What have you done with an early Intel recently?

[ToniCH]

I today watched this spectacular failure and decided to try it myself but instead of Sonoma I installed Monterey to my identical MBP 2010 i5 17". Before it was a double boot High Sierra + Linux Mint which worked great. They both existed on the same SSD but on different partitions.

The Monterey seems to work just fine on this machine. But...

I think Grub (or whatever bootloader) the Mint was relying on was/is also using the EFI-partition. I have not tried yet if I can boot back to Mint anymore but I guess there could be a problem with the Grub and OCLP existing on the same EFI-partition. Or is there? Do they override each other when installed or can they co-exist? 🧐 This I haven't tried before.

What do you think, can I boot back to Mint anymore? Do I have to reinstall Mint to regain access? Will Grub screw up the OCLP if reinstalled? Or is it possible at all to get the two to work together? If anybody knows it would save me a lot of time trying. Thanks!

 

[headlessmike]

I today watched this spectacular failure and decided to try it myself but instead of Sonoma I installed Monterey to my identical MBP 2010 i5 17". Before it was a double boot High Sierra + Linux Mint which worked great. They both existed on the same SSD but on different partitions.

The Monterey seems to work just fine on this machine. But...

I think Grub (or whatever bootloader) the Mint was relying on was/is also using the EFI-partition. I have not tried yet if I can boot back to Mint anymore but I guess there could be a problem with the Grub and OCLP existing on the same EFI-partition. Or is there? Do they override each other when installed or can they co-exist? 🧐 This I haven't tried before.

What do you think, can I boot back to Mint anymore? Do I have to reinstall Mint to regain access? Will Grub screw up the OCLP if reinstalled? Or is it possible at all to get the two to work together? If anybody knows it would save me a lot of time trying. Thanks!

There are certainly ways to get OC and Linux to play nicely together. I've never tried though, so hopefully someone with experience in this will chime in. Here is the documentation for OC (which OCLP installs) regarding dual booting at least: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Multiboot/

 

[ToniCH]

Ok, tried rebooting. The Linux bootloader does not appear anymore. So, I need to study how to reinstall or modify the EFI-volume so both can boot - if its even possible.

This looks promising, the last part about Linux: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Multiboot/empty/samedisk.html#situation-this-applies-for

So, it seems OC could load Linuxes without Grub. That would make things simpler.

But, this page has no content yet: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Multiboot/exist/os.html
So, I guess the easiest way would be to reinstall Linux and try to get them to co-operate.

 

[TheShortTimer]

It's pretty similar. The main difference is setting up the Open Core EFI. OCLP makes that easy to do, but for a first time user it can be easy to get things mixed up and think that things aren't working.

I put my insomnia to good use and got things underway this morning.

What I did was set up the modified EFI partition on the USB installer at first. Then I could install the OS without touching anything on the computer except for the specific partition where the system was installed. That system won't boot properly though without the USB drive inserted. Once I felt happy with everything, I would then install Open Core to the internal boot drive.

My method was roughly the same. It got me this far:

The installer was successfully created and validated. Next, the patcher rebooted the computer and began to install Sonoma. This took the better part of 30 minutes and I'm delighted to report that it went without a hitch. Things worked out exactly as I'd hoped with Sonoma replacing Catalina instead of creating a 2nd partition.

Everything appears to be working well. I always test video playback first because that's good indication of performance.

My programs from Catalina run identically under Sonoma - so I haven't had to replace anything, which is great.

Both the patcher and the OS have updated themselves - also great!

All in all, I'm very happy. It's early days but I haven't spotted any major decline in responsiveness compared to Catalina. Fingers crossed that upgrading means I'm free from the Sleep Wake EFI issue.

Now that I'm more accustomed to how OCLP works, I'll often install it directly to the internal SSD from the start. That makes the computer act more or less like a supported Mac with newer OS's right away. Even with the Open Core EFI installed on the internal drive, one can always bypass it by holding the option key at boot if you want to boot into a supported OS on another partition or drive.

Yeah, I think I'll also do the same.

