Running Mavericks on 2009 Macbook?

[VirtuallyInsane]

Yesterday, I entered an auction on eBay and I bought a fully working 2009 Macbook 13 inch (5,2) very cheap (for about £16/$20) that officially runs from 10.5.5 to 10.11.6 and is shipping to me on Snow Leopard (10.6.8). I don't want to run El Capitan/Yosemite on it because it will probably slow the system down with the 2 GB RAM and 60GB HD (and I really dislike the design of it on older Macs).

Will Mavericks run well on it, and will it be able to run most apps fine? The reason I am choosing Mavericks over Mountain Lion is because of compatibility and AirPlay (I wanna use that along with iCloud). I know that Yosemite/El Capitan is more compatible, but I don't want to push it too much. I don't want to keep in on Snow Leopard because of the lack of compatibility.

 

[theMarble]

Will Mavericks run well on it, and will it be able to run most apps fine?

Absolutely! Chromium Legacy is the best browser to use (in combination with Firefox ESR), it's still updated and nearly every website works fine on it.

"Most apps" depends on what you want out of it, but the iLife and iWork 2013 suites work great, Adobe CS6 through to CC 2015 works as well.

 

[Amethyst1]

Will Mavericks run well on it, and will it be able to run most apps fine?

With at least 4 GB RAM and an SSD, you’ll be good to go.

 

[VirtuallyInsane]

With at least 4 GB RAM and an SSD, you’ll be good to go.

Thanks, I'll probably do that soon. It's not hard to upgrade that, and not expensive either. Considering that I ran Adobe CC on a 2014 MBA with 120 GB Flash Storage and 4BG RAM for two years, this should be easier on the Macbook

Absolutely! Chromium Legacy is the best browser to use (in combination with Firefox ESR), it's still updated and nearly every website works fine on it.

"Most apps" depends on what you want out of it, but the iLife and iWork 2013 suites work great, Adobe CS6 through to CC 2015 works as well.

Yeah, I will probably use that, thanks. I have tried Interweb, and Nightly, and I use Firefox frequently. As long as Chromium is formatted and not a massive memory hog then that will be fine IMO. As long as it works well.

Yeah, I will mostly be using it for productivity, music playback, and video playback. All the simple, basic stuff. I do the heavy lifting on my MBP 2020 and iMac.

 

[eyoungren]

Thanks, I'll probably do that soon. It's not hard to upgrade that, and not expensive either. Considering that I ran Adobe CC on a 2014 MBA with 120 GB Flash Storage and 4BG RAM for two years, this should be easier on the Macbook



Yeah, I will probably use that, thanks. I have tried Interweb, and Nightly, and I use Firefox frequently. As long as Chromium is formatted and not a massive memory hog then that will be fine IMO. As long as it works well.

Yeah, I will mostly be using it for productivity, music playback, and video playback. All the simple, basic stuff. I do the heavy lifting on my MBP 2020 and iMac.

Not entirely related, but you mentioned Adobe CC so that opens the door.

Mavericks has an SMB2 bug. Connections to Windows computers and/or servers last only 24 hours at a time. This is self-evident when trying to access InDesign files on connected SMB shares. InDesign will simply quit out on the first attempted save (and you lose all changes). The only solution is a restart of the Mac running Mavericks. Disconnecting and reconnecting to the share does not work.

You can work around that by forcing an SMB1 connection. To do that, you'd Connect to Server as normal, but use CIFS://XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX (where X is the IP address or computer name of the share). However, a SMB1 connection defeats the purpose of having SMB2 in the first place.

If SMB connections are not something you routinely use or do, then this isn't a concern.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Mavericks has an SMB2 bug. Connections to Windows computers and/or servers last only 24 hours at a time. This is self-evident when trying to access InDesign files on connected SMB shares. InDesign will simply quit out on the first attempted save (and you lose all changes). The only solution is a restart of the Mac running Mavericks. Disconnecting and reconnecting to the share does not work.

...I have not experienced this. I have a Windows 10 PC in my apartment which I use to play video games. I connect my Mavericks Mac to this PC over SMB2 in order to transfer files and such.

My connection does die on occasion—I've never timed it, but it may be the case that it happens after 24 hours—but I can definitely connect again without rebooting.

I did have to make a change to nsmb.conf in order to connect to the PC at all:

sudo sh -c "echo '[default]' >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo 'signing_required=yes' >> /etc/nsmb.conf"

Maybe that's related? I've never quite understood what it did.

 

[eyoungren]

...I have not experienced this. I have a Windows 10 PC in my apartment which I use to play video games. I connect my Mavericks Mac to this PC over SMB2 in order to transfer files and such.

My connection does die on occasion—I've never timed it, but it may be the case that it happens after 24 hours—but I can definitely connect again without rebooting.

I did have to make a change to nsmb.conf in order to connect to the PC at all:

sudo sh -c "echo '[default]' >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo 'signing_required=yes' >> /etc/nsmb.conf"

Maybe that's related? I've never quite understood what it did.

