Macbook A1181 (2007) - reinstalling mac os x lion

[agnesze]

Hi!

Maybe somebody can help me with advice.

I have MacBook A1181 (2007) which was bought from eBay a long time ago. A couple years ago I tried to reinstall it: I erased everything from hard drive, formatted. I thought I will have an opportunity to reinstall Mac OS X Lion, but I was wrong, because I didn’t had the original Apple ID.

Now I am wondering whether I could buy a new and fresh Mac OS X Lion from Apple store, insert it on USB flash drive and try to reinstall again.
Maybe somebody knows would it be worth trying? Would it be possible to succeed? What could go wrong?

 

[Faloude]

First, I don't think you'll find 10.7 (os x Lion) in the Apple store. I couldn't find it in the Apple store on 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) nor on 10.16 (Catalina). You can however buy it through https://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion

Now, I don't know whether you get a .dmg or a .app file. If it's an .app file, you should easily be able to use an app called Install Disk Creator make a bootable installer USB. However if you get a .dmg file it takes an alternative route to turn it into an installer USB, only slightly more difficult.

 

[BrianBaughn]

As compatibility with the ever-evolving internet seems to be, by far, the most important feature for most computer users I'd say you'll be better off installing a version of Linux on that.

I just came to that decision for a 2008 MacBook. Safari in Lion was useless and the old OS isn't compatible with any up-to-date browser. I was successful in updating it to El Capitan using the tricks that are elsewhere in this forum…but the lack of graphics support is a big problem.

I tested a couple of Linux distros and have settled on Elementary OS. It boots about as fast as El Capitan did (around 30 seconds with an SSD) and works great with the onboard graphics. I had to connect it to my router via Ethernet to get all updates which included drivers for the wifi. Everything else on the machine works. Youtube videos run great in full screen.

 

[CooperBox]

Yes indeed one could install Linux, but please note that for those who love Apple OS and have or can download a Lion OS disk, don't even think about Safari, use a safe, updated web-browser such as WaterFox 'Classic', which runs on OS 10.7 and above. Check out THIS recent post of mine on the same subject. I use OS X 10.7 almost daily, safely with WaterFox and DuckDuckGo search engine. Imho a perfect match.

 

[wicknix]

Lion was useless and the old OS isn't compatible with any up-to-date browser

Don't forget about seamonkey, pale moon, arctic fox, spiderweb, interweb and firefox legacy. Legacy hasn't been updated in awhile, but the rest are still being updated semi regularly.
Pale Moon for 10.7+: https://forum.palemoon.org/viewforum.php?f=41&sid=4203a83d5c2508f97983179206299282
SeaMonkey for 10.7+: https://www.seamonkey-project.org/
Arctic Fox for 10.6+: https://github.com/wicknix/Arctic-Fox/wiki/Downloads
InterWeb for 10.7+: https://randommacstuff.blogspot.com/p/interweb-browser.html
SpiderWeb & Mail for 10.7+: https://randommacstuff.blogspot.com/p/spiderweb-browser.html
Firefox Legacy for 10.7+: https://parrotgeek.com/fxlegacy.html
That's plenty to choose from.

Edit: Also waterfox was sold to an advertising company, so meh, so much for trusting it any longer.

Waterfox web browser sold to System1 - gHacks Tech News

It appears that the Waterfox web browser has been sold to System1 recently, the same company that bought the Startpage search engine some time ago.

www.ghacks.net

Cheers

 

[Faloude]

I was going to complain how off-topic this topic went but then I did some research on Elementary OS and I must say I like what I've seen so far.

 

[agnesze]

Thanks everybody for your comments and advices!
First I decided to give a try to Elementary OS. I made bootable USB and DVD, but none of them could boot on my old Mac. Found out that it might be a problem with a processor. Elementary is for 64-bit processors only. So then I decided to make bootable DVD with 32-bit processor compatibility -older version of Ubuntu (16.04 desktop). Also wasn’t able to succeed). (The good news is that - I was able to install Elementary on my old Lenovo. So I guess I’m burning dvd right).
Before buying Lion, I probably still will try some more alternative options. Because my fear is that I won’t be able to boot Lion anyway.
Don’t know, maybe indeed I won’t succeed only because I don’t have original Apple ID information...?..