Which Mac are you considering to try Sonoma on? The 2012 MBP in your signature would probably handle Sonoma the best since it has a Metal GPU, though others would work too.

It's not that 2012 MBP it's this one...

(I really need to update my signature to include the additional acquisitions.)

Ok, tried rebooting. The Linux bootloader does not appear anymore. So, I need to study how to reinstall or modify the EFI-volume so both can boot - if its even possible.

This looks promising, the last part about Linux: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Multiboot/empty/samedisk.html#situation-this-applies-for

So, it seems OC could load Linuxes without Grub. That would make things simpler.

But, this page has no content yet: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Multiboot/exist/os.html
So, I guess the easiest way would be to reinstall Linux and try to get them to co-operate.

Have you tried rEFInd? I used it during my brief dabble with Linux on my 2010 MBA because I couldn't get Grub to work properly and it was an excellent alternative.

 

[dandeco]

Now that I've finished up with all the iPads at my workplace, I'm working on testing and wiping/resetting Mac laptops, including a bunch of 13" unibody MacBook Pros (A1278). Interestingly enough, a couple of them were the initial 13" model from October 2008!

Despite using the same type of unibody design and carrying the same base model number (A1278), Apple instead sold this as a "regular" MacBook. The lower-end model didn't have a backlit keyboard, but the higher-end model did. But for the convenience of my workplace, I label and group this with the rest of the 13" MacBook Pros.

This model was infamous in the audiovisual market for lacking a FireWire port. People were baffled, because unlike the MacBook Air at the time, this 13" aluminum MacBook was pretty good for light-to-moderate video editing, but back then the DV and HDV camcorders still shot the highest quality; it wasn't until a year later when AVCHD camcorders began to match HDV quality and lead to the discontinuation of tape-based digital camcorders. And just forget about Target Disk Mode.
Nine months after this 13" unibody MacBook's launch, it was rebranded as a MacBook Pro and had a FireWire 800 and SD card slot added, though the audio line-in jack was removed.

Unlike its' successor models, this one even had an easily swappable battery! (The battery on the 2009-12 unibody 13" MacBook Pros can also be replaced with the aid of the proper screwdrivers, but Apple didn't want you to do that.)

Preparing that MacBook "Pro" for resell, with the RAM bumped up to 4 GB and a freshly-wiped 250 GB hard drive installed in the case, and a clean install of Mac OS X 10.11 "El Capitan".

 

[DCBassman]

Down to three Macs now, the two Unibody iMacs and the Unibody Macbook Pro. All are on High Sierra, and likely to stay there. I'll use Vivaldi for browsing and email for as long as it supports HS, then find something else.

MacOS versions are only as they are to force hardware sales, so I'll stick to this mid-point where the machines perform well and the OS is still usable.

The late-2009 Core 2 Duo 27" will likely be next to go, mainly because it takes up too much space in our tiny apartment. Shame, it's my favourite iMac format.

Daily driver is back to being the Windows machine, a pretty nippy Haswell i5 with 16GB RAM, in a case with enough storage space for a small data centre. That will likely need a new boot drive in the medium term. It uses an OCZ Vertex 4 120GB SSD, a venerable and still very fast drive that I've had for nearly a decade, maybe actually a decade! OPr maybe I'll go up a generation or two and get board/RAM/CPU and an M.2 NVME boot drive.

Who knows?

 

[headlessmike]

Installed Sonoma on my 2010 MacBook this evening. I'm astonished by how well it runs. My initial experience is that it runs better than Big Sur does, which surprises me given how well Big Sur has always run on my machines. I might just keep this as the main OS on this old WhiteBook. Safari 17 in particular runs real smoothly. The machine is still doing a load of post-install housekeeping, so things will probably improve over the next day as well.

 

[rusavv]

Done! I've replaced MBA 11" Mid 2012 CPU again. Now it has a quad-core i7 3612QE with lower TDP. Also RAM had been updated to 16 GB with @dosdude1 video guide and I've even changed UEFI to support PCIe 3.0 so the NVMe speed had doubled!

