Should I upgrade to Catalina?

[Souponastick270]

Hi,

I’m currently using a late 2012 iMac on Mojave and have held off on Catalina because of the issues people had when I first launched.

But given the latest security scare with Safari and Apple no longer providing updates for Mojave - is Catalina now a stable OS or is it still the hot mess it seemed to be ?

I currently boot my iMac from an external SSD via USB3 and this runs quite well, my idea was to create another boot drive and try upgrading that, so I’d end up with two boot drives (one Mojave and one Catalina) would this be the best way to proceed ?

 

[Madhatter32]

You can just backup the Mojave drive (or make it bootable) and give Catalina a whirl on your internal. You can always go back if you do not like it. Catalina is has been good for me and is very stable. The only concern would be if you still need to use 32 bit apps, which is not a concern for me.

 

[Souponastick270]

Had a quick look and there are only a few games from GOG that are listed as 32bit - which I assume I can update at some point so I can keep those going. Other than that there’s nothing note worthy in the applications listed as still being 32bit.

The reason I’m thinking of making a second boot drive is so I can keep one good Mojave drive and if I upgrade the second to Catalina and don’t like it then I have the fallback - the internal drive is an old non fusion 5400rpm spinner - hence why I now boot off of an external SSD lol

But my question ultimately, so Catalina isn’t as bad as everyone made it seem at launch ?

 

[Boyd01]

It has been very stable for me on a 2018 Mini, also fine on a 2012 Mini but that machine is just a file server. However, are you aware that Apple is expected to stop providing security updates to Catalina by the end of the year? So, it will soon be in the same boat as Mojave unfortunately.

 

[Souponastick270]

Yes I realise I’m just postponing the inevitable by going through this but if it keeps the machine secure for now then I don’t mind - I’m hoping there might be a new 27” Apple Silicone coming soon…