What have you done with an early Intel recently?

[bobesch]

I have found that Mojave seems to be the 'sweet-spot' for me. It's a good combination of things, like Snow Leopard is the perfection of Leopard.

My preference anyway.

Mojave. Yep, I just won't let it go, too ... !

There's a lot of stuff related to 32bit and backward compatibility.
I have a running MBP/scanner/DEVONthing2&3-Combo with DT2OfficePro2 also capable of working as a webserver.
All my pictures are cought in iPhoto/Aperture, since I didn't dare to make the transition to Apples 'new' Foto.App.
CCC-bootable-Clone Backups are still working without any hickups.

Nevertheless, there's plenty space for a multi-boot-configuration on a mid2012 15" non-Retina MBP9,1.
(like insane 2x8TB SSD).
It'll cope with OCLP Monterey/Ventura/Sonoma quite decent - so there's some 5-6y ahead of getting kind of support.

My 2013 11" i7 MBA already runs on OCLP/Ventura and first steps with OCLP/Sonoma on it's sibling did also come in not too bad.
Had to change Backup/Restore-routine: now backup with CCC, but restore via MigrationAssistent.
Since I had a couple of "unexpected events" that rendered the affected OCLP/macOS-installation beyond repair,
my current workflow now is to separate macOS&synched-data from my other big chunk of personal data by using separate Volumes. That will keep the macOS-system-Volume pretty small and handsome and gives the option to install/have a "shadow"-macOS-system at hands located in a separate Volume.
In case of needing a full restore, the amount of data, that have to be shuffled, is also reasonably small.
Well, moving to APFS has it's two sides. Currently I feel more and more dedicated to the good side ...

 

[bobesch]

Spent nearly the whole day on that recently fixed early2009 2,93GHz 15" MBP5,1 running OCLP/Sonoma.
I' m more than impressed!
As soon as the turmoil of Spotlight-Indexing, iCloud-Sync etc and App-Installation was over,
the Macbook behaves calm and silent.
Just like "normal" for ordinary tasks.

Next challenge might be running any OCLP/macOS on an early2008 MBP.

 

[avz]

Updated my 13 inch MBP 2012 Bootcamp installation of Windows 11 Pro from the 22H2 to 23H2 by manually running a very small update kb5027397. It took less than a minute.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Using PhotoScape on my MBP 2011 w/ High Sierra, I created a set of collages from my electrical engineering hobby that I can share with people around me and at some point I'll create slideshows with captions and music using Photos 3.0 and the GIMP.

The images were obtained by generating stills from the video recordings in VLC, which were then exported into PhotoScape. This is my default method for constructing collages of my projects and its worked very well for me through the years.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Using PhotoScape on my MBP 2011 w/ High Sierra, I created a set of collages from my electrical engineering hobby that I can share with people around me and at some point I'll create slideshows with captions and music using Photos 3.0 and the GIMP.

The images were obtained by generating stills from the video recordings in VLC, which were then exported into PhotoScape. This is my default method for constructing collages of my projects and its worked very well for me through the years.

I like the end result. Its like Layout but w/o all the gross ownership and privacy strings attached. I especially like this for a traditional website/blog format. Thanks for sharing.

 

[TheShortTimer]

I like the end result. Its like Layout but w/o all the gross ownership and privacy strings attached. I especially like this for a traditional website/blog format. Thanks for sharing.

You're welcome.

Hope it's helpful to you.

 

[theMarble]

Today, I temporarily moved my 20" Cinema Display over to my main setup as I needed some extra screen real estate for a project I am working on. Here it is running the mixer in Logic Pro, hooked up to my 2015 MBP with a combination of adapters (Mini-DP to HDMI > HDMI to DVI).

It certainly isn't anywhere near Retina quality (218ppi), of which this fact is easier to tell in modern macOS due to the lack of subpixel aliasing, however from ~70-80cm away (where my normal sitting position is), the sharpness isn't much of a concern.

 

[rin67630]

I like the end result. Its like Layout but w/o all the gross ownership and privacy strings attached. I especially like this for a traditional website/blog format. Thanks for sharing.

I don't need an extra software: I heavily use Lightshot to make screenshots from and for everything and else I use my favourite presentation software: PowerPoint/Presenter/Keynote to put the screenshots in form.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

(Mini-DP to HDMI > HDMI to DVI)

There is MiniDP-DVI adapter. (Even Apple branded ).

 

[swamprock]

Install the last version of Vivaldi for High Sierra, sync and I'm set up (MBA) for browsing with all my prefs, addons, themes, etc.

Just a quick mockup background. No illusions it won't change.

Julie London by the way, as nurse Dixie McCall on the 70s TV series Emergency!

View attachment 2370647

Get it?

I'll show myself out now…

Great show that I watched as a kid, and still watch to this day, along with Battlestar Galactica. I love how deep the storylines and production were on those old, hour-long 70s shows.

My 2011 11" MB Air needs a trackpad repair (swollen battery damage; works but is "popped up"), but runs great otherwise. I use it as one of three music-production machines, and it also runs High Sierra.

