macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[redheeler]

Hiiiii! Sorry for being so quiet since my post yesterday. I've been busy. I've significantly improved the SkyLight/CoreDisplay patches to a point where I feel they're ready to be tested/improved upon by you guys!

As of yesterday, I had binary patched about 5 different files (including AppKit, yikes) in order to just barely get the system running. Today, I undid that and implemented wrapper binaries for the old frameworks, with stub functions to (mostly) keep things happy -- a much cleaner solution. I just finished doing a full reinstall to re-check everything, and I'm writing this from accelerated Catalina on my 2010 MacBook!

So... on a system with a working framebuffer (which should be achievable by following the same steps as for 10.14.5), you should be able to just replace these two frameworks with the attached copies. No other binary patches needed!!

For convenience I'm also including the fix for the HID timeout, as well as a patched IOSurface.kext that seems to be required to load the nVidia Tesla kexts.

Now for the bad news. Overall, the system is still quite unstable, absolutely not usable as a daily driver yet. For one, most of my rewritten functions are just stubs. So, things like Screen Time (edit: actually seems to be working!) and automatic light/dark switching, which require functions in the new SkyLight? Not working at all. Not sure if they ever will. There is a bit of other weirdness too, like the way that windows can be extended over the Dock -- my stub SLSGetDockRectWithOrientation currently does nothing. And sometimes, stuff just... crashes, and I don't know why yet.

Anyways, have fun! I'm heading to bed, but I hope some of you guys can try this out. I'm definitely struggling a little here, so hopefully some smarter people can help me Speaking of which, @pkouame, how are your efforts going? If we can get this working without the SkyLight replacement altogether, I will have wasted a massive amount of time we will be much more likely to get a usable end product.

Goodnight

Edit: Don't use this -- see my post on page 38 for updated version.

For anyone interested in the SkyLight/CoreDisplay wrappers, I've just finished a couple updates:
- Fixed logout/switch user (it previously just hung forever) by implementing SLSSessionSwitchToAuditSessionIDWithOptions() with a call to the older SLSSessionSwitchToAuditSessionID(), rather than just an empty stub function. It always uses the "cube" transition effect though for some reason.
- Stopped daemon PerfPowerServices from repeatedly crashing by exporting some string constants it was looking for (this noticeably improves performance by preventing ReportCrash from constantly starting, even though the actual daemon seems unnecessary).
- Stopped daemon universalaccessd from repeatedly crashing by creating a stub function that does nothing.
- Added a few other stub functions based on differences between symbol dumps (nm -gU) of the two SkyLight versions. As nothing was complaining about missing these functions, I'm not sure if this actually helped at all.

Please test and report any crashes if you can. Known problems:
- I'm having trouble reimplementing the function SLSSetDockRectWithOrientation() which means that the Dock won't "collide" with windows properly just yet. This is a fairly minor glitch, though.
- The option to auto-switch between dark/light theme will most likely not work since it calls a couple new SkyLight functions, which I have currently only implemented as empty stubs.
- Hopper Disassembler v4 crashes pretty frequently on the patched system... not sure whether it's caused by these patches or an incompatibility with Catalina itself. If someone on a supported Mac could test it, that would be great.
- I've experienced a couple times TextEdit freezing for several seconds. I'm not sure the cause.
- Photos crashing due to its use of Metal. This is unrelated to my patches but I'll look into a fix at some point.

I think that the stability of a system with replaced SkyLight is finally approaching usability as a daily driver!
Enjoy

Edit: Attaching the full wrapped frameworks rather than just the binary. As before, if you have working framebuffer, you should be able to just place these into /S*/L*/Frameworks and PrivateFrameworks to get full acceleration!

Edit 2: Look at all these apps being transparent and not crashing and stuff! Yay!
View attachment 842600

So acceleration has been achieved on the Intel HD 3000? This is incredible work. I'll try it out on my Early 2011 MBP soon.
[doublepost=1560447307][/doublepost]Any hope for the older AMD cards (5000-series or 6000-series) in my unsupported 27" iMac? (Yes, I know Metal-supported GPU upgrades are possible. Just wondering.)

