macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[Starplayr]

@dosdude1 rules, Thank You very much, my friend!

Looks good. Congrats Dosdude1!
[doublepost=1561691094][/doublepost]

All I am saying is that there is no proof apart from this statement that Apple is blocking NVIDIA. There is no other approval :

I am sure @pastrychef will confirm .

Read this thread for more info:

https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/...rivers-be-released-for-macos-mojave-10-14-/77

"Apple fully controls drivers for Mac OS. Unfortunately, NVIDIA currently cannot release a driver unless it is approved by Apple.

Our hardware works on OS 10.13 which supports up to (and including) Pascal.

Apple has published a help topic that includes a list of supported hardware for OS 10.14Mojave."

This is on Nvidia's website written to a customer from Nvidia.

You are right it has nothing to do with Signing, but as stated Nvidia will not release a driver unless it is approved by Apple. That has been made pretty clear many times ever since Mojave reached GM. So by not approving a driver for Mojave or Catalina there are no Official Nvidia Mojave and Catalina drivers beyond what Apple includes in its OS' which are Kepler based. And what I was originally trying to get at is we can't use Maxwell and Pascal Cards that support Metal in Mojave or Catalina. At least not until someone figures out a way to use the 10.13 drivers which the best to my knowledge nobody has done this OR reverse engineering Mojave and Catalina Kepler drivers to support newer video cards by Nvidia.

And by not allowing this, this could easily become a legal matter. This originally started when Nvidia wanted to impose its patents on Apple and other companies. Apple also had problems with Nvidia about power consumption on the MacBook Pros. These tensions lead to Apple switching over to AMD (dedicated) and Intel (integrated) only for its GPUs, completely abandoning Nvidia. I am not a lawyer, but to me this is an Anti-Trust case. Nvidia could claim that they cannot compete on the 2012 Mac Pros and on External GPUs for other Macs because Apple has created a monopoly by exclusively doing business with AMD and by not approving Nvidia drivers for Apple's last two OS', Mojave and Catalina.

This could also become a class action lawsuit between Nvidia's customers, who own Maxwell and newer video cards who are stuck running High Sierra til eternity on Macs, and Apple. This I am positive has affected many people who bought newer cards when High Sierra or before, and they are not able to upgrade. They can ditch their cards and use AMD's. They can go back to old cards that are supported or they can simply not upgrade.

And if you are telling me there there is not a block or ban by Apple on Nvidia's latest drivers then answer this simple question. Why are there not any Mojave or Catalina drivers for Maxwell and above video cards for the 2008 - 2012 Mac Pros?

It's possible.

 

[Arnold2018]

How to uninstall Catalina properly and delete Catalina data partition? How to re-install Catalina to avoid multiplication of data partitions?

 

[jackluke]

How to uninstall Catalina properly and delete Catalina data partition? How to re-install Catalina to avoid multiplication of data partitions?

Open DiskUility, from its "finder-menu", select "View", select "Show all devices", then select from the DiskUtility left tab the "Container diskX" where your Catalina is stored, and "Erase" only that Container in APFS (or HFS+).

But if inside that same Container you have other APFS HighSierra or Mojave (but typically they should be on a separate Container), then do NOT Erase that Container.

Otherwise, after Catalina re-installation, you can erase only the extra "APFS Data", and then merge it from DiskUtility to your new Catalina installation.

Keep in mind that all your personal datas, apps and settings are inside the "APFS Data", so check there if you need to backup something before Erase.

 

[Althiometer]

Success!
Writing from Macbook Pro Early 2011(8,2)
Catalina installed w acceleration with Catalina Patcher 1.0b3

 

[Frantisekj]

I just made my MBP 4,1 (Early 2008, not unibody) well working in Mojave. I do not hurry but wanted to ask whether is now or say with next beta possible to install Catalina on it. First from drivers side and second from user side. I am not dumb user but not hacker as well I have not seen any mention of this machine in whole thread.
I do expect that next public beta could be better target or maybe even later. Thanks for info.

I guess when I have SSD formated in HFS+ then I should still better wait, right?

 

[jhowarth]

How to uninstall Catalina properly and delete Catalina data partition? How to re-install Catalina to avoid multiplication of data partitions?

If you have Catalina on a dedicated drive like I do, the approach that I use is to boot under patched Mojave and from a Terminal window, use diskutil to unmount the Catalina volumes, in my case on the synthesized disk5, with...

sudo diskutil unmountDisk disk5

Then, having previously noted which physical disk (such as disk1) used by the synthetic disk5 from the output of 'diskutil list', I nuke it with gpt.

sudo gpt destroy disk1

...then recreate it with...

sudo gpt create disk1

...and finally use Disk Utility to erase disk1 again with APFS partitioning.

