The Mountain Lion Thread (OS X 10.8)

[retta283]

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

Supported Hardware

• iMac (Mid 2007 to Late 2013)
• Mac mini (Early 2009 to Late 2012)
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 to Mid 2012)
• Xserve (2009)
• MacBook Pro (Mid 2007 to Late 2012)
• MacBook Pro with Retina Display (Mid 2012 and Early 2013)
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 to Early 2013)
• MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum Unibody, Early 2009 to Mid 2010)

Compatible Hardware Not Officially Supported

• iMac (Late 2006, only models with ATI and Nvidia GPUs have full graphics acceleration. Early 2006 models with CPU upgraded to Core 2 Duo work as well.)
• Mac mini (Mid 2007, partial GPU acceleration. Earlier models need a CPU upgrade to Core 2 Duo.)
• Mac Pro (2006, with supported GPU or without GPU acceleration)
• MacBook Pro (Late 2006)
• MacBook Air (Early 2008, partial GPU acceleration)
• MacBook (Late 2006 to Late 2008 Polycarbonate, partial GPU acceleration)

Minimum RAM

• 2GB

Minimum Hard Drive Space / Partition Size

• 8GB

Release Date

• July 25, 2012

Apple Software Updates

• 10.8.5 Update (Combo)
• Security Update 2015-006 for 10.8.5
• iTunes 12.4.3

Web Browsers, FTP et al.

• Firefox Legacy (Firefox 71)

Dashboard Widgets

Web Design & Development

Audio & Video

Games

Graphics & Design

Office & Productivity

Tools & Utilities

• MacPostFactor (Newest version appears to be broken, can use previous versions)

Notes

This is a WikiPost. Feel free to add any softwares or additional OS info that you find. Add new categories if you feel your software does not fit under any current category. Some of these lists may not be populated currently, so please add a bullet list (Unordered List.) Unbold the links if they are bolded.

Getting Mountain Lion: Apple still sells Mountain Lion in the Mac App Store: Mountain Lion. It can be found elsewhere but purchasing is recommended. As of June 2021, Apple has provided a Mountain Lion installer for free: Apple Support Mountain Lion Installer

 

[retta283]

hopefully this worked I had some huge problems making this thread, if you see any attachments please remove

 

[Raging Dufus]

I'd be interested in seeing people's reasons for running Mavericks vs Mountain Lion. I used parrotgeek's excellent NexPostFacto to get Mavericks installed on my unsupported 2006 17" C2D MBP, and it has been running fine. But as compared to Mountain Lion from which I upgraded (also unsupported on my MBP) I can't say I really see a lot of reasons for keeping Mavericks on it.

My reasons for upgrading to Mavericks were: (a) because I could, and because unsupported installations are cool ; (b) so I could run Zoom for videoconferencing; and (c) so I could run up-to-date versions of Firefox.

Once Firefox support for Mavericks ends this summer, I'm thinking about switching back to Mountain Lion and running parrotgeek's Firefox Legacy, plus Chromium Legacy (which as of today won't run on Mavericks). It isn't important that I run Zoom on this particular machine any longer. So for me, the bottom line is browser support. I'm wondering why others might prefer Mavericks to Mountain Lion?

EDIT: I thought I was posting this in the Mavericks thread, but I suppose it's just as applicable here.

 

[retta283]

I'd be interested in seeing people's reasons for running Mavericks vs Mountain Lion. I used parrotgeek's excellent NexPostFacto to get Mavericks installed on my unsupported 2006 17" C2D MBP, and it has been running fine. But as compared to Mountain Lion from which I upgraded (also unsupported on my MBP) I can't say I really see a lot of reasons for keeping Mavericks on it.

My reasons for upgrading to Mavericks were: (a) because I could, and because unsupported installations are cool ; (b) so I could run Zoom for videoconferencing; and (c) so I could run up-to-date versions of Firefox.

Once Firefox support for Mavericks ends this summer, I'm thinking about switching back to Mountain Lion and running parrotgeek's Firefox Legacy, plus Chromium Legacy (which as of today won't run on Mavericks). It isn't important that I run Zoom on this particular machine any longer. So for me, the bottom line is browser support. I'm wondering why others might prefer Mavericks to Mountain Lion?

EDIT: I thought I was posting this in the Mavericks thread, but I suppose it's just as applicable here.

One reason for me is, at least from my experience, the version of iTunes on Mountain Lion does not sync with iOS 10, Mavericks does. I'm using a 6S on iOS 10 and I sync it all locally (I keep it offline) so having Mavericks is useful when I want to shuffle the tunes/videos on it or something else.

Also, Steam can be made to work on Mavericks, just that the UI is nonfunctional, and games must be launched from another computer first to populate the Dock list of games. I also (personally) find the leather UI to be overdone in ML, so I have a slight UI preference for Mavericks which obviously doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.

I forget whether it was ML or Mavericks that jacked up the Activity Monitor at this moment.

 

[Raging Dufus]

One reason for me is, at least from my experience, the version of iTunes on Mountain Lion does not sync with iOS 10, Mavericks does. I'm using a 6S on iOS 10 and I sync it all locally (I keep it offline) so having Mavericks is useful when I want to shuffle the tunes/videos on it or something else.

