macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[jackluke]

Any chance this can be implemented backwards for the Mojave versions?

They should since the frameworks are patched from Mojave.

I'm trying to replace only the @ASentientBot SkyLightwrapper and SkyLightOriginal (@testheit patched) into Mojave 10.14.5 .

 

[ASentientBot]

They should since the frameworks are patched from Mojave.

I'm trying to replace only the @ASentientBot SkyLightwrapper and SkyLightOriginal (@testheit patched) into Mojave 10.14.5 .

Don't use the SkyLightWrapper in Mojave (although it shouldn't actually break anything, it's just pointless). Just replace the main executable in Mojave with @testheit's SkyLight binary.

 

[jackluke]

Don't use the SkyLightWrapper in Mojave (although it shouldn't actually break anything, it's just pointless). Just replace the main executable in Mojave with @testheit's SkyLight binary.

I used both (renaming stock SkyLight in SkyLightbackup) and it worked, your Catalina patches are Mojave-proof!

And @testheit hybrid method worked on Mojave too.

And it seems to work properly even if forked of 32 bit coding.

SkyLightbackup 10.14.5 (32 + 64 bit) is 4,7 MB
SkyLightOriginal (64 bit only) is 3,7 MB

 

[mdbuddin]

Finally got full acceleration on my mbp 8,1 late 2011 with the .PKG fix for intelhd3000 from @chris1111 . Many thnx!

For WiFi, which kext should I install? I replaced all iofamily kexts and now I have a bootloop when on apple logo. And yes, I fixed permissions of it. I used the one and the V2 from Mojave... I am missing something, as you may noticed. I have fully Bluetooth and ethernet working great and tackpad and usb ports. Just missing WiFi. Pretty stable system at this point. (Mbp 8,1 late 2011).
Any ideas?

I have the link buried somewhere but this happened on Mojave . There is a fix out there that you run a script with a kext. I have a DLink PCI card . It has an Atheros chip which is the same as the Apple one. It worked under High Sierra but needed fixing for mojave..
[doublepost=1561056735][/doublepost]

I used both (renaming stock SkyLight in SkyLightbackup) and it worked, your Catalina patches are Mojave-proof!

And @testheit hybrid method worked on Mojave too.

And it seems to work properly even if forked of 32 bit coding.

SkyLightbackup 10.14.5 (32 + 64 bit) is 4,7 MB
SkyLightOriginal (64 bit only) is 3,7 MB

My eft is 32 bit does this change for Catalina ?

 

[jackluke]

I have the link buried somewhere but this happened on Mojave . There is a fix out there that you run a script with a kext. I have a DLink PCI card . It has an Atheros chip which is the same as the Apple one. It worked under High Sierra but needed fixing for mojave..
[doublepost=1561056735][/doublepost]

My eft is 32 bit does this change for Catalina ?

Which machine ?

But EFI 64 bit is a pre-requirement since I guess 10.9 Mavericks.

If you have Core2Duo Penryn CPU then you can use Catalina.

 

[Starplayr]

The only complaint that I have about the catwoman installer is that it (at least in the version I used) doesn't know how to cope with destination volumes which contain a space. Passing it either /Volumes/Catalina\ HD or '/Volumes/Catalina HD' at the destination prompt fragments the volume path in '/Volumes/Catalina' and 'HD'.

This complaint was heard from a previous post and b5 handles volumes with spaces.

A previous workaround would be to use single quotes or remove the space. It now addresses that issue.

 

[ASentientBot]

your Catalina patches are Mojave-proof!

Well yes, they only add functions and don't remove/change anything. So Mojave will simply ignore all the new functions and carry on using the old ones.

 

[iMac-Oldschool]

The tool now only supports using the Developer Preview 2 installer app (due to some extreme changes Apple made to the DP2 installer). You can download it using my macOS Downloader tool.

First reply to this message was sent when incomplete. Please ignore.