Also, while I haven't tried it yet, I would expect reinstalling Catalina over an existing Catalina volume shouldn't be creating an additional Data volume but just reuse the previous one.

 

[arqueox]

How to uninstall Catalina properly and delete Catalina data partition? How to re-install Catalina to avoid multiplication of data partitions?

Disk utility.

 

[startergo]

Hi @dosdude1 good job! I installed Catalina on my cMP over a HS partition. I did not run the patch on the second boot. Is it still considered "Vanilla" or there are some permanent modifications in the system files or drivers even after the first install?

 

[jackluke]

During some my test using "createinstallmedia" to create my custom Catalina Installer, I noticed that the official apple Installer from beta2 used an icon on its Catalina Installer USB/Partition, then since it's a standard apple icns, I've applied it also to my Catalina main Volume, here is an automated script for it, totally harmless and safe for your machines.

To check the new Catalina icon on your boot Volume, after the reboot or power-on, hold (as usually) "alt-option" key for the apple boot manager. Try it, it's funny.

 

[EdGlassgow]

How to uninstall Catalina properly and delete Catalina data partition? How to re-install Catalina to avoid multiplication of data partitions?

Pretty easy... Use Disk Utility and hit the View dropdown to Show All Devices. The right click on the Data Volume and select Delete APFS Volume. Then you can either delete the main volume or erase it. Now you have a container that will not duplicate the Data volume.

 

[Flacko]

This solution makes the most sense to me but the question now is, doesn't the firmware always needs to be updated when a new MacOS version is released and installed on a MacPro5,1? So far from High Sierra and Mojave I had to have my non metal original native GFX card inserted so it will successfully install the new firmware, CD tray opens then closes and updates the firmware. Then I can shutdown and place the Metal GFX card in but obviously the screen will be black until it gets to the desktop and allow me to continue with the installation. With this method I understand you install Catalina onto a SSD or equivalent drive on a supported mac but once you boot this onto MacPro5,1 after you update the nvram what about the Logic Board firmware update how will that take place? I have no idea what this firmware update is all about each time is has to be done anyhow.

Welcome to the unsupported Macs! To answer your first question a new OS does not necessarily mean a firmware update. Your mp 5.1 is supported by Apple and will get firmware updates as required with Mojave. I believe the latest is 14.0.0.0.0. There have been a few - intel cpu security "fixes" and NVMe support to name a few. So before moving onto Catalina make sure you are up to date by using Mojave.
Once you become unsupported then there will be no further firmware updates from Apple. However this will not stop you using your machine. In fact it is advisable to avoid full downloads of the OS from Apple just in case there is a firmware update in there as our patched machines may have a problem with this. So using dosdude1's patcher is one way to go and keeping advised by members of the forum who will spot any problems with imbedded firmware.
My mp 3.1 was last supported by El Capitan. It has not had a firmware update since then (apart from dosdude1's APFS ROM patch) and is still happily running Mojave 14.5 and Catalina B2.

 

[dosdude1]

Hi @dosdude1 good job! I installed Catalina on my cMP over a HS partition. I did not run the patch on the second boot. Is it still considered "Vanilla" or there are some permanent modifications in the system files or drivers even after the first install?

If you don't apply the post-install patches, then you have a 100% clean, unmodified copy of Catalina.

 

[badapple420]

Success!
Writing from Macbook Pro Early 2011(8,2)
Catalina installed w acceleration with Catalina Patcher 1.0b3

I have the same mbp do you get a message after you boot up catalina saying patches are overwritten it wants me to reinstall and reboot but the same thing pops up

 

[TimothyR734]

During some my test using "createinstallmedia" to create my custom Catalina Installer, I noticed that the official apple Installer from beta2 used an icon on its Catalina Installer USB/Partition, then since it's a standard apple icns, I've applied it also to my Catalina main Volume, here is an automated script for it, totally harmless and safe for your machines.

