Apple Mac OS Open Core Legacy Patcher (Or Linux now, I guess)

Smoker's Lounge
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Anybody know anything about this? I have some troubleshooting questions.

Late 2011 Macbook Pro 15-inch, Identifier 8,2. It has had the discreet (AMD) gpu disabled (dosdude1 did it). It had Catalina (unsupported) on it (up until 30mins ago), and I don’t even remember what method I used for that. Maybe a Catalina patcher (dosdude? don’t remember).

I heard about Open Core Legacy Patcher several months ago. Decided I’d try it out today.

I got pretty far into the process. But then got a window and error “an error occurred preparing the software update”. Only option was to click “OK”. Then I’m at “Choose startup disk” window - but I erased my SSD during the prep/earlier stages (the main drive, the one that had my Catalina OS on it). So there’s nothing to choose, and nowhere to go, haha.

Well, I had a “High Sierra” installer usb - that I was smart enough to save. High Sierra being the most recent “natively supported” OS for my model if I remember correctly (that’s why I kept it).

I closed the “choose startup disk”, inserted a my High Sierra installer usb into a usb hub and connected it, then used the apple icon to restart in top left to choose “restart”. Then I used the installer, and just successfully installed High Sierra.

Wondering how I should retry this OCLP process again to install either Sequoia or Sonoma. I remember one guide I was watching said to "update to highest OS supported by your machine (high sierra for me…?) first. But I was on Catalina (unsupported), so I decided to try it without being on high sierra first.

I downloaded discord because I read somewhere there’s a server there for OCLP help, but I don’t know how to use discord, hah. So a simple 1-2 hour thing becomes several days of reading, vid watching, joining forums, waiting for answers, etc. etc.

EDIT 1: High Sierra 10.13.6 running on MBP. Downloaded OCLP again, and currently downloading macOS Sonoma 14.7.6 (not Sequoia). I will try and make a Sonoma installer when this is finished. Then I’ll try installing it.

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Cool to see someone messing around with hackintosh stuff, but sadly I have no good advice to give. :sweat_smile:

Best of luck!

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Tried again, failed. Tried a third time, and success. I don’t even know exactly why. Got Sonoma on it now, hopefully this is usable.

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@3bombedmice, what a username. Haha. I like it.

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if i may make a suggestion, mint is a great os to replace on a mac, as is debian or ubuntu. that’s the only thing i’ve ever found a use for on a mac, installing linux since everything works pretty well. second suggestion if you’re stuck on a mac without using linux is get chatgpt to ask for an install guide and use that. use the “deep research” in the prompt and then have it run through the process to ensure it checks the instructions to make sure they work. i used it to install wazuh on an ubuntu server and then write the install guide. it had some trouble and took a while with the guide but the install went pretty well with only a couple of hiccups.

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I guess I’m going to have to look into this chatgpt thing. You’re always talking about it and I really have no clue about it.

I installed linux mint on my pc (thinkpad) on a secondary drive a few months ago. Haven’t used it since. The first app/program I go to install and I have to learn completely new and kind of foreign skills and I just can’t do that on the same machine I need to use.
I did think of putting linux on the MBP, but I thought if I do end up with linux on the thinkpad, I’d want a machine running either macOS or Windows.

Maybe chatgpt can just explain how to fuckin’ get going on linux and walk me through it. Hahaha.

By the way, you may always make a suggestion. I always appreciate your input, man. Thanks.

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You need to upgrade your Mac for new stuff. Depending on specs, it may not even run. For instance, in the latest update, running the os takes more ram than you have in the computer. You wouldn’t even be able to load it. As others have suggested, people have been getting much use out of converting old MacBooks to Linux and running new stuff like that. Have you thought of buying a new one? You can get a good deal on an m1 silicon one now. The m4 Mac mini you can get for 500 will do almost anything.

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Why? Because it’s old as dirt? Had it since 2012.

Specs: Late 2011 MBP 8,2.

It runs. I haven’t played with it at all yet. (actually, just tested some 1080p60 video on youtube while writing, and it looked great, and played smoothly). I’d be using it with an external monitor, and haven’t tested that yet. Since the AMD gpu is dead, it’s going to rely on the intel gpu, so…duno how that’ll fair on a 32" 1440p monitor (it struggled on my last setup I think - with video. At least the fans went full bore (could’ve been my macfancontrol settings).

I haven’t really thought of buying a new one. Macs are ridiculously expensive and very locked down now (hardware wise), but I guess that’s fairly widespread too.
The cheapest mac mini is $800 CAD, by the way.

I like the idea of pc’s/laptops like the Framework. But man, I can’t really spend $1500-2000 on a computer. Probably not even $1000. So, I duno, Old(er) Thinkpads + linux sounds like the only route.

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Education pricing is $499 and regular price is $599

I got the one with 512GB HD so it was a little more but otherwise the base is fine if you use cloud based storage or external. I have the 512 internal + 512 external + 2TB cloud based storage with Apple so it is about 3TB total.

The best deal in computing. It can literally do anything. I know you’re trying to hold on. My partner still has a 2015 MacBook Pro which runs very well. The new Apple Silicone architecture runs circles around anything intel based. 4k video editing while incorporating AI elements like masking etc are fast. Exporting any codec is really fast. Audio and video. I can run good size LLM locally. Nearly everything I do only utilizes a tiny fraction of the CPU. Ram is the only thing stopping me from stuff like instant game/video creation with larger models. Though, I can do it partially. I just created a contra like web browser game for fun this morning. very very basic.

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I’m running it with LG 5k display because Mac scales at 2.5-5k not 4k so a 1440P monitor would actually work great for you but it wouldn’t look as good as a 5k.

