What have you done with an early Intel recently?

[kPoponmyiPod]

Modern Linux runs really well on these machines too if you need support for more modern software. My 2010 white MacBook has 4 OS's on it: Snow Leopard (oldest OS supported), High Sierra (newest OS supported), Sequoia (unsupported but runs surprisingly well with OCLP), and the latest version of Ubuntu.

I'm considering using Linux for banking/etc. so this can be my only machine but I currently have Mavericks dual booted with Win7 through Boot Camp and so I'd need to do some form of virtualization. I use the OS X side like 95+% of the time---does anyone know how to virtualize a fairly recent Linux distro under Mavericks?

 

[MBAir2010]

im running the Macbook Pro 2012 m and the second drive, Mojave now is a boot of El Captain....
which is no big deal except i cannot format, erase or do anything with the drive.
there was not a time machine back up since nothing i had on that was important anyway.

i even tried reformatting something to MSdos since this drive a green WD 265 will go into a Dell win10,
as that drive was not read on that Dell but just the OWC for the enclosuer.

i have formatted drives since the 1990's and always solved problems like this.
whadda think i ma doing a wrong?

thanks in advance
BTW
this MBPro is very fast and responsive running Mtlion today!

 

[DCBassman]

Dead MBP 8,2 Late: still no clue as to how to revive it. May swap in the logic board and SSD from the early 8,2 and at least gain a high-res display for it. Doesn't seem to be much else I can do. The machine gets warm, so it's doing *something*, but what? It feels like it just needs some sort of nudge to wake it up, but I'm all out of ideas...

 

[MultiFinder17]

Been a while since I chimed in here with some of the older machines that I still use daily in my classroom.
From oldest to newest:

2009 Mac mini (2.0GHz C2D, 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD + 2TB HDD, macOS 10.13). This is my main classroom server, used as a Time Machine backup location for all the other Macs in the room as well as running my lab management software. Little dude just keeps on chugging.


2013 27" iMac (3.4GHz i5, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, macOS 15). This is the Mac that lives in my office off to the side of my classroom, mostly used for lesson planning and YouTube at lunch. I love the massive screen.


2014 21" iMac (1.4GHz i5, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, macOS 15). This is my main announcement computer, sitting on the table by the main door to my classroom. It shows odd schedules during testing season, upcoming events, and when there's nothing interesting to show I play a live stream of a bird feeder from LGR Birds. I actually got this one specifically because it's so low-powered. It's essentially the guts of a 2014 Air stuffed into an iMac. Since it's on all day every day, I like that it sips power and puts out next to no heat.


2015 13" MacBook Pro (3.1GHz i7, 16GB RAM, 128GB SSD, macOS 15). This is my laptop that lives on a cart at the front of my room, from which I can control all other computers in the classroom. I remote into the server, the announcement iMac, the mini that runs the big screen at the front of the room, etc. I also occasionally use it to tweak my presentations. It's essentially a small, limited version of my main computer.


Not listed here are the other three machines I use, as they're certainly not Old Intel. My main computer is a 2020 27" iMac (3.3GHz i5, 64GB RAM, 512GB SSD, macOS 15), my main laptop is a 13" MacBook Air (M4, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) and my main presentation computer attached to the big screen in my classroom is a Mac mini (M1, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD).

 

[Haemoglobin]

Took apart my recently acquired 2007 Core 2 Duo Mac Mini, discovered the optical drive is duff and only works if I press on the lid. Otherwise it repeatedly attempts to spin up without success. Ordered a replacement but I'm a bit annoyed as the unit was sold as "Used but fully working". Contacted the seller but they don't seem the slightest bit interested, just keep repeating "It was working when I sent it". Well it's magically not working now, ugh.

Luckily the replacement wasn't too expensive and that will hopefully be the end of my issues. Just installed snow leopard and slowly getting the little system up and running. Have to say I'm impressed with the performance of this tiny Mac, it's my first time owning a Mac Mini.

 

[MultiFinder17]

Took apart my recently acquired 2007 Core 2 Duo Mac Mini, discovered the optical drive is duff and only works if I press on the lid. Otherwise it repeatedly attempts to spin up without success. Ordered a replacement but I'm a bit annoyed as the unit was sold as "Used but fully working". Contacted the seller but they don't seem the slightest bit interested, just keep repeating "It was working when I sent it". Well it's magically not working now, ugh.

Luckily the replacement wasn't too expensive and that will hopefully be the end of my issues. Just installed snow leopard and slowly getting the little system up and running. Have to say I'm impressed with the performance of this tiny Mac, it's my first time owning a Mac Mini.

Mac minis are fantastic, easily my favorite little Macs to own and run. Enjoy yours!

