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OpenCore Legacy Patcher – Use new macOS versions on old hardware

dortania.github.io

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Re: OpenCore Legacy Patcher – Use new macOS versions on old hardware

#31

Post by hdudbdiebsu »

this almost fell like a twilight zone episode.

if in the 90s you've told me that pocket computers would have the os locked by company G and a rag-tag team of 14yr olds would work on forums to extract binary blobs and manually patch syscalls addresses so the old drivers work on newer phones, just so you can install the later version of a still closed OS... and that the practice would eventually move to the computers of the competing company...

i would have laughed but not in a funny haha way, like you do on most good twilight zone episodes.

sad times we live in.

Re: OpenCore Legacy Patcher – Use new macOS versions on old hardware

#32

Post by solarkraft »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #8
hs86 wrote: post #6

Catalina was the last supported OS for my 2012 MBA, and the following Big Sur upgrade worked well with OCLP because it only had to patch in WiFi support during the boot process. After that, macOS Monterey also dropped support for my Ivy Bridge GPU, and OCLP had to rely on persistent patches to my system volume to enable 3D acceleration again. These root patches caused some weird issues with 3D acceleration in certain…

Does the T2 break Linux somehow?

IIRC T2 changed Macs from largely being IBM PC/EFI compatible to being closer to the architecture they now use on their ARM processors.

Re: OpenCore Legacy Patcher – Use new macOS versions on old hardware

#33

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

GeekyBear wrote: post #23
1over137 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Supporting old hardware costs money because you need to write more tests. Not supporting old hardware has major costs too: ewaste pollution. But of course those costs are 'externalized' and not borne by Apple, but by everyone else.

> Not supporting old hardware has major costs too: ewaste pollution. I would not be at all shocked to find that, by volume, Android devices that vendors have refused to support with software updates over the years take up far more space in landfills.

What does that have to do with anything?

Re: OpenCore Legacy Patcher – Use new macOS versions on old hardware

#34

Post by ChildOfChaos »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #24
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #13

I have a 2015 iMac, that I spec'ed up as a custom build from Apple, so annoying they don't reconize the power of these machines still and cut support. I have an 4ghz i7, 32gb ram and a Radeon 395x graphics card, but support is cut. The machine still runs beautifully on Monterey, so I am hesitant to use the OpenCore legacy patcher, but may have to one day if apps i use drop support. I love my iMac, but in future, I th…

I mean, you have an 8-year old computer. What did you realistically expect would happen here? For Apple to support your computer until the end of time even if you’re the only person using that model? In the tech world, 8 years is already practically a lifetime. At a certain point, it’s no longer profitable for a company to continue supporting old systems. And that rarely has to do with power and almost entirely due t…

It's a computer I paid over £3,000 for, that got cut off 7 years after release for no valid reason as a customer.

Yes I understand what you are saying, but there is no need for it, Operating systems didn't require suddenly more powerful computers, years ago it made sense because the machine just couldn't handle it, but today my machine handles everything just fine and is higher spec than machines Apple has determined can run it.

You make it sound like it's some crazy high cost for Apple to do this, yet this small open source project seems to be able to do it and for them it would be much more difficult.

In terms of Apple's support, it's been awful, they provided one set of bootcamp drivers for the graphics card a year after release and even that was out of date when it was released, therefore I have to get the gfx card drivers from a third party.

Re: OpenCore Legacy Patcher – Use new macOS versions on old hardware

#35

Post by kamilafsar »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #24
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #13

I have a 2015 iMac, that I spec'ed up as a custom build from Apple, so annoying they don't reconize the power of these machines still and cut support. I have an 4ghz i7, 32gb ram and a Radeon 395x graphics card, but support is cut. The machine still runs beautifully on Monterey, so I am hesitant to use the OpenCore legacy patcher, but may have to one day if apps i use drop support. I love my iMac, but in future, I th…

I mean, you have an 8-year old computer. What did you realistically expect would happen here? For Apple to support your computer until the end of time even if you’re the only person using that model? In the tech world, 8 years is already practically a lifetime. At a certain point, it’s no longer profitable for a company to continue supporting old systems. And that rarely has to do with power and almost entirely due t…

I think the majority of people here understands the commercial considerations Apple makes.

But you asked what would you expect. At least don’t block me to update. Tell me it’s not officially supported. But let me install whatever OS I want, at my own risk.

The problem is not even the OS. It’s the whole ecosystem of apps that require a certain OS version.

I’m stuck on 10.13 with my iMac from 2012. The hardware serves me well, it does exactly what I need it to do. I’m just stuck on an old OS.

I’m gonna try OpenCore legacy patcher for sure.

