OS 10.15, Catalina, arriving this Friday, October 4th?

[honestone33]

Here is what I did last year when Mojave was released, and what I'll also do when I start testing Catalina:

1. As I always do, made my SuperDuper! backups for each of my Macs to my two external SSDs, which at that time was my clean High Sierra system.

2. Installed the .2 version of Mojave on another external SSD, formatted as APFS.

3. Migrated/copied needed files, folders, settings, etc. from my internal (High Sierra) SSD to that Mojave external SSD. Most of the applications that I needed to upgrade for Mojave compatibility could still be used with High Sierra, but for some of them, I made the necessary adjustments/installations on that Mojave SSD. One of my critical applications, Tech Tool Pro, was not yet compatible with Mojave, so I deleted it from the Mojave SSD after the migration.

With that, I still had my High Sierra system in tact (along with the SuperDuper! backups), along with a separate environment for testing Mojave. All of that worked well.

 

[jpdemers]

The thing is that the third party hardware drivers that come with the Mac OS are not actually "from Apple". They were put together by the third party hardware vendors (using tools from Apple) and included with the Mac OS as an accommodation.

My printer is a 1999 vintage HP 4050. Amazingly it works with Mojave. I'm a bit skeptical that HP will jump up and make sure the drivers for Catalina will support it, but how to test this in advance?

 

[honestone33]

My printer is a 1999 vintage HP 4050. Amazingly it works with Mojave. I'm a bit skeptical that HP will jump up and make sure the drivers for Catalina will support it, but how to test this in advance?

Good question. I just visited this link:

HP LaserJet - Older HP printers with macOS drivers | HP(R) Customer Support

Not sure how helpful it is. With Mojave, did you install drivers from HP, or just use the drivers contained within Mojave? For my "somewhat new" Canon Printer, I've been able to use the drivers for that printer contained within the Mac OS, for Sierra, High Sierra, and Mojave.

 

[honestone33]

Regarding printers and Catalina, I just read this:

Catalina support for Canon 32-bit printer… - Apple Community

Some of that just reinforces what I have mentioned about using my Canon Printer with recent versions of the Mac OS. For scanning, I actually have a 3rd party application VueScan that has been working well for me. Fortunately, it is compatible with Catalina:

VueScan 9.7 is compatible with macOS Catalina

I already have that version installed.

 

[pm-r]

@jpdemers

My printer is a 1999 vintage HP 4050. Amazingly it works with Mojave. I'm a bit skeptical that HP will jump up and make sure the drivers for Catalina will support it, but how to test this in advance?

It looks like you may still be in luck, but see if you can actually translate what Apple is saying with their documents:
Printer and scanner drivers for Mac - Apple Support

But HP's Site seems a bit more promising and a bit easier to understand:
HP LaserJet - Older HP printers with macOS drivers | HP(R) Customer Support

So that looks promising and good luck.


- Patrick
======

 

[honestone33]

Regarding SuperDuper! and Catalina compatibility, just saw this:

Shirt Pocket Watch

Quite a lot of good information there, and I am so glad Shirt Pocket is taking a cautious approach, and being thorough in getting the update ready. Besides, I have yet to upgrade to Catalina, and will wait until at least the first update, OS 10.15.1, is released.

 

[chscag]

Sound like the folks at Shirt Pocket as usual are slow at getting ready for a new macOS.

Carbon Copy Cloner developers have been ready for Catalina for some time. However, SD is a good app and worth waiting for.

 

[MacInWin]

@jpdemers



It looks like you may still be in luck, but see if you can actually translate what Apple is saying with their documents:
Printer and scanner drivers for Mac - Apple Support

But HP's Site seems a bit more promising and a bit easier to understand:
HP LaserJet - Older HP printers with macOS drivers | HP(R) Customer Support

So that looks promising and good luck.


- Patrick
======

Patrick the Apple article is out of date and not supported any more. It says at the top:

This list is no longer updated.
Many vendors of printers and scanners have adopted driverless technologies such as AirPrint, and they are no longer providing drivers for new devices. If your printer was made in the last several years, it probably doesn't require a driver. This list is provided for reference purposes and is no longer being updated.

 

[honestone33]

Sound like the folks at Shirt Pocket as usual are slow at getting ready for a new macOS.

Carbon Copy Cloner developers have been ready for Catalina for some time. However, SD is a good app and worth waiting for.

So what? As I have stated numerous times (and others also), I am not moving to Catalina right away anyway. Also, there are a couple of other critical apps I use which do not yet have an update for Catalina, or in the case of Onyx, a new version.

Again, I am just so pleased that the developers at Shirt Pocket are taking the time and effort to make an excellent update. Who cares that CCC was first? Yes, CCC is a good product, but nothing wrong with being careful and diligent.

I'm kind of surprised how come no one is remarking how revealing that blog entry is with regards to some of the inner workings of Catalina. Although I do not fully understand all of it, I certainly will give Dave Nanlan kudos for making such a post. (By the way, Dave is nice to work with. I corresponded with him last year about SuperDuper! and Mojave, and he was very responsive).