MacBook Air 2010 2GB RAM 25GB Free Storage - Upgrade to High Sierra?

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I have a Late 2010 MBA (1.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) with 2GB of RAM and 25GB of free storage. This machine sits in a remote location and does nothing but run shell scripts 24/7 that run a webcam and keep the machine connected to a captive portal Internet connection. I've written about this machine on a previous thread.

I visit the machine once a month and upgrade MacPorts and otherwise have a look. I rarely use GUI apps. Most of what I do is via command line.

I log on to the machine remotely using Chrome Remote Desktop. The machine is behind a double NAT. Back to My Mac never worked and I can't SSH in, but Chrome Remote Desktop works great and the performance is admirable given the relatively slow Internet bandwidth of the remote machine.

Lately I've been receiving notices that certain software, including Chrome Remote Desktop, will no longer support Mavericks. I'm tempted to upgrade to High Sierra, but am somewhat wary about how well the machine will run with a more resource intensive OS. But, I really don't want to lose remote access to this machine.

I'd be interested in hearing from other users with similar 2010 MBAs who have upgraded to High Sierra.

==========-
Here's the gist of what I posted before about this machine: For reasons that remain unclear, Apple pushed High Sierra to this machine on June 10th of this year and attempted to install it. From the console log:
Code:
Jun 10 04:48:26 Axe.local softwareupdated[240] : SWU: downloading "macOS High Sierra,  "
Jun 10 04:49:14 Axe.local softwareupdated[240] : SWU: installing "macOS High Sierra,
All of this was done without my permission.

Fortunately, the installation failed. From the system log:
Code:
Sandbox denied authorizing right 'system.install.app-store-software.standard-user' for authorization created by '/System/Library/CoreServices/Software Update.app/Contents/Resources/SoftwareUpdateConfigData'

I'm still baffled as to why Apple would push this update to my machine two years after it was introduced. But, now that I've got it I may need it.
 
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2011 27" iMac, 1TB(partitioned) SSD, 20GB, OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan
Lately I've been receiving notices that certain software, including Chrome Remote Desktop, will no longer support Mavericks.


Whenever I read such notices, they never seem to make it very clear if their lack of support means the software or application will no longer run or work or if it will just not be supported by any future updates.

If it's just a matter of not being supported buy not having any newer updates, at least they can't wreck it with any "update". :Smirk:


- Patrick
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Whenever I read such notices, they never seem to make it very clear if their lack of support means the software or application will no longer run or work or if it will just not be supported by any future updates.

If it's just a matter of not being supported buy not having any newer updates, at least they can't wreck it with any "update". :Smirk:

Here's the message from Chrome Remote Desktop:

Chrome Remote Desktop said:
Chrome Remote Desktop is no longer receiving updates on computers running macOS 10.9 (Mavericks) or earlier, and will stop working soon. Once this happens you will need to upgrade the operating system on the remote computer to connect to it.
 
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Chrome Remote Desktop is no longer receiving updates on computers running macOS 10.9 (Mavericks) or earlier, and will stop working soon

Well I guess that "support" statement is pretty clear — and will stop working soon!!!

I often wonder why some software won't always keep working when an OS X updates. One would think at least the basics would still work about the same.

All same as printers and scanners etc. that seem to always get hit when all they have to do is send some code back-and-forth.


- Patrick
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Think about it, Patrick. When the developer updates the application to take advantage of some feature, or react to some change, in a newer version of the OS, if that application has to work with older versions of the app, the developer has to do more testing, maybe even more coding, to make sure that the new stuff doesn't break what works on the older version and older OS. So the issue is not that the app "won't always keep working" when an OS updates, it's more that the developer doesn't want to spend time and money to fix something for an old OS that isn't going to make any money. New sales will most likely be for newer versions, to the time spent getting it right on the newer OS has a return, but not so much on legacy versions. On the other hand, if the OS stays old and the software works on that old version, then all the user has to do is NOT update to later versions and the application should still work, unless the world moves on and, in this case, the user discovers that the OTHER end has moved on and the connections no longer work because THAT end changed.
 
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Well, it would be nice to know exactly why some software won't work with newer system versions. For example, what does "will stop working soon" mean exactly? Next week? Next month? Next OS upgrade? What, exactly, will trigger this work stoppage? Is it something that I do or is it some impending change to the Chrome Remote Desktop servers?

I have the same puzzlement with MacPorts. If I upgrade to a newer system version I will have to go through a rather tedious migration problem which essentially deletes everything, reinstalls MacPorts and then either recompiles or reinstalls all the binaries. (I've done this many times.) But, if I don't do the migration, will some binaries continue to work? If so, which ones? No one seems to know.
 
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The message says
Once this happens you will need to upgrade the operating system on the remote computer to connect to it.
and that implies that the remote, rather than your server, will be the controlling factor in when it will stop working. I am not familiar with MacPorts or what it does, or Chrome Remote Desktop server, but if you are using them to connect to other systems, from the message it would appear that if those systems update, you will lose connectivity, probably because of some change internal to the OS. But the message is cryptic, that's for sure.
 
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I use Chrome Remote Desktop to connect to the MBA that lives at my condo. I don't need it often, and SSH would be sufficient. No remote access at all would not be good.

MacPorts is just away to install software that is mostly used from the command line or from scripts. I use it to install stuff like ffmpeg, curl (with SSH support) and lots of other useful utilities.
 

Rod


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One of the factors not mentioned here is security. I believe Apple will also be removing support (if it hasn’t already) for Mavericks and El Capitan when macOS Catalina is released and that means no security updates. This is obviously a security risk for you personally and Google may see it as a security risk for them as well. The general rule of thumb is Apple supports updates to the current and previous two OS’s so assuming Apple releases a now OS every year you only get three years of cover.
Which Releases of macOS Are Supported With Security Updates?


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