Two Birds With One Stone
- Mac Os Catalina Free Download
- Mac Os Catalina App Download
- Install Catalina On Unsupported Mac
- Download Macos Catalina On Unsupported Mac
Once you are ready to jump into upgrading, follow the step-by-step guide below to install macOS Catalina on an older Mac using DosDude Catalina Patcher. First off, download the most recent version of Catalina Patcher from the official website. After the app is downloaded and installed, open it. The app will present you with a welcoming message. MacOS Catalina Patcher 1.4.4 for Mac is available as a free download on our software library. This free software for Mac OS X is an intellectual property of dosdude1. Our antivirus scan shows that this Mac download is malware free. The application is included in System Tools. Yosemite Installer supports more hardware (including AMD). Normally, computers that use AMD processors are unsupported by Mac OS X. However, Yosemite Installer includes experimental “patched” kernels that may allow Mac OS X to work with these processors regardless.
Download the latest version of macOS Catalina Patcher for Mac - Run macOS Catalina on your Unsupported Mac. Read 14 user reviews of macOS Catalina Patcher on MacUpdate. In this video, I go over the process of installing macOS 10.15 Catalina on an unsupported Mac. This entire process involves the use of my 'macOS Catalina Pat.
So I have this old secondhand MacBook Pro 7, 1 that won’t run MacOS later than 10.13.x. I have some uses for the Mac side, namely in the name of mobility, but would also love to get an install of Kali Linux installed so I can play around with it. I saw a comment on Reddit referencing a tool named “Patcher” that would allow for newer versions of MacOS on older Mac hardware. I immediately went down the rabbit hole and here we are.
Outlined below are the steps I took to get Catalina installed, a custom boot manager installed, and Kali Linux running in a dual boot setup. There are 3 main segments to this:
- Create a bootable Catalina USB installer using Patcher then installing Catalina on my unsupported machine.
- Install a custom boot loader onto my machine.
- Copy a Kali Linux iso to a USB drive, then install it onto my machine.
Patcher – Run Newer MacOS on Unsupported Hardware
Prerequisites – Here’s all you need to get started with Patcher:
- Patcher for Catalina: http://dosdude1.com/catalina/
- An unsupported Mac with a hard drive we can wipe.
- A USB thumb drive larger than 10Gb
Getting this going is super easy as the Patcher app does just about everything for you. USB installer creation can be performed on any machine. Once Patcher was downloaded I performed the following steps:
- Open the Patcher DMG and run macOS Catalina Patcher.app.
- Click Continue until you are prompted to either browse for a copy of Apple’s Catalina installer or download a fresh copy. It is imported to note that at the time of this writing 10.15.4 has been released but Patcher and 10.15.4 isn’t working on most machines. Therefore you should use Patcher’s “Download a Copy” feature to grab a copy of 10.15.3, which works.
- Insert your USB.
- Once Catalina is downloaded click the orange external drive icon to “Create a Bootable Installer”.
- Select your USB drive, then click start.
- Enter your password when prompted to begin.
- Once done your USB drive is ready to rock.
- Plug the USB into your unsupported Mac, hold option to bring up the boot picker, and select the Patcher USB.
- Once booted you’ll be presented with a list of options. Highlight Disk Utility and then click continue.
- We need to leave some space for Kali. Above the left pane click View–>Show All Devices.
- Highlight the internal HDD and then click the partition button.
- Create 2 partitions, an APFS partition for our Catalina install and another for Kali. It is up to you to decide how large you wish these to be. I set the Kali partition to be HFS nut this shouldn’t matter since it will be reformatted when we install Kali.
- Close Disk Utility, highlight reinstall macOS, click Continue, agree to terms, select your newly created APFS volume, then click install.
- Once done reboot back into the Patcher USB.
- Click macOS Post Install
- Leave checkboxes alone and click to install patches.
- Allow system to reboot, then boot back into the Patcher USB.
- While were at it, let’s disable SIP. We’ll need to do this in order to install Kali. Click Utilities on the upper toolbar then disable SIP with the following command:
- Reboot and setup Catalina for your use.
Installing rEFInd – Custom Bootloader
Prerequisites – Here’s all you need to get rEFInd onto your machine: Download full size macos catalina.
- Your Mac
- The latest version of rEFInd: https://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/
Despite involving some terminal commands this is really quite simple. We’ll mount the EFI volume on the Mac then throw the rEFInd files onto it. It involves a few terminal command but again, quite simple.