If you are just transferring files that's one thing, but OP (@VirtuallyInsane) mentioned Adobe CC. And with InDesign on Mavericks this bug is a particular killer by causing InDesign simply to quit out with no warning.

If you disconnect and then reconnect this does not change in regards to InDesign files. You'll open an INDD file again, try and save and boom ID quits. Only a restart will solve this (in relation to InDesign).

I was on Mavericks for several months at my old job. InDesign files were on a Windows 2008 server. For years I simply left the Macs running and connected. With Mavericks, I'd return to work the following day, open and save a file, and ID would immediately quit.

I could still copy files, so I'm not sure how many other apps it affects (or not). But I know the bug affects InDesign files.

As to your conf., change, when you connect to a shared drive there is a handshake. Credentials are exchanged to verify that the client has the authority to connect. Digital signing is a unique (to your computer and hardware) ID signature that the server (or sharing computer) will require before allowing you to connect. That may be where the issue lies, IDK. But you had to turn it off (I did too, but I'd already done that years before with a previous server and it was off already at that time) so the connection is only relying on password authentication.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Only a restart will solve this (in relation to InDesign).

Oh—are we talking about restarting the whole computer, or just InDesign? I thought it was the former! Sorry!

But you had to turn it off (I did too, but I'd already done that years before with a previous server and it was off already at that time) so the connection was only relying on password authentication.

But it's weird, because the configuration line would appear to turn signing on (ie, require it), not off!

 

[eyoungren]

Oh—are we talking about restarting the whole computer, or just InDesign? I thought it was the former! Sorry!


But it's weird, because the configuration line would appear to turn signing on (ie, require it), not off!

OK, maybe if I explain like this…

- MacPro connects to server on day 1. I open ID files on the server with InDesign. Save, no problems all day.

- I go home. MacPro is left on and is still connected to the server.

- 24 hours later, on day 2, I start work. Since the MacPro was left running and connected to the server I start opening a file. I make changes. I save. InDesign immediately quits.

- I restart InDesign. Open an ID file, make the same change, save. InDesign immediately quits. Repeat as many times as you want.

- I disconnect from the server. Reconnect to server. Open InDesign. Open an ID file, make the same change, save. InDesign immediately quits. Repeat this as many times as you want to - ID will keep quitting every time you try to save.

- Restart the Mac Pro. Reconnect to server, open InDesign. Open an ID file. Make change, save. Change is saved, InDesign remains open.

So, only a restart of the Mac solves this problem with SMB connections and InDesign.

I cannot recall if I had the same issue with other apps (I might have). InDesign was the major app I used for work so that I DO remember.

 

[eyoungren]

Here is some corroboration…

OS X 10.9 Mavericks Workaround for SMB

Upgrading is never easy. There is always some new bug introduced as a feature. That said, you may have noticed that connecting to NAS shar...

cammodude.blogspot.com

OS X Mavericks SMB2 Troubles? Here’s A Workaround -

Apple’s OS X Mavericks rollout, though not perfect, has been pretty darned smooth. Of the relatively few issues that pop up repeatedly, the Mavericks SMB2

fairerplatform.com

Mavericks' SMB2 problem and fixes

No, it's not just you. Apple's Mavericks is having trouble connecting to some network-attached storage and file servers. Fortunately, there are ways to fix it.

www.zdnet.com

 

[VirtuallyInsane]

Not entirely related, but you mentioned Adobe CC so that opens the door.

Mavericks has an SMB2 bug. Connections to Windows computers and/or servers last only 24 hours at a time. This is self-evident when trying to access InDesign files on connected SMB shares. InDesign will simply quit out on the first attempted save (and you lose all changes). The only solution is a restart of the Mac running Mavericks. Disconnecting and reconnecting to the share does not work.

You can work around that by forcing an SMB1 connection. To do that, you'd Connect to Server as normal, but use CIFS://XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX (where X is the IP address or computer name of the share). However, a SMB1 connection defeats the purpose of having SMB2 in the first place.

If SMB connections are not something you routinely use or do, then this isn't a concern.

Thank you for pointing this out. Although I don't use servers, this will definitely help other users on Mavericks who use Adobe CC, and if I ever use a server in the future. I didn't know that such a bug existed before you mentioned it.

 

[eyoungren]

Thank you for pointing this out. Although I don't use servers, this will definitely help other users on Mavericks who use Adobe CC, and if I ever use a server in the future. I didn't know that such a bug existed before you mentioned it.

No problem.

I can recall that it took me over a week to discover what the problem was. Of course now, it's known, but back then it took some digging. Fortunately, I did not lose anything when the problem first occurred.

But this was a real PITA back then. I don't shut down computers, ever. Sleep maybe, but usually they just idle at full power with the screen off. So, being forced to restart my Mac each day AND go through the process of reconnecting to eight or nine server shares was frustrating.