Unable to install Catalina on iMac 8,1
Installation stopped with the error message "Unable to install MACOS on this computer"
Error 69624
Installed APFS ROM Patcher from Dosdude1,
Diskutil reported the following volumes
/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +400.1 GB disk1
Physical Store disk0s4
1: APFS Volume Imac_Engelberg_Mojave 86.5 GB disk1s1
2: APFS Volume Preboot 44.7 MB disk1s2
3: APFS Volume Recovery 519.8 MB disk1s3
4: APFS Volume VM 1.1 MB disk1s4
5: APFS Volume IMac_Engelberg_Catalina 655.4 KB disk1s5
Downloaded macOS Catalina PartialPatcher.app version 1.0b12
Downloaded macOS Downloader.app
Downloaded Install macOS Catalina Beta.app version 15.0.15
Used the above to create USB installer
set sudo nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check"

 

[0403979]

macOS Patcher 3.0 beta 1 has been pulled due to an issue with patch tool that requires reinstalling macOS 10.15 Catalina to solve. If you used macOS Patcher 3.0 beta 1, you must reinstall your copy of macOS 10.15 Catalina.

Please download and use macOS Patcher beta 2 or later.

 

[mdbuddin]

Which machine ?

But EFI 64 bit is a pre-requirement since I guess 10.9 Mavericks.

If you have Core2Duo Penryn CPU then you can use Catalina.

I have a mac Pro 4,1 flashed to 5,1 . Sytem sees it as a 5,1 . The drives all have a 32 bit efi. Also I have a Radeon card which although black part way through boot does flash the progress bar for a few seconds .. The EFI is a MS DOS Fat 32 partition ...

 

[nekton1]

Thanks for the tip Jack, but which volume name do you mean?

For Starplayr's patches, I used a second usb stick with the contents of his dmg mounted under the same volume name. In both cases, I had no issues applying the patches (except Starplayr's install script didn't grok destination volume names with spaces).

 

[jhowarth]

Thanks for the tip Jack, but which volume name do you mean?

The volume that his dmg opens under, MP31_CatWoman.

 

[jackluke]

I have a mac Pro 4,1 flashed to 5,1 . Sytem sees it as a 5,1 . The drives all have a 32 bit efi. Also I have a Radeon card which although black part way through boot does flash the progress bar for a few seconds .. The EFI is a MS DOS Fat 32 partition ...

Yes, EFI partition is MS-DOS FAT32 (is a filesystem and FAT64 is exFAT), but I meant the EFI firmware bootloader is 64 bit and cpu is x86-64 , however you can install Catalina on it, also with a Metal GPU, so using very few patches for your machine.

 

[Cwfalconfootball]

I made a little package/script with all the files needed for full hardware support on all systems with DP2 (with the exception of keyboard/trackpad on some machines). It can be downloaded here, and includes @ASentientBot's non-metal acceleration patches. Just extract, CD into extracted directory with Terminal, and execute "sudo ./install.sh CatalinaVolumeName" (leave out sudo if running from the installer or singleuser mode). If in the main OS, you'll also need to run "sudo kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel" after running the script.

When I try this I get “no such file or directory”

 

[indigotheory]

macOS Patcher 3.0 beta 1 has been released. The following description is from the macOS Patcher repo.


This is the first macOS Patcher beta to support macOS Catalina. The main changes are: - support for macOS Catalina, - removal of integrated utilities, cleaner code.

You can read about the removal of the integrated utilities, and the future of macOS Patcher, here.

Disclaimer: This is a beta and there are definitely issues. If you discover one, create an issue on the macOS Patcher repo. This beta only supports the macOS Catalina developer beta 2 installer and doesn’t support the MacBook4,1 in the installer.

This is all amazing work! Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou! from a Late 2008 Unibody MacBook 5,1 user

So I create a bootable USB installer from Catalina Beta 2 using dosdude1 Partial Patcher

Then when its installed and booted I run the installer from your patches? But which one from Github? is is release 10-15.zip or release.zip ?

Thanks

 

[nekton1]

Thanks Jack, that did it. I had a few seconds wondering if the mouse and keyboard would come live, but they did after 20 seconds.

Thanks to dosdude1, Starplayr, parrotgeek,and everyone else here who figured out this method. It's a bit nerdy but it works—I look forward to the full dosdude1 patcher nearer the GM release.