 

[MBAir2010]

Dead MBP 8,2 Late: still no clue as to how to revive it. May swap in the logic board and SSD from the early 8,2 and at least gain a high-res display for it. Doesn't seem to be much else I can do. The machine gets warm, so it's doing *something*, but what? It feels like it just needs some sort of nudge to wake it up, but I'm all out of ideas...

Probably the graphics card, is there a start up chime?
My mini from2012 is kaput as well, i might try to start that next week

 

[DCBassman]

Probably the graphics card, is there a start up chime?
My mini from2012 is kaput as well, i might try to start that next week

No chime, but then I usually silence it using NVRAM commands. Although it's been running solely on the iGPU, I think the graphics subsystem is causing the issue.

 

[GalacticStag]

I got NFS World Offline running on a Win7 VM on my late '09 iMac!

Runs surprisingly smoothly considering it's a virtual machine. Occasional hiccups but it tends to run smooth-ish! Great for exploring the map.

 

[DCBassman]

Before it got emptied, I retrieved all the A1181 2009 Macbook bits from recycling and rebuilt my original machine warts and all. Gave it a 4GB RAM stick and MX Linux and apart from the weird power button issue, it's fine. If I understood what causes that...but no, it's on the logic board, because the other faulty logic board didn't have the problem when using the same power button. Anyhow my A1181-free zone now isn't. Good.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I decided to give MX Linux a shot. Out of the box, it is my new favorite variant of linux I have used; by FAR it is the snappiest. Boots up in seconds to a very snappy gui. Dont get me wrong I like Ubuntu and Lubuntu and ElementaryOS but MX was fast to install, everything worked out of the box (surprised me), none of the delayed bootup issues Ive experienced with recent builds of Lubuntu and Elementary and the experience is pretty similar truth be told. I will be installing a dock at some point (probably Plank) but wow, if you havent given MX a try, I highly recommend you put together a bootable flashdrive and give the live environment a spin

This is so nice!

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Been a while since I chimed in here with some of the older machines that I still use daily in my classroom.
From oldest to newest:

2009 Mac mini (2.0GHz C2D, 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD + 2TB HDD, macOS 10.13). This is my main classroom server, used as a Time Machine backup location for all the other Macs in the room as well as running my lab management software. Little dude just keeps on chugging.
View attachment 2501216

a Mac mini (M1, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD).

@MultiFinder17 Where did you get that awesome little classic rainbow apple decal from? - the one that is on the mini. So cool

 

[DCBassman]

I decided to give MX Linux a shot. Out of the box, it is my new favorite variant of linux I have used; by FAR it is the snappiest. Boots up in seconds to a very snappy gui. Dont get me wrong I like Ubuntu and Lubuntu and ElementaryOS but MX was fast to install, everything worked out of the box (surprised me), none of the delayed bootup issues Ive experienced with recent builds of Lubuntu and Elementary and the experience is pretty similar truth be told. I will be installing a dock at some point (probably Plank) but wow, if you havent given MX a try, I highly recommend you put together a bootable flashdrive and give the live environment a spin

This is so nice!
View attachment 2501829

Good, isn't it? And it moves itself from one edition to the next. To coin a phrase, it just works...

 

[MultiFinder17]

@MultiFinder17 Where did you get that awesome little classic rainbow apple decal from? - the one that is on the mini. So cool

It's harvested from an old, very dead Mac that came in for recycling at the computer shop I used to work at. I have a few of them around, the case badges are super easy to pop off and with a little dab of blue tac on the back can be applied to any number of modern Macs!

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Good, isn't it? And it moves itself from one edition to the next. To coin a phrase, it just works...

It really is. I am very happy with it. Now if I can just figure out how to get it on my cMP 1,1

 

[DCBassman]

It really is. I am very happy with it. Now if I can just figure out how to get it on my cMP 1,1

Ah...that might not be simple! Matt Gadient *might* be able to help there.

 

[DCBassman]

Ah...that might not be simple! Matt Gadient *might* be able to help there.

@Certificate of Excellence , if all else fails, there's a 32-bit version, but that would be a waste of RAM on a Pro.

 

[kPoponmyiPod]

Modern Linux runs really well on these machines too if you need support for more modern software. My 2010 white MacBook has 4 OS's on it: Snow Leopard (oldest OS supported), High Sierra (newest OS supported), Sequoia (unsupported but runs surprisingly well with OCLP), and the latest version of Ubuntu.

I was actually considering adding an Ubuntu partition, but for some reason Boot Camp will only allow for an OS X partition and a Windows partition. I was considering having at least a shared file storage partition formatted in FAT but looked that up to see if any other people had done that and apparently that's prone to file loss/corruption.