 

[eyoungren]

And here we go…Installing Monterey.

It arrived with El Cap installed. And it is the 13.3" MBP, not the 15". Which is fine, that'll suit my wife better I think. What I didn't expect was that it came in a faux-leather case. Leaving it on for now, whether it stays is up to my wife. But everything looks good. Haven't found any problems yet.

 

[eyoungren]

Tracked down my Dark Mode for El Cap and above again. Before I had Metal GPUs and when using the work 2015 MBP running High Sierra, this script is how I was able to survive. It's not perfect, but it's also NOT the terminal command to simply force a broken Dark Mode on the system. It's better than that.



Luckily, I still had it bookmarked!

How to enable "real dark mode" on OS X / macOS

DISCLAIMER (PLEASE READ): the service I've written to enable dark mode in apps is just an experiment. You should not expect it to work or…

medium.com

Wasn't working though, until I facepalmed myself. SIP must be disabled. Then it will work.

 

[B S Magnet]

Tracked down my Dark Mode for El Cap and above again. Before I had Metal GPUs and when using the work 2015 MBP running High Sierra, this script is how I was able to survive. It's not perfect, but it's also NOT the terminal command to simply force a broken Dark Mode on the system. It's better than that.

View attachment 2372206

Luckily, I still had it bookmarked!

How to enable "real dark mode" on OS X / macOS

DISCLAIMER (PLEASE READ): the service I've written to enable dark mode in apps is just an experiment. You should not expect it to work or…

medium.com

Wasn't working though, until I facepalmed myself. SIP must be disabled. Then it will work.

I feel like I should know this, but on dosdude1-patched systems, how does one disable SIP successfully when recovery is unavailable (as it, being unpatched, throws up the EFI-level unsupported halt)? Although on my patched High Sierra I have a third partition (after HS and SL) with the dosdude1-patched installer, disabling SIP from there is disallowed.

@dosdude1 ? Did you have documentation on this very thing for Sierra–Catalina patchers? Cheers.

 

[eyoungren]

I feel like I should know this, but on dosdude1-patched systems, how does one disable SIP successfully when recovery is unavailable (as it, being unpatched, throws up the EFI-level unsupported halt)? Although on my patched High Sierra I have a third partition (after HS and SL) with the dosdude1-patched installer, disabling SIP from there is disallowed.

@dosdude1 ? Did you have documentation on this very thing for Sierra–Catalina patchers? Cheers.

I usually just boot from the patched USB installer stick. With this particular MBA though, it can run High Sierra natively.

 

[TheShortTimer]

What have I done with an early Intel Mac recently? I used one to get an early Mac up and running.

Some time ago I snagged a Macintosh SE but it didn't have any software and I wasn't really excited about the prospect of having to pay absurd prices for stuff on floppy when almost all of it is abandonware now and available for free from the Mac Garden and other places but how to set up the SE with an operating system and install the software in the first place?

I bought a SCSI SD card reader, mounted an SD card on my MBP 2011 running High Sierra and downloaded a haul of 68k Mac software from the Internet Archive that has been packaged within a SCSI drive image.

Next, I copied the particular image that I wanted - "HD20SC.vhd" to the SD card, renamed it to "HD1.hda" and inserted it into the SCSI card reader device, switched on the SE and crossed my fingers...

Looking good!

Smashed it: the SE is back in action with a little help from its younger counterpart. The drive image functions correctly and I can boot up, change OS versions, reboot or shut-down to my heart's content.

A good result, I'm sure you'll all agree.

 

[B S Magnet]

I usually just boot from the patched USB installer stick. With this particular MBA though, it can run High Sierra natively.

Yah. Yours appears to be a 2013 or 2014, if the default recovery is Yosemite.

I guess I should have been clearer: the third partition on that SSD is that USB installer.

I set it up that way, self-contained onboard the Mac, in the unlikely event it became necessary to re-install High Sierra, and a USB stick wasn’t handy. At the time I set everything up this way, it was what I reckoned would be the nearest analogue to an actual recovery partition the system could use. I hadn’t thought to test SIP disable when I first set up the patched HS from that installer-partition.

As it isn’t, though, I feel the one person here who’s gonna know, leaps and bounds beyond everyone else, is dosdude1 himself.

 

[B S Magnet]

What have I done with an early Intel Mac recently? I used one to get an early Mac up and running.

Some time ago I snagged a Macintosh SE but it didn't have any software and I wasn't really excited about the prospect of having to pay absurd prices for stuff on floppy when almost all of it is abandonware now and available for free from the Mac Garden and other places but how to set up the SE with an operating system and install the software in the first place?

I bought a SCSI SD card reader, mounted an SD card on my MBP 2011 running High Sierra and downloaded a haul of 68k Mac software from the Internet Archive that has been packaged within a SCSI drive image.

Next, I copied the particular image that I wanted - "HD20SC.vhd" to the SD card, renamed it to "HD1.hda" and inserted it into the SCSI card reader device, switched on the SE and crossed my fingers...