Now this is a nice small performance machine! Geekbench score is even higher than with 2.3 GHz CPU as long as new processor is not throttling.

Oh, almost forgot. I've also upgraded AirPort module so now I can use Universal Control with my iPad mini.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

Installed Sonoma on my 2010 MacBook this evening. I'm astonished by how well it runs. My initial experience is that it runs better than Big Sur does, which surprises me given how well Big Sur has always run on my machines. I might just keep this as the main OS on this old WhiteBook. Safari 17 in particular runs real smoothly. The machine is still doing a load of post-install housekeeping, so things will probably improve over the next day as well.

View attachment 2299234

I've got one of those old MacBooks. Currently with Snow Leopard and Windows XP on it

How did you get Sonoma on there, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[headlessmike]

I've got one of those old MacBooks. Currently with Snow Leopard and Windows XP on it

How did you get Sonoma on there, if you don't mind me asking?

There's a tool called Open Core Legacy Patcher (OCLP) that can be used to install macOS 11 and newer on older, unsupported hardware. There's a long thread about running Sonoma with OCLP here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-14-sonoma-on-unsupported-macs-thread.2391630/

Many things work like they would on newer Macs, but depending on the Mac you are using there can be glitches. The 2010 MacBook I have has some graphical glitches, and some apps like Maps don't work properly because of this, but for basic needs it works fine. Of course, the performance on these older machines isn't anywhere near a modern Mac. They are perfectly usable though for many tasks. I wouldn't recommend running anything newer than like High Sierra without an SSD installed though. The newer systems are really built for SSDs, even though HDDs still work in a pinch.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

There's a tool called Open Core Legacy Patcher (OCLP) that can be used to install macOS 11 and newer on older, unsupported hardware. There's a long thread about running Sonoma with OCLP here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-14-sonoma-on-unsupported-macs-thread.2391630/

May things work like they would on newer Macs, but depending on the Mac you are using there can be glitches. The 2010 MacBook I have has some graphical glitches, and some apps like Maps don't work properly because of this, but for basic needs it works fine. Of course, the performance on these older machines isn't anywhere near a modern Mac. They are perfectly usable though for many tasks. I wouldn't recommend running anything newer than like High Sierra without an SSD installed though. The newer systems are really built for SSDs, even though HDDs still work in a pinch.

Thanks for the info!

Yeah, an SSD was the first thing I put in there - that makes suuuuch a difference in boot times alone already.
Then some more RAM.
Although I wasn’t aware they could take 16 GB like yours seems to be using. I might try that out as well.

This MacBook is primarily a tinkering and nostalgia thing for me, so this could be an interesting thing for a rainy Saturday or so 😊

 

[headlessmike]

Thanks for the info!

Yeah, an SSD was the first thing I put in there - that makes suuuuch a difference in boot times alone already.
Then some more RAM.
Although I wasn’t aware they could take 16 GB like yours seems to be using. I might try that out as well.

This MacBook is primarily a tinkering and nostalgia thing for me, so this could be an interesting thing for a rainy Saturday or so 😊

The 16 GB is overkill for most things I use this for, but I got it cheaply when upgrading from the original 2 GB. The only limitation that I know of is that this machine is a bit picky with RAM speeds. Supposedly, using faster 1333 MHz RAM will not work even though it should just down clock to the correct 1066 MHz speed of the motherboard. I got one of OWC's 16 GB packs for only €20 from Amazon and it just worked.

The MacBook serves the same purpose for me. I have a few different versions of macOS on it, from Snow Leopard to Sonoma. I sometimes use it for writing, and Sonoma works great for that since I can still access things on the modern web easily.

For anyone trying Big Sur or newer on an older C2D Mac like this, be patient. It takes some time (hours) for the system to finish everything post-install, especially on a slower machine. Also, after booting up the machine, waiting a few minutes for things to settle down before using it makes it a much more enjoyable experience. It's not like my M1 that's ready to go mere seconds after powering on the computer.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

The 16 GB is overkill for most things I use this for, but I got it cheaply when upgrading from the original 2 GB. The only limitation that I know of is that this machine is a bit picky with RAM speeds. Supposedly, using faster 1333 MHz RAM will not work even though it should just down clock to the correct 1066 MHz speed of the motherboard. I got one of OWC's 16 GB packs for only €20 from Amazon and it just worked.

