macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[Starplayr]

The catwoman icon (I've edited a bit cause wasn't transparent) is taken from @Starplayr 's https://www.starplayrx.com:8181

Yes, got Catalina working on HFS+ thanks to @toru173 and @crazybirdy this post for reference : Catalina on HFS+ - a HOWTO

Wow, that looks great! Thanks for doing that.

I have my 802.11ac / Bluetooth 4 cards ordered for both of my Mac Pro 3,1's. I'm also adding USB 3.0 to both boxes. 4 ports for each box. I did consider 1 USB/C port with 1 USB3.0 port, but I really don't have a use for USB/C on my main computer right now. 4 USB 3.0 ports was not only more appealing but also very cheap. Going to test the card on a 4x and 16x slot with a USB 3.0 SSD and see if there is a speed difference and if the USB 3.0 is plug and play or not on Catalina.

Once I get my cards in, I will be updating my CatWoman patcher for the 3,1 and I may include a UI for it this go around. This is mostly for me actually. I like have my own Patch script that's just tuned for a MP3,1. If it happens to help other users great.

I will be working on CloneToolX some this weekend and I am flushing out Disk-to-Image.

Unrelated: I'm also sending on iOS app to the App Store on Sunday. And I have to catch up on some day-job work. So I'll be pulled away. I write JavaScript, AngularJS and CFScript by day and Swift by night.

 

[pkouame]

Then if you want the monitor that's $4999 then the stand $999 the Vesa mount $299 and the power cord$199

and @Starplayr the new Mac Pro was never meant for us mere mortals The pricing is ridiculous and whoever in marketing decided to price the stand separately (instead of rolling the $ into the display) should be shot. A real slap in the face. The technology is of course great but I think it was simply a response to deaden the Mac Pro speculation for good.
[doublepost=1561829485][/doublepost]

Wow, that looks great! Thanks for doing that.

I have my 802.11ac / Bluetooth 4 cards ordered for both of my Mac Pro 3,1's. I'm also adding USB 3.0 to both boxes. 4 ports for each box. I did consider 1 USB/C port with 1 USB3.0 port, but I really don't have a use for USB/C on my main computer right now. 4 USB 3.0 ports was not only more appealing but also very cheap. Going to test the card on a 4x and 16x slot with a USB 3.0 SSD and see if there is a speed difference and if the USB 3.0 is plug and play or not on Catalina.

Once I get my cards in, I will be updating my CatWoman patcher for the 3,1 and I may include a UI for it this go around. This is mostly for me actually. I like have my own Patch script that's just tuned for a MP3,1. If it happens to help other users great.

I will be working on CloneToolX some this weekend and I am flushing out Disk-to-Image.

Unrelated: I'm also sending on iOS app to the App Store on Sunday. And I have to catch up on some day-job work. So I'll be pulled away. I write JavaScript, AngularJS and CFScript by day and Swift by night.

Good to hear you are making so much progress. PM me if you need some external testing. Best of luck.

 

[TimothyR734]

The presenter of the the new 2019 Mac Pro had to have drawn the short straw as when he announced the price of the monitor stand and the gasps from the audience he hurried of the stage as if he was late to catch the short bus but it was priceless got a good laugh

 

[redking31591]

and @Starplayr the new Mac Pro was never meant for us mere mortals The pricing is ridiculous and whoever in marketing decided to price the stand separately (instead of rolling the $ into the display) should be shot. A real slap in the face. The technology is of course great but I think it was simply a response to deaden the Mac Pro speculation for good.
[doublepost=1561829485][/doublepost]
Good to hear you are making so much progress. PM me if you need some external testing. Best of luck.

They basically did the monitor price backwards. They should have said the monitor was $6,000 but you could save $1000 if you didn't need the stand, and then a line about how most professionals like to use a VESA mount for flexibility and then use that to say "which will be available as a $199 option for those people". They just totally bungled the optics when the better solution was right there and would have avoided all of the jokes.

 

[pkouame]

They basically did the monitor price backwards. They should have said the monitor was $6,000 but you could save $1000 if you didn't need the stand, and then a line about how most professionals like to use a VESA mount for flexibility and then use that to say "which will be available as a $199 option for those people". They just totally bungled the optics when the better solution was right there and would have avoided all of the jokes.

exactly. the stand itself is a wonderful piece of design and technology, but the optics were all wrong. All in all it is just a showpiece to demonstrate they can still engineer a powerful beast. The old Mac pros had the dubious honor of being totally assembled in the US (I think) Moving current production to China is the last straw. I wonder if Ive's departure is somehow related to this entire mess.

 

[Starplayr]

The answer is more simple : apple: "If you want the new OS , you need to sell your old mac and buy new one"
It's a matter of business

Most people will by a new Mac who want one.