 

[pkouame]

Most of us have been installing on a supported Mac and either move or clone the drive.

Since that is the easiest route, I have not dived into patching the installer much.

I know Clover will work, but the stance most unsupported users take is to avoid it.i am using a firmware update to both APFS for the 3,1 and somehow my 3,2 seems to boot using a newer firmware or just a side effects of the firmware upgrade because I have a great looking bootscreen with full mouse supper and nice arrows for selecting a drive
[doublepost=1560446454][/doublepost]
I have an old Pad mini 2, I don’t think it will work unless I can run the iPadOS beta. I believe that is required.

I only got the pane to launch once this far. I just reverted my system from a snapshot so I can give it another good l like install it at the user level.

I did find that manual local snapshots and TM automated local snap shots don’t mix well. It’s best to to either or not both when restoring.

How fast does it take you to restore from snapshot?
[doublepost=1560449422][/doublepost]

Most of us have been installing on a supported Mac and either move or clone the drive.

Since that is the easiest route, I have not dived into patching the installer much.

I know Clover will work, but the stance most unsupported users take is to avoid it.i am using a firmware update to both APFS for the 3,1 and somehow my 3,2 seems to boot using a newer firmware or just a side effects of the firmware upgrade because I have a great looking bootscreen with full mouse supper and nice arrows for selecting a drive
[doublepost=1560446454][/doublepost]
I have an old Pad mini 2, I don’t think it will work unless I can run the iPadOS beta. I believe that is required.

I only got the pane to launch once this far. I just reverted my system from a snapshot so I can give it another good l like install it at the user level.

I did find that manual local snapshots and TM automated local snap shots don’t mix well. It’s best to to either or not both when restoring.

yes - new the latest beta installed on pad for SideCar to work.

 

[Starplayr]

I was able to completely fix my three 60 second IOUSBInterface stalls on my Mac Pro 3,1 by using all the HID Kext's found in the Catalina Subsystem

I noticed the baseSystem booted up in Verbose mode here was an HID shim loaded. While I did not find where the HID Shim was, I took all the HID Kexts from the SubSystem and loaded them in Catalina. I did notice after using this it mentions rootless in the Verbose screen. It runs so fast, I can barely make out what's there. The base system also does not stall at all.

These are HID Kext's that I grabbed from the BaseSystem of Cat:

AppleHIDKeyboard.kext
AppleHIDMouse.kext
AppleHSSPIHIDDriver.kext
AppleMikeyHIDDriver.kext
IOBluetoothHIDDriver.kext
IOHIDFamily.kext

Not sure if it has any barring but I am also using the IOUSB Kext's from the BaseSystem:

IOUSBAttachedSCSI.kext
IOUSBFamily.kext
IOUSBHostFamily.kext
IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext
IOUSBMassStorageDriver.kext

For Sound from Mojave 10.14.4 macOS:
AppleHDA.kext

The only thing that is not 100% yet is my iMac Pro style Bluetooth Magic 2 trackpad tends not to connect right away, what is weird the Magic 2 keyboard is fine. I might try the Bluetooth Kext's from Mojave and see if that clears up my issue. And that's pretty minor for now and may just clear up on its own.

 

[0403979]

For anyone interested in the SkyLight/CoreDisplay wrappers, I've just finished a couple updates:
- Fixed logout/switch user (it previously just hung forever) by implementing SLSSessionSwitchToAuditSessionIDWithOptions() with a call to the older SLSSessionSwitchToAuditSessionID(), rather than just an empty stub function. It always uses the "cube" transition effect though for some reason.
- Stopped daemon PerfPowerServices from repeatedly crashing by exporting some string constants it was looking for (this noticeably improves performance by preventing ReportCrash from constantly starting, even though the actual daemon seems unnecessary).
- Stopped daemon universalaccessd from repeatedly crashing by creating a stub function that does nothing.
- Added a few other stub functions based on differences between symbol dumps (nm -gU) of the two SkyLight versions. As nothing was complaining about missing these functions, I'm not sure if this actually helped at all.

