSE4.1 support (C2D penryn and upwards) seem to be able to at least boot Catalina. This covers all of the machines that were able to run Mojave, even the officially unsupported systems.

Video Card Support
For the time being, only metal capable cards are fully supported with graphics acceleration. Unfortunately, metal capable cards are most likely the only cards that will ever achieve acceleration on this version of macOS. This excludes i.e. Nvidia 8800GT, 320M, 9600M/GT, Intel HD3000. Catalina can be booted and used without acceleration and without OpenGL/CL support.

However, we will still try.

Installation
At the moment, a supported system is required to install to primarily. Unsupported systems can then use a cloned drive/volume that is derived and patched in a basic way.
Inexperienced users should clearly wait for some patcher tool from @dosdude1 or an alternative tool from @0403979 to be released sometime soon!


Catalina Builds and Installer Versions

2019/06/04 10.15.0 beta 1, build 19A471t, installer 15.0.11


Moderator Note:
Please do not ask for, or provide help getting developers profile information to access unauthorised beta software on MacRumors. If you are not a developer, sign up to the Apple Beta Software Program to get the official public beta releases.


As requested, this post is now a wiki post. Feel free to edit it yourself.

Hallo julien,
have you released the patch ?
I will test it on my MBP 4,1
Thanks, stephen

 

[Badruzeus]

Anyone with Nvidia Tesla trying force install WebDriver (HighSierra) on Catalina?
At least, on my case I got no blackscreen on LoginUI #LoL. And CoreImage (CI) seems working, I guess.
Yeah, I know that GeForceWeb (or *GL related) won't work so.. having no full Acceleration (QuartzExtreme).

#EDIT: Sorry for Screenshot on non-real mac.

 

[s.berlin]

Ugh, just like last year, Apple didn't announce system compatibility. I'll have to wait until I'm able to download a copy in the Developer Portal to find out.

Hallo dosdude1,
i have a partititon for testing systems like catalina
on my MBP 4,1!!!
When will you release the catalina patch ?
Thanks
s.beriln

 

[ASentientBot]

After a significant effort, I've managed to get Catalina running (unstably) with Mojave's SkyLight.framework. And... still no acceleration. Unexpected.

I'll do some more tests. Not sure what's going on, since the GLDriver does load. I'm suspecting connection to changes in CoreDisplay and/or IOSurface... will report back.

Edit: I just got to a fully accelerated login screen you guys! It crashes 1-2 seconds later, but this is definitely doable. I'll be back soon (I hope)...

 

[TimothyR734]

After a significant effort, I've managed to get Catalina running (unstably) with Mojave's SkyLight.framework. And... still no acceleration. Unexpected.

I'll do some more tests. Not sure what's going on, since the GLDriver does load. I'm suspecting connection to changes in CoreDisplay and/or IOSurface... will report back.

how is the performance without acceleration

 

[DanieleDN]

Wow, well let me just say I really appreciate the support! I will say that creating, maintaining, and supporting all of my Patcher tools has been quite a lot of work, especially being a full-time college student. I, of course, also REALLY appreciate the work of everybody else who has worked to get these later macOS versions running on unsupported systems. I find it truly unbelievable and amazing that we were able to "squeak" THREE extra years of support out of the 2008-2009 systems, with very few issues.

When I initially started creating these patches, with the first Sierra patcher, I had no idea it would take off as much as it has. I have a TON of users, and quite a bit of support emails to match (about 10-20 per day). Needless to say, it's become a bit difficult to keep up with as a single-man operation. Regardless, though, I will still continue putting in any work necessary to keep my current patches up-to-date, and compatible with the latest minor systems updates from Apple.

As for the future of Catalina Patcher, there are a couple factors playing in to my consideration of not releasing one. For one, it's going to be a lot of work, which will take time that honestly I don't have all that much of. Secondly, I'd feel really bad releasing a patch that results in poor system performance due to lack of graphics acceleration. Yes, I know the majority of people on this thread would be fine with it, however, that is a VERY small portion of the users of my tools. The vast majority would not be pleased (as would myself), and this would result in and endless slew of support emails and messages (despite the many warnings I would include in the docs).