Looking good!

Smashed it: the SE is back in action with a little help from its younger counterpart. The drive image functions correctly and I can boot up, change OS versions, reboot or shut-down to my heart's content.

A good result, I'm sure you'll all agree.

Nice. look at all those bootROMs!

From an SD card, have you noticed any minor speed bump over booting from SCSI HDD?

 

[TheShortTimer]

Nice. look at all those bootROMs!

The amount of software that's been included is staggering. There's around 1,000 titles available!

From an SD card, have you noticed any minor speed bump over booting from SCSI HDD?

My SE doesn't have a SCSI HDD - just the twin floppy drives but I can see a huge speed gain compared to any SCSI HDD because the OS boots and reaches the desktop in seconds. It's ultra-fast and well worth taking the plunge if you're tempted.

 

[eyoungren]

Yah. Yours appears to be a 2013 or 2014, if the default recovery is Yosemite.

It's actually a mid-2011. I bought it about two years ago for my wife and put Catalina on it via a patcher. But with 4GB ram and the way she uses things it was too slow so she didn't use it much.

I have it now because I asked about it, having gone through the recent fiasco of trying to clone a drive (without success). It would have been nice at the time for various reasons to have this little Mac. The 2015 work MBP still has High Sierra so it was a help - which is why I installed High Sierra on this MBA. But that's the max OS it can do without a patcher.

But the price of asking to have it (it just was sitting there) was to get my wife a new MBP.

 

[B S Magnet]

It's actually a mid-2011. I bought it about two years ago for my wife and put Catalina on it via a patcher. But with 4GB ram and the way she uses things it was too slow so she didn't use it much.

I have it now because I asked about it, having gone through the recent fiasco of trying to clone a drive (without success). It would have been nice at the time for various reasons to have this little Mac. The 2015 work MBP still has High Sierra so it was a help - which is why I installed High Sierra on this MBA. But that's the max OS it can do without a patcher.

But the price of asking to have it (it just was sitting there) was to get my wife a new MBP.

Apologies. I was addressing the MBA with dark mode in this post, not the MBP you set up for your wife in the one preceding it. Cheers.

 

[eyoungren]

Apologies. I was addressing the MBA with dark mode in this post, not the MBP you set up for your wife in the one preceding it. Cheers.

LOL. It's not on you. Most of the time I am UNCLEAR. And my wife tells me that English is my first language! SMH.

To be clear…or at least try again.

The MBA you linked to where I posted the pic of the Dark Mode, that is a mid-2011 running High Sierra (now). I got that some time in 2022.

The 2015 MBP I refer to that I got for my wife is a recent purchase. It arrived just this past week. I put Monterey on it.

 

[bobesch]

but on dosdude1-patched systems, how does one disable SIP successfully when recovery is unavailable

Add a tiny 12GB HFS+ partition at the very end of the internal HardDrive
and intall the Mojave_macOS_Installer onto that 12GB partition. It works like the 16GB USB-Installer-Stick.
It's far better than any RecoveryPartition, since you can reinstall macOS without internet-connection.
And it's always on-board.

 

[bobesch]

It's actually a mid-2011. I bought it about two years ago for my wife and put Catalina on it via a patcher.

Oh, dd1p/Catalina with it's consuming indexing of Fotos had been certainly overkill to that poor 11"MBP
compared to dd1p/Mojave or HighSierra.
I guess, progressing from HS to Mojave wouldn't be any harm, but gives you DarkTheme and the option of "Grey.App".

 

[TheShortTimer]

Oh, dd1p/Catalina with it's consuming indexing of Fotos had been certainly overkill to that poor 11"MBP
compared to dd1p/Mojave or HighSierra.
I guess, progressing from HS to Mojave wouldn't be any harm, but gives you DarkTheme and the option of "Grey.App".

Don't forget your tip on deactivating that indexing feature.

 

[B S Magnet]

Add a tiny 12GB HFS+ partition at the very end of the internal HardDrive
and intall the Mojave_macOS_Installer onto that 12GB partition. It works like the 16GB USB-Installer-Stick.
It's far better than any RecoveryPartition, since you can reinstall macOS without internet-connection.
And it's always on-board.

I guess I was too vague about this, so I guess I’ll need to be more explicit:

1. On my MBP4,1 running dosdude1-patched High Sierra, the SSD is partitioned three ways: SL, patched HS, and patched HS installer (the one which would usually be on a USB stick);
2. Booting into dosdude1-patched High Sierra installer gets to the installer, but disabling SIP from that terminal window is not permitted (recovery partition boot is required);
3. Booting into bog-standard High Sierra installer from USB stick doesn’t work: EFI faults with unsupported system;
4. Booting into recovery partition on the dosdude-patched High Sierra is not permitted: unsupported system;
5. The dark mode hack link supplied by eyoungren above necessitates disabling SIP first; and
6. SIP may only be disabled from booting into a bog-standard recovery partition, which … see #4.

So for now, this remains a chicken-egg question I’ve yet to figure out.