Please test and report any crashes if you can. Known problems:
- I'm having trouble reimplementing the function SLSSetDockRectWithOrientation() which means that the Dock won't "collide" with windows properly just yet. This is a fairly minor glitch, though.
- The option to auto-switch between dark/light theme will most likely not work since it calls a couple new SkyLight functions, which I have currently only implemented as empty stubs.
- Hopper Disassembler v4 crashes pretty frequently on the patched system... not sure whether it's caused by these patches or an incompatibility with Catalina itself. If someone on a supported Mac could test it, that would be great.
- I've experienced a couple times TextEdit freezing for several seconds. I'm not sure the cause.
- Photos crashing due to its use of Metal. This is unrelated to my patches but I'll look into a fix at some point.

I think that the stability of a system with replaced SkyLight is finally approaching usability as a daily driver!
Enjoy

Edit: Attaching the full wrapped frameworks rather than just the binary. As before, if you have working framebuffer, you should be able to just place these into /S*/L*/Frameworks and PrivateFrameworks to get full acceleration!

Edit 2: Look at all these apps being transparent and not crashing and stuff! Yay!
View attachment 842600

Would you mind letting me know what versions these modified frameworks came from? I'm guessing 10.14.3 or 10.14.4?

 

[jackluke]

I was able to completely fix my three 60 second IOUSBInterface stalls on my Mac Pro 3,1 by using all the HID Kext's found in the Catalina Subsystem

I noticed the baseSystem booted up in Verbose mode here was an HID shim loaded. While I did not find where the HID Shim was, I took all the HID Kexts from the SubSystem and loaded them in Catalina. I did notice after using this it mentions rootless in the Verbose screen. It runs so fast, I can barely make out what's there. The base system also does not stall at all.

These are HID Kext's that I grabbed from the BaseSystem of Cat:

AppleHIDKeyboard.kext
AppleHIDMouse.kext
AppleHSSPIHIDDriver.kext
AppleMikeyHIDDriver.kext
IOBluetoothHIDDriver.kext
IOHIDFamily.kext

Not sure if it has any barring but I am also using the IOUSB Kext's from the BaseSystem:

IOUSBAttachedSCSI.kext
IOUSBFamily.kext
IOUSBHostFamily.kext
IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext
IOUSBMassStorageDriver.kext

For Sound from Mojave 10.14.4 macOS:
AppleHDA.kext

The only thing that is not 100% yet is my iMac Pro style Bluetooth Magic 2 trackpad tends not to connect right away, what is weird the Magic 2 keyboard is fine. I might try the Bluetooth Kext's from Mojave and see if that clears up my issue. And that's pretty minor for now and may just clear up on its own.

That's true, booting only a restored Catalina BaseSystem.dmg doesn't occur the HID stall/timeout 60s, yours is a good finding, but note that sometimes the BaseSystem.dmg kexts/frameworks are incomplete binary version than a full Core.pkg installation, anyway if they worked you can use them, but maybe a side effect of those could be the BT Magic Trackpad or magic keyboard not detected.

I'd advise to take them from a full Installation, the kext are all 64 bit, so can be quietly taken from ElCapitan, HighSierra or Mojave.

 

[Starplayr]

How fast does it take you to restore from snapshot?
[doublepost=1560449422][/doublepost]

It takes litterally takes seconds because the data is not duplicated on APFS only the changes are. It takes just as much time to create a snapshot. Apple did something that is pretty Amazing when it works!

The only thing I ran into issue with is:
1. You may have own local snapshots manually
2. Time Machine is on the same volume (if you have it running), automatically creates its snapshots in a different place.
3. That tends to mess up restores causing failures. I am pretty sure it's one or the other can be used at a time.

I found just leaving t=Time Machine off and doing a quick manual local snapshot works pretty well. I am going to try wiping manual snapshots and see if I can do a restore using TM's automatically APFS "local" snapshots. TM makes them every half hour or so.

You can also mount snapshots like a Disk Drive or dmg. The command is a little complex but it's a nice feature to include in an app. And I believe those can be DD'd to another drive live.