With that said, though, I'm NOT saying I'll completely stop working on creating patches for Catalina. I plan on getting an installer patch figured out, so Catalina can at least be downloaded and installed onto an unsupported machine without the use of a supported one, plus other fixes.

Once again, I REALLY appreciate the consideration and support from you, and many others. While these patchers have taken over a big chunk of my life, I think it was well worth it to help the hundreds of thousands of people who have benefitted from upgrading the machines that Apple unnecessarily dropped support for. Please don't feel obligated, though, to get me anything. I do this because I enjoy programming, and work on old Macs all the time. I already have a whole slew of Macs, ranging from an original 1984 Macintosh to my main machines, a Mid-2012 15" Retina MacBook Pro, and a Mid-2010 Mac Pro 5,1.

Thank you again, and I really wish I were more able to continue to deliver high-quality patching tools for Catalina.

I'm still using an early-2008 15" MacBook Pro (so, I think I've obtained a lot of benefits that weren't reachable in OS X El Capitan) as my main computer and it works fine every day; how much features have been added in the last three years? All of these improvement became possible because you and your team have been working in order to achieve that reult.
Thank you so much for every effort you made; I'm proud to be an user of that Patcher.

 

[ASentientBot]

how is the performance without acceleration

Same as without the SkyLight swap -- framebuffer accelerated, so not completely unusable, but pretty darn close to it. As @dosdude1 said, without OpenGL/Metal acceleration, there is really no point.

 

[pkouame]

After a significant effort, I've managed to get Catalina running (unstably) with Mojave's SkyLight.framework. And... still no acceleration. Unexpected.

I'll do some more tests. Not sure what's going on, since the GLDriver does load. I'm suspecting connection to changes in CoreDisplay and/or IOSurface... will report back.

As I said before, I don't believe a Mojave SkyLight will make a difference. SkyLight simply calls CoreDisplay functions to set acceleration e.g CoreDisplay::CGXSetOpenGLAcceleration() references in SkyLight... which obviously is still failing.

Can you send me an extract of your com.apple.CoreDisplay log? I can compare it with a good one ie. Mojave accelerated.

 

[ASentientBot]

As I said before, I don't believe a Mojave SkyLight will make a difference. SkyLight simply calls CoreDisplay functions to set acceleration e.g CoreDisplay::CGXSetOpenGLAcceleration() references in SkyLight... which obviously is still failing.

Can you send me an extract of your com.apple.CoreDisplay log? I can compare it with a good one ie. Mojave accelerated.

SkyLight and CoreDisplay are pretty inter-connected, though. With the Mojave SkyLight, CoreDisplay, OpenGL and a couple other patches (just NOPs function calls that are not present in newer versions, mostly), I can get acceleration on the login screen, but a panic when logging in. With the Catalina SkyLight, there is never any acceleration whatsoever.

I'll send over everything I've figured out so far, in a bit. I want to keep playing with this for another few minutes

 

[pkouame]

SkyLight and CoreDisplay are pretty inter-connected, though. With the Mojave SkyLight, CoreDisplay, OpenGL and a couple other patches (just NOPs function calls that are not present in newer versions, mostly), I can get acceleration on the login screen, but a panic when logging in. With the Catalina SkyLight, there is never any acceleration whatsoever.

I'll send over everything I've figured out so far, in a bit. I want to keep playing with this for another few minutes

Cool.

For your reference, attached is an extract of everything CoreDisplay spits out on a nicely accelerated Mojave .5.
Ultimately my goal is to get back to something fairly similar. You can compare with your output (if you haven't already)

EDIT: what do you mean by acceleration on the login screen?
[doublepost=1560234411][/doublepost]@ASentientBot - by the way what is your reference Catalina configuration at the moment? I mean kexts you patched? Is it the same set of Mojave GPU patches while you experiment with SkyLight? It's important that we compare apples to apples...

 

[Badruzeus]

After a significant effort, I've managed to get Catalina running (unstably) with Mojave's SkyLight.framework. And... still no acceleration. Unexpected.