The MacBook serves the same purpose for me. I have a few different versions of macOS on it, from Snow Leopard to Sonoma. I sometimes use it for writing, and Sonoma works great for that since I can still access things on the modern web easily.

For anyone trying Big Sur or newer on an older C2D Mac like this, be patient. It takes some time (hours) for the system to finish everything post-install, especially on a slower machine. Also, after booting up the machine, waiting a few minutes for things to settle down before using it makes it a much more enjoyable experience. It's not like my M1 that's ready to go mere seconds after powering on the computer.

I already notice that on my 2020 i5 MBP😂

And waking that one from sleep compared to waking my M1 MBA… I keep thinking something went wrong, the battery died or I shut it (the MBP) down already and that’s why it doesn’t react.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

Guys, please remind me, which most recent Mac OS version still have drivers for GeForce320? (For a1342 ).

 

[headlessmike]

Guys, please remind me, which most recent Mac OS version still have drivers for GeForce320? (For a1342 ).

The last OS to officially support the 320M was 10.13 High Sierra.

 

[DouglasCarroll]

Macbook Pro 8,2 returned to High Sierra. Although I have left Ventura on the iMac 12,1, I do not like the later versions of macOS. Once I find a Linux distro that that I like that also plays well with Apple BT peripherals, I will change my three remaining Macs over to it.

Or how about… “Once I find a Linux distro that actually works with the built in isight camera on my Macbook pro without you having to learn impossible to decipher Linux terminal hieroglyphics to get it running”…

That’s what killed my interest in Linux after I installed all the latest main linux distros on my Macbook pro and NONE of them worked with the built in camera. They should call it “Lame-ux” instead…

 

[DouglasCarroll]

I put my insomnia to good use and got things underway this morning.

My method was roughly the same. It got me this far:

The installer was successfully created and validated. Next, the patcher rebooted the computer and began to install Sonoma. This took the better part of 30 minutes and I'm delighted to report that it went without a hitch. Things worked out exactly as I'd hoped with Sonoma replacing Catalina instead of creating a 2nd partition.

Everything appears to be working well. I always test video playback first because that's good indication of performance.

My programs from Catalina run identically under Sonoma - so I haven't had to replace anything, which is great.

Both the patcher and the OS have updated themselves - also great!

All in all, I'm very happy. It's early days but I haven't spotted any major decline in responsiveness compared to Catalina. Fingers crossed that upgrading means I'm free from the Sleep Wake EFI issue.



Yeah, I think I'll also do the same.



It's not that 2012 MBP it's this one...

(I really need to update my signature to include the additional acquisitions.)



Have you tried rEFInd? I used it during my brief dabble with Linux on my 2010 MBA because I couldn't get Grub to work properly and it was an excellent alternative.

“The Last Starfighter”

Hell Yeah!

😀

 

[ocmac]

Or how about… “Once I find a Linux distro that actually works with the built in isight camera on my Macbook pro without you having to learn impossible to decipher Linux terminal hieroglyphics to get it running”…

That’s what killed my interest in Linux after I installed all the latest main linux distros on my Macbook pro and NONE of them worked with the built in camera. They should call it “Lame-ux” instead…

It's not like Linux has to support every random piece of Crapple hardware out there. Linux gives life to millions of computers that Microsoft and Apple abandons, and is pretty much the only way out their greedy, corporate, walled in gardens. I personally don't put Linux on Apple hardware, it's just always a pain and never works as well as Cupertino software, which is unsurprising. This from someone whose first foray into Linux on a Mac was PowerPC Ubuntu Dapper Drake in 2005. On a old Thinkpad, or a semi decent Dell, or on Linux specific hardware like Starlab or System76, Linux be da bomb.