One thing that will not work on MP3,1 and its patched APFS firmware, it will not do restore through TM from the Recovery Partition. This is not snapshot data, but from an actual HFS+ file based backup. This is the TM data that is stored on a another drive. It will say to please update your Firmware.

But realistically local snapshots with time machine set to OFF isn't bad and you still Enter Time Machine, it can also access the snapshot data that way too.

Lots little things you can do with Snapshots. I am still playing around with them seeing what works and what doesn't.

[doublepost=1560451041][/doublepost]

That's true, booting only a restored Catalina BaseSystem.dmg doesn't occur the HID stall/timeout 60s, yours is a good finding, but note that sometimes the BaseSystem.dmg kexts/frameworks are incomplete binary version than a full Core.pkg installation, anyway if they worked you can use them, but maybe a side effect of those could be the BT Magic Trackpad or magic keyboard not detected.

I'd advise to take them from a full Installation, the kext are all 64 bit, so can be quietly taken from ElCapitan, HighSierra or Mojave.

Right that can explain issues with my Trackpad doesn't come back to life, etc. It was doing it before as well, so I will be looking at Bluetooth Kexts from either Mojave or Cat, full install.
[doublepost=1560451162][/doublepost]btw, -x stopped working for me to reduce the timeout's was having. having networking working as well stopped fixing my issue.

I'm keeping folders of all my manual patches just in case I need em again. I might one single install script for my 3,1 to make it easier til patch tool is available.
[doublepost=1560451943][/doublepost]To be able to reload the SideCar on an unsupported system, one workaround is:

drag the Sidecar.prePane to ~/Library/PreferencePanes, and to run it drag it to the System Pref's icon in the dock. It will add it and load it. Until it's patched, you will have to keep redoing it. Could probably write and AppleScript that runs in the Menu bar that fixes it, or a Menu App later.

 

[pkouame]

I was able to completely fix my three 60 second IOUSBInterface stalls on my Mac Pro 3,1 by using all the HID Kext's found in the Catalina Subsystem

I noticed the baseSystem booted up in Verbose mode here was an HID shim loaded. While I did not find where the HID Shim was, I took all the HID Kexts from the SubSystem and loaded them in Catalina. I did notice after using this it mentions rootless in the Verbose screen. It runs so fast, I can barely make out what's there. The base system also does not stall at all.

These are HID Kext's that I grabbed from the BaseSystem of Cat:

AppleHIDKeyboard.kext
AppleHIDMouse.kext
AppleHSSPIHIDDriver.kext
AppleMikeyHIDDriver.kext
IOBluetoothHIDDriver.kext
IOHIDFamily.kext

Not sure if it has any barring but I am also using the IOUSB Kext's from the BaseSystem:

IOUSBAttachedSCSI.kext
IOUSBFamily.kext
IOUSBHostFamily.kext
IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext
IOUSBMassStorageDriver.kext

For Sound from Mojave 10.14.4 macOS:
AppleHDA.kext

The only thing that is not 100% yet is my iMac Pro style Bluetooth Magic 2 trackpad tends not to connect right away, what is weird the Magic 2 keyboard is fine. I might try the Bluetooth Kext's from Mojave and see if that clears up my issue. And that's pretty minor for now and may just clear up on its own.

I never experienced these stalls on 3,1. Nor did I have to replace those kexts. Wondering what the difference is.

 

[roddy20]

- creating your custom OSInstall.mpkg

I am still not sure about custom OSInstall.mpkg
I used (successfully) original OSInstall.mpkg from 10.13.6 signed by Apple, maybe there is some difference (?)
did someone check it?

 

[jackluke]

I am still not sure about custom OSInstall.mpkg
I used (successfully) original OSInstall.mpkg from 10.13.6 signed by Apple, maybe there is some difference (?)
did someone check it?

Yes, but @dosdude1 knows how to patch it properly, adding also advanced functions, because typically his patchers allowed to create a macOS Installer to be installed both on an unsupported/supported mac, and for supported ones those firmware.pkg are needed.

