Which macOS version should I use

[lrac_0312]

Good day good people of LTT forums. Im generally a Windows person, Unfortunately due to a change in continent and being an adult now; I have not acquired a PC "yet". At the moment I'm stuck with my girlfriend's old 13 inch Macbook Pro retina late 2012 model which has an i5 ivy bridge I think, 8gb ram wanted to upgrade this to 16 but apple being apple soldered the damn thing and originally had a 128gb ssd which I upgraded to 256gb with another apple thing a proprietary SSD "rant". Now to my question, I'm contemplating which version of macOS I should use with the hardware I have. It was running the latest supported with Catalina, but since downgraded to Mojave post SSD upgrade. What would you guys suggest? It was running with Catalina, though pretty sluggish. I only plan to use the laptop for Lightroom and if God willing some light video editing. Mojave is now running quit snappy, however been having issues with some software as most only supports Catalina or higher. Had to do some digging to find older version of the software that would run in Mojave. Even with Logitech options; had a hard time scrounge the internet for an older version as the links on Logitech sites was not working. Anyway, Thank you in advance for anyone who would give any suggestions. Good day and God bless to everyone.

IMG_0137.HEIC

[BondiBlue]

That's a pretty weak machine by today's standards, but it should run macOS Catalina just fine. In my experience Catalina runs as well if not better than Mojave on older machines. You could also patch it to run a later version if you wanted. 

 

Also, Linux and Windows are both valid options for an older MacBook like that, so keep that in mind. 

[Guest]

Adobe Lightroom Classic runs on Big Sur and up

[fello]

you can install ubuntu on you machine. In my experience this is great for older systems.

[lrac_0312]

22 hours ago, BondiBlue said:

That's a pretty weak machine by today's standards, but it should run macOS Catalina just fine. In my experience Catalina runs as well if not better than Mojave on older machines. You could also patch it to run a later version if you wanted. 

 

Also, Linux and Windows are both valid options for an older MacBook like that, so keep that in mind. 

Yeah, thats what I was thinking, but have to make the most of what I have at the moment. I'll think about updating to Catalina. Been doing well so far with Mojave, apart from the application issues. Will probably give it a try if I hit another road block. With windows I have MacOs setup already, and would like to experience Mac for now. Will get a full PC in the future, hopefully.

[lrac_0312]

51 minutes ago, fello said:

you can install ubuntu on you machine. In my experience this is great for older systems.

That is a good idea, however would not want to go through the head ache of using linux. I know its much better these days but planning to use it at a full daily driver and would not want something that I would troubleshoot half the time. And I don't have much experience with linux apart from a few public computers back in college.

[Elroy Jetson]

In the past I experimented with Mint 19 on 2 2011 MacBook Pros. It was not a good experience. Overall it ran ok (everything worked) but power management did not. I probably got less than ½ the battery life as macOS. It ran HOT all the time and eventually cooked the batteries (to failure) in both.

 

I'm running Mint 20 on a Mac Pro 5,1, it works great there, heat isn't an issue as it is designed run under full load 24/7.

 

[HrutkayMods]

They now have OCLP for Ventura you could patch it and give it a try runs pretty good on order stuff

[the_hobbinord]

On 11/18/2022 at 7:08 PM, lrac_0312 said:

Good day good people of LTT forums. Im generally a Windows person, Unfortunately due to a change in continent and being an adult now; I have not acquired a PC "yet". At the moment I'm stuck with my girlfriend's old 13 inch Macbook Pro retina late 2012 model which has an i5 ivy bridge I think, 8gb ram wanted to upgrade this to 16 but apple being apple soldered the damn thing and originally had a 128gb ssd which I upgraded to 256gb with another apple thing a proprietary SSD "rant". Now to my question, I'm contemplating which version of macOS I should use with the hardware I have. It was running the latest supported with Catalina, but since downgraded to Mojave post SSD upgrade. What would you guys suggest? It was running with Catalina, though pretty sluggish. I only plan to use the laptop for Lightroom and if God willing some light video editing. Mojave is now running quit snappy, however been having issues with some software as most only supports Catalina or higher. Had to do some digging to find older version of the software that would run in Mojave. Even with Logitech options; had a hard time scrounge the internet for an older version as the links on Logitech sites was not working. Anyway, Thank you in advance for anyone who would give any suggestions. Good day and God bless to everyone.

IMG_0137.HEIC 1.85 MB · 3 downloads

I would suggest Ubuntu but most people aren't gonna do this

[the_hobbinord]

On 1/15/2023 at 6:12 PM, Elroy Jetson said:

In the past I experimented with Mint 19 on 2 2011 MacBook Pros. It was not a good experience. Overall it ran ok (everything worked) but power management did not. I probably got less than ½ the battery life as macOS. It ran HOT all the time and eventually cooked the batteries (to failure) in both.

 

I'm running Mint 20 on a Mac Pro 5,1, it works great there, heat isn't an issue as it is designed run under full load 24/7.

 

You need to install powertop and intel powersaving tools to get the right battery life on laptops. The ArchWiki has tons of pages on power saving that can be applied to any distro. Most distros are gonna be set up as one-size-fits-all and so to get it working at its 100% potential you have to tweak some stuff.

[HeroRareheart]

I'd say run the newest one it can myself.