Time for a new Mac?

[Rod]

Allen to answer your question it is an old device and will inevitably become less compatible with current and future technology. It is also reaching the end of a better than average lifespan. You mentioned photos so I do hope it's backed up. A simple Time Machine backup to a USB External Hard Drive would at least ensure nothing is lost.
At the moment so long as the device continues to do the job there is no need to replace it immediately but I would start looking as per the suggestions given. And perhaps a little research into the current macOS. Catalina is a somewhat different beast to El Capitan.


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[allen-uk]

I'm coming to that sort of conclusion myself, Rod. Apart from having to use Firefox or Chrome rather than the 'normal' Safari, there's not much wrong with it (good after 12 years). Yes, we both back up (Superduper to external SSDs). I've got High Sierra on my Mac Mini, but at 6 years old it too is running out of updates.

The various tips given in this thread are going to be very useful, if not immediately, then certainly in the months ahead.

Thanks for your input.

Allen.

 

[AirBear]

One option I've used is to switch to Ubuntu Linux on older MacBook Pro's. I volunteer refurbishing old computers that are given to charities and families with school age kids that can't afford a computer. We recently received 2 MBP's that are 2012 models I believe. But we didn't have the password and had no way of finding out what it is. I tried everything I could think of to get Mac OS back on it but finally gave up. Research said Ubuntu Linux was the most compatible with Mac's. We normally use Manjaro Linux but it wouldn't install. I don't know if Ubuntu will work on an even older Mac like the OP mentioned but it's worth a try. Maybe install to an external drive to test it out before nuking the Mac OS hard drive.

Ubuntu Linux has lots of software available and it's easy to install, no command line stuff needed. You do need to check the box "install proprietary drivers" since the wifi uses one.

 

[krs]

If you are refurbishing a lot of old Macs, wouldn't it make more sense to just get the approproate macOS USB installers, wipe the hard drive and install the macOS instead of guessing at passwords and/or trying to install Linux

 

[AirBear]

If you are refurbishing a lot of old Macs, wouldn't it make more sense to just get the approproate macOS USB installers, wipe the hard drive and install the macOS instead of guessing at passwords and/or trying to install Linux

We see very few Mac's. I've had maybe 6 total out of 130 or so total donated computers. I'm the only volunteer there who has a Mac at home so the ones we do get default to me to work on. Mac's are hard to give away because they're mostly an unknown to the families, they all want Windows. Computer's that won't support Win10 get Manjaro Linux or in the case of the really old WinXp 32 bit systems they get MX Linux. Those are also hard to give away because of the "unknown" factor. These last 2 MBP's were 2nd Gen i7 and i5 CPU's so if I could have put the Mac OS on all I would have done is bootcamp into Win10. A few weeks ago we did have a nice MBP that was maxed out at High Sierra. Went thru our list of those waiting for computers and found a high school student who knew Mac's so she got it.

The other issue is we have basically no budget to work with. We got some donations which we used to buy power adapters because 90% of the laptops come in without one. We don't charge for our computers so we wind up salvaging hard drives and memory from ones we don't give away. I have an older Macbook that's maxed out at OS 10.7, I had to swipe it's power adapter for the newer ones I mentioned above. Our generic power adapter kits don't have Mac adapters. We can't justify buying a power adapter for a computer that old so I'll probably wind up scrapping it to get the 4GB of RAM and 120GB drive out of it.

 

[MacInWin]

Most Intel Macs will run Windows natively, no need for BootCamp. Just use the Windows installer, partition and format the drive for Windows and install it as the only system on the beast. No "unknown" factor there.

 

[pm-r]

Doesn't use it for much apart from social chatting, Googling, photo storage, etc.
... ... ...
Can't update any further past El Capitan, due to its age. Not usually a problem, but some recent revises to Safari appear to be absent from her Safari 11, which made getting into her bank account a bit difficult recently (although if she went in through Firefox or Chrome she had no problems).

With that banking problem solved, I would say end of problems, at least for now, and just carry on.

PS: I'm still running a mid-2011 iMac using Mavericks 10.9.5 because I prefer the operating system and it works for me.



- Patrick
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[chscag]

Most Intel Macs will run Windows natively, no need for BootCamp. Just use the Windows installer, partition and format the drive for Windows and install it as the only system on the beast. No "unknown" factor there.

While that's true for the most part, finding and installing drivers that will work with the Mac hardware can be difficult especially if the Macs are vintage.

 

[Rod]

Personally I'm in favour of the USB thumb drive installer. Plug it in boot to it, erase the HD and instal something like Mavericks 10.9.5 which should be compatible with anything worth reusing. From there it can be updated to whatever it will take. The catch is that to update you need an Apple ID and account.
Ideally the device should open to the Setup Wizard for the new user so how do you overcome the need to personalise before installing upgrades or alternative OS's?