I'll do some more tests. Not sure what's going on, since the GLDriver does load. I'm suspecting connection to changes in CoreDisplay and/or IOSurface... will report back.

Edit: I just got to a fully accelerated login screen you guys! It crashes 1-2 seconds later, but this is definitely doable. I'll be back soon (I hope)...

Well, it reminds me on Sierra Dev Beta (pre-Release) with my NVDA Fermi. Yeah, seems related to CoreDisplay. Gfx acceleration is running, but it crashes once loading LoginUI. Apple then fixed those issue with 10.12 public release.

 

[ASentientBot]

So, um, this is pretty exciting!

Full. Acceleration.

Now, don't be too excited -- pretty much everything crashes right now. We need to figure out a way to do this without the SkyLight replacement and all the insanity that came with it.

But I think this is enough reason to not give up

@pkouame @jackluke @0403979 @dosdude1

 

[avz]

So, um, this is pretty exciting!

View attachment 842244

Full. Acceleration.

Now, don't be too excited -- pretty much everything crashes right now. We need to figure out a way to do this without the SkyLight replacement and all the insanity that came with it.

But I think this is enough reason to not give up

@pkouame @jackluke @0403979 @dosdude1

This is unreal.

 

[pkouame]

So, um, this is pretty exciting!

View attachment 842244

Full. Acceleration.

Now, don't be too excited -- pretty much everything crashes right now. We need to figure out a way to do this without the SkyLight replacement and all the insanity that came with it.

But I think this is enough reason to not give up

@pkouame @jackluke @0403979 @dosdude1

Oh My! Beautiful - Hats Off my friend! The game is definitely still on.... Yipeeee!

And yes agreed I'm not too fond of modifying SkyLight and WindowServer. Then again I'm not familiar with your experiment. Do still send me your CoreDisplay log. Good work.

 

[ASentientBot]

@pkouame It's actually not looking super good for running the native SkyLight...

You mentioned the function CGXSetOpenGLAcceleration. It's present in both SkyLights. But checkout what references it -- 5 methods in Mojave, only 3 in Catalina. This entire function CGXGLDisplayContextForDisplayDevice... is gone.

I'm going to finish documenting everything I've done, and hopefully clean it up a bit. Then we can try to figure out where to go from here. I'd love a native SkyLight setup, but I'm not so sure if it'll happen, not without very extensive patching and shim functions (I wrote a little "SkyLight wrapper" to reimplement a few constants and get stuff running this time around, but functions will be much trickier. Probably a bit above my pay grade. But that's what you're for! )

(It's also 3 AM here, so I'm just going to write a quick summary and then get some sleep. But yes!!! We've definitely got a bit of a foothold now.)

Edit: Alright, adding a very brief summary. I'm going to redo the whole process tomorrow and take better notes then. But this is what I did, more or less:
- Tesla kexts and frameworks/privateframeworks, same as for 10.14.5
- patch IOHIDFamily to workaround timeout during boot
- wifi/sound kexts: IO80211Family, AppleHDA
- patch IOSurface.kext to allow loading of Tesla kexts
- delete telemetry plugin
- copy SkyLight from Mojave
- implement a "SkyLight wrapper" that uses the dyld "re-export library" feature while adding some missing constants to the old version
- patch HIServices, logind, AppKit, and libUniversalAccess with quick-and-dirty fixes to ignore missing symbols

That's enough to barely make it to the desktop with acceleration -- it's a mess. Dock crashes repeatedly, half the built-in apps don't open, etc. I'm hoping that I can cut down on the direct patching (that last line constitutes 2-3 days of fiddling and a hell of a lot of NOPs) by adding some shim functions to the "SkyLight wrapper".

This is definitely not the only route, though -- @pkouame, you definitely have a better understanding of SkyLight <--> CoreDisplay interactions and perhaps something can come of that. Hopefully, since this SkyLight business won't last three point-releases...

All the same, I'm super happy to be finally getting somewhere! Let's do this!!

Goodnight.