Re: OpenCore Legacy Patcher – Use new macOS versions on old hardware

#36

Post by pantalaimon »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #8
hs86 wrote: post #6

Catalina was the last supported OS for my 2012 MBA, and the following Big Sur upgrade worked well with OCLP because it only had to patch in WiFi support during the boot process. After that, macOS Monterey also dropped support for my Ivy Bridge GPU, and OCLP had to rely on persistent patches to my system volume to enable 3D acceleration again. These root patches caused some weird issues with 3D acceleration in certain…

Does the T2 break Linux somehow?

It deviates from the standard PC architecture, so generic drivers won't work anymore. Since those machines were otherwise rather boring from a hardware perspective (rather expensive x86 machines that didn't even have the latest hardware) there wasn't much incentive to write those drivers so development is rather slow.

Re: OpenCore Legacy Patcher – Use new macOS versions on old hardware

#38

Post by pantalaimon »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #24
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #13

I have a 2015 iMac, that I spec'ed up as a custom build from Apple, so annoying they don't reconize the power of these machines still and cut support. I have an 4ghz i7, 32gb ram and a Radeon 395x graphics card, but support is cut. The machine still runs beautifully on Monterey, so I am hesitant to use the OpenCore legacy patcher, but may have to one day if apps i use drop support. I love my iMac, but in future, I th…

I mean, you have an 8-year old computer. What did you realistically expect would happen here? For Apple to support your computer until the end of time even if you’re the only person using that model? In the tech world, 8 years is already practically a lifetime. At a certain point, it’s no longer profitable for a company to continue supporting old systems. And that rarely has to do with power and almost entirely due t…

My main PC is 10 years old now and still works fine with the latest Ubuntu. I'm sure I'd have no trouble running Windows on it either.

Re: OpenCore Legacy Patcher – Use new macOS versions on old hardware

#39

Post by mynameisvlad »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #34
mynameisvlad wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you have an 8-year old computer. What did you realistically expect would happen here? For Apple to support your computer until the end of time even if you’re the only person using that model? In the tech world, 8 years is already practically a lifetime. At a certain point, it’s no longer profitable for a company to continue supporting old systems. And that rarely has to do with power and almost entirely due t…

It's a computer I paid over £3,000 for, that got cut off 7 years after release for no valid reason as a customer. Yes I understand what you are saying, but there is no need for it, Operating systems didn't require suddenly more powerful computers, years ago it made sense because the machine just couldn't handle it, but today my machine handles everything just fine and is higher spec than machines Apple has determined…

> You make it sound like it's some crazy high cost for Apple to do this, yet this small open source project seems to be able to do it and for them it would be much more difficult.

Hacks are in no way shape or form equivalent to official support. Both in functionality (this thread is full of people talking about small issues popping up more and more frequently, especially in the latest OS versions which actually have specific requirements like AVX2) and in terms of actual support. The level of work required from a community project is magnitudes smaller than from the company.

> It's a computer I paid over £3,000 for, that got cut off 7 years after release for no valid reason as a customer.

> Yes I understand what you are saying, but there is no need for it, Operating systems didn't require suddenly more powerful computers, years ago it made sense because the machine just couldn't handle it, but today my machine handles everything just fine and is higher spec than machines Apple has determined can run it.

You say you understand, but I already said it has nothing to do with power and explained why. Bringing it and the cost of the machine up again isn’t going to change this. At its core, it’s a cost benefit analysis. Each system supported adds tests, customer support, etc. Direct, actual costs to the company. At a certain point, the number of users using a specific system does not justify those costs. Apple looked at that analysis and decided that the costs are no longer justified. 8 years later seems like an entirely reasonable amount of time for that.

Re: OpenCore Legacy Patcher – Use new macOS versions on old hardware

#40

Post by PragmaticPulp »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #24
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #13

I have a 2015 iMac, that I spec'ed up as a custom build from Apple, so annoying they don't reconize the power of these machines still and cut support. I have an 4ghz i7, 32gb ram and a Radeon 395x graphics card, but support is cut. The machine still runs beautifully on Monterey, so I am hesitant to use the OpenCore legacy patcher, but may have to one day if apps i use drop support. I love my iMac, but in future, I th…

I mean, you have an 8-year old computer. What did you realistically expect would happen here? For Apple to support your computer until the end of time even if you’re the only person using that model? In the tech world, 8 years is already practically a lifetime. At a certain point, it’s no longer profitable for a company to continue supporting old systems. And that rarely has to do with power and almost entirely due t…

> I mean, you have an 8-year old computer. What did you realistically expect would happen here?

I’m an avid Mac user, but the short lifespan of Macs is an anomaly in the world of computers.

I use my old MacBook Pros as Windows and Linux machines now. They’re plenty fast and, honestly, feel much faster with Windows than they did with macOS.

I can understand why Apple deprecates old hardware, but cutting expensive machines after only 7-8 years is really disappointing. There are a lot of these machines in great condition out there.

My parents and in-laws all got burned by Apple’s early deprecation. When you’re not a hardcore daily computer user, these machines can easily last over a decade and do just fine for web browsing and other common tasks.

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