Also, Steam can be made to work on Mavericks, just that the UI is nonfunctional, and games must be launched from another computer first to populate the Dock list of games. I also (personally) find the leather UI to be overdone in ML, so I have a slight UI preference for Mavericks which obviously doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.

I forget whether it was ML or Mavericks that jacked up the Activity Monitor at this moment.

This is what I was looking for. I don't use an iPhone, and my older iPods all sync just fine with Leopard or later. I also don't do a lot of gaming, and have never tried Steam. So, I had no way of knowing these things, thanks for sharing.

This was the comment that really got me thinking (again, from the Mavericks thread):

There are so many more excellent apps for Mavericks, but for now I really tried to focus on the ones that I personally use very frequently, and which I knew were still available for download and (where applicable) purchase.

Can't help but wonder what I'm missing. Cool stuff that runs on Mavericks but not Mountain Lion, perhaps? My own uses for these computers are boring, web stuff, document creation, the basics. What can I say, law is not an exciting field, and I'm probably not all that exciting either . But curiosity gets the best of me.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

A lot of the apps I put in the Mavericks thread should also run on Mountain Lion—but Mavericks does open up quite a bit of app compatibility, particularly if you need to use semi-modern stuff on occasion, which I do. Mavericks is the oldest OS supported by Zoom, the current Affinity Suite, and the current ESR Firefox. It's the oldest OS for which Swift code can be compiled, and the oldest which supports TLS 1.2.

Mavericks is also faster that Mountain Lion in a lot of cases—namely when you don't have enough RAM—because it supports memory compression. That might sound scary, but it is in fact very effective: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/os-x-10-9/17/

And I agree with @retta283, the design is slightly improved. The visuals are actually somewhat closer to the ever-famous Snow Leopard, because Apple removed all the faux-leather stuff that it had introduced in Lion.

If you ever need to reformat your hard drive anyway, I'd recommend starting out with Mavericks. But if you're currently on Mountain Lion, and happy there, I don't think there's a pressing need to upgrade.

By contrast, if you were on normal Lion, I would have a very different opinion on this. I hate Lion.

 

[Raging Dufus]

A lot of the apps I put in the Mavericks thread should also run on Mountain Lion—but Mavericks does open up quite a bit of app compatibility, particularly if you need to use semi-modern stuff on occasion, which I do. Mavericks is the oldest OS supported by the current Affinity Suite, and the current ESR Firefox, and a lot of games. It's the oldest OS that Swift code can be compiled for, and the oldest which supports TLS 1.2.

Mavericks is also faster that Mountain Lion in a lot of cases—namely when you don't have enough RAM—because it supports memory compression. That might sound scary, but it is in fact very effective: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/os-x-10-9/17/

And I agree with @retta283, the design is slightly improved. The visuals are actually somewhat closer to the ever-famous Snow Leopard, because Apple removed all the faux-leather stuff that it had introduced in Lion.

If you ever need to reformat your hard drive anyway, I'd recommend starting out with Mavericks. But if you're currently on Mountain Lion, and happy there, I don't think there's a pressing need to upgrade.

By contrast, if you were on normal Lion, I would have a very different opinion on this. I hate Lion.

Well there you go - another useful reply, thanks! I had no idea about memory compression, the article you linked was a real eye-opener. And with only 4 GB of RAM in my MBP, that could definitely be a thing.

I too dislike Lion, though I was quite happy with Mountain Lion. Had it not been for Zoom, I might never have gone to Mavericks.

 

[MacFoxG4]

I often debate whether I should try Mountain Lion or Mavericks myself. I like that Mountain Lion can run Chromium Legacy because that browser works nice with Discord on my 2006 MBP under Lion. I like that Mavericks has Firefox 78 ESR, but what happens after support ends for that? Should I just keep using Firefox 78 ESR anyway? Downgrade back to Lion or ML to use Chromium Legacy? I'm not sure. Mavericks is the newest version of OS X to have the 3D dock, so I like that about it too. I love the 3D dock and prefer the 3D dock over the iOS style dock that Yosemite and later have. Most of my Intel-compatible Mac software has either Tiger or Leopard as the minimum OS, so the main incentive for me to go for anything newer than Leopard/Snow Leopard on my Intel Macs is browsers. TFF and AF can run most of the sites I want well except for Discord (which is more of a browser app than a regular website). On Lion, FireFox Legacy and Chromium Legacy can do Discord very well. I've come to appreciate Lion the more I use it, but I can't help but be curious about ML and Mavericks.

 

[Raging Dufus]

I often debate whether I should try Mountain Lion or Mavericks myself. I like that Mountain Lion can run Chromium Legacy because that browser works nice with Discord on my 2006 MBP under Lion. I like that Mavericks has Firefox 78 ESR, but what happens after support ends for that? Should I just keep using Firefox 78 ESR anyway? Downgrade back to Lion or ML to use Chromium Legacy? I'm not sure. Mavericks is the newest version of OS X to have the 3D dock, so I like that about it too. I love the 3D dock and prefer the 3D dock over the iOS style dock that Yosemite and later have. Most of my Intel-compatible Mac software has either Tiger or Leopard as the minimum OS, so the main incentive for me to go for anything newer than Leopard/Snow Leopard on my Intel Macs is browsers. TFF and AF can run most of the sites I want well except for Discord (which is more of a browser app than a regular website). On Lion, FireFox Legacy and Chromium Legacy can do Discord very well. I've come to appreciate Lion the more I use it, but I can't help but be curious about ML and Mavericks.