 

[roddy20]

to be installed both on an unsupported/supported mac

there is no problem to install to supported Mac )) and we solved these for unsupported
I am not sure about other patches, but I think they can be made separately from installer

 

[jackluke]

there is no problem to install to supported Mac )) and we solved these for unsupported
I am not sure about other patches, but I think they can be made separately from installer

Yes, but supported Mac use "createinstallmedia" while the other method was more customizable.
His Mojave patcher for example extended the possibility to install Mojave in HFS+ also on supported Mac.

I've tried to make a custom BaseSystem.dmg Installer with separated Post Install patches and it worked, I mean I not encountered "resources not found".

But the method you used is more reliable with Catalina.

 

[roddy20]

Yes, but supported Mac use "createinstallmedia" while the other method was more customizable.

Ok I understood
it is another approach
I prefer the original installer with minimal changes

 

[ASentientBot]

I was able to completely fix my three 60 second IOUSBInterface stalls on my Mac Pro 3,1 by using all the HID Kext's found in the Catalina Subsystem

I noticed the baseSystem booted up in Verbose mode here was an HID shim loaded. While I did not find where the HID Shim was, I took all the HID Kexts from the SubSystem and loaded them in Catalina. I did notice after using this it mentions rootless in the Verbose screen. It runs so fast, I can barely make out what's there. The base system also does not stall at all.

These are HID Kext's that I grabbed from the BaseSystem of Cat:

AppleHIDKeyboard.kext
AppleHIDMouse.kext
AppleHSSPIHIDDriver.kext
AppleMikeyHIDDriver.kext
IOBluetoothHIDDriver.kext
IOHIDFamily.kext

Not sure if it has any barring but I am also using the IOUSB Kext's from the BaseSystem:

IOUSBAttachedSCSI.kext
IOUSBFamily.kext
IOUSBHostFamily.kext
IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext
IOUSBMassStorageDriver.kext

For Sound from Mojave 10.14.4 macOS:
AppleHDA.kext

The only thing that is not 100% yet is my iMac Pro style Bluetooth Magic 2 trackpad tends not to connect right away, what is weird the Magic 2 keyboard is fine. I might try the Bluetooth Kext's from Mojave and see if that clears up my issue. And that's pretty minor for now and may just clear up on its own.

Interesting... this may be a better solution than my IOHIDFamily.kext isSingleUser() patch, depending on what side effects there are, if any. We should investigate this in more detail at some point.
[doublepost=1560462087][/doublepost]

Would you mind letting me know what versions these modified frameworks came from? I'm guessing 10.14.3 or 10.14.4?

SkyLight.framework is from 10.14.5 and CoreDisplay.framework is from 10.14.4. (But just bringing over those frameworks will not work without my wrapper code.)
[doublepost=1560462191][/doublepost]

I am still not sure about custom OSInstall.mpkg
I used (successfully) original OSInstall.mpkg from 10.13.6 signed by Apple, maybe there is some difference (?)
did someone check it?

I did the same as you. It seems like the best method until someone (By the way, @dosdude1 how is that going? I wouldn't mind taking a stab at it if you're having trouble.) figures out the Installer patch to use unsigned packages.
[doublepost=1560462285][/doublepost]Also! Some good news -- I've been using patched Catalina on my 2010 MacBook for a full school day, took notes, used a browser, sent messages and played a couple games etc. Zero issues whatsoever. This is very, very close to being fully usable!

 

[parrotgeek1]

@ASentientBot please PM me the source code of your shims and list of what is unimplemented

 

[ASentientBot]

@ASentientBot please PM me the source code of your shims and list of what is unimplemented

Here you go. I've only implemented essentially the one function to fix login, as well as finding the types of some of the others. Most are just stubs to prevent dyld errors though, at the moment. And honestly, that will probably be sufficient for a lot of things. But if you want to help make improvements, that would be awesome!

 

[jackluke]

I was playing to attempt make Dashboard.app working, and I also found an old terminal command used on HighSierra and Mojave to disable it: defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES && killall Dock

but also setting -boolean NO, dashboard hasn't showed.