The volume that his dmg opens under, MP31_CatWoman.

 

[David403]

Has anyone tried to clone a Catalina beta2 installation using 'DriveGenius 5's clone utility?

It claims its clone utility will do a raw copy.

At the moment I do not have a spare SSD/HDD to try it on. If no one else has done this I'll get another drive and try this and (and a restore) then report back - in a day or two.

 

[mdbuddin]

Yes, EFI partition is MS-DOS FAT32 (is a filesystem and FAT64 is exFAT), but I meant the EFI firmware bootloader is 64 bit and cpu is x86-64 , however you can install Catalina on it, also with a Metal GPU, so using very few patches for your machine.

Thanks that is what i thought .. also here is fix for Wifi if you have an Atheros 9380 card .. I have an Atheros that shows up as a Apple Extreme Card but it is actually a PCI DLink card .. I don't know if it works on Catalina ..it will post a number of messages as it installs ..Some people needed it for High Sierra

 

[Starplayr]

Thanks Jack, that did it. I had a few seconds wondering if the mouse and keyboard would come live, but they did after 20 seconds.

Thanks to dosdude1, StarPlayrX, parrotgeek,and everyone else here who figured out this method. It's a bit nerdy but it works—I look forward to the full dosdude patcher nearer the GM release.

View attachment 844153

I am working on CloneToolX. A simple back up and restore utility designed for Unsupported Mac use. With it, one could create a USB Installer disk that could restore a pre-patched disk image for a specific system. I'm also looking at restoring via afp:// but for some reason my Mac Mini web server doesn't seem to want to connect any volumes via afp:// or smb://. I am gonna contact my web host about it soon.

CloneToolX will have other uses as well like, cloning a fresh installation to a dmg. backing up and restoring your own system. Disk-to-Disk clones. Image-to-Disk and well as Disk-to-Image. Networking stuff may be come later and there may be and Light version that does some really simple tasks for non-technical users.

The app will be in Swift. Writing my own API from unix commands. It's the easiest way to go at this point. Many of Apple's Disk API's are overly complex and I don't need to go through a second learning curve. I'm also not on board yet with SwiftUI. So this will be a more traditional Cocoa app.

Folder / File based copy options may be later.

 

[Starplayr]

This is very interesting. It looks like it's very possible to set up a simple server that the CloneToolX client can connect to and it can do a restore over the air.

 

[RogueB]

While I don't recommend using it as your main OS, I will have a full Catalina patcher available within a couple weeks.

Hello dosdude1

I have a MacBook Pro 5,2 to which I applied your APFS ROM patch; it all went well.
I then tried your partial patcher for catalina B2. It boots fine to the usb stick created with your partial patcher, and proceeds with install, but 5 minutes into installation (onto the test drive) computer suddenly reboots, with gray screen and the "no entry sign". Left alone for a minute, the machine will just shut down. Any Idea what's wrong. I did use the "no_compat_check" before booting to USB stick and while booted on the stick. Odd (?)
Machine will boot to the Mojave partition without any problems.

Thanks for any input

 

[Starplayr]

Hello dosdude1

I have a MacBook Pro 5,2 to which I applied your APFS ROM patch; it all went well.
I then tried your partial patcher for catalina B2. It boots fine to the usb stick created with your partial patcher, and proceeds with install, but 5 minutes into installation (onto the test drive) computer suddenly reboots, with gray screen and the "no entry sign". Left alone for a minute, the machine will just shut down. Any Idea what's wrong. I did use the "no_compat_check" before booting to USB stick and while booted on the stick. Odd (?)
Machine will boot to the Mojave partition without any problems.

Thanks for any input

Doesn't sound like nvram is actually set. try running this command in terminal:

nvram -p | grep boot-args

See if 'boot-args -no_compat_check' comes back.

if nothing is returned try setting nvram boot-args again.

 

[Doofitator]

Hi All.