 

[DouglasCarroll]

It's not like Linux has to support every random piece of Crapple hardware out there. Linux gives life to millions of computers that Microsoft and Apple abandons, and is pretty much the only way out their greedy, corporate, walled in gardens. I personally don't put Linux on Apple hardware, it's just always a pain and never works as well as Cupertino software, which is unsurprising. This from someone whose first foray into Linux on a Mac was PowerPC Ubuntu Dapper Drake in 2005. On a old Thinkpad, or a semi decent Dell, or on Linux specific hardware like Starlab or System76, Linux be da bomb.

Built in webcams are hardly “random”

 

[wicknix]

Built in webcams are hardly “random”

Apples are. They are proprietary. Thats why you have to do the whole run around to extract the firmware from a Mac in order to get it to work. Linux distros cant legally include the firmware, otherwise they would, like they do for most non apple hardware. It’s not their fault that Apple sucks.

 

[DCBassman]

Or how about… “Once I find a Linux distro that actually works with the built in isight camera on my Macbook pro without you having to learn impossible to decipher Linux terminal hieroglyphics to get it running”…

That’s what killed my interest in Linux after I installed all the latest main linux distros on my Macbook pro and NONE of them worked with the built in camera. They should call it “Lame-ux” instead…

Well, the camera on my MBP only functions when it feels like it, and I'm not a great webcam user anyhow. The caneras on all the different iMacs I've tried Linux with worked "out of the box" although none of those was later than 2011. My beef is mainly with Magic Mice.

 

[DouglasCarroll]

Apples are. They are proprietary. Thats why you have to do the whole run around to extract the firmware from a Mac in order to get it to work. Linux distros cant legally include the firmware, otherwise they would, like they do for most non apple hardware. It’s not their fault that Apple sucks.

Fair enough, but they could certainly include an automated utility to take care of placing the extracted firmware where it goes without punishing Mac users who aren’t “Linux Gurus” who know where and how to do this. THAT is definitely something the Linux community could do if they want to win over more users and lower barriers to adoption.

 

[GMShadow]

The 16 GB is overkill for most things I use this for, but I got it cheaply when upgrading from the original 2 GB. The only limitation that I know of is that this machine is a bit picky with RAM speeds. Supposedly, using faster 1333 MHz RAM will not work even though it should just down clock to the correct 1066 MHz speed of the motherboard. I got one of OWC's 16 GB packs for only €20 from Amazon and it just worked.

My 2010 has 1GB/8GB just for that reason, as at the time I bought an 8GB stick that then refused to let the system POST, so I put one of the original 1GB 1066 sticks in Slot 0 to set the speed correctly.

I ended up upgrading to a new Mac once my financial situation improved, and that Mac served solely for iTunes duties from 2017-2020 so I never 'fixed' it with an extra 8GB stick.

 

[wicknix]

Fair enough, but they could certainly include an automated utility to take care of placing the extracted firmware where it goes without punishing Mac users who aren’t “Linux Gurus” who know where and how to do this. THAT is definitely something the Linux community could do if they want to win over more users and lower barriers to adoption.

They could, yes, but considering most Linux devs work for free, and the fact that 99% of them probably don't own Mac hardware is a good enough reason that it hasn't been done. Just be happy somebody found a way to actually get the iSight camera working, and that there is a way to get it to work. You can find the firmware already extracted from MacOS with a simple web search. Then just place it in the proper location per the documentation and reboot. It isnt that hard honestly.

Cheers

Edit: Here is the firmware download.
Then: sudo apt install isight-firmware-tools and follow the prompts. Done.

 

[DCBassman]

I'm away from home at the moment, we're house/cat sitting. So I've got the 2011 MBP here as the communications centre, on a 6Mbps internet connection, so I have to live with it until we're home. I do have backup (you can never have too much backup...) in the form of Asus S200E notebooks, plural. One is specifically for the small business I run, the other is the true backup machine.
So, how is the MBP doing? Not well. Performance is sluggish, even down to typing not keeping up with my arthritic fingers. Genie effect is awfully ragged. gSwitch is set for integrated GPU. I'll try it in 'auto' mode for a while.
The new battery is doing well, no complaints there.
It's as if the machine is being throttled. How best to check that?