Then I've thought, there should be a way to convert the /Library/Widgets/ in apps

and I found this great work from: http://www.mesadynamics.com
and they have also a GitHub repository!

In few words I attached a picture. Simply amazing. Thanks and credit to the original developer.

For those who want still play with Dashboard Widgets on Catalina, I attach all the main Mojave Widgets already converted into standalone apps!

You can also go here: https://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/
To download and convert your favourite Widgets!

 

[parrotgeek1]

Here you go. I've only implemented essentially the one function to fix login, as well as finding the types of some of the others. Most are just stubs to prevent dyld errors though, at the moment. And honestly, that will probably be sufficient for a lot of things. But if you want to help make improvements, that would be awesome!

Are the functions and constants in your code ALL of the new ones or just the ones needed to boot?

 

[ASentientBot]

Are the functions and constants in your code ALL of the new ones or just the ones needed to boot?

I am not 100% sure (didn't keep track of which were necessary for boot vs. which just prevented app/daemon crashes), but from memory:
SkyLightWrapper:
- The code commented with logind, AppKit, and HIServices prevents crashes in logind/Installer Progress/loginwindow/WindowServer
- The code with "Dock" stops the Dock from constantly crashing and reopening
- The "General prefpane" code fixes a "General preference pane cannot be opened" error
- The code on line 60 fixes occasional random app crashes and also stops a loginwindow crash at first boot specifically (opening Setup Assistant)
- The following chunk of CFStringRefs prevents a PerfPowerServices daemon crash
- The code after that keeps universalaccessd happy
- The huge chunk of stub functions/constants at the end were just based on a diff of the old/new SkyLight frameworks and I'm not sure if they do anything at all (I think that it helped with a problem @jackluke had? But I'm not sure).

CoreDisplayWrapper: all the functions are required to reach the desktop. I haven't yet added all the changed functions like I did with SkyLight.

As you can see, despite working seemingly near-perfectly, there is a lot of work left to do to "properly" implement each function (even just the right signature/return types).

If you don't mind me asking, are you planning to improve/work on this code too? I wouldn't want us to waste time doing the same things twice but you are welcome to help if you want!

One note -- I haven't had a single new .crash file in /L*/Logs/DiagnosticReports with my most recent build, and I've been using it for about 8 hours now

 

[Rastafabi]

Rastafabi's Catalina loader

READ THIS ENTIRE POST AND THE INCLUDED README FIRST!

It took me a while, but finally I managed to create a "Catalina loader", which enables you to install macOS 10.15 Catalina on unsupported Macs with compatible hardware. It's meant for Mac Pro 4,1 & 5,1 and iMac 2010/2011 systems, which have a Metal compatible GPU. A upgraded WiFi/Bluetooth card might be necessary to have OOB support. I have not yet looked into audio, though on my Mac Pro 4,1 it works OOB. The download includes an installation guide with additional details.
It is not meant for systems without a Metal GPU or with Core2 Duo (based) CPUs.

The loader is based on rEFInd and OpenCore, which spoofs the Mac to be a compatible model.

Download the Catalina loader.zip

————————————

Some might be reminded of my old Mavericks download enabler.

————————————

Dual CPU Mac Pros also require to be running non x55xx CPUs to omit audio stuttering. Thanks @tsialex

————————————

Questions:

Which installer do I need?

The Catalina Loader is confirmed to work with the first macOS Catalina developer beta installer (DP1).
No other installers have been tested and thus are not supported at the moment as those can potentially damage your hardware.

Can this run on other devices without acceleration tho?

Yes. If your GPU is not metal compatible it will install and boot. However it’s usually not worth it.

What size usb flash drive do I need?

Just about any should work. Find an old 512mb drive and you are good to go. Of course larger drives will work, too. BTW: You may also use SD-Cards, if your Mac can boot from those.

Nice, how can we add the AirPortBrcm4331.kext from Mojave to the loader?

You can't. Just install it manually afterwards. There is now way to add anything, as this basically just enables you to run the legit unmodified Catalina installer.