I've been speaking with @ASentientBot on Reddit for the past few hours trying to get Catalina running nicely on my Late 2011 MBP. I did manage to get to this point: https://imgur.com/Y5D5BtX, where I had graphics acceleration and an overall working system aside from Wi-Fi, however after attempting to copy IO80211Family.kext from my Mojave install to Catalina, the system completely lost it. Kernel panics on boot, prelinked kernel broke - all sorts of mayhem. I couldn't work it out. Really weird stuff that stumped both of us. Even after restoring the original kext, it was still no dice. I did a reinstall.

Now, back on the desktop of a fresh system from @dosdude1's partialPatcher. I've run the hardware support script and rebooted to a working environment, minus the graphics anomalies that were previously experienced in Mojave. WiFi works, and About This Mac shows the correct information, which it never did before.

I don't know what happened the first time - if it was something I did (probably) or something that @chris1111's graphics patch did (which I used the first time around), but now it appears that DosDude's script has got it running, so I'm not going to complain. I just thought that I better let everyone know that there was something that caused mayhem somewhere. I don't know if it was serious or if others will experience it in future, but something that I installed the first time around didn't play nicely with something else.

I'd like keep tinkering and seeing if I can help the overall effort in any way. Thanks for the work you guys do - you breathe life into old hardware and it's brilliant!

 

[RogueB]

At this stage installing Catalina(for regular users) is like a dog chasing a car, even if it catches it, then what? Installing Catalina should not be "the goal" per se, as its performance is inferior to Mojave at least at this stage. It is the ideas that counts that will hopefully will allow an acceptable performance on official release day.

Hope you don't mind a bit of levity(?) Dogs chase after cars instinctively (If "it" is running away it's prey [among other things]). They are also territorial so if, and when, they catch the car and find it inedible, the next thing a dog is likely to to is "pee" on the tire - as in: object conquered, it's now owned.
Everyone can probably attach a different meaning to the above "innuendo," given this is an "unsupported macs" thread. Patching journey = getting an insight, from "outside the box" into programming (?)
[doublepost=1561085209][/doublepost]

Doesn't sound like nvram is actually set. try running this command in terminal:

nvram -p | grep boot-args

See if 'boot-args -no_compat_check' comes back.

if nothing is returned try setting nvram boot-args again.

Thank you, I will try those commands.

 

[Starplayr]

I'd like to thank jackluke, ASentientBot, pkouame, jhowarth, TimothyR734 and nekton1 for their input and support on my CatWoman patcher. I'm working on a much easier method in the future, but first I want to get CloneToolX up and running on about two weeks and the things it can do could potentially bypass any blockers Apple puts in our way.

Off topic: I am doing a good bit of job interviews with several Silicon Valley based prospects. I may be spending a little more time researching information. I haven't found a good fit yet, but I have had a good bit of leads, discussions, phone calls, interviews, and coding tests. I'm self taught, and I've been getting into more of the how things actually work vs. how I can creatively make it work in my head. Dealing with Engineers who currently make the decision whether you pass or fail in a few minutes can be nerve racking. I don't test well. If I can't study it first or do it on my own, it's an automatic failure. Nonetheless, I keep getting several companies who are interested in my experience, so something is bound to happen. I currently working for a start up company in Charlotte as a Software Developer, IT Manager and I used to run my own startup, NiceMac. I feel like something is about to change, I just don't know where yet. I am getting lots of interest in Automation, Workflows, Dev. Advocate / Tech Evangelism and iOS development. So wish me luck.

Anyways, I just wanted to say I really enjoyed interacting with users on here and it's great how Dosdude1 started this community of unsupported misfit Macs. We are not on an island either. And I'll continue to support this community through and through.

Catalina Beta 2 btw, runs super well on my Mac Pro 3,1. It is rock solid. I'm amazed how fast a 12 year old computer can run. For me technology has not advanced in the last 10 years. Yes we have bigger screens, 4k, but things don't seem to actually compute a whole lot faster when it comes to the "Real User Experience". For me my user experience with a combination of old and new technology runs just as good as a new Mac Book Pro. Now that new Mac Book Pro will have a much faster SSD and Memory but other than that, the RUX on a tricked out Mac Pro 3,1 is just as good.