Given your needs, I'd strongly recommend Mountain Lion at least. You'll be amazed how much smoother and quicker it runs than Lion, even on unsupported hardware. Mavericks runs well too, I can't say it's any slower than Mountain Lion on my MBP, but like you said: no Chromium Legacy.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

The developer of Chromium Legacy seems to want to fix the Mavericks issue, so I'm hopeful it will be resolved by the time Firefox ESR drops support. Assuming he continues maintaining the project at all, that is... I don't mean any ill by this, but since he just kind of popped up out of nowhere a few months ago, I'm more than a little worried about the project's longevity!

I'm also hoping Parrotgeek will continue with his Firefox Legacy, possibly even with a new focus on Mavericks since Mozilla has made that necessary. If not, well, there are Wicknix's browsers, and there's Intel TenFourFox.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I forget whether it was ML or Mavericks that jacked up the Activity Monitor at this moment.

Mavericks changed the activity monitor.

I do like the changes though. The tabs make it much easier to sort by e.g. memory usage instead of just CPU, and while I recognize some find the "memory pressure" graph confusing, the addition of memory compression would have made a raw memory usage graphic (even more) misleading.

 

[Amethyst1]

I'd be interested in seeing people's reasons for running Mavericks vs Mountain Lion.

Higher-than-1080p HiDPI modes for external 4K monitors. These appeared in 10.9.3. To me, this is critical 'cause 1080p HiDPI on 24" is worthless.

 

[MacFoxG4]

Just installed Mountain Lion using the 64-bit version of ParrotGeek's NexPostFacto for 10.8 on my 2006 C2D MBP. So far, so good.

 

[wonderspark]

So, I have a 2009 Mac Pro. It started as a 4,1 with quad core 3.33Ghz CPU, but now it's got 5,1 firmware, BootROM version 144.0.0.0.0, running 10.13.6, using an MVC flashed NVIDIA GTX 980Ti GPU.

I want to go back to Mountain Lion 10.8.5. - - The reason: I have a film I want to burn to Blu-Ray, using my LG BD-R burner in one of the optical bays, using Adobe Encore CS6. I used to do this all the time on this Mac, but since updating as far as I did, Encore no longer works. Now I'm running Adobe CC 2020. I have the old CS6 install DVDs.

Here's what I have to work with:
- Radeon 5870 1GB GPU, used to be in this Mac
- EVGA GTX 285, Mac Edition
- Original 640GB HDD with 10.6.8 on it
- SSD that boots to 10.10.5
- Install OS X Mountain Lion.app, dated Nov 16, 2012 (not sure if that will still work)
- Install OS X Mountain Lion.app, dated Oct 9, 2015
- DMG files of original "Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg"
- MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.8.dmg

I'm thinking I can install the 10.6.8 HDD and the 5870 GPU, then update from 10.6.8 to 10.8.5 without too much drama. Maybe run the 10.8.5 Combo updater file at the end. Thoughts?

 

[Wowfunhappy]

^ I might just like Mavericks too much, but I would go with that over Mountain Lion. CS6 will run fine.

I highly recommend making a USB installer of your target OS (whether Mountain Lion or Mavericks) and doing a clean install directly.

 

[retta283]

Updated to add the new free installer that Apple released on its Support site. Amazed they suddenly did this.

 

[reneholliday]

So, I have a 2009 Mac Pro. It started as a 4,1 with quad core 3.33Ghz CPU, but now it's got 5,1 firmware, BootROM version 144.0.0.0.0, running 10.13.6, using an MVC flashed NVIDIA GTX 980Ti GPU.

I want to go back to Mountain Lion 10.8.5. - - The reason: I have a film I want to burn to Blu-Ray, using my LG BD-R burner in one of the optical bays, using Adobe Encore CS6. I used to do this all the time on this Mac, but since updating as far as I did, Encore no longer works. Now I'm running Adobe CC 2020. I have the old CS6 install DVDs.

Here's what I have to work with:
- Radeon 5870 1GB GPU, used to be in this Mac
- EVGA GTX 285, Mac Edition
- Original 640GB HDD with 10.6.8 on it
- SSD that boots to 10.10.5
- Install OS X Mountain Lion.app, dated Nov 16, 2012 (not sure if that will still work)
- Install OS X Mountain Lion.app, dated Oct 9, 2015
- DMG files of original "Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg"
- MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.8.dmg

I'm thinking I can install the 10.6.8 HDD and the 5870 GPU, then update from 10.6.8 to 10.8.5 without too much drama. Maybe run the 10.8.5 Combo updater file at the end. Thoughts?

Just wondering if you where able to get Encore working? I'm hoping someone will have a solution to get it Adobe Encore working.