I decided to go the opposite route after using Dosdude1's patcher on High Sierra and Mojave. Had I held onto my Mac mini 2012, I would still have Catalina natively, but its video is so slow, to me it wasn't worth keeping. My Mac Pro ran circles around it and it doesn't even have SATA III, USB 3.0 (yet) and Thunderbolt 2. Last year I ditched the 2012 Mac mini and its Thunderbolt Display. I am happy with 4k plus 1 TV and 1 DVI display for my MP3,1.

I just hope Apple doesn't nix the Intel instruction set anytime soon when Apple starts making their own chips. Apple iOS chips still use the ARM instruction set even though they make their own chips. So I am hoping its still Intel based and not Arm based. If they do drop Intel and its instruction set, who has 2019 Mac Pro is gonna really get screwed.

 

[pkouame]

The presenter of the the new 2019 Mac Pro had to have drawn the short straw as when he announced the price of the monitor stand and the gasps from the audience he hurried of the stage as if he was late to catch the short bus but it was priceless got a good laugh

I know man! I laughed too. Too bad for him he's a good engineer.
And to think that with all this time and money all they could come up with was the same cheese grater design...priceless.
I wonder what sales will look like a year from now...
[doublepost=1561831151][/doublepost]

Most people will by a new Mac who want one.

I decided to go the opposite route after using Dosdude1's patcher on High Sierra and Mojave. Had I held onto my Mac mini 2012, I would still have Catalina natively, but its video is so slow, to me it wasn't worth keeping. My Mac Pro ran circles around it and it doesn't even has SATA III, USB 3.0 (yet) and Thunderbolt 2. Last year I ditched the 2012 Mac mini and its Thunderbolt Display. I am happy with 4k plus 1 TV and 1 DVI display for my MP3,1.

I just hope Apple doesn't nix the Intel instruction set anytime soon when Apple starts making their own chips. Apple iOS chips still use the ARM instruction set even though they make their own chips. So I am hoping its still Intel based and not Arm based. If they do drop Intel and its instruction set, who has 2019 Mac Pro is gonna really get screwed.

Going to ARM is definitely in the stars - no going back now given their new hires. The transition will be familiar, like the PowerPC to Intel days, supporting fat binaries for the two architectures. So I don't think the Mac Pro 2019 clients should worry.

 

[Starplayr]

and @Starplayr the new Mac Pro was never meant for us mere mortals The pricing is ridiculous and whoever in marketing decided to price the stand separately (instead of rolling the $ into the display) should be shot. A real slap in the face. The technology is of course great but I think it was simply a response to deaden the Mac Pro speculation for good.
[doublepost=1561829485][/doublepost]
Good to hear you are making so much progress. PM me if you need some external testing. Best of luck.

Sure. I'll hit you up when I have first three cloning schemes in place.

 

[Starplayr]

I know man! I laughed too. Too bad for him he's a good engineer.
And to think that with all this time and money all they could come up with was the same cheese grater design...priceless.
I wonder what sales will look like a year from now...
[doublepost=1561831151][/doublepost]
Going to ARM is definitely in the stars - no going back now given their new hires. The transition will be familiar, like the PowerPC to Intel days, supporting fat binaries for the two architectures. So I don't think the Mac Pro 2019 clients should worry.

Right. Apple has switched chip sets on the Mac three times, Motorola 680XX, PowerPC and Intel.

At least Apple still sells the Mac mini line and Apple could make a computer the size of an Apple TV. So there may be hope for a decent box that everyone can afford and still have fun with it. Apple could get into the micro computer game.

 

[thicla01]

It seems Apple started to adapt The Memory Slot Utility for the new Mac Pro.
/System/Library/CoreServices/Memory\ Slot\ Utility.app

In the file Localizable.strings there is a section related to a system with 12 slots memory.
<key>keyServerSlotA1</key>
<string>Slot A1:</string>
<key>keyServerSlotA2</key>
<string>Slot A2:</string>
<key>keyServerSlotA3</key>
<string>Slot A3:</string>
<key>keyServerSlotA4</key>
<string>Slot A4:</string>
<key>keyServerSlotA5</key>
<string>Slot A5:</string>
<key>keyServerSlotA6</key>
<string>Slot A6:</string>
<key>keyServerSlotB1</key>
<string>Slot B1:</string>
<key>keyServerSlotB2</key>
<string>Slot B2:</string>
<key>keyServerSlotB3</key>
<string>Slot B3:</string>
<key>keyServerSlotB4</key>
<string>Slot B4:</string>
<key>keyServerSlotB5</key>
<string>Slot B5:</string>
<key>keyServerSlotB6</key>
<string>Slot B6:</string>

There is also a section for a system with 8 slots memory. The cMP I presume.

 

[gt2416]

Has anyone had any luck using the Continuity Activator Tool ? I have sip disabled as well as ran mount -uw / but the tool keeps crashing on launch. When I open it, it asks for my password then quits, really frustrating.