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they tend to let the older stuff stop working. that’s why i suggest the linux thing. some computers are so old that’s all they can handle, usually with xfce gui. i love using old computers and giving them away to kids who don’t get one otherwise. not worth anything at all but for a couple of hours some kid gets something they can mess around with.

i sent a raspberry pi, keyboard, and mouse down the road with a friend of mine for his kid and he later got a degree in computer science and is doing extremely well right now. cost me $40 for the pi which i had lying around and nothing for the keyboard and mouse since they came with a pc that bit the dust.

back when i used to host a free training night weekly, i gathered up computers for folks to use if they didn’t have one. had a few neighborhood kids who attended that one also, friends of my son. i even tried linking 8 of them together parallel computing to make a super computer. it worked but was hard as hell to keep running for some reason. probably just me although it could have been that i was using hardware literally out of the trash sometimes.

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First, thanks for the suggestion @CocoaCoir. macOS installed with OCLP was not really working very well. So, I just put linux mint 22.1 on the MBP yesterday. It seems to run quite well so far. But of course, there are some things I need to figure out. If I can’t get external monitor working correctly it is doubtful that I’ll use the MBP at all.

I think I might have got “education pricing” on the MBP back in 2012. But I’m not a student now. $599 USD x 1.35 = $800 CAD.

Another negative of apple is low storage, and price gouging for more of it. And it’s not upgradable after the fact, which I understand is more and more common.
I will never use “cloud” storage.

Actually, I’d probably believe this (I don’t know any better right now, haha). I duno if I’m trying to hold on. I guess you could put it that way.
But If I’m going to go and spend $600-1200 CAD (I have to stress CAD) on a new computer, it’s likely going to be a “desktop” pc that I’d want to assemble myself from individual components. I’ve been wanting to do this for the past few years. But I’m never “ready”.
There’s a amazon prime day sale coming up, if you wanna help me choose components to put something together? I’d need some help choosing parts - Tom’s hardware forum or similar maybe.

Gonna see if I can find anything to get external monitor working now… And also the Logitech MX keys mini isn’t working. I found a post or two discussing it. I was able to “install” my first app (package? program?) yesterday. A vpn client. Had to use terminal (which I have very minor experience with from macos actually) and it was alright.
Thanks.

Edit: Oh, that’s cool you’re making games/software. Nice!

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That’s fuckin’ great, man! Respect.
And I currently have Mint running on the MBP with Cinnamon.

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I would not recommend PC at all. This is the chip in my phone. It is half as powerful as the chip in my computer.

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That video is cool, very interesting. I duno what to take from it. Their chips are super dense or something. It’s amazing I’m sure. But I don’t think I want any part of apple’s prison “ecosystem”, haha. Can’t even move a fuckin’ song from one place to another without itunes and everything else being apple/mac.

I like macos more than windows, but I hate windows. I don’t want either of them. But having one around as a backup might be necessary. But not a deciding factor I don’t think.

You’re right about one thing though; I think I need new hardware regardless. This 13-14 year old stuff needs upgrading.

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you can get some awesome hardware two or three years old cheaper that is much faster than you’re used to now. that’s how i get my good setups when i need them. no way in hell i would ever buy a new computer, unless shopping for the soc we’re starting. but that is from investor money. also will use our custom linux distro and save all that licensing money.

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Looking into the Mac Mini M4 led me to looking into alternatives; mini pcs. Some interesting stuff. Also, looked into Linux on Mac Mini (M4) - but it’s not really there yet - because of the new Apple Silicon. Though there is Asahi Linux.

I’d like to build a capable pc, for installing Linux, could be small form factor - not the highest priority.

Anyways, can someone possibly recommend the best forum to go for help. Specifically somewhere where the pc obsessed like nothing more than to talk pcs and pc components and would enjoy (or at least tolerate) essentially “walking someone through” selecting the parts needed to meet a target performance/price point, and making sure that everything is compatible.
Of course, if anybody here is capable and willing to do that, that’d be great, too.
I am far from a noob, and perhaps equally as far from an expert. A novice. I’ve done way more “diy” stuff than the average person.

Thanks.

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PC Parts Picker/ and
r/BuildaPC/

I enjoy Apple products now because they are so far ahead IMO of PC. PC chip makers are just imitating the silicon stuff now. I used to hate Apple products and felt the same way as you did… Intel based Macs are not that much different from PCs so I understand why you think the way you do. The m4 has saved me so much time because no matter what I do, it is nearly instantaneous. If you really wish to use PC then you can find the information at these two links.

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I’m curious.

What type of work do you do that you benefit from this Mac Mini, specifically? Do you make games, edit music/audio or video files etc.?

Why did you hate apple products, and why can you get past the hate now (or do you still hate apple, but can’t put off the good performance of this particular model)?

My not wanting to go this apple route has nothing to do with hardware…wait that’s not entirely true - I don’t like the soldering of all components. Ok, but it has almost everything to do with macOS. If we were able to put Linux on this new apple silicon, I would get one and never use macOS on it.

Edit: And… Were you using any mac/apple devices before going with this mac mini m4? Did you use iPhone for example? And do you now use all the apple programs like itunes and whatever else to move music around?
I’d be having to basically avoid all these things. I just want to deal with, for example, mp3 files and folders, not itunes nonsense. Being able to move files and stuff around with ease between systems and devices.

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@CocoaCoir
Still wondering about this:

I’ve been looking at the MMM4 on and off. Trying to justify it, and think if I could handle the annoyance if the ‘ecosystem’ I wouldn’t want.
(Also, thinking about the actual cost; M4 mini, ssd upgrade (even diy internal upgrade would cost $$), various dongles and/or hub/dock, etc. Probably at least an extra several hundred dollars.

Did you get the student pricing, by the way?

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