So what about unsupported audio and WiFi chipsets?

@Starplayr apparently wrote a little script for the Mac Pro 3,1. It should work for other Macs, too.

I have a MacBook (Pro). Does it work?

It seems to install and boot on 2010 & 2011 MacBooks. However you will not have any graphics acceleration natively.

I bricked my computer! (No such reports, yet.)

I am very sorry. However there is nothing I can do. You have been warned (README) and proceeded at your own risk.

————————————

Updates:

1. Fixed large file size (60mb), due to an oversight one may part.
2. Removed experimental flag causing issues.

 

[Starplayr]

I never experienced these stalls on 3,1. Nor did I have to replace those kexts. Wondering what the difference is.

Well he system ran fine for three boots then it started KP’ing

It was
A fluke. I still don’t exactly know what is causing the stalls / timeouts. It’s like you plug one hole and out comes another.

Least for me it’s down to 3 minutes with three stalls or timeouts. The errors vary. The times very pending what you have plugged in.
[doublepost=1560470959][/doublepost]I am righting my own script from scratch to get the basic stuff for MacPro3,1

It puts goes about in a pretty clean manner and uses ditto for the copy.

Ditto is also handy in the restore / install boot disk. Does a good job keeping permissions. It’s one of many favorite file based backup tools. Very simple.

Rsync is good too.
[doublepost=1560471130][/doublepost]I have an iPad Mini 4 refurb. Coming in tommorow. Has anyone confirmed the sidecar pref pabe works on a supported iPad?

I stilll have an original pencil. My old iPad Pro blew up. Sold it for parts. Was gonna be 600 to replace.

I replaced my iPad Mini 2 and Apple recently bumped it up from iOS 9 to iOS 12. Bummer but I can still write my games for it. So not a total loss.
[doublepost=1560472521][/doublepost]

Interesting... this may be a better solution than my IOHIDFamily.kext isSingleUser() patch, depending on what side effects there are, if any. We should investigate this in more detail at some point.
[doublepost=1560462087][/doublepost]
SkyLight.framework is from 10.14.5 and CoreDisplay.framework is from 10.14.4. (But just bringing over those frameworks will not work without my wrapper code.)
[doublepost=1560462191][/doublepost]
I did the same as you. It seems like the best method until someone (By the way, @dosdude1 how is that going? I wouldn't mind taking a stab at it if you're having trouble.) figures out the Installer patch to use unsigned packages.
[doublepost=1560462285][/doublepost]Also! Some good news -- I've been using patched Catalina on my 2010 MacBook for a full school day, took notes, used a browser, sent messages and played a couple games etc. Zero issues whatsoever. This is very, very close to being fully usable!

It worked for about 4 boot ups in a row then it started kp’ing.

I am reimagined my main drive. I either get IOUSBInterace or HIDDriver lending what I have plugged in at boot.
Mi used to get accelerometer or actuator, a bunch of stuff in the stall or time out. So not out of the woods yet.

I am dropping back and making a single patch script for myself for the MP3,1. It will just do the basics like WiFi, Sound, it may do Bluetooth if I get my Magic Trackpad working better. It throws a fit. I may have to look up on how to factory reset it. In Mojave it did fine. Mac mini 2012 fine. So something is new with Bluetooth wirh my iMac pro style trackpads I love it btw even when it throws a fit on me. And when I plug it in it still has issues in cat.

I have been out with a cold so haven’t been doing much today.

Rethinking my backup software. I may stick with basic file copies for everyday work.

Allow system copies of drives using ditto

And block level copies using dd.

Those three tools are very solid and reliable .

Tmutil snapshots lately have been hit or miss. I think it’s best to let TM manage those all by itself. I may revisit it later but right now it doesn’t seem to be pr.ime.

Also cloning large files seems to already work in Catalina without special software. I did that with a 3GB File and duped it. On the same drive. Acted like shared date. I figured Apple would eventually add that in or gas and I just did not notice it.