Another Edit: A small patch to MediaToolkit.framework made about 90% of the broken stuff work. Even News+ loads without any patches! And I'm typing this from Safari on Catalina.

This is very very promising.

Legit goodnight this time

 

[pkouame]

@pkouame It's actually not looking super good for running the native SkyLight...

You mentioned the function CGXSetOpenGLAcceleration. It's present in both SkyLights. But checkout what references it -- 5 methods in Mojave, only 3 in Catalina. This entire function CGXGLDisplayContextForDisplayDevice... is gone.

I'm going to finish documenting everything I've done, and hopefully clean it up a bit. Then we can try to figure out where to go from here.

(It's also 3 AM here, so I'm just going to write a quick summary and then get some sleep. But yes!!! We've definitely got a bit of a foothold now.)

We're apparently in the same time zone. I noticed the same differences while comparing Mojave vs Catalina. There are more, but this is definitely on the right track. Get some sleep I am about to also. Again - very promising...

 

[Johnno483]

I have been reading all the posts on installing Catalina on unsupported Macs with great anticipation, I have a Mac Pro 3.1 with GTX 680 GPU which is the Mac version, dosdude1 helped me install Mojave with his patcher when that OS came out, and I will be eternally grateful to him for what he has done so far for the guys who have non metal Mac Pro's and sad that due to the new configurations to Catalina that he cannot be able to fix those guys a patcher, I do hope though he can sort one out for the "Metal Guys" like me, I am a complete "noob" when it comes to doing stuff like this and I am in awe of you guys out there who work trying to keep unsupported Macs going, I also have a early 2015 MacBook Pro that I have updated with Catalina Beta natively and I am slowly getting to grips with the "new" stuff on it, in the mean time I wait with baited breath to get Catalina on my "Bad Boy" 3.1.

Many thanks to all who are beavering away.

John

 

[nekton1]

For people with unsupported iMacs with an MXM 3 slot, the Dell Alienware 17 with GTX770M is now about 4 or 5 years old and junkers are starting to appear for a few $ at auction and other sites. A transplant from an Alienware junker to an iMac might just provide the required Metal support for Catalina with some help from Netkas for a firmware flash and a bit of heatsink modding.
Just a thought.

 

[Larsvonhier]

Just a quick sidenote on running cloned Catalina.
I discovered that even with wrong/non-working USB kexts on MBP4,1 and other machines with ExpressCard slots there is an interesting workaround to boot from external USB drives:
Start booting via built-in USB port. Then, when the USB power / hub messages come up (verbose), unplug the drive and connect that same boot drive to a USB(2.0 or 3.0) card in the ExpressCard slot. Miraculously, it re-attaches and continues booting from there.
Any mouse / keyboard also connected to the card works oob, too!

Might be helpful to getting as far as to replace kexts and prelink the kernel again on such a machine.

 

[TimothyR734]

@pkouame It's actually not looking super good for running the native SkyLight...

You mentioned the function CGXSetOpenGLAcceleration. It's present in both SkyLights. But checkout what references it -- 5 methods in Mojave, only 3 in Catalina. This entire function CGXGLDisplayContextForDisplayDevice... is gone.

I'm going to finish documenting everything I've done, and hopefully clean it up a bit. Then we can try to figure out where to go from here. I'd love a native SkyLight setup, but I'm not so sure if it'll happen, not without very extensive patching and shim functions (I wrote a little "SkyLight wrapper" to reimplement a few constants and get stuff running this time around, but functions will be much trickier. Probably a bit above my pay grade. But that's what you're for! )

(It's also 3 AM here, so I'm just going to write a quick summary and then get some sleep. But yes!!! We've definitely got a bit of a foothold now.)