Edit: Got it to run by launching it from command line.

 

[startergo]

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

It would be great if in the final release you add:

sudo nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check $(nvram boot-args 2>/dev/null | cut -f 2-)"

instead of

sudo nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check"

To only add the argument into existing (without overriding).

 

[nekton1]

USB 3.1 works OOB with dosdude1's patcher but you'll need to do some power wiring from the spare AMP connector in the optical drives enclosure, and finessing the AMP connector into the main enclosure is tricky.

If only there was a Thunderbolt add-in!

Wow, that looks great! Thanks for doing that.

I have my 802.11ac / Bluetooth 4 cards ordered for both of my Mac Pro 3,1's. I'm also adding USB 3.0 to both boxes. 4 ports for each box. I did consider 1 USB/C port with 1 USB3.0 port, but I really don't have a use for USB/C on my main computer right now. 4 USB 3.0 ports was not only more appealing but also very cheap. Going to test the card on a 4x and 16x slot with a USB 3.0 SSD and see if there is a speed difference and if the USB 3.0 is plug and play or not on Catalina.

Once I get my cards in, I will be updating my CatWoman patcher for the 3,1 and I may include a UI for it this go around. This is mostly for me actually. I like have my own Patch script that's just tuned for a MP3,1. If it happens to help other users great.

I will be working on CloneToolX some this weekend and I am flushing out Disk-to-Image.

Unrelated: I'm also sending on iOS app to the App Store on Sunday. And I have to catch up on some day-job work. So I'll be pulled away. I write JavaScript, AngularJS and CFScript by day and Swift by night.

 

[gt2416]

I have Catalina installed on my MacBook Pro 2011 (8,1). I am having issues with rebooting / shutting down. It always causes a kernel panic. Is this a known bug ?
Also since this model of Mac doesn't support a official wifi AC card has anyone tried this

https://www.quickertek.com/product/ucard-4/

Its super expensive, but was wondering what the experience is like if anyone has it.

 

[Starplayr]

USB 3.1 works OOB with dosdude1's patcher but you'll need to do some power wiring from the spare AMP connector in the optical drives enclosure, and finessing the AMP connector into the main enclosure is tricky.

If only there was a Thunderbolt add-in!

View attachment 845684

Right Thunderbolt is on the board made with the computer. I remember getting Firewire and USB added to my SuperMac S900. That was during the Mac Clone Wars and shortly there after Apple almost went out of business. Then Bill Gates bailed out Apple with Jobs back at the helm. MicroSoft will owns non-controlling stock in Apple.

I have Catalina installed on my MacBook Pro 2011 (8,1). I am having issues with rebooting / shutting down. It always causes a kernel panic. Is this a known bug ?
Also since this model of Mac doesn't support a official wifi AC card has anyone tried this

https://www.quickertek.com/product/ucard-4/

Its super expensive, but was wondering what the experience is like if anyone has it.

Many people on here are using the cards from 27" iMacs. I believe the 2011 model. Then they use a Mini PCIe adapter. I am doing this myself, just waiting for the parts to come in from China.

I will say my 802.11n card works pretty darn good. Just don't have Handoff and AirDrop.

 

[gt2416]

Many people on here are using the cards from 27" iMacs. I believe the 2011 model. Then they use a Mini PCIe adapter. I am doing this myself, just waiting for the parts to come in from China.

I will say my 802.11n card works pretty darn good. Just don't have Handoff and AirDrop.

Could you post links to the parts if you have them please.
Wireless n is great for browsing, but most of my files are on a NAS and I like to stream games from my gaming desktop, in those scenarios wifi n is just terrible. I also have a 1gig internet connection so downloads using my MacBook seem super slow to me lol.

 

[jhowarth]

Right Thunderbolt is on the board made with the computer. I remember getting Firewire and USB added to my SuperMac S900. That was during the Mac Clone Wars and shortly there after Apple almost went out of business. Then Bill Gates bailed out Apple with Jobs back at the helm. MicroSoft will owns non-controlling stock in Apple.


Many people on here are using the cards from 27" iMacs. I believe the 2011 model. Then they use a Mini PCIe adapter. I am doing this myself, just waiting for the parts to come in from China.

I will say my 802.11n card works pretty darn good. Just don't have Handoff and AirDrop.

The BCM94360CD is from the late 2013 through 2014 models of the iMac. Definitely the best card as it has 3 wifi antennas and a dedicated bluetooth one as well as 3x3 MIMO with 1.3 Gbps at 5 GHz.

 

[jasoncarle]

Has anyone had any luck using the Continuity Activator Tool ? I have sip disabled as well as ran mount -uw / but the tool keeps crashing on launch. When I open it, it asks for my password then quits, really frustrating.