- Verify your architecture with the following command:
- You should get something similar to the following:
This indicates 64bit. - Run the following command to verify where the EFI partition lives:
- Take note of the identifier as indicated in the below screenshot:
- Run the following commands to create a directory with which we can mount the EFI volume to, mount it, and create a directory for rEFInd. EFI should be at disk0s1 but if it is different for you then modify the command below appropriately.
- Download rEFInd and unzip it.
- Copy the contents of the refind subdirectory to the refind directory we created in the above command.
- More than likely you are running 64bit EFI. Delete the following to avoid conflicts:
- Delete the following drivers, also to avoid both conflicts and slow boot times:
- Rename refind.conf-sample to refind.conf.
- Now we must bless all things holy in order to boot to our new loader:
- Reboot the machine and you should be presented with the rEFInd bootloader, which should look like this:
Kali Linux – Installation Time
Now that we have our machine prepped we can create a Kali USB installer, boot to it, and install Kali onto our Mac. This part is pretty simple too but you need to be careful when formatting an installation partition, lest you nuke your macOS install. Here’s what you need:
- Your Mac
- Kali iso: https://www.kali.org/downloads/
- A USB thumb drive large enough to house the Kali iso
- Etcher : https://www.balena.io/etcher/
Here’s what I did:
- Open Etcher.
- Select the iso you downloaded, select your USB drive, click “Flash”.
- Plug your Kali USB into your destination Mac and boot it.
- Your USB should show up as:
Boot Legacy OS from whole disk volume - Once booted select “Graphical Install” and proceed with setting up machine name, username, etc.
- When prompted to manage disks/partitions choose “Manual”.
- Select the HFS volume you created earlier and delete the partition.
- This will now show up as free space.
- Go back to Guided Partitioning and select “use the largest continuous free space”.
- Select your desired partitioning schema. I just used the whole partition for all files, nothing fancy.
- Elect to write the changes to disk.
- Kali will now install, I am not sure if Grub is required but I installed it on my HDD when prompted.
- …
- Profit.
I imagine you could do this with any Linux flavor, not just Kali. I haven’t attempted to play around with Debian or CentOS or anything but I see no reason why it wouldn’t work for any other Linux distributions.
I’m just a normal sysadmin type guy who likes cybersecurity a lot.
Apple has officially released the latest macOS update for Mac users just a few days ago i.e. macOS 10.15 Catalina. According to experts, it is the best and most advanced macOS update ever released by Apple. For the very same reason, most Apple users have started searching for ways to install macOS on their respective systems. Today, we are here with a tutorial to show you how you can install macOS Catalina on an Unsupported Mac.
macOs Catalina released by Apple officially with its stable version globally. However, the update is not available for all Mac users. It is compatible with a few MacBooks only which is quite upsetting for those who are still using the older MacBooks.
If you have found that your MacBook doesn’t support the latest macOS Catalina update, then here’s a way to install it on an unsupported Mac. We have prepared a step by step tutorial to guide you about how you can install the macOS 10.15 Catalina on an older MacBooks.
To check for the official update, you just need to head over to Apple’s icon from the upper left corner and select System Preferences. Here, you would see an option Software update. Once you select this option, the system will start searching for an update. If the system supports Catalina update, it will show you right there which you can download and install whenever you want.
However, the same update is not available for older MacBooks and they can’t see the availability of the update during the Software update checking. There are many Windows users who are also eager to use Catalina on their Windows system.
Did you know you can actually install Catalina on a Windows PC? Yes, you can install it using the VirtualBox. You can follow the given guide to install macOS 10.15 Catalina on a Windows PC with VirtualBox.
As mentioned above, the Catalina update supports a few MacBooks only. So let’s check the supported Mac systems first which can install the macOS 10.15 Catalina update easily.
- MacBook (Early 2015 or newer)
- MacBook Air (Mid 2012 or newer)
- MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 or newer)
- Mac mini (Late 2012 or newer)
- iMac (Late 2012 or newer)
- iMac Pro (2017)
- Mac Pro (Late 2013 or newer)
The above listed Mac systems have all the required configurations which are needed to install the latest macOS Catalina update. They have the required graphics, Processors and all the other basic requirements which is why they can be upgraded to the latest macOS update.
Now, let’s see how you can install macOS Catalina on unsupported Mac systems. The following step by step guidelines will help you to install this update easily. Make sure you follow each of the given steps wisely to get the desired results at the end.
How to Install macOS 10.15 Catalina on an Unsupported Mac
The first thing you need to do here is fulfilling the basic requirements of the system first. The following list of prerequisites must be fulfilled first to move ahead with the installation process.
Prerequisites
- Make sure you have taken the backup of all the data of the older system
- Access of a Mac system to create a Bootable Drive
- An external drive with up to 16GB of free Space
- Apple’s Patcher Tool- Download the Latest Version
- The drive should be formatted with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.
