Trying to get best performance out of old MacBooks in macOS.

[B S Magnet]

Despite what people say about its RAM usage, Chrome will perform better than Firefox. It's just a stronger base.
Even on a system with 1GB of RAM Chrome performs better.

That’s great… if you want to run Lion or later on a Mac which runs Snow Leopard far better.

I use the latter on my MacBookPro4,1 because it’s rock-stable (though it’s also a heavily customized install I’ve been honing since 2009). It runs everything I need, and yes, this means living without Chromium or Chrome. (I’m also aware of ways to make this system run Catalina or even Big Sur quite nicely, but I’d also be less liable to use it. And using it is sort of the point!)

Does this mean it’s sluggish with a security-current Mozilla browser like Interweb (compared with a hypothetical, 64-bit Chrome which doesn’t actually exist)? Nope. I do run tweaks and also direct the browser cache to a RAM disk with Esperance DV (or RAM Disk Creator). But I’m also aware this won’t be a solution to work for everyone. Then again, that’s why I’m here on the MR Early Intel Macs forum.

For Catalina with Dosdude's patcher, the key is of course an SSD, and enough RAM, because its RAM usage is much higher than Mojave.

We know Catalina will run fine on a 2GB C2D MacBook Air from 2010.

 

[SpatialZebra]

Running Catalina on it makes no sense. Having no proper graphics acceleration kills the whole experience, so maximum is Mountain Lion.
Snow Leopard is a terrible experience for web browsing, Lion does it much better, and Mountain Lion even better.
I'd love graphics acceleration in like Mavericks, Yosemite and El Capitan, but unfortunately nobody was able to write drivers. The utility that gets you drivers in Mountain Lion will fail installing in newer versions.

 

[B S Magnet]

Running Catalina on it makes no sense.

Talk to @TheShortTimer … he might beg to differ.

Having no proper graphics acceleration kills the whole experience, so maximum is Mountain Lion.
Snow Leopard is a terrible experience for web browsing, Lion does it much better, and Mountain Lion even better.

OK. Whatever works for you, go for it!

 

[appltech]

So how about chopped Windows XP or Windows 7?
If it's not the main rig, give it a try.
I found that a lot of potato (not yours) PC runs well on those and optimized Windows 7 uses resources thoughtful

 

[TheShortTimer]

Talk to @TheShortTimer … he might beg to differ.

Indeed I would!

Running Catalina on it makes no sense.

Really? It's making perfect sense for me.

To save constantly retyping the same set of observations, I'll instead share the posts that I made on this topic in the following threads:

High Sierra / Mojave on 2GB?​

MacBook 2010 is slow without battery, any way how to speed up?​

Show off your Early Intel Macs!​

 

[B S Magnet]

Indeed I would!



Really? It's making perfect sense for me.

To save constantly retyping the same set of observations, I'll instead share the posts that I made on this topic in the following threads:

High Sierra / Mojave on 2GB?​

MacBook 2010 is slow without battery, any way how to speed up?​

Show off your Early Intel Macs!​

Thanks to you, I lowkey admit I’m now sorta maybe kinda keeping my eye out locally for a cheap mid-2011 11-inch A1370 1.8GHz i7, because why not…

 

[Amethyst1]

Running Catalina on it makes no sense. Having no proper graphics acceleration kills the whole experience,

The machine @B S Magnet talked about is a 2010 MacBook Air with a GeForce 320M. It provides graphics acceleration.

mid-2011 11-inch A1370 1.8GHz i7

…which can be coaxed to run Snow Leopard, although the internal LCD was glitchy in my experience.

 

[B S Magnet]

The machine @B S Magnet talked about is a 2010 MacBook Air with a GeForce 320M. It provides graphics acceleration.


…which can be coaxed to run Snow Leopard, although the internal LCD was glitchy in my experience.

That’s somewhat of a surprise to hear, particularly when factoring how it runs with the same Intel HD 3000 iGPU at 384MB shared memory — the same as what the early 2011 2.3GHz 13-inch MacBook Pro starts with as a baseline.

EDIT: After having read that thread, I think I understand the issue now, sort of. On another note, you mentioned something about copying over plists to make Turbo Boost Switch work properly in 10.6.8 for that MBA. What were you referring to there, specifically?

 

[Amethyst1]

On another note, you mentioned something about copying over plists to make Turbo Boost Switch work properly in 10.6.8 for that MBA. What were you referring to there, specifically?

From a Lion (or later) install, copy
MacBookAir4_1.plist
MacBookAir4_2.plist
from
/System/Library/Extensions/IOPlatformPluginFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin.kext/Contents/Resources
to the same location on Snow Leopard.

 

[SpatialZebra]

Installing Catalina on this ain't more useful that making an OS that displays a picture of the Catalina desktop: you can't do anything with it.
I can even install Monterey, but even worse, the USBs are not supported!

What works for me is going to be dual boot Mountain Lion and Lubuntu 18.04 (or should I try 19? I know 20 is too heavy).