 

[pkouame]

I am not 100% sure (didn't keep track of which were necessary for boot vs. which just prevented app/daemon crashes), but from memory:
SkyLightWrapper:
- The code commented with logind, AppKit, and HIServices prevents crashes in logind/Installer Progress/loginwindow/WindowServer
- The code with "Dock" stops the Dock from constantly crashing and reopening
- The "General prefpane" code fixes a "General preference pane cannot be opened" error
- The code on line 60 fixes occasional random app crashes and also stops a loginwindow crash at first boot specifically (opening Setup Assistant)
- The following chunk of CFStringRefs prevents a PerfPowerServices daemon crash
- The code after that keeps universalaccessd happy
- The huge chunk of stub functions/constants at the end were just based on a diff of the old/new SkyLight frameworks and I'm not sure if they do anything at all (I think that it helped with a problem @jackluke had? But I'm not sure).

CoreDisplayWrapper: all the functions are required to reach the desktop. I haven't yet added all the changed functions like I did with SkyLight.

As you can see, despite working seemingly near-perfectly, there is a lot of work left to do to "properly" implement each function (even just the right signature/return types).

If you don't mind me asking, are you planning to improve/work on this code too? I wouldn't want us to waste time doing the same things twice but you are welcome to help if you want!

One note -- I haven't had a single new .crash file in /L*/Logs/DiagnosticReports with my most recent build, and I've been using it for about 8 hours now

Impressive - Does Xcode 11 run well?

 

[tsialex]

Rastafabi's Catalina loader

It took me a while, but finally I managed to create a "Catalina loader", which enables you to install macOS 10.15 Catalina on unsupported Macs with compatible hardware. It's meant for Mac Pro 4,1 & 5,1 and iMac 2010/2011 systems, which have a Metal compatible GPU. A upgraded WiFi/Bluetooth card might be necessary to have OOB support. I have not yet looked into audio, though on my Mac Pro 4,1 it works OOB. The download includes an installation guide with additional details.
It is not meant for systems without a Metal GPU or with Core2 Duo (based) CPUs.

The loader is based on rEFInd and OpenCore, which spoofs the Mac to be a compatible model.
View attachment 842732

Download the Catalina loader.zip

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Some might be reminded of my old Mavericks download enabler.

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Mac Pros also require to be running on x55xx or newer CPUs (like W5580 or X5677) to omit audio stuttering.

Thx for the loader. =)

It's the pair of dual Nehalem Xeons (E55xx and X55xx) that have the audio problem after 10.14.3. So, you need to replace with a pair of dual Westmere Xeons (X56xx). W3xxx don't have the audio stuttering problem.

 

[crjackson2134]

Download the Catalina loader.zip

Great work, thank you so much.

 

[TimothyR734]

I was playing to attempt make Dashboard.app working, and I also found an old terminal command used on HighSierra and Mojave to disable it: defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES && killall Dock

but also setting -boolean NO, dashboard hasn't showed.

Then I've thought, there should be a way to convert the /Library/Widgets/ in apps

and I found this great work from: http://www.mesadynamics.com
and they have also a GitHub repository!

In few words I attached a picture. Simply amazing. Thanks and credit to the original developer.

For those who want still play with Dashboard Widgets on Catalina, I attach all the main Mojave Widgets already converted into standalone apps!

You can also go here: https://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/
To download and convert your favourite Widgets!

this is from GitHub for dashboard

 

[pkouame]

Here you go. I've only implemented essentially the one function to fix login, as well as finding the types of some of the others. Most are just stubs to prevent dyld errors though, at the moment. And honestly, that will probably be sufficient for a lot of things. But if you want to help make improvements, that would be awesome!

I quickly scanned your stub functions and their real implementation in Catalina SkyLight: actually implementing the missing functionality is a tall order my friend. The rabbit hole gets very deep very fast. I humbly suggest the first step be a static analysis and dependency tree analysis of the functions your are stubbing out to 0. That may give you a better idea of what to focus on. One thing for sure, if some are widely used the expected result may not simply be 0 (especially worrisome if it's structured data or the functions actually update some local or global data or even send notifications to other frameworks). Still , amazing you got this far...