To check the new Catalina icon on your boot Volume, after the reboot or power-on, hold (as usually) "alt-option" key for the apple boot manager. Try it, it's funny.

it is pretty cool but how do you reset it back to normal as when I applied the script. and restarted my screen went white with a bunch of squares and lines
[doublepost=1561738834][/doublepost]

I have the same mbp do you get a message after you boot up catalina saying patches are overwritten it wants me to reinstall and reboot but the same thing pops up

hit don't remind me again don't apply the post install patches from the patch updater

 

[Althiometer]

Is there a way we can use Photos from 10.14(patched to get allowed in Catalina)

 

[jackluke]

it is pretty cool but how do you reset it back to normal as when I applied the script. and restarted my screen went white with a bunch of squares and lines
[doublepost=1561738834][/doublepost]
hit don't remind me again don't apply the post install patches from the patch updater

You can check the script with a Textedit or pressing space-bar on it, the white/squares/lines you encountered at 99% don't depend from the script, that essentially does nothing bad, it's just a -no_compat_check and a copy of a file.

To back to normal (with stock hard disk icon), just delete from your Catalina root the .VolumeIcon.icns file.

However it doesn't affect any other macOS Installation.

edit:

about your LCD white/squares/lines , I suspect more the summer temperatures that affect cpu/gpu temperatures.

 

[TimothyR734]

You can check the script with a Textedit or pressing space-bar on it, the white/squares/lines you encountered at 99% don't depend from the script, that essentially does nothing bad, it's just a -no_compat_check and a copy of a file.

To back to normal (with stock hard disk icon), just delete from your Catalina root the .VolumeIcon.icns file.

However it doesn't affect any other macOS Installation.

edit:

about your LCD white/squares/lines , I suspect more the summer temperatures that affect cpu/gpu temperatures.

I mean when I go to restart the Catalina Wallpaper goes from Catalina to a white background with squares and lines but found I use the light script it restarts normally when I use dark mode it only does the when I am in dark mode using your Catalinadark in dark mode

 

[jackluke]

I mean when I go to restart the Catalina Wallpaper goes from Catalina to a white background with squares and lines but found I use the light script it restarts normally when I use dark mode it only does the when I am in dark mode using your Catalinadark in dark mode

They are totally unrelated to any macOS functionality or light/dark mode, they are just unix "VolumeIcons" for the apple bootloader, nothing else.

 

[avz]

They are totally unrelated to any macOS functionality or light/dark mode, they are just unix "VolumeIcons" for the apple bootloader, nothing else.

I am wondering how many macOS's you can run together with Windows? I noticed you have quite a few there.

 

[jackluke]

I am wondering how many macOS's you can run together with Windows? I noticed you have quite a few there.

The Catalinas and Windows are on external SSD USB, but theorically GUID/GPT scheme should allow up to 128 partitions.

 

[avz]

The Catalinas and Windows are on external SSD USB, but theorically GUID/GPT scheme should allow up to 128 partitions.

For whatever reason when I tried to run more that one macOS with Windows(Bootcamp) it just did not work. I am guessing you are running Windows 10 on an external SSD without using a Bootcamp? I believe it is impossible to run Windows 7 on an external HDD/SSD?

 

[jackluke]

For whatever reason when I tried to run more that one macOS with Windows(Bootcamp) it just did not work. I am guessing you are running Windows 10 on an external SSD without using a Bootcamp? I believe it is impossible to run Windows 7 on an external HDD/SSD?

Maybe not impossible but very hard on Mac. However I used legacy apple bootcamp drivers for my machine model, otherwise using the windows 10 updated ones many crashed.

 

[LuisN]

For whatever reason when I tried to run more that one macOS with Windows(Bootcamp) it just did not work. I am guessing you are running Windows 10 on an external SSD without using a Bootcamp? I believe it is impossible to run Windows 7 on an external HDD/SSD?

Try this: https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/

 

[Althiometer]

Photos is always crashing...is there a fix coming?

 

[schwab]

I just made my MBP 4,1 (Early 2008, not unibody) well working in Mojave. I do not hurry but wanted to ask whether is now or say with next beta possible to install Catalina on it. First from drivers side and second from user side. I am not dumb user but not hacker as well I have not seen any mention of this machine in whole thread.
I do expect that next public beta could be better target or maybe even later. Thanks for info.

I guess when I have SSD formated in HFS+ then I should still better wait, right?

I also have a MacBookPro 4,1 17" early 2008 with a 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6 GB of SDRAM running 10.14.3 Mojave including 4.0 bluetooth and 2.4 & 5.4 WiFi Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.77.61.1 AirPortDriverBrcmNIC-1305.2) However, has a 1TB SSD with the Journaled HFS+ File System and the NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 512 MB Graphics card running the large 17" display

Here are the specs:
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...ore-2-duo-2.5-17-early-2008-penryn-specs.html

Hopefully we will be able to upgrade to OS 10.15 but we are certainly pushing the limits.