Edit: Got it to run by launching it from command line.

How do you run it from command line?

 

[Starplayr]

Could you post links to the parts if you have them please.
Wireless n is great for browsing, but most of my files are on a NAS and I like to stream games from my gaming desktop, in those scenarios wifi n is just terrible. I also have a 1gig internet connection so downloads using my MacBook seem super slow to me lol.

See Page 86, towards the middle. Keep in the mind these parts are overseas and may take 3-4 weeks.
jhowarth
[doublepost=1561856125][/doublepost]

How do you run it from command line?

The CLI for the Continuity Activation Tool is embedded in the resources.

sudo /Applications/Continuity\ Activation\ Tool.app/Contents/Resources/contitool.sh

[doublepost=1561856371][/doublepost]

The BCM94360CD is from the late 2013 through 2014 models of the iMac. Definitely the best card as it has 3 wifi antennas and a dedicated bluetooth one as well as 3x3 MIMO with 1.3 Gbps at 5 GHz.

I have that card on order. Do you know which is one the BT Antenna?

 

[Starplayr]

I haven't tested this out yet, but hdiutil can resize APFS disk images. And afterwards, with the help of diskutil, you can resize the containers. This may help users with images made with dd as well.

https://eclecticlight.co/2019/03/16/disk-utility-cant-resize-apfs-disk-images-but-hdiutil-can/

 

[gt2416]

The BCM94360CD is from the late 2013 through 2014 models of the iMac. Definitely the best card as it has 3 wifi antennas and a dedicated bluetooth one as well as 3x3 MIMO with 1.3 Gbps at 5 GHz.

The problem with that card is that it won't fit the 2011 unibody MacBook Pro. Mine use the surface mount cable, not a connector. Do you know if there's an adaptor ? I can't find one :/

 

[mdbuddin]

I posted this here as the High Sierra thread has had no posts in three years ...I have a Imac 9,1 .... I already have an installed copy of High Sierra from another machine . My iMac when in recovery mode will turn off mouse so i can't enter csrutil command . My bluetooth doesn't work either. Someone told me all i need to do is run post install patcher but the installer will not let me jump to that spot . Suggestions ?

 

[MacClueless]

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

Thanks to you and @dosdude1! I'm running on a Mac mini 5,1 and it's great except the Apps all have graphics glitches (Reminder, News, Maps, etc.).

From what you posted, graphics acceleration should be working right?

 

[jasoncarle]

The CLI for the Continuity Activation Tool is embedded in the resources.

Ha, thanks. I knew that. I had forgotten. I have it working now as well.
[doublepost=1561858740][/doublepost]

Thanks to you and @dosdude1! I'm running on a Mac mini 5,1 and it's great except the Apps all have graphics glitches (Reminder, News, Maps, etc.).

From what you posted, graphics acceleration should be working right?

You can get Maps to open and work? It crashes on my Mini 5.1. Does photos work for you or not?

 

[Starplayr]

and @Starplayr the new Mac Pro was never meant for us mere mortals The pricing is ridiculous and whoever in marketing decided to price the stand separately (instead of rolling the $ into the display) should be shot. A real slap in the face. The technology is of course great but I think it was simply a response to deaden the Mac Pro speculation for good.
[doublepost=1561829485][/doublepost]
Good to hear you are making so much progress. PM me if you need some external testing. Best of luck.

I took it easy today, but I did get Disk to Image working. There's not a lot of error handling right now but the basic UI pieces are running. I added a sheet and a notification from it to handle disk naming and the opportunity to change the destination volume incase the user picked the wrong one on the first folder window prompt.

I may simplify this a bit more and just let the use choose the folder from the slide out. Will see.

Right now I am just hammering out areas. Will be breaking out sections to classes and may use Enums for the options. I come from a scripting background and on brand new stuff, I tend to start out very procedurally using mainly ViewControllers and Functions at first. Then I usually find design patterns that I like and move things into their own Class files and making things more abstract as I go.

I also added a nice auto highlight to only the disk image name and not its extension. I liked how that turned out because normally it selects the entire field.

This is copying from an SSD to a Hard Drive and it copies at 160 Mb/s.

Currently using diskutil, hdiutil and asr. The copies are currently sector / block based, but the disk images can be expanded to larger disks. And it is possible to resize disk images, though it may be faster to resize the original pending how much data is on it. Latetly for clean installs, I've been putting that in a 32 - 64 GB Disk for its image and I can expand it to a larger disk when I do the restore.

These methods support HFS+ and APFS. So it's nice having one tool that can handle both.

The only caveat I have at this time cloning from the startup disk directly. So, I'll probably include a option that puts CloneToolX on a Base System and there it can handle any copy.

There has been one request for Windows and Bootcamp. I will look at it once CloneToolX is up and running. And find the best tool to copy NTFS volumes.