Edit: Alright, adding a very brief summary. I'm going to redo the whole process tomorrow and take better notes then. But this is what I did, more or less:
- Tesla kexts and frameworks/privateframeworks, same as for 10.14.5
- patch IOHIDFamily to workaround timeout during boot
- wifi/sound kexts: IO80211Family, AppleHDA
- patch IOSurface.kext to allow loading of Tesla kexts
- delete telemetry plugin
- copy SkyLight from Mojave
- implement a "SkyLight wrapper" that uses the dyld "re-export library" feature while adding some missing constants to the old version
- patch HIServices, logind, AppKit, and libUniversalAccess with quick-and-dirty fixes to ignore missing symbols

That's enough to barely make it to the desktop with acceleration -- it's a mess. Dock crashes repeatedly, half the built-in apps don't open, etc. I'm hoping that I can cut down on the direct patching (that last line constitutes 2-3 days of fiddling and a hell of a lot of NOPs) by adding some shim functions to the "SkyLight wrapper".

This is definitely not the only route, though -- @pkouame, you definitely have a better understanding of SkyLight <--> CoreDisplay interactions and perhaps something can come of that. Hopefully, since this SkyLight business won't last three point-releases...

All the same, I'm super happy to be finally getting somewhere! Let's do this!!

Goodnight.

Another Edit: A small patch to MediaToolkit.framework made about 90% of the broken stuff work. Even News+ loads without any patches! And I'm typing this from Safari on Catalina.

This is very very promising.

Legit goodnight this time

Very good news my friend that is amazing so happy for you and this team Good night

 

[bmillz]

@pkouame It's actually not looking super good for running the native SkyLight...

You mentioned the function CGXSetOpenGLAcceleration. It's present in both SkyLights. But checkout what references it -- 5 methods in Mojave, only 3 in Catalina. This entire function CGXGLDisplayContextForDisplayDevice... is gone.

I'm going to finish documenting everything I've done, and hopefully clean it up a bit. Then we can try to figure out where to go from here. I'd love a native SkyLight setup, but I'm not so sure if it'll happen, not without very extensive patching and shim functions (I wrote a little "SkyLight wrapper" to reimplement a few constants and get stuff running this time around, but functions will be much trickier. Probably a bit above my pay grade. But that's what you're for! )

(It's also 3 AM here, so I'm just going to write a quick summary and then get some sleep. But yes!!! We've definitely got a bit of a foothold now.)

Edit: Alright, adding a very brief summary. I'm going to redo the whole process tomorrow and take better notes then. But this is what I did, more or less:
- Tesla kexts and frameworks/privateframeworks, same as for 10.14.5
- patch IOHIDFamily to workaround timeout during boot
- wifi/sound kexts: IO80211Family, AppleHDA
- patch IOSurface.kext to allow loading of Tesla kexts
- delete telemetry plugin
- copy SkyLight from Mojave
- implement a "SkyLight wrapper" that uses the dyld "re-export library" feature while adding some missing constants to the old version
- patch HIServices, logind, AppKit, and libUniversalAccess with quick-and-dirty fixes to ignore missing symbols

That's enough to barely make it to the desktop with acceleration -- it's a mess. Dock crashes repeatedly, half the built-in apps don't open, etc. I'm hoping that I can cut down on the direct patching (that last line constitutes 2-3 days of fiddling and a hell of a lot of NOPs) by adding some shim functions to the "SkyLight wrapper".

This is definitely not the only route, though -- @pkouame, you definitely have a better understanding of SkyLight <--> CoreDisplay interactions and perhaps something can come of that. Hopefully, since this SkyLight business won't last three point-releases...

All the same, I'm super happy to be finally getting somewhere! Let's do this!!

Goodnight.

Another Edit: A small patch to MediaToolkit.framework made about 90% of the broken stuff work. Even News+ loads without any patches! And I'm typing this from Safari on Catalina.

This is very very promising.

Legit goodnight this time

Congratulations my friend!!! Fingers crossed my MBA 4,2 sees another year of updates! Thank you!☺️

 

[jbiser361]

So, um, this is pretty exciting!

View attachment 842244

Full. Acceleration.

Now, don't be too excited -- pretty much everything crashes right now. We need to figure out a way to do this without the SkyLight replacement and all the insanity that came with it.

But I think this is enough reason to not give up

@pkouame @jackluke @0403979 @dosdude1

awesome job dude!