I also have an '06 iMac dual-booted with Lion and WinXP that can go so far as to use the same iTunes library on both partitions (located on the Windows partitions) but I think that's because Windows XP can run on a FAT partiton but I believe 7 requires NTFS. I prefer OS X anyhow, but oh well. I ended up figuring out that my university has a remote desktop system I can use through a browser with their Windows 10 (probably soon to be 11, barf) systems, which is what I've been using for more sensitive stuff, as well as Netflix since I can't get that to work on Mavericks, even with Firefox Dynasty.

I also ended up finding a version of the IDE for my compsci class for Windows 7, and I have a newer version of iTunes (12.whatever on 7, 11.4 on OS X for the better design) on 7 for buying music.

 

[bobesch]

I was actually considering adding an Ubuntu partition, but for some reason Boot Camp will only allow for an OS X partition and a Windows partition. I was considering having at least a shared file storage partition formatted in FAT but looked that up to see if any other people had done that and apparently that's prone to file loss/corruption.

Hi, welcome to the MR-Forum!

You may upgrade Your white 2009 MB to dosdude1-patched Mojave (first macOS with dark-theme, last one to support 32bit-Apps and HFS+ file-system).
AFAIR You may add an extra partition (and only) to the current GUID/HFS+ partition, where Your OSX is installed.
Onto that newly created partition You may install Mojave and get a TripleBoot-machine with Windows/Current OSX/dd1-Mojave.
With Mojave You'll gain the option to run more contemporary Firefox115 ESR.

I have dd1/Mojave on my old early&late2008 MacBookPro, which runs pretty smooth, as long as You remove all the eye-candy of animations and transparency (through Onyx.App and SystemSettings)
Even on my 2012 15" MBP9,1 Mojave is my mostly used macOS.
MS_Office'08 will still be functioning with dd1-Mojave.

And dd1/Mojave can be still installed onto a GUID/HFS+ partition and does not require APFS.

dd1/Mojave will also give You the option of running a more advanced version of VirtualBox or VMware Fusion for
- Win2000-, WinXP- or Win7-VirtualMachines. (Win2000Pro is my SwissArmyKnife for basic Windows-applications and runs blazing fast) and any latest version of Linux as a VM.
- for Linux
I'm currently fiddling with VMware-Fusion and different light-weight Linux-distros/flavors
and Mint/LMDE6 and Mate are my favorite ones.
Comparing VirtualBox to VMware Fusion the latter has clearly more advanced graphic- and overall performance.
VMware Fusion Version 8 to 11 will do fine on Mojave. Fusion is now free of charge, but I don't know if that also includes elder versions prior to Fusion13.

If You happen to run a DualBoot OSX/macOS setting (or a TripleBoot with a Hybrid-GUID/MBR-partition scheme and Windows on the MBR-partition), it's a good idea to have an additional partition for personal files (except from cloud-synched ones) in order to keep the system-partitions small and avoid redundancy.
I'd format that partition also in GUID/HFS+ scheme to match OSX/macOS.

I hope You've kept the BootCamp-Windows (MBR) partition small, since You'll have to squeeze current OSX, dd1-Mojave and the extra partition for personal files into the same place, where Your OSX now resides.

Make sure to have proper backups, before You ever start with adding partitions or installing an additional macOS.

And better do not ever try to add a Linux-partition onto that DualBoot BootCamp-Win/OSX drive, since that will meddle with the BootPartition and is hardly to remove later. (I did that twice - it has been the first and the last time ...)

I also have an '06 iMac dual-booted with Lion and WinXP that can go so far as to use the same iTunes library on both partitions (located on the Windows partitions) but I think that's because Windows XP can run on a FAT partiton but I believe 7 requires NTFS.

Nope, WinXP also requires NTFS. AFAIK OSX has a read-only access to NTFS, but read&write can be added through additional software (look for free NTFS-3G (FUSE))

Cheers, have fun!

 

[rampancy]

Before it got emptied, I retrieved all the A1181 2009 Macbook bits from recycling and rebuilt my original machine warts and all. Gave it a 4GB RAM stick and MX Linux and apart from the weird power button issue, it's fine. If I understood what causes that...but no, it's on the logic board, because the other faulty logic board didn't have the problem when using the same power button. Anyhow my A1181-free zone now isn't. Good.

I'm glad you were able to at least bring back your machine to life! Having a working machine with one RAM slot (and apparently a weird power-on issue) is far preferable to having a machine that doesn't work at all.

