With Apple’s desktop operating systems straying ever further from what some of us consider its heyday, it’s no surprise people long for the days before Apple started relentlessly focusing on services revenue, bringing iOS paradigms to macOS, and dropping its Aqua design language for whatever they’re doing now. Some people take this longing and channel it into something a bit more concrete, and an example of this is a website I stumbled upon on Fedi: Mavericks Forever.
Mavericks Forever is a detailed guide to, as the name implies, keep using Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks. It covers everything from hardware options to security patches, browser choices, and so, so much more. It even goes as far as adding more recent emoji releases, custom security patches, and visual customisations. There’s a ton to go over here, and of course, you don’t have to implement every single suggestions.
I ostensibly like pain, because I’ve had a soft spot for the trash can Mac Pro ever since they came out. Now that they are wholly and completely outdated by Apple standards, their prices are probably dropping rapidly, so I may have to grab one from eBay or whatever and follow this guide for a modern-ish Mavericks setup. I do actually like the Mac OS X of old quite a bit, I would love to have a usable version of it that I can use when I feel like it.
If only to remember the good old days.
Why not keep using Mavericks? Well because Apple makes it impossible of course.
First the hardware. Even in that article, the author makes it clear that Mavericks will not run on hardware sold in the past 10 years. The author gets around this by making a Hackintosh but I guess the reason there is that it is illegal (which I suppose we are treating as a personal choice).
Second, the software. Ok, so you are will to run on old hardware. How about applications? I guess you are ok as long as you do not need stuff like Teams, Office, Chrome, Firefox, Photoshop, Discord, Slack, Spotify, or Final Cut Pro. Most of the Mac software you are going to want to use will refuse to run on Mavericks. For many of those, it is not even possible to use older versions. About the oldest version on macOS that is practical these days is Ventura which is from a decade after Mavericks.
If you are happy with ancient software, how about security? What browser are we supposed to be reading this article with on Mavericks?
If you want to have control over your user experience, you cannot run a proprietary OS. Of course, on Linux, you can still daily drive GNOME 2 (MATE) or KDE 3 (Trinity) or even CDE.
I guess my final answer to the question posed is that Linux is better. The hardware I am typing this on will run Mavericks natively no problem. I run Chimera Linux instead (with Firefox 141 on it).
Really? I’m still digging it. First cut of Sequoia has been a bit “meh” in places (notably Settings but that’s no show stopper. The ’26 improvements are superb – esp. the massive improvements to Spotlight. The last “great” version of OSX before this was, IMNSHO, 10.6.
@ppp
> I’m still digging it
I misunderstood you at first I think. I thought this meant that you are still running Mavericks. But I think you just mean that you still like modern macOS. Nothing wrong with that. My own view is that macOS changes have been a bit of a mixed bag with new versions having some useful features and older ones being nicer in some ways. As a lot of people say though, I think macOS has lost ground in relative terms in that other operating systems have advanced more. I do not dig it anymore though I do occasionally have some app jealousy. But I can run macOS on Proxmox if I need to.
> The ’26 improvements are superb
Does that mean that you are running Tahoe already? I do not expect it to be released until September.
> The last “great” version of OSX before this was, IMNSHO, 10.6.
We agree that Snow Leopard was awesome. I was a Mac user at work back then and really liked it. It was substantially better at multimedia work than Linux at the time and the hardware was crazy good in comparison to the competition.
Yeah, been paying with the Tahoe Betas. I think betas have now gone public as of the 7th. I’m a sucker for some bling so I’ve really liked it. A lot of tedious format/alignment/GUI stuff has been cleared up.
How much further can OS research go? Kinda feels like there’s a fairly level field across *NIX platforms + Window. I’m a regular indulger at Phoronix and see there’s plenty of optimization potential and gain all over the place, which is cool, but as a practice it’s mostly a well understood area.
GUI can always change and can always improve. SL was the Win2K of MacOS. Absolutely bullet proof and as good as it got in that generation of hardware.
Yeah. Running the beta on apple silicon system has been a pretty painless and straightforward experience. Really digging the integration into the base system of functionality I used to get through 3rd party utils.
At this point, all major desktops systems (mac, win, linux) get the job done. It mainly comes down to aesthetics and ecosystem preferences.
New Os’s Suck. Reminds me of Linux. Can easily point to this and that and compare it to Linux. Bah what a waste. With the performance and video capabilities so much touted they could overhaul the GUI and make it Astonishing advanced and futuristic, but No, it looks rather boring. Why can’t they bring back themes? Damn Lazy Programmers. I remember a time where there were do many developers trying all kinda things, apple buying them out or cutting them off. The mass interest in WWDC is kinda lame now. it’s all a closed system and geared towards making money rather and anything for the user. I BET the next os we will get meager updates and pitiful features.
I’m running a 2013 Mac Pro (trashcan) right now. Triple boot (Mac/Linux/Win) with a large enough SSD. I know it has the bottleneck in the SSD (for the NVME adapter), but it still is capable!
I lucked out and found a Xeon E5-2697v2, 64GB RAM, dual FirePro D700 graphics cards, and a Thunderbolt 2 dock for around $250 USD.
There are times when I would like something with a newer processor and graphics, but for the physical space and cost, this is it!
I’m so confused!! What!!!! Has changed that the vast majority have not made note of, that has you so upset?
I’ve seen a handful of other such comments and I seriously don’t get the hate.
Unlike Microsoft that can’t make two releases look, let alone act, the same .
Should I mention Linux, and the major distros killing off X? (I won’t start again on the nasty church-of-GPL).
macOS is and remains NextStep. Though varying from the base slightly it’s CDE compliant. It is BSD. Not just posix but certified Unix. The oldest, longest lasting, and most powerful OS family.
What in the world has this small tiny minority making so much noise. I include you, but that’s no a knock. It’s honest confusion.
What, has caused such a loud uproar.?