 

[Faloude]

I wouldn't worry about difficulties installing Lion. I've succesfully installed Lion without an Apple ID that was ever used on that computer just 15 minutes before you posted this topic. I believe the Apple ID thing is only necessary if you want to upgrade from within 10.6.8 (snow leopard) to 10.7 (lion).

Regarding the bootable Lion USB, although I'm not sure what kind of file Apple delivers after purchase, it should be either a .dmg or an .app file and both can be made bootable.

 

[agnesze]

My update about the topic.
I bought Lion. And I thought that everything will be awesome from this point: I will make a bootable USB or DVD and successfully install 10.7. But no, turns out, if you officially buy Lion from Apple web store, you can get it only with a machine that supports it. For example, I tried to download my purchase from my husband's Mac with Catalina. I couldn't find my purchase. Then I started to google my problem and it turns out that I am not the only one who is disappointed and assumably left with nothing. Here you can read more on this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/fffhb6 I thought I have wasted my money for nothing. But before crying I decided to try out what will happen now when I start my old Mac and try again for the million time the option "install Mac OS X Lion". I was happy to find out that I could now log in with my Apple ID and successfully install Lion (previously I always always always got the message that my password or Apple ID is incorrect).
Sorry for dramatic description. And I hope maybe somebody will help this.

 

[Faloude]

I didn't know you can't download after the purchase. Thank you for letting us know. This saves me $ 19

 

[krstn]

My update about the topic.
I bought Lion. And I thought that everything will be awesome from this point: I will make a bootable USB or DVD and successfully install 10.7. But no, turns out, if you officially buy Lion from Apple web store, you can get it only with a machine that supports it. For example, I tried to download my purchase from my husband's Mac with Catalina. I couldn't find my purchase. Then I started to google my problem and it turns out that I am not the only one who is disappointed and assumably left with nothing. Here you can read more on this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/fffhb6 I thought I have wasted my money for nothing. But before crying I decided to try out what will happen now when I start my old Mac and try again for the million time the option "install Mac OS X Lion". I was happy to find out that I could now log in with my Apple ID and successfully install Lion (previously I always always always got the message that my password or Apple ID is incorrect).
Sorry for dramatic description. And I hope maybe somebody will help this.

Hi I’m encountering this error. Can you tell me what are the steps you did to make it work? Huhu

 

[gsilver352]

Don't forget about seamonkey, pale moon, arctic fox, spiderweb, interweb and firefox legacy. Legacy hasn't been updated in awhile, but the rest are still being updated semi regularly.
Pale Moon for 10.7+: https://forum.palemoon.org/viewforum.php?f=41&sid=4203a83d5c2508f97983179206299282
SeaMonkey for 10.7+: https://www.seamonkey-project.org/
Arctic Fox for 10.6+: https://github.com/wicknix/Arctic-Fox/wiki/Downloads
InterWeb for 10.7+: https://randommacstuff.blogspot.com/p/interweb-browser.html
SpiderWeb & Mail for 10.7+: https://randommacstuff.blogspot.com/p/spiderweb-browser.html
Firefox Legacy for 10.7+: https://parrotgeek.com/fxlegacy.html
That's plenty to choose from.

Edit: Also waterfox was sold to an advertising company, so meh, so much for trusting it any longer.

Waterfox web browser sold to System1 - gHacks Tech News

It appears that the Waterfox web browser has been sold to System1 recently, the same company that bought the Startpage search engine some time ago.

www.ghacks.net

Cheers

Just tried chromium legacy, works great but not working with Hulu, Sling, etc... Of these browsers, which one will work with streaming services on OS 10.8.5?

 

[wicknix]

None of them. All major streaming services require DRM/Widevine which is provided by google. Chromium is stripped of the "google goodies" by default due to it's open source nature. The other browsers if enabled, have outdated versions, and firefox-legacy lists in it's known issues section that DRM does not work.

If streaming is important to you and you can't go past 10.8.5, install Windows 10 or Linux and use actual supported web browsers, not hacks that had to be compromised to even run on these outdated versions of OS X.

Cheers