Note: Apple is not officially offering its users to install the latest macOS with any other way. The process is done by a lot of patches and hacks which might not run well with your system. You may face some issues while using the Catalina on an older Mac system.
With the help of Apple’s Patcher tool, you can install macOS Catalina to an unsupported Mac system. The following system can install this latest update using Apple’s Patcher tool. Check them out now!
- Early-2008 or newer
- Early-2008 or newer Mac Pro, iMac, or MacBook Pro
- Late-2008 or newer MacBook Air
- Early-2009 or newer Mac Mini and MacBook
If you are using any of the above MacBook, you are welcome to install the macOS Catalina using the Apple Patcher tool. If you are using even older Mac system from the year 2006 etc., then this tool will not support the older systems. You will not be able to upgrade your system with this process.
Mac Os Catalina Free Download
Once you have confirmed that your Mac system is compatible to install the Catalina update, you can follow the steps provided below to install macOS Catalina on an unsupported Mac:
- Step 1:
As you know, the process requires you to have the latest version of Apple’s Patcher tool. You can get it from the above-mentioned link. Make sure you download it first.
- Step 2:
Once you get the Setup file, double click on to it to install it on a respective system. It will show you the Setup instructions which you have to follow one by one.
- Step 3:
When you click the Continue button, the next screen will show you two options, Browse for a copy and Download a Copy. You need to select Download a Copy option from the screen.
Note: This copy will help us creating a Bootable Drive of the Catalina update.
- Step 4:
The copy of the Catalina update weighs around 8GB. You will have to wait for some time until the process is done. It depends upon the Internet speed of your system.
Mac Os Catalina App Download
Directx 10 mac download. You will be asked to download the copy of macOS Catalina. Select the Start Download button to proceed further.
- Step 5:
Once the Downloading process is done, you will be given a few options to install it on a respective system. You need to insert a USB Drive and then select ‘Create a bootable installer’ option from the given ones.
- Step 6:
The drive creation will take a few minutes of time, wait for it.
- Step 7:
Once the Installer Drive is ready, then plugin to the unsupported Mac system. Make sure your system is Turned Off.
- Step 8:
Now, press the Power button and hold down Option Key. This will show you the Startup Manager option on the screen which will help us installing the Catalina update.
- Step 9:
By using the Arrow Keys you can navigate to different options. Since we have already plugged in the Bootable Installer, you need to navigate and select this option and then press the Return key.
- Step 10:
You will be booted in the macOS Recovery mode. From here, you can select the Drive where you want to install the macOS Catalina. Also, you have to format the drive first before installing an update. The format option is also given there or you can use the Disk Utility option to do so.
- Step 11:
The next screen will show you the Reinstallation macOS option. You need to select this option to start the installation process of the Catalina update.
- Step 12:
The installation process will begin itself. You will see some codes during the process on your screen which checks the compatibility of your system. You should not get panic while the system shows you such codes. The installation process will be done itself, you should not do anything in between with your system.
- Step 13:
After completing the installation process, reboot your system once again. Keep the USB Installer plugged into the system while rebooting it after the installation process.
Note: It is important for you to keep the USB Installer as it is after the installation process. The system will fetch the essential codes and patches from the Installation to run the new macOS.
- Step 14:
Your system will be turned on with the Recovery Environment. You will see an option macOS Post Install there.
- Step 15:
Once you select this option, the Installer will fetch all the required patches from the system and at the last, it will ask for your permission to apply the patches to your system.
- Step 16:
When asked, select the Apply patches option to finish the installation.
- Step 17:
Finally, you will be asked to rebuild the Cache of the system. Select Force Cache Rebuild option from the screen using the arrow keys and return key.
- Step 18:
Lastly, click the Restart button to finalize the installation of the new macOS.
Install Catalina On Unsupported Mac
Your Mac system should start with a Setup page of the new macOS Catalina.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed the latest macOS 10.15 Catalina update to an older and unsupported Mac system using the Patcher tool.
Download Macos Catalina On Unsupported Mac
We have tried our best to provide you with all the useful information about the whole process including the step by step guidelines. No matter whether you are a beginner or an expert user, the above-listed steps are very easy to follow by anyone.
Just fulfill the basic requirements, download the Patcher tool and follow the given steps to upgrade your Mac system with the new macOS Catalina.
What’s your thought on this? Did you find it helpful? Do you have any questions or queries regarding this installation guidelines? If yes, then don’t hesitate to share them with us. We would like to receive feedback from our readers so that we can provide the best of solutions to their queries.