 

[lepidotós]

Just got in a MacBookPro8,1, the newest Mac I've ever owned (for now), and while I got it with the intention of setting it up with Linux Mint for a relative who was otherwise going to get a Chromebook so that there isn't more e-waste purchased, it's surprisingly nice, even booted off USB, like it feels way better to use than this Surface Laptop 3. That's even before doing any upgrades like storage or memory. If I failed in my mission and said relative ended up getting a Chromebook anyway I might consider keeping it for myself to have around when out of the house.
While testing out OS options on there, I also tried out Fedora, Artix, and GhostBSD out of curiosity as to how they run and the answer is "pretty meh". There's some magic to Mint going on there, I swear, because it's about as fluid and responsive as macOS is, I'd switch over if they had install media for any other ISA than just AMD64. I could give OpenSuSE a go, though.​

 

[bobesch]

Just got in a MacBookPro8,1, the newest Mac I've ever owned (for now), and while I got it with the intention of setting it up with Linux Mint for a relative who was otherwise going to get a Chromebook so that there isn't more e-waste purchased, it's surprisingly nice, even booted off USB, like it feels way better to use than this Surface Laptop 3. That's even before doing any upgrades like storage or memory. If I failed in my mission and said relative ended up getting a Chromebook anyway I might consider keeping it for myself to have around when out of the house.
While testing out OS options on there, I also tried out Fedora, Artix, and GhostBSD out of curiosity as to how they run and the answer is "pretty meh". There's some magic to Mint going on there, I swear, because it's about as fluid and responsive as macOS is, I'd switch over if they had install media for any other ISA than just AMD64. I could give OpenSuSE a go, though.​

I'm not very familiar with Linux but happen to try it out from time to time ...
My recent experience:
Mint LMDE6 had been my favorite, but didn't survive a PRAM-reset.
Ubuntu MATE runs smooth on both 2009-MBP and 2012-MBP9,1 and isn't harmed by PRAM-Reset.
Quirky Touchpad-behaviour can be mended by not applying to much pressure to the fingertipp or installing an old Synaptics Friver.
With Ubuntu and Mint-Ubuntu I had problems during installation procedure.
Finally it was proof-of-concept agein since the the overall experience didn't convince me when compared with OCLP/macOS.

 

[rampancy]

A long, long while ago I picked up a 2010 A1342 with the vaunted GeForce 320M for $20 Canadian; the battery worked fine, but the bottom panel looked awful due to separation of the rubber bottom.

Fast forward to a few months ago where I got on AliExpress a replacement bottom panel for a...not awful price. But much to my dismay I noticed that now the battery had started to aggressively bulge. Thankfully I caught it in time before it damaged the top case plastics.

Now, finally, after all this time, I've been able to source an affordable A1342 battery, and at last my MacBook is completely operational, with a nice boost to 6 GB thanks to one of the old 4 GB DIMMs from my iMac.

The next step is to get an SSD and maybe even an optical drive bay caddy in it...

 

[kPoponmyiPod]

A long, long while ago I picked up a 2010 A1342 with the vaunted GeForce 320M for $20 Canadian; the battery worked fine, but the bottom panel looked awful due to separation of the rubber bottom.

Fast forward to a few months ago where I got on AliExpress a replacement bottom panel for a...not awful price. But much to my dismay I noticed that now the battery had started to aggressively bulge. Thankfully I caught it in time before it damaged the top case plastics.

Now, finally, after all this time, I've been able to source an affordable A1342 battery, and at last my MacBook is completely operational, with a nice boost to 6 GB thanks to one of the old 4 GB DIMMs from my iMac.

The next step is to get an SSD and maybe even an optical drive bay caddy in it...

How long does the battery last? Is replacing it easy? My 2009 A1342 lasts anywhere from 2.5-5 hours on a normal day, with what I'm pretty sure is the original battery, which is surprising, but I've considered whether or not I should replace it one day. Also, where did you find the battery?

 

[headlessmike]

A long, long while ago I picked up a 2010 A1342 with the vaunted GeForce 320M for $20 Canadian; the battery worked fine, but the bottom panel looked awful due to separation of the rubber bottom.

Fast forward to a few months ago where I got on AliExpress a replacement bottom panel for a...not awful price. But much to my dismay I noticed that now the battery had started to aggressively bulge. Thankfully I caught it in time before it damaged the top case plastics.

Now, finally, after all this time, I've been able to source an affordable A1342 battery, and at last my MacBook is completely operational, with a nice boost to 6 GB thanks to one of the old 4 GB DIMMs from my iMac.

The next step is to get an SSD and maybe even an optical drive bay caddy in it...

It's a great machine. I've got one maxed out with 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD. With Linux it's still a perfectly capable daily driver in 2025. I also use it for gaming, playing PPC and Intel from the 00's on Snow Leopard. Mine